Review of the Staples 2000 Plus One-Color Do-It-Yourself Stamp Kit

The consensus is that a custom-made stamp is a must-have for the indie crafter.

At least, so say the commenters to my DIY business card round-up. Normally, you speak and I obey, but I’m not quite ready for a custom-made stamp just yet. Need a logo first.

Instead, I tried to the second most popular solution–the DIY stamp kit.

Short story: I like my DIY stamp kit, the 2000 Plus One-Color Do-It-Yourself Kit from Staples, a lot, but I don’t love it.

I like that this DIY stamp kit is easy. If you can use tweezers, you can make yourself a custom stamp. My five-year-old helped me make my stamp, and she probably could have done the whole thing by herself if I wasn’t so fixated on correct spelling.

I like that the kit is customizable. Lots of other crafters noted that their kit makes it easy to craft very different business cards for very different circumstances–craft fairs, design meetings, book proposals, etc. My partner can use my same stamp kit to make himself some business cards.

The self-inking pad is also a nice touch, especially good for whipping up a few last-minute business cards right in the craft fair booth. The stamp inks evenly and doesn’t smudge or bleed, so with a steady hand and a little pressure I’ve stamped my business info on everything from a record album cover to a business envelope.

The only real con to this stamp kit is that it’s not roomy enough, and unfortunately, this may well be a deal-breaker. Seriously, my name isn’t THAT long–leaving only enough room for nine characters in the large font size, not ten, seems pretty restrictive. If your personal name or business name or whatever else you want to highlight with a larger font size is longer than nine characters, you probably don’t want this stamp kit. Also, it’s practically impossible to fit an entire web address on one line in this kit, and although breaking it up into two lines is workable, it isn’t elegant.

The bottom line is that this DIY stamp kit is workable but inelegant. If your business info is short and doesn’t require much in the way of web addresses, you may be able to make business cards that end up looking pretty nice. Otherwise, either make sure that the rough look is the look that you’re after, or use the kit while planning on an eventual upgrade to a custom stamp.