I started out with only one acrylic block that came with my Inkinado stamps from Walmart, a 3 3/4 x 1 1/4 block, doesn't fit my larger stamps. I found an article on Curbly on how to make my own acrylic blocks, and I just had to try it out. My dad is a bit of a DIY person, so he always has random materials around. I dug around our garage, and sure enough, we had several sheets of acrylic material, about 1 1/2 inch thick.
I drew several sizes that I'd thought I'd need onto some card stock (2 x 2, 3 x 3, 3 x 4, 5 x 5, 5 x 8), and then I traced them on to the acrylic.
I had my dad help me saw them, since I don't always saw straight. We used a hand saw, and it sawed quite cleanly. There was none of the splintering that other DIY-ers had warned about.
Finally, I filed and sanded the edges. The edges were dull and opaque, which was the only drawback to making the blocks myself. I heard that passing the edge over open flame would help to clear up the edges, but when I tried it, it did not give me the result that I was expecting.
Heating it also makes it give off a horrible smell, so I decided I would rather have dull, opaque edges than the awful smell. Finally, I ran the blocks under some water to get rid of all of the acrylic dust.
And thus, here we are: a set of nice, clear, (cheap!) acrylic blocks all ready for stamping! (Excuse my messy desk, though!)
Link to Curbly directions:
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