The Stamp or Franking
In this tutorial, I will show you how to make vintage style postage stamps the BoltCutter way. We will be building the set of commemoratives to the left. There are 3 essential tools. #1) A computer #2) A scanner, #3) An image creation program capable of layers. (Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro for example.) I will be using Photoshop, but the steps are essentially the same for whichever program you use.
This technique can be used to create graphics for memory albums and other paper arts projects or you can create an actual stamp to use as labels on mail or actual envelopes. The image to the right shows the basic building blocks we will use to create the stamps above. The back of the stamp, and the postcard with the face we are going to use have been scanned in and the companion graphics have been imported. SAVE OFTEN.

We like the stamps that have a bit of the margins (selvage) still attached. It provides a few more creative possibilities. The image to the left shows the four major ingredients assembled, and an oval with border covering the mask.
Here, both of the stamps in the set have their main ingredients assembled. We made sure that the portrait was facing into the stamp on both stamps. We will now begin adding details. Most of the details you already have on your computer, ie. fonts. We created a patterned tile (see below) using the custom shapes and fonts that came with Photoshop to simulate the "bruledge" or patterned background of the stamps. This was a low cost anti-forgery technique "back in the day".

Here the background, the country name, 'ROV', & the value have been added. The country name was done in the script font 'Kremlin Tsaritsa', and the value in 'Kremlin Empire' both available for free elsewhere on this site.
Here a double layer of the custom tile has been used to fill the second wreath on the horizontal stamp. Each layer was set at different scales to complicate the pattern further & add density. The 50 year anniv. dates were set in Tsaritsa to provide continuity and unity of style.

We have not altered the face, till now. We will start by duplicating the face layer. Go to Image/Adjustments, Brightness/Contrast and increase the contrast and lighten the face. Adjust the sliders till the lightest parts of the face are bright white. These parts will eventually be the color of the paper.
Here we have rasterized the background bruledge layers and changed their colors by going to Layer/Adjustments, Hue/Saturation, click the Colorize radio button, and adjust the sliders to taste. The face background on the horizontal stamp was high-lighted using the Lasso Tool & altered the same way.

All the layers except the stamp layer are merged and the resulting layer is set to Multiply in the Blending Mode pallet. Now it is time to decide on a final color scheme.
One color... go to Layer/New Adjustment Layer, Hue/Saturation. Click the Colorize radio button. Adjust sliders to taste.

Two colors...using the lasso tool pick out a section of your stamp. Use the technique outlined above. Then, leaving the selection active, go to Select/Inverse, and repeat the above technique.
Three colors...here a gradient fill of a single color has been layed over the background, rasterized and the portions inside the ovals erased.

Four colors...the stamp on the left has the gradient Blending Mode set to Multiply. The stamp on the right has the gradient fill layer Blending Mode set to Exclusion. SAVE OFTEN.
Four color variation...here the gradient Blending Modes are reversed. Left is set at Exclusion, right at Multiply. This is the color scheme we chose. To finish off the stamps we added plate information to the selvage, and made the 'ROV' in the horizontal stamp white. To use on an actual stamp, print out your graphic on a laser printer, cut it out, and paste it to the back of the Lick & Stick stamp you originally scanned.

When combining pieces, line up the perfs, and build your graphic to fit the base stamp

 You don't have to be satisfied with the sizes and shapes of stamps provided by the Post Office. You can combine whole stamps or fragments to get different sizes. Whole sheets can be made by duplicating your design, and cutting in perforations using a straight edge and a pattern marking wheel found in the notions department of your local fabric store. Well, that's it. Hope you have fun. Regards, the Boltcutter team.