Carving Your Own Stamps

I recently ordered in some Renoir Ezy Carve blocks to carve my own stamps. Oh what fun! These are so easy to carve, a light touch of the carving tools and you have a line, slightly more pressure and it is a deeper line.I brought in 8cm square, 14 x 21cm and 50 x 50cm blocks, plus some sets of carving tools and some brayers (the hard rubber rollers to put paint or ink on them).
I took a small block and decided to cut it in half using a craft knife. Very easy to do. So now I had 2 pieces 3" x 1 1/2". I started playing with simple straight lines with the carving tool. Yay, so easy to do. Turned over the block because they are thick enough to carve on both sides. Played with some tiny notches cut out which sort of look like rain or rice dotted over. Then I thought I would try some spirals. Very smooth by gentle turning to create the pattern without any bumps. Again very easy to do. Here are some photos of what I did...

Now, once you have carved you need to stamp them and see what they look like, whether they need any small details fixed. So I stamped them on the Fabrico stamp pad which is good for fabric (it does need a top up of ink so is a little faint, but still shows up okay -

I stamped this on to hand painted fabric. You can create your own designs with the stamps and then stamp all over your plainer fabrics to make them more interesting. I could have used fabric paint as well.
I am having a class on how to carve your own if anyone is interested in attending (see earlier post), otherwise have a go yourself. It is fun. If you want to know more about these items and prices please email or phone me or call in and see me, and the samples, in the shop.
Dianne