stamps

No, not postage stamps, but stamp stamps. I love them, and having bought a few sets over the years, including the gorgeous hedgerow set from Cambridge Imprint, I wanted to have a go at carving my own. I have a fabulous set of carving tools from Pfeil which I’ve used for linocuts, but much as I love making prints, I don’t have an outlet for them. I also find the water-based inks a bit naff but don’t have the space or set-up to use oil-based inks which produce much better images but take aaaaages to dry, and are not very animal-friendly in my small space.

So I wanted to have a go at making some lil stamps for…well, I didn’t get that far: I just wanted to carve some. Having been inspired by Nathalie Chapuy’s wonderful stamps which I saw for-real-for-real in Strasbourg, I purchased a set of motifs from her website.

I downloaded the motifs, ordered some vinyl for carving, found some decent ink pads, and once I had my equipment, got to work. I carved a few designs which I then used to make wrapping paper from old packaging:

I then carved a set of stamps for my mum, a couple of little stamps for my dad, and a paw print stamp for my best friend, with an ink pad each. I sent my daughter a set of tools, some vinyl, and an ink pad as well as some motifs to practise with. I have used mine for decorating the inside of my diary:

Aren’t they great? Nathalie’s stamps are very clean and crisp but I must say I rather like the “noise” (as it’s known in the printing trade) of my ones here. I have to order more vinyl as I ended up using most of it for other people!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year, and I’ll see you all for Bloganuary…