Mounting Stamps

A friend asked me to carve a stamp of a petunia, and it seemed like a great excuse to try something I've been wanting to do for a long time: mount one of my handmade stamps on a block of wood.

I purchased a wooden block from a craft store for about $2 and used this as the template for the stamp.  After the carving was complete, I used a brayer to apply acrylic paint to it and stamped the image on the top of the block.

I suppose I could have waited until after I'd cut the block to stamp it, but was impressed to find that the paint held up so well through the sawing and sanding.

I took the advice of this tutorial I found on a site about letterboxing (something I'd love to try!), and scored the back of the stamp, then used Goop Glue to adhere it to the block.

After everything was dry, I pulled out my watercolors to add some pigment.  I love that the color is a bit transparent and the grain of the wood is still visible.  The final step was coating the entire block with a clear finish.

Hopefully it holds up well.

Have I mentioned that I've been playing with my stamps in Illustrator?  It's a lot of fun!

Hello again.

It's been so long!

After a year of posting only a few sporadic entries over at Untie & Unite, I'm thinking it may be time to revive Small Fox Press.

First, to bring you up to speed:

After Vermont, i took a little road trip.

And we ended up in the California redwoods.

Where I tried my hand at carving some scrap wood.

And got into pyrography a little.

Now I'm living in a cute colonial town in Virginia's northern Shenandoah Valley.

And we'll see what else unfolds :)