Did you know you can stamp fabric? Stamps are great if you have a design you want to reuse and with the right tools, they’re fairly easy to make too!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Design
- Carving block
- Carving tools
Start with a design. I turned this flower from one of our walks into a line drawing design.
Transfer the image onto the carving block. Make sure you transfer it mirrored to the way you want it to turn out (especially with letters)! The design appears flipped when it’s on the stamp. I used the low-tech method of rubbing a pencil on the back of the design and tracing over it.
It smudged a little, but since I used a simple design it wasn’t a big deal.
Start carving! I like to start by going around the outline then carving out all the large spaces. Keep in mind the places you carve will be negative space and the parts left uncarved will be the inked parts.
It’s a good idea to give it a test run before using it on a project – sometimes this will reveal mistakes that need to be fixed, like areas that weren’t carved down enough.
When you go to stamp, just make sure you’re using an ink or paint meant to be used on fabric!
In your other post on stamp carving, you use a very large block of rubber. Would you mind sharing what brand of reddish rubber block you prefer, and where it can be purchased in such a large size? Thank you!
I haven’t done enough carving to have a favorite yet, but this was Speedball Speedy Carve and the stamp has held up well over time. They’re available in a lot of craft stores but I believe I purchased mine online at Amazon.