stamping

In my family there’s a tradition of carving images to make keepsakes and heirlooms. My granddad, our Papa Hall, lived in eastern Tennessee and carved and whittled amazing animals from pieces of scrap wood with his pocket knife—when he died, Dad found among his possessions the fancy carving tools we gave him one Christmas—guess they just didn’t measure up to the old pocket knife! Dad and my younger sister carried on the tradition by producing beautiful woodcut images. I’ve only recently taken up the carving knife myself, and found that my carving cut projects seem to want to take center-stage in multi-media pieces like this brooch.

Here’s what you’ll need: Glass microscope slide cover for each brooch, 1” x 1” + 1 square of lightweight cardstock for each brooch, also 1” x1”.

a favorite rubber stamp no larger than 1” square, or a 1” square piece of your favorite stamp carving medium and carving tools to match | artist’s paper for printing the image. I used watercolor paper here, but any light-colored, matte-finish art paper on which you can paint will do.

black or brown stamp pad | white craft glue | watercolor paints and a fine paintbrush | ¼”-wide metallic foil tape with adhesive backing | a pin back from a craft or beading shop

Instructions:

Select your stamp or design and carve one of your own, no larger than 1” square. A design with simple lines will work best. Keep in mind in selecting your design that the edges of this brooch will be covered by the foil tape in the finished product, and remember that the image you select will be reversed when you print it! In my example I’ve used a sketch I adapted from a black and white image of Mt. Fuji, and carved out of a piece of MasterCarve.

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