Block Printing & Stamp Pads: Lowering the Intimidation Factor

 I've been interested in block printing for a little over a year now, though I did have some experience with carving stamps for letterboxing when my kids were younger. I realized recently though that I wasn't experimenting or playing around with it much. The last time I carved a block was about half a year ago. 

It occurred to me that maybe one of the reasons I wasn't practicing and playing around with this artform was that I was intimidated by the inking process. I have and have used water soluble block printing ink to make prints. It comes in a tube and has the consistency of acrylic paint. I find it difficult to get the ink on the block in just the right manner. I tend to either have too much or too little. Or, maybe I apply too much or too little pressure when I'm placing the paper to the block or the block to the paper. Of course it's something that requires practice to finesse and get a good feel for, but it seems like the frustrations surrounding my lack of expertise here are keeping me from playing around with it at all.

So I decided to back off from that a bit and just focus on making prints with a stamp inkpad. There's a mental block I need to get over that tells me that carving stamps or blocks and then using an inkpad to make prints of the image is somehow "less than" using the "real" ink, with a brayer and a baren and whatnot. Is it easier? For sure. Am I still interested in learning to finesse the more complex method? Yes, absolutely. But this lowering of the intimidation factor has allowed me to apply a carving tool to some carving material again that's all I really want. To play. To experiment. To learn and to have fun.

So, these two little stamps (weird flower and acorn) are my two most recent weekly creations. They, and the last picture here, of a wool felt ornament (pattern from mmmcrafts) I made for my oldest for Christmas and which I can finally share because they got it, make me caught up with my weekly creations for the first four weeks of 2026.

Week 3 - Acorn Stamp

Week 4 - Flower Stamp

Week One - Goose A-laying (mmmcrafts pattern)

And then, for last week's Ordinary Beauty photo, I have just this one, no runners-up. I didn't really take enough photos to have a bank to choose from, which is a reminder to myself that in order to do this challenge I need to be mindful and intentional about it.

Moods