Most Frequently Asked Question

I thought today I'd tackle the answer to the question I'm asked the most:
"What material do you use to make your stamps?"
This is my humongous stash of Staedtler's MasterCarve rubber carving blocks. Unfortunately this wonderful material has been discontinued for a few years
and it doesn't look like it's making a comeback any time soon.
I have enough to last me a decade I guess :-)
There is a brand that is very similar and we used it during the stamp carving workshop I taught in Toronto last year, it's called MooCarve. The nice thing about it is that it has the same thickness as the MasterCarve blocks and is very easy to hold when stamping. I doesn't need to be mounted onto wood or acrylic if you don't want to.
I've also used Speedy-Carve rubber blocks by Speedball and it works really well but it only has a quarter of an inch in thickness and does need
some kind of backing with larger size stamps.
I also collect different brands of rubber erasers for smaller stamps. Lookout for the very dense erasers that won't crumble when you carve into them.
You can purchase the MooCarve blocks from Amazon, Blick Art Materials and other art & craft supply shops.

F.A.Q #2

This is probably the question I'm asked the most.
This is my favorite carving block to make stamps.
It really does cut like butter:

This tool is called a linoleum cutter.
I use one made by Speedball.
I mostly use the liner tip, and the large gouge:

I have experimented with many brands of ink pads
and this is my favorite brand:

I hope this is helpful & encourages you to try it out,
it is so much fun!

*Someone wanted to know
what font I used to type the F.A.Q.:
It is American Typewriter regular :)

Frequently Asked Questions

Thank you so much for all of the comments
on my very first video tutorial :)
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it,
it was really fun to make and I will definitely
make more videos for you in the future.
I received many emails with a variety of questions
about my work & blog so I decided to make
a little series of F.A.Q. posts to try and answer all of them.

F.A.Q.#1
What camera do you use
to take all the photos you post on your blog?
For the first two years of my blog I used a
4 megapixels Fuji FinePix S3100.
I recently gave the Fuji to my youngest son
and bought myself
a 10 megapixels Canon PowerShot SX10IS.
I edit (crop, resize, brightness, etc...) my photos with
PhotoShop Elements.