Stamp it all on fabric!

What shall I write about this? It is really an easy project! I just used my beloved handcarved stamps to print patterns on fabric. Most of the time I just used fabric ink pads for stamps. I love them because you can use them with really fine structures without losing any of them! Normal fabric paint is way too thick to use it with fine structures. 

There are just a few things to consider: 

First of all you should use natural fibers with most of the fabric ink pads (I don't know whether there is one you could use for non organic fibers) like cotton, linen or also fabrics which are natural based like viscose. 

Second: Prewash your fabric without any conditioner. Most fabrics are treated, no matter if you buy clothes or fabric. Just washing it removes the stuff. But if you use some kind of conditioner, you'll bring some stuff back again on the fibers of your fabric and you don't want that! The fibers should be ready to react with the ink / colour!

Last but not least: The fabric ink pads are not too strong colours and they don't go over dark fabric. So try your colour with a little piece of fabric if you like the result! Have a look at the two pegasus prints. One on natural / creme fabric, the other one on red fabric (both cotton). I used the same blue ink pad for both prints! 

Okay... not just three things... I am thinking of some other stuff which is maybe useful for you to know if you want to print on fabric: If you print on rough fibers / textured fabric, your picture will have some "broken" lines. You could call the effect kind of vintage image but if you want perfect prints you need very smooth and tight woven fabric! 

This blue, white and black pattern on a blue fabric was a mixture of fabric paint leftovers and a fabric ink pad. The black and white is fabric paint and the blue is a fabric ink pad. I diluted the fabric paint a little bit with water therefor all used colours are a little bit translucent. I love the effect where you can see the overlapping pattern!

The rain drops are from a foam rubber stamp I made. I just used a scissor to cut out a drop silhouette and then  I cut the "light reflections" with a sharp exactor knife into it. I just made some cuts in the foam rubber, I didn't cut anything out! On the cuts there always will be a little bit more paint so you can see it in the print!

Have a closer look to see the effect! :)

Of course, I also tried my cell stamps...

...and two stamps I didn't show you before. Some steampunk inspired pattern...

...and a mermaid... sort of ^^

Just circles with foamed rubber!

Octopus, tentacles and lobsters!

I could image to stitch a spider web around the print...

...and of course some kind of ornaments!

Any ideas what I should do with fabrics like this?

How to transfer pictures for stamp carving...

I made a stamp out of one of my favorite silhouettes! Just the tree silhouette... (have a look here). I mean... you need a tree silhouette stamp, don't you? I needed one! For sure... ^^

And now for a little trick I just recently discovered (although it is one of these tricks you think: That's too easy, why didn't I used this already for years?).

Normally one has to be careful with inkjet prints because they are not waterproof. 

Just think about it... not waterproof...

All you have to do is to dampen your rubber / carving stamp plate with some water... and put an inkjet print of your image on top. Press and rubb a little bit...

Et volià!

And yes, once dried, it is relative resistant... but even with the wet surface it is quite a stable transfer :) Now all you have to do is to carve along the lines!

The next silhouette I transferred to the stamp was my little spider silhouette... (spider shadow stencil)

I added a little cross to create a cross spider (garden spider, in german "Kreuzspinne"). 

And this way I also created the pegasus stamp with a image from Karen @graphicsfairy. I already showed you one, but I also made one for myself... I decided I couldn't do without one anymore...

Spider shadow stencil

Look who is here!

This spider was really tiny! Just a few mm! Not more... You see how big the leaf is in the back... but due to the sun and the dark shadow I saw her! I just had to take a picture.

The silhouette of this tiny one was so cool! I just enlarged the picture... and made a black and white image with it. As a program I used gimp, it's freeware! For the editing process I used the smart sharpen tool of gimp. You see how good it is working because it was able to get all the little hairs visible! 

But I also wanted just a clear stencil / silhouette. So I used inkscape (also freeware) to vectorize and smooth the outlines. 

I hope you like her as much as I do :) Her and all of her tiny spider clones! ^^

Shadow spider

A spider tried to conquer the space between my wall and my screen (and done it! because until now I couldn't bring myself to remove her... not after taking pictures of her catching her prey... you just can't get rid of your fotomodel ^^ But at this place I think one of my cats will do it sooner or later...).

I used the flashlight otherwise it would be to dark (and I needed to be fast so no moving of other lamps). It created this great double layer shadow effect. On one side the light goes through the little and nearly transparent spider body and on the other hand the spider creates this shadow. Both are not strongly coloured so it is hadr to distinguish between body and shadow.

I don't know what to do out of it but I think it would make a great design...