A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2004 Brick Help

Try google search on "Garden Brick Kit". I found some interesting sites that carry designer brick kit or garden supplies or instructions to make your own poetry stones.

1. gift.myartsandcrafts.com

2. gardeners.com

3. fernsgarden.com
(look up Lady Hilda's article on "Make Your Own Poetry Stones".

Thanks Papito I am finding sources for the kits and forms but they want $9.00 a piece for just one form for one brick.I'm wondering if I inquired down at a masonary place,.......no when I think about walking into those places they just roll their eyes when they see a woman come in, maybe I'll do that as a last resort.But I am going to check out your sights too,might find more things I want to make to add to my growing list.Thank You

You could make a basic box out of wood. I've seen people do that before. Its something that is pretty easy and you ould use scrap wood to do it.

Shamarian....don't let them intimidate you! Put your head up and ask away! I wish more women would get up the guts to confront those kind of jerks. If you think about it ....they are the ones who look bad "rolling their eyes"....and they are the ones losing out on the business!

You can do it! When you walk in just picture in your head all the members of The Garden Helper standing beside you.....
Keep us updated! Catlover

lol catlover! I'm gonna march right in and look at this big bruely guy straight in the eye and say "I wanna make some pretty bricks!!"Actually it doesnt bother me much, I just laugh about it when I think of it that way.YES I CAN DO IT !!

Hi Shamarian,

Don't know if this would be the size you are looking for or not, but the idea popped into my head so figured I'd at least mention it: what about bread/meatloaf pans? Would they be brick sized?

I love this Hobbies and Crafts section! :-)

I have a whole 12' x 20' building we built in the backyard for my stamping and crafting delights! But wouldn't you know--my daughter and granddaughter are back living with us after she got her Bachelor's Degree, and instead of it being for a couple months, it may be turning into a couple years while she gets a Master's!!! And with the granddaughter so young (two and a half), we needed to turn the spare bedroom into a bed and playroom for her. And our son is living at home in his bedroom while going to the local community college. So guess where my daughter ended up? That's right--bunking in the craft building!!! Sigh!!! Good thing it's time for gardening again. And with being back to my nursing fulltime again, I wasn't really having too much "crafting" time anyway. But I sure miss "my space"!!!!

Fayrith,That is a really good idea!!! I think I'm going to go check out the dollar stores around here and start mixing. And if they are just cheapy pans and they rust, it'll match with the brick . Thank you, I knew there just had to be something about the same size.I enjoyed hearing about your family too,I too have a revolving door on our house, but so far its just one college son,and next year a daughter too and to tell you the truth, I think we did our own share of dropping in on the parents.When we bought our first house, it needed so much work that we moved back in with them for a summer while we worked on it. And then 10 years later we did it again although we just stored our whole household in their basement for 7 months while we rented an apartment and found another house.We had the great fortune of a family calling us and wanted to buy our house and we were thinking of selling anyway, but finding another one was'ent as easy as we thought.But I sure appreciated everything my parents put up with, and will be happy to do the same for mine too, even if it means losing the craft room for a bit, just like you.

Have fun with the brick making! Glad the idea helped.

I've been wanting to try those flagstone or stepping stone kits, myself. Maybe this summer I'll actually do so--seems like it would be kinda fun to personalize them some way.

Let me know how your bricks turn out--maybe I'll try some of those too!

Fayrith, how long have you been stamping???

I used to produce rubberstamps back in the 80's under the name "Dragonwerks, Ltd"
I used to have a bumper-sticker that read "Dragons=10....Virgins=0"

Or is it stamp-collecting you do????

Hi Jillie,

I did mean rubber stamping! I've only been doing it for the last couple years, but I've become truly addicted to it and the associated arts and crafts projects it has led me into! I came up with some extra money when my Dad died a few years back, so I started picking up craft and stamping supplies, thinking I'd start a little craft business with them. I just started putting it together, and then the economy bottomed out. So we put the rest of the money into our house until the economy gets better for investing again. And then I needed to go back to work fulltime to get my kids through college. So the business idea is in deep freeze at the moment!

I was hoping to eventually do my own line of stamps too! Do you still have your stamps? Do any stamping still? I hope I don't have to go too long without being able to get at my stuff! It's driving me nuts knowing it's there and can't get to it--but then I wouldn't really have the time right now anyways, so!

But someday.....maybe.....I hope....heh!

My dragon sig line comes from this great picture I found somewhere of a big old dragon leaning back against a tree, picking his teeth with a knight's lance, with scattered bits of armor around him!!! "Sometimes the Dragon wins!" I've gotten such a kick out of that!

I don't do stamping anymore; container gardening is my most-loved obsesion, now. But, at the time it totally consumed me. I was into mailart and trade shows, etc.
Are you going to produce your own stamps, someday? There's the raw-rubber-and-vulcanizer method, or polymer. I did the vulcanizer thing with the zinc plates and bakelite matrix molds. I also did some eraser-carving for the "wood-cut" look. It was some of the best fun I ever had and gave me a little $$ to boot. I still have some unmounted stamps (20 years old, now!!! Sheesh, where does the time go???) and other stamping remnants of a really fun time back then...

Hang in there....it'll happen for you before you know it

Hi Jillie,

I would love to make my own line of stamp designs someday. I've dabbled with drawing and arts and crafts all my life, so would love to really put it to use in my business.

So far I've drawn a background for a very, very basic first attempt at creating a business web page--all it has so far is the background, the business name, and a short book review just to see what some content might look like. I'm really trying hard to figure out my own web designing, as I can't afford to pay to have it done, but it's going to take some time to learn. The URL is www.curiouspackrat.com if you want to see the packrat I'm drawing for my business image! It looks like it will be several years before I'm actually ready to sell anything, lol! But it will give me something to do when I retire!!!!

I've just started exploring woodcarving, which I love!!! I'm hoping to do some carvings for stamping eventually, too.

For a while when I wasn't working, I had joined a couple email rubber stamping groups and had participated in some really fun swaps--created a jewelry box for one and a journal for another. And then attended some local classes that were great! I'd love to get to some of those again soon. The ladies in the online stamping groups were quite artistic, blending stamping with high quality art and excellent crafting, so it was quite a learning and motivating experience! I was in awe of rubbing elbows with them, lol!

I'd like to combine my art with my gardening in various ways as I landscape our yard. I want to make some of my own designed stepping stones, as one idea. And some garden placques to tuck away amongst bushes and flower areas. Maybe even some of my own containers some how! It'll be fun seeing how creative I can get.

Fayrith, What a cute "under construction" site. You've got a great start. I did some of my own artwork & then when I began meeting other stamp-artists, they would do images for my catalogue line & instead of $$ changing hands, I would give them rubberstamps of their artwork. Stampers are VERY chummy. Have you heard of Vicki Timmons? She was the best rubberstamp artist of the 80's & she made the coolest designs....I think I still have some of the illustrations she did for me. Gosh, this is bringing back great memories!!!!

There's also a book titled, "Setting up Shop"....the author's name escapes me..It was my bible when I began my stamp/graphics business. There are probably many more that are better, now. It's a pretty old publication. How fun for you to have such great plans in the works!!!

Thanks for the encouraging words, Jillie.

Did you have your own equipment for pressing the stamps, or did you send your designs off to be made by someone else?

It would be fun to someday have a chance to see your catalog! I have a friend who got me into the stamping, who also wants to make some of her own stamps, so we had been talking about going in together to get a couple sheets of rubber made up by someone to see how it would go. Neither of us is to that point yet though, lol!

Meanwhile, ya can't keep a curious packrat down for long--so it's on to breadmaking machines, maybe some paper or soap making, gardening, who knows....maybe even digging a mini-rootcellar for Rumtopf, LOL!!!!!

I had a vulcanizer that pressed and "cooked" the raw rubber into stamps.

I sent b/w artwork to a photo-engraver & they made deeply-etched zinc plates. With the vulcanizer, I made molds of the zinc plates from sheets of bakelite. Then, with the bakelite molds, I would load the vulcanizer with raw rubber and heat-press/cure it into sheets of stamps...cut 'em up, mounted 'em....and stamped away...It's very labor-intensive...but soooo fun!

Wow, sounds like quite a process. But it would be really satisfying, I'm sure! Is it cheaper to buy the vulcanizer and rubber and do it yourself and is there more control over quality that way?

I think my girlfriend who was looking into getting a sheet of stamps pressed with me said it would run about $70 for a sheet when someone does the whole process after we'd prepare our designs for it. Neither of us were really ready yet to go forward with the idea, but we're still keeping it on the back burner for the future.

Fayrith....I think it would be MUCH cheaper to buy a vulcanizer, matrix and raw rubber in the long run....$70 for your artwork and resulting stamp???? Sheesh...

Thanks for the input, Jillie. I'll have to look into that! It sure would be fun to create my own designs!