My First Stamp

I realized last night that I've never written a post about the little stamp that started this whole stamping obsession. In my first Sonnet & Mayhem post, I mentioned the infamous alphabet stamp set that nearly sent me to the dark side, but my interest in stamping actually began in late 2008 when I went to India. The trip involved my entire family meeting T's entire family and galavanting around New Delhi in what I'm sure looked like the craziest parade of foreigners the city had seen in a while.

As part or our trip, we also made the incredible circuit of Agra (Taj Mahal!) and Jaipur. Jaipur is an amazing city, so culturally rich and full of amazing historical sites. We only visited a fraction of them on our whirlwind road trip, but we did manage to fit in a few hours at the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing, including a studio session in which we first watched and then practiced the art of hand printing fabric.

They had a big selection of stamps there, but I wanted to have one to keep afterwards so I picked this sweet little one up in to gift shop.

We all chose to make scarves and with so many great stamps to choose from the design options were incredible. I stuck with my little stamp for my first attempt, but I could have easily spent a week playing around with everything in the studio.



Later in the trip, my father also bought me a whole set of metal stamps in one of the markets, but since I've started experimenting with my own hand cut ones I haven't gone back to trying the ones I brought back with me. One of these days I'm going to have to put my Sonnet & Mayhem work aside and test out my little fabric stamp again. Or maybe I'll just have to head back to Jaipur and set up my own little hand printing shop. That would be amazing!