About The Farm
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At the beginning of 2020, we all were sent home in the midst of a global pandemic. With no way of leaving the house, my online Dungeons and Dragons games were what got me through each week - and with newfound free time in the home, I bought a bottle of resin and started making the dice we use in the game I've loved so much and documenting my dice journey online.
Since then, through practice and experimentation, I now make my dice out of a faux-stone compound - known as Jesmonite - that is more environmentally friendly and far less toxic than epoxy resin counterparts. Based in Bournemouth, a coastal town in the south of England, I am a single artist working from a home studio making each and every die by hand.
The Process
From a sketch in a book to rolling on your table, each set is made by hand by our Dice Farmer.
We begin by using a fine-concrete stone-like compound (commercially known as Jesmonite). This is mixed and coloured, and skilfully poured into moulds to create unique marbled patterns that are different each time.
After the dice have set, after removing them from the moulds each die is cleaned up with an x-acto knife to keep the sharp points that we love handmade dice for. The faces are then sanded and polished to be smooth and even for balanced rolling.
The final steps of each set is hand-mixing paint colours and inking the numbers, carefully painting the faces and cleaning up leftover paint. And last but not least the dice each get a layer of splash-proof sealant that will finish them - then they're ready to roll!
Environmentally Conscious
In streamlining our process, we also took this time to ensure we were actively being as environmentally conscious as we can possibly be. Our switch to using Jesmonite was done for the reason of it being an eco-friendly material, leaving less of an imprint on our planet.
Jesmonite will break down if left submerged in water for long periods of time; unlike resin which is a strong plastic that will never break down, and doesn't emit toxic odours into the air we breathe either.
But changing just that wasn't enough; we made sure that all of our working materials are made of reusable silicone, so there are no single-use cups or sticks around here.
Using Jesmonite has also led to significantly less sandpaper usage, and less plastic wastage from the offcuts themselves. We only use bamboo biodegradable cotton buds for inking the dice, organic and biodegradable cotton pads, and even use the chips of leftover Jesmonite in our designs to eliminate waste.
We source our materials without using next-day delivery websites; buying from retailers and stockists in the UK to cut down air-miles.
We also extended this ethos to our packaging, and we go for planet-friendly rather than fancy. Every order is packaged in a recyclable card pillow box, re-used paper fill from our cat food orders, a small organza pouch for holding the dice, and recycled card and biodegradable mailer bags.
So ordering dice from us is the best way to help our little planet when shopping for dice.