Find out more about our crafting process and sustainability-first principles
About The Farm
 |  |
|---|---|
 |
At the beginning of 2020, we were all 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.
​
As we've grown, so has our range - what started as just a dice shop has become a one-stop shop for eco-friendly game wares and I couldn't be prouder - from going back to my roots as a traditional artist with my lino-print art range, to being able to offer more eco-friendly alternatives like our reusable Battle-Map tea-towels or faux-stone dice trays.
​
The Dice Process
From a sketch in a book to rolling on your table, each set is made by hand by the Dice Farmer herself - truly by hand, from start to finish.
​
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, they are removed them from the moulds and 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, and using only biodegradable for the necessities like cotton buds for cleaning the ink up.
​
We source our materials without using any next-day delivery websites or cheap imports; 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 reusable storage tin filled with repurposed tissue paper and paper fill that we repurpose from things we order in ourselves.
​
We strongly believe in being the change we want to see in the world: and that goes beyond using jesmonite and claiming 'eco-friendly' - it means we run the studio as low waste, we source ethically, and we do things well instead of cheaply and quickly.