The relationship between constraint-based mining and constraint programming is explored by showing how the typical constraints used in pattern mining can be formulated for use in constraint programming environments. The resulting framework is surprisingly flexible and allows us to combine a wide range of mining constraints in different ways. We implement this approach in off-the-shelf constraint programming systems and evaluate it empirically. The results show that the approach is not only very expressive, but also works well on complex benchmark problems. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.2.8 [Database Management]: Database applications-Data Mining; F.4.1 [Mathematical Logic and Formal Languages]: Mathematical Logic--Logic and Constraint Programming General Terms Algorithms, Theory Keywords Itemset Mining, Constraint Programming