And the fun continues!

Back to playing from last Wednesday....I wanted to make another line/circle stamp using sticky back foam and corrugatted cardboard.  For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how I made my last one!  I forgot to look on my blog as I try to document everything I make!  HA  I'm sure it's out there!!


Anyway, this was one stamp I made.

 I wanted  to make another stamp but I wasn't sure what design I wanted.  I started to go through some paperwork and found a few pages from a Notan design I made at our art group about 10 years ago!


No, I didn't make a stamp from this!!  HA  But it did bring back memories!

Anyway,  I found a few pieces of sticky back foam already cut out from another Notan design.









I don't know what we were doing that night with our designs or the foam!   I cut out some circles and played with the left over pieces and came up with this!

 First, I stamped in my journal book.  I keep a page of all my stamps I make.  I already have a page stamped with the first one I showed in this post so I didn't make another one in the journal...just sayin!

I liked  the design so I grabbed the first piece of fabric I had in my downstairs stash (it's old pieces of overdyed or dyed fabric I don't use!) and started to stamp away!


I just grabbed the first paint from my box...but you know, this turned out pretty good!  Might make a nice snap bag or two or three!  It's a fat quarter but I should get a few bags out of it!








I had a piece of tissue paper that I was using for my Gelatos so I stamped both of the new stamps on it.  Should be fun to put in a book or some type of collage!

Next up I decided to do some mono printing since I had all this red paint sitting on my glass!  Soooooo....I used a credit card to scrap away the paint and to draw or scrap the lines.

I need to take a pic of the whole piece...but the left side was made by placing the painted glass ontop of the fabric. For the right side, I laid the fabric on top of the glass.  Hmmmmmmmm

I usually use a plastic scrapbook folder to do my mono print on.  Then I place that on  top of my fabric.  With the glass laying on the fabric (left side pic above),you sure get a lot of that paint off on to your fabric.
Both piece look good and I'm sure I can use them somewhere....until then...who knows.  I'm sure I have more fun things to do!  I'll just have to stop and think what I want to do next!  HA

Unsewing and stamping!

 This is one of my circles I showed in my last post.  I had mentioned the green thread in the outside circle wasn't showing up enough....so...or "sew" I did some un-sewing!  I ripped out the outer threads and restitched using a dark purple thread.

I think this looks so much better...just gives some contrast to this circle.  It was fun playing with another idea on filling in the center of this circle.

  My 'Q' buddy in Florida asked me if I mark my circles before I stitch.   This picture shows my drawing of circles I did on tracing paper to get an idea on what size or where I wanted circles.







Once I'm satisfied with the placement, I take the same kitchen plates or lids or whatever circle I found! and traced around them using my trusty Bohin Extra Fine Mechanical Chalk Pencil & White Lead on my quilt top.  For the rest of the circles, inside stitching for example, I'll just eyeball and mark with my pencil. 

 I love this pencil!!  Of course, if I'm marking on very light colored fabric I use my Berol gold pencil or my lead mechanical pencil.  Each of these are good for marking and the marks come out easily by the end of your stitching,  but I'd be lost without my Bohin white lead pencil.  It is my most favorite tool!

I also carved a small (& I mean small stamp!) using the patterns from Geninne Zlatkis book.  This one measures around 1 1/2 - 2".  You can see my post on Geninne's book here!  I love her book!


I had a white ink pad and so stamping was called for!   Had to try out my little stamp!

The black cardstock is from a zentangle piece I made a few years ago.  I didn't want to stamp this small design on a large piece of paper so I got out my little 'tangle' book and just added the leaves to it.  It was fun to carve out this stamp but I'm not as smooth at the carving yet.  My friend suggested I purchase the Speedy Carve block that is pink.  She said they don't seem to crumble as the regular blocks do.  I see where Dick Blick has a new item called Speedball Speedy Cut Easy which is blue.  I'm going to pick up the pink at Michael's and if it crumbles then I'll try Dick Blick's block in blue.  One of these will work I'm sure.  

Tomorrow is suppose to be in the 70's here!  Now that's a perfect fall day isn't it!  I"m going to do some cleaning up of hosta plants and some other yard work, then head down for Amber's basketball game!   Of course Bob will be golfing and it will be nice not to hear him not complain about how windy or cold it is golfing.  I keep telling him he doesn't have to golf in bad weather!  But that comment falls on deaf ears...go figure!

Book Review Time!

I am so excited!  I pre-ordered Geninne's book and received it yesterday!!  And  I actually read EVERY page!!!  You know it has to be good to keep my interest that much.  I even did a review on Amazon!  This is the best book on designing your own stamps. Geninne has one particular tip on craving your stamps that I think is a great tip!  No, I'm not sharing what it is...you'll have to buy the book! 

I'm sure several of you have followed Geninne's art blog and have admired her artwork.   If you aren't familiar with her art, grab a cup of coffee (or margarita of your choice!) and settle in to look at some wonderful art.  After that go to Amazon and order the book!!  You will not be disappointed!!  I think the book is under priced but that's just me!  This book will head to Florida with me this winter. 

Bob and I have some errands to run, so I'm going to stop at JoAnn's or Michaels and stock up on some erasers and stamp blocks.  I don't have many pieces of my blocks left from the online class I took with Dijanne but I think some of the smaller pieces I kept will work perfect with some of the projects in Geninne's book.  I can't wait to get started!!    Hope to post some pics by the weekend! 

Stamping

Here is the fish stamp fiber card I finished yesterday. I did end up using fabric paints to embellish and enhance the fish print. I really like the wood block stamps (fish and butterfly) and think they make cool fiber cards and even fabric. I made this fiber card for Pat, the lady who told me about the wood block stamps and dropped in the mail yesterday. Here is one of the fish prints that I overlaid with the fabric crayons (transfer). You can see it didn't transfer much of the color but it was a good experiment.

The butterfly crayon transfer came out a tad better. I'm also transferring onto darker fabric than just white so that could account for the faint coloring. I've transferred onto white fabric and that does seem to work better. I can see beading or stitching to enhance these so it's not a total waste of effort.

I think the stamps also be cool for rubbings with oil pastels but I have to wait until we get back to Michigan. I did get about 75% of my art supplies packed up yesterday. I put away my sewing machine and just kept organizing and packing up. I like to have everything organized so all I have to do it put items back on my shelves at home..makes it a lot easier packing and unpacking for sure!

Temps still in the 80's and just beautiful. I do have hand work that I've kept out to keep me busy and I started to read the 19th Wife which is pretty good. So until the next post, have a great day!

Stamping Monday

Before I get into my Stamping Monday, I couldn't resist showing another picture of the azalea bush out front. It's packed full of flowers and is just beautiful!
Here's one of the two stamps I purchased after the weavers meeting. I couldn't wait to start playing with them.

First, I did rubbings using the fabric crayons (by Crayola). On the butterfly I did color in some of the areas after the rubbing.

I ended up cutting out each shape and then doing the transfer on fabric I that I had already stamped. This way I could lay the wings, fish body directly ontop of areas I had stamped. I don't have a pic of results here but the color was very faint. But I also had stamped on hand dyed fabric that were already in dark colors. I might try to transfer them today onto white to see if they come out better.

So then I started to stamp! I first tried my alcohol inks (Liquitex) but the result was quite light on the fabric (top left is alcohol ink stamping). I switched to my old favorite SetaColor which worked perfect and you can see the difference where the areas stamped are darker.

The butterflies turned out quite nice too. I think these would be fun to color in with fabric paint.

I had a piece of Friendly Felt leftover from my umbrella so I thought I'd stamp on it! Who knows..perhaps a BJP in the making!

Nothing is safe when I'm in the stamping mood...when the kids sent the flowers for Easter, they came wrapped in this really cool paper which feels like Lutradur and appears to be quite sturdy! So of course I kept the two pieces and stamped on one side! You never know when it might come to be in a piece of artwork!

This piece stamped really has more movement in the background color than the picture shows. After I stamped a white piece of fabric, I painted over it with SetaColor and scrunched it. It looks better in person.

Ditto with this piece.

So that was my stamping Monday! Weather was in the mid 80's and a slight breeze which was nice and perfect for painting outside. I did sandwich a piece of the butterfly fabric yesterday and I'll do some stitching on it today to make some fiber cards.

I'm putting the beads on the edge of my BJP for April! Yippee!! It's almost done and I hope to get it finished today and then get my design ready for May. That way I have some more hand work vs machine work since we are starting to get our mind set ready to head back home in about a week or so. That means packing up all my 'stuff'!!

We will miss our friends and all the food for sure! But it's always nice to get back to our own home! We are so thankful to Larry for allowing us to stay in his house. It certainly has made our winter so enjoyable and one to remember!

So Lucky!

I am SO lucky and fortunate to have some really great friends! Yesterday, at our library book sale, a friend of mine and her husband stopped by to 'look' at some of the books. While we were talking, Kathy mentioned she had a wood type printing set with a cabinet. And guess what! A few minutes after they left I see Kathy back at the sale and saying "we have something for you, where's your car!". Guess what!! Kathy and her hubby Don GAVE me the entire wood block printing set and cabinet! I felt like it was Christmas!!! I was SO excited!! I can't thank them both enough for this 'gift'!!!

Here are the blocks laying in the cabinet! Aren't they beautiful. Don said his father refinished the cabinet. I think it was actually a drawer they used to hold their blocks. I'm going to have Bob hang it in my sewing area.

Here is a closeup of some of the blocks. There were two tin stencils (Q and P) included.
And more...click on the pictures to see some of the unique stamps. Some of them made of heavy metal.

and now the letter "E" which is approximately 3"x7".

And the letters "A" and "O" which are approximately 6" x 10"

Are these wonderful or what!!!! I'm going to carry them downstairs and try to do some stamping today. The sun is shining and perhaps I'll even open up the door and let some fresh air in. It's 54 degrees and a beautiful fall day.

Again, I can't thank Kathy and Don enough for these blocks. I'll certainly use them in my art work and will always remember the kindness of these wonderful folks in allowing me to care for one of their memento's.