A Job Well Done

To my great relief, the project that has been my bane at the office for the last four weeks was finally wrapped up on Friday. To celebrate, I went by a chocolaterie on my way home and bought four handmade pralines to enjoy with a cup of tea. Flavours: champagne, cherry-orange, strawberry-lime and mocha.

Makes your mouth water, doesn’t it?

After tea and chocolates, inspiration descended upon me and I made my first multicoloured stamp. I learned this technique from Melanie Testa and Patricia Gaignat at least a year ago, but haven’t tried it before now. There are a number of circumstances why the time was ripe for me to try it now, and here are the top three:

1. Melanie has been making and using multicoloured stamps a lot lately, and has blogged about it, so that whetted my appetite.

2. At the crafts fair that I visited a couple of weeks ago I found double sided self-adhesive film, which makes it super easy to attach craft foam shapes to transparencies. So far I haven’t been able to find self-adhesive craft foam here, so this is the second best thing. What a relief not to have to mess around with glue any more!

3. A few months ago I came across an interesting product called Tack-n-Peel (by Tsukineko). This is a sticky and reusable cling sheet that you can attach to a piece of acrylic. You can then use this print block for unmounted stamps or [...drum roll...] craft foam shapes that are attached to a piece of transparency.

This craft foam, self-adhesive film, transparency and Tack’n’Peel on a block of acrylic combo is a real winner in my world, because these stamps are easy to make, the materials are inexpensive, the transparency backing is a real space saver, and the cling sheet on a block of acrylic gives the flimsy transparency backed stamp stability when needed, AND it creates a transparent print block, so you know exactly where you place your stamp. The advantages never seem to end. I’m sold.

Different parts of a multicoloured stamp. 

Many of these shapes can also be used on their own.

The stamped image

Now I need to think about inkpads. My collection of inkpads isn’t very big, as I haven’t been much into stamping so far. Here’s another blog entry where I discuss stamping. However, when stamp-making has become as easy as this, I might actually catch the pox and start making more stamps. They are after all a great way of trying out ideas in your sketchbook.

PS. Look at these yummy scissors (from Fiskars) that a friend gifted me! Don’t they make you wanna pull out your fabrics and start cutting? 

Branching Out

This month’s theme in The Sketchbook Challenge is ‘Branching Out’ – expanding your skills, sprouting new ideas, discovering unknown territory. One pretty unknown territory for me is stamping. I seldom use stamps on fabric, I’m not a scrapbooker, and since I’m still struggling with regular journaling, I haven’t got a habit of using stamps in my journals either.

However, I can see why stamps would be a good addition to my repertoire, so when Melanie Testa recently published a fun little tutorial on incised foam stamps, I decided to branch out.

I know a lot of people love to use stamps, but I’ve discovered that for some reason my relationship to stamps is complicated. I love to look at stamps in the shop, but if I feel like buying one, I often stop myself with the questions: When am I going to use it, and how many times? Is it really worth buying it? Shouldn’t I make my own personal stamp instead of using a commercial and impersonal one?

Then, when I’m faced with the task of making my own stamps, I get confused by the endless possibilities. Which motif should I go for? Which one will I want to use over and over again? Which one is worth the effort? I find it difficult to make a stamp unless a have a clear idea in my head of what I’m going to use it for.

I guess I just need to make more stamps, and play with them. The more stamps I make, the less pressure is attached to each single stamp. The more I play, the more I will come up with ideas on how to use them. It’s as easy as that. And Melanie’s tutorial really makes it easy. The materials are simple and accessible, and if I mess it up, I can quickly make a new stamp, or alter the one I’m unhappy with. This is where I’ll start. And if I get hooked, I can branch out even more and finally use that linoleum block and block of speedy-carve that have been sitting in my cupboard for far too long.

ps

If you think that you don’t have the right equipment for the method Melanie describes, use something else. I didn’t have sticky back fun foam, so I used normal fun foam with double-sided tape. You could also use glue. I didn’t have an awl, so I used a thick sharp needle. And a blunt needle for the indentations. Use the things you have around the house.

Dig where you stand. 

I love Celtic knotwork, so that was a good place to start.

How about a motif without a background?

And how about a background without a motif?

Then, how about rejoining the motif and the background?

Stämplar med plexiglas

För lite över en vecka sedan (14 oktober) laddade den förträffliga Melanie Testa upp en liten undervisningsvideo på sin blogg om hur man ska bära sig åt för att skära plexiglas till sina egenhändigt tillverkade stämplar. Fördelen med plexiglas är naturligtvis att materialet är genomskinligt och man ser exakt var man placerar motivet. Jag hade testat att skära plexiglas redan tidigare, men fick nytändning när jag såg videon och passade på att testa en idé som jag fick för några veckor sedan: att göra stämplar av gamla virkade spetsar. Den tredje stämpeln är gjord av skumgummi. Jag sökte fram några tygbitar som jag hade övat monotryck på och tryckte mina motiv på dem. Jag är ännu inte helt nöjd med resultatet, för den röda tygtrycksfärgen var för genomskinlig och resultatet är lite anemiskt. Så det kan hända att jag ännu jobbar vidare med dem.

Om ni undrar över plexiglaset, kan jag berätta att det är enkelt att få tag i. Jag gick bara in till en affär för glasprodukter och bad dem skära upp en lämpligt stor skiva plexi (akryl). Man kan också köpa restbitar som blivit över när de sågat plexi för andra kunder. Titta på Mellys undervisningsvideo så ser ni hur enkelt det är skära materialet! Slappna av, andas ut och knäck till!


Stamping with plexiglas

A little over a week ago (14 October) the excellent Melanie Testa uploaded a short video tutorial on her blog on how to cut plexiglas for making your own stamps. The advantage of plexiglas is obviously that the material is transparent and you can see exactly where you place your motif. I had tried cutting plexiglas before, but when I saw the video I was inspired anew and decided to try out an idea I got a few weeks ago: to make stamps with old crocheted lace. The third stamp is made from a foam sheet. I dug out some fabric samples that I had practised monoprinting on and printed my motifs on them. I'm still not completely satisfied with the result, because the red textile paint was too translucent and the result is a bit anemic. So I might work on them a little bit more later.

If the plexiglas bit is puzzling you, I can reveal that it was very easy to find. I just went into a shop for glass products and asked them to cut a sheet of plexi (acrylic). You can also buy left over pieces from when they have cut plexi for other customers. Have a look at Melly's tutorial and you will see how easy it is to cut the material. Relax, breathe out and snap!