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Today’s prompt was to make a unique print, and cut an image out of a potato (But, I’m sick to death of potato prints. There’s just something about the mixed smells of potato and ink… *shiver* So I used an apple instead). I wanted to use the shape of the apple itself, since it’s simply so beautiful. Also, unique organic print for almost no money. Pretty neat!
I tried to do a couple of prints with different inks on some watercolour paper. Most of them came out really well! I worked on them some more by blending some distress inks, and also used a bit of watercolour and mists. I got 3 prints I really like a lot, and think I will use them as backgrounds in my 2012 book soon, and also in my recipe binder. Here’s an example of one of them:
Thanks for stopping by!
I’m thinking a lot about the stamp carving and about what motifs I want to do. Thematically I have an urge to go with cooking related motifs, since I do a fair amount of scrapboking for my recipe binder, and I haven’t found a lot of stamps for that which suit my style and plans. Why not make them myself?
I had a nice big piece of the linoleum left and wanted to do an artichoke. It’s a simple shape and a very pretty vegetable that can be stamped in so many nice colours. I also wanted to do it a bit larger so that I could use it as a background if needed. When I was done with the sketch it ended up being about 13×14 cm.
I gotta tell ya, carving something larger is much easier than carving something tiny, duh! Once the design is drawn the carving itself went fairly quickly.
Now, the stamping was a whole other matter. Linoleum isn’t really a gentle or precise material like the rubber stamps or the clear stamps I am used to. And with that large a stamp it took a few tries to get it right. I don’t have a press or anything like that, so is was hard to get the imprint to cover the paper. This is what I learned:
- With big areas that need ink, the tiny ink pads are useless. The linoleum needs a lot of ink or paint and with those tiny things it starts to dry up before you even get a chance to cover it all. Plus, if I had kept going at it I think the whole ink pad would be ruined.
- The larger ink pads works fairly well, at least when I tried with ColorBox fluid chalks (which looks so deep and beautiful after heat setting!). But you have to press down really hard to get an even imprint.
- The image definetely looks better after pressing the stamp down with two heavy books.
- Acrylic paint works better than stamp pads.
- But it dries very fast so if you use it as it is and press it down it almost works as a glue and the paper gets stuck to the stamp.
- If you mix the acrylic paint with a glossy medium it doesn’t get stuck, which is much better…
- Dabbing the paint on with a foam brush worked much better than rolling it on with a roller, it was easier to distribute the paint evenly
This is how it looked with the fluid chalks, the one on the left I pressed with some heavy books and the one on the right I didn’t:
Here’s the result with acrylic paint (mixed with a glossy medium). The one on the left is the one with the paint added with a foam brush, and the one on the right I rolled the paint on with a small roller, with different results:
With the roller the paint was distributed unevenly and with a thicker layer, so depending on the result you want it might actually lead to a cool effect. I love the veiny pattern that appeared:
With the glossy medium and the roller it becomes really vibrant, and I can just imagine doing this with colours that really pop. However I think that I’ll have to give it a few more tries because the result will be harder to control.
Now I have to think of a way to use these prints (wont be to hard)! I can’t wait!
We’ve been planning to go on a hunt for The Tools, and so last week we found a day! We were both off from work and had been thoroughly searching the web for a good place to go, planning the day step by step. Ironically, it turned out that a good and cheap starter set was available at our very local art supply store (and I mean local, it’s a 2 minute walk from our street, literary around the corner). Go figure, huh?
We set out kind of early so of course we had to start off with a huge latte. When you have an entire day-off-from-work-and-looking-for-tools-fun-day, is there another way? (No, is my answer). We are very lucky to live on the same street, and to have a small and bakery on it as well. It’s been there since the 40′s! They changed owners last year to a cute young couple, whom decided to install a great espresso machine. Bright idea, very bright idea. Coffee heaven, even early in the morning! Seriously, do you know how early a baker starts in the morning?
 Tricks with coffee! And of course we had to get our strength up so we went swimming. Stretching our backs and softening our muscles for the project later that day (much needed!). We figured we might as well, considering we didn’t at all have to go all around town, as we thought we would (No way, no swim suit pics dearlord, we are not that kind of blog thankyouverymuch). Feeling good about our selves we of course deserved to buy our tools.
 Tricks documenting our trip to the shop We live just across from Konstfack, a university college of arts, crafts and design. How lucky are we? Because, of course, they have their own art supply store with really nice prices adjusted to a student’s pocket. And they have e-e-everything. Maybe not so much scrapbook supplies (some though), but all the glue, knifes and paint you might ever need. Let’s just say that browsing there gets you curious in other types of arts and crafts.
 It looks a bit anonymous, but don't let that fool you We took a few laps around the store, looking at everything twice (oh look, those beads I want are still there, oh, paint for fabrics, well I need a new X-acto knife, maybe a roller, but where the frell are our tools?). Tricks, being a woman of action as always, got us some helt and at last we found the mother load, hidden under a shelf somewhere, unloved, waiting for us!
 So we found some pieces of linoleum and the set with woodcut knifes, yeay! It was an excellent starter set and it was like 4$. I bought some erasers as well as the linoleum, to try to make some smaller rubber stamps. Happy like two monkeys at a banana buffet we skipped off to Tricks mum for a lovely thai lunch. Shopping makes you hungry after all. And then at last, back at Tricks place, tea was made, pencils were sharpened and linoleum was prepped. And whilst all my imagination and all my ideas seemed to have ran off somewhere (probably to the banana buffet) Tricks immediately set to work! She drew this beautiful acorn right then and there and transferred it to the linoleum. And see, the tools worked really well!
 Tricks carving away My mind was totally blank and I whished I had brought my sketches and ideas (a pile of post-its, mainly, that are now lost somewhere, naturally). I tried doing some tiny shapes in the erasers but they were to soft, so they split in the middle. Thinking about it afterwards I wonder if I cut to deep into the rubber (it was like cutting a butter, really easy, so maybe next time…). At last I started drawing a leaf on the linoleum, planning to do something interesting inside it, just to try it out and maybe get a grip of the material and the tools. It took forever to carve out, so Tricks had plenty of time to make a cute mushroom as well!
And here are our end results, the fruit of our labor and planning, our first attempt:
Man, our necks and backs were aching after that time spent hunching over the table! But it was worth it! A splendid day with something to show for it. Our first hand carved stamps.
Ok, so we had our outing! It was an overall wonderful day. We started off by going swimming, well deserved and oh so relaxing. Jen has some excellent fotage of our actual outing, I am going to show off my first attempts at actually carving my own stamp.
Now, I remember from school when I did this that it is not as easy as it looks, the material doesn’t always work with you, so I decided to try something fairly straightforward. An acorn. Now, I didn’t get this idea out of the blue, I love acorns and I know for a fact that Jen loves acorns too. So much that I actually gave her a necklace with acorns for her birthday. We were both wearing our acorn necklaces (cause I had to get the same kind for myself), and I happen to have 2 beautiful candleholders that look like acorns.
 The acorn candleholder I got the candleholder at www.lagerhaus.se. Both the tablecloth and the lovely little container (that Jen gave me a pair of) are from www.ahlens.se.
Alright, so on to the carving. I sketched out the acorn I wanted to make on a regular piece of paper using a pencil. Then I turned the paper upside down onto the lino and held it firmly in place while I rubbed the image with my high tech butterknife. This way I got a phantom image on the lino, and I filled in the edges with black and got to carving. it worked pretty well, the actual carving takes a lot, a LOT of concentration and after this little snibbet, I was beat.
 the Carving of the Acorn I think that when all was said and done, it turned out pretty ok. Alright, I love it. I shouldn’t, but seriously, it looks really nice, I am going to mount it so I can actually stamp with it, because lino is a really really numb material, and when you stamp you really want some flex so that the image is transferred properly. This is what the end result looked like:
 Stamped image and original sketch These were my first attempts. Jen really got into it also, and no holding back for her! She drew this wonderful swirly intricate leaf that turned out just wonderful! I will let her post pics of that!
/Tricks
Oh, and a big THANK you to Jen, who made a manual of how to link properly, make better images and how to upload and everything! Without that manual, my post would look very differnt (read horrible).
What is on my mind for the new year? All the new things I want to try and the stamps I want to order! (You know, the usual Must-Haves and the Things-I-Really-Need).
Tricks and I have been looking at these sites for ordering:
http://www.alphastamps.com/
http://www.theenchantedgallery.com/
So many wonderful motifs, and not to mention collage stuff that is starting to appeal to me. I will ruin myself but I know it will lead to hours and hours of Scrap Geeking.
I know I don’t sound like a 30-year old now but dammit: Tricks is my bestest friend and I want to hang with her all the time! Sadly our adult, mundane lives prevents this but we keep in touch whenever possible.
Like, sometimes we have email conversations lasting entire days and consiting mainly of links to various cool things on the net. “Look at this technique!” “Well, look at this material!” “OOOOH! I bet with that you could do somehting like this thing here” “That reminds me, I need this bling bling from this page” “Well, one always needs more bling bling! Look at THIS!” “Oh, why are you doing this to me?! I Need it noooow!”.
You get the drift, huh? It’s like finding shiny pebbles and other treasures washed up on the beach.
Well, skimming through the lovely blog of mr. monkeysuit (oh, the lovely, colourful, crafty projects, it’s crazy inspirational!), there was some cute pics of some personalised stamps, and the link to Craftpudding’s shop on Etsy. (Etsy is now in my blood, very dangerous!). Dear lord, handcarved rubber stamps! I would post a picture but i don’t want to violate the copyright, so be sure to clicky the link! I could get so broke… must resist… spending all my money! *NIGH*
For more Craftpudding enjoyment, check out the blog, http://www.craftpudding.com/! And there we go, more inspiration, ain’t internet grand? The motifs are very appealing and so are the different mediums. The stamping on the ribbons with for instance, maybe with Versa Craft? Also I was planning to make some embellishments with paper clay, and now my head is full of ideas!
And oh, carving your own stamps, I can’t begin to descibe how my fingers itch to try it myself! Excellent links there. Hehehee, I vaguely recall an experiment carving potato stamps with Tricks, and rumours have it it was disaster! I remeber the actual event, I remeber the potato and I remeber it was fun, but I have thoroughly repressed the results…
Maybe we should give it another try, but I think I need an apron this time.
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