Something About Nothing

Had a playdate with my friend Melanie Testa  and her kitty, Peach. I wanted to introduce Melly to my favorite carving material, Eco Karve , and my favorite fabric paint, Artistic Artifact fluid textile paint.   Eco Karve is so easy to carve, and I love that it is recycled rubber.  Peach needed to make sure she had her time in the spotlight as well.  This is the stamp Melly carved. We used the fabric paint to stamp on some commercial batiks. Artistic Artifact's fluid textile paint stamps so well, and I love the long open time, as well as the softness on the fabric.  It was a very fun day which ended. . . .   . . . with a full rainbow!

Last week I blogged about this journal.   It was a test in embossing. Once I knew the embossing powder would work on a similar surface to a Moleskine journal, my daughter and I worked together on an image.  She wanted something abstract but tidy.  Finally an image was born, and carved.  The image was trimmed several times until it had just the right balance of negative and positive space.  Each edition was stamped on to deli paper the size of the journal to see if it would work.  I would have been happy with the first edition, but as I carved away more and more I loved the stamp more and more.  My daughter's vision was awesome. Finally the image was embossed on to the journal.   Whew!  I was pretty nervous I would mess it up. Each time I sprinkled the embossing powder, some of it would stick where it didn't belong and no amount of tapping or hitting the journal would shake it off.  Ultimately I used a paint brush ...

Still thinking about the polka dots and repeating flowers.  I want to make more repeating designs to go with them.  I have played with a few different ideas. I decided to try leaves. They stamp nicely over the polka dots, just like the flowers. Time to try them out on fabric!

I absolutely love this photo of my Keiko.  I use it on Facebook whenever I am wishing someone a happy birthday.  I created my wonky Keiko stamp using this photo as my model and so I had to make her some party gear!  I started with the hat and bow: But realized something was missing - a party blower! This might need to be my birthday wish on Facebook in 2017.

I asked for some suggestions of stamps to create and there was a lot of interest in Pinecones, Evergreen branches and Poinsettia's so I obliged. Poinsettia by Lisa Chin After creating the Poinsettia I thought it needed an outline. Poinsettia outline by Lisa Chin I like how these two work together! Poinsettia stamps together by Lisa Chin I need to try stamping all three of these stamps together next . . .perhaps on some fabric! Evergreen and baby pinecone by Lisa Chin

I'm very excited to be the First Friday Artist over at Diana Trout's blog today. I am talking about my experiences with hand carved stamps, and you can see the post here . Diana is a mixed media artist I follow and I love her work!  She posts great videos and has wonderful online classes too.  I think you will love her work too.

Carving rubber stamps has been a lot of fun over the years but not as much as it has been this past month where I have carved every single day.  Carving has been relaxing and challenging all at the same time.  I feel as if I have stretched my creativity by exploring different materials and types of stamps.  Someone asked how many stamps I created during Carve December and to be honest I am not exactly sure.  At least 31! I know there were some days when I carved two, or four or maybe five stamps, so I'm sure it is closer to 40.  I will have to go through and count them all.  I have plenty more stamps to post still. Another question I have been asked several times is "what are you using to make your stamps."  I thought I would cover this question in two posts.  This post will cover the basic materials and the second post will cover the types of rubber I used. So first of all, the two things which have helped me most to create my own stamps wer...

This is the end of the  31 Days of Blogging Challenge .  I am grateful to Cheryl Sleboda for the kick in the pants!  I needed it.  I am pleased with myself for having completed the challenge, as well as the Carve December challenge.  Carve December helped me make sure I had something to blog about everyday!  I hope you aren't tired of stamp posts because I have a few more to share here and in future posts.  I haven't been able to stop carving!  I'll also do a post on the materials I have been using as well as some great resources for learning more about stamp carving.  I promise I will be blogging about things other than stamp carving in 2016.  2016 is a big year in my family as well as in my career.  Family wise, my son is getting married and graduating with his PhD all in the same weekend and to top things off, he and his fiancé will make my husband and I grandparents!!!  Career wise, I will have a couple of appearances ...

My friend Shannon asked me if I could make a stamp that was "quilty." Perhaps this simple repeat stamp fits the bill? I want to make a larger version of this stamp and create a whole cloth quilt with it!   \ It has been added to the project list! Day 29 of Carve December.

The house has been NOISY this holiday season.  I realize this is a good thing because it means I have family who still wants to be at home. As the kids move out, our lives are changing and sadly this noisiness might not always be the case.  That said, I needed some alone time today!  How do you find alone time when the house is full? I decided to take to the after Christmas sales, because nothing says alone like shopping, am I right?!  I can be in my own little world and look at pretty things.  If I hear someone yelling for Mom, I don't need to respond.  Not my circus, not my monkeys! However there is a great danger in hitting the after Christmas sales alone.  It's a fine balance because while there is no one there to beg you to buy something, there is also no one there to reign you in! Now before you start judging -  It was all on sale at least half off, with most of it 70% off. It will all be used - some year. And believe it ...

Pattern stamps are so fascinating. This felt busy, and a bit heavy.  I really liked the open spaces on the stamp so I decided to do something a little dangerous.  There was a strong possibility I wouldn't like the change. Whew! I like it!

A few days ago I tried to create a positive and negative stamp.  I failed. I eyeballed the images and my eyeballing isn't very exact.  Try number two was much more successful because I traced the negative stamp and transferred the image on to the Eco Karve .  They are still a little off but I really like the look. Each hearts is approximately 1 3/4" square. They are quite small.  I would like to make some larger images like this but I am now out of sheets of Eco Karve.  I guess it's time to make another order to Dharma Trading .