Woodblock Wednesday: Happy Chanukah

Although it's not in any way different than in past years, it struck me this year how most of the stamping industry seems to be so intensely focused on Christmas.  Not only does the Christmas rush start earlier each year with the introduction of new Christmas stamps, dies, etc, with a few token exceptions, non-Christmas holidays are ignored by the major stamp companies and distributors.  And I get it:  this is the key holiday for the vast majority of the customer base, and this is a time of year when more people make and send cards than any other.  Simply from a business perspective, you can't ignore that.  But still, as one of the few who celebrates a different holiday this time of year, I wish the products and card examples were a bit more all-inclusive.

I don't make and send a lot of religion-themed cards, and I don't have many stamps with religious symbols in my collection.  But when I wanted to reflect my holiday on this Woodblock Wednesday, I found this perfect menorah stamp from the now-defunct Rubber Stamps of America.  It was on a short peg with thin, hard to remove foam, but it was fun to use on this slightly askew wreath.

I wish (all two of) you, a Happy Chanukah and a peaceful, healthy new year.

Stamp:  Rubber Stamps of America
Wreath Builder stencil by Gina K Designs
Altenew Inks: the new Tranquility set

Woodblock Wednesday: Moose Day edition

Every year, a number of my friends from college days, along with family members we convince to join us, celebrate a holiday known as Moose Day on the day after Thanksgiving.  The origin of this important day is a story best shared over tea, but making Moose Day cards is an annual tradition of mine, and suffice it to say, my collection of moose stamps and dies is possibly larger than that of your average card maker....

This year, I had two card ideas to choose between for my Moose Day cards.  The first uses a new favorite stamp set of mine:  Cozy Cup by the Greetery.  I stamped the cup layers and wanted to find a moose stamp to use as latte art.  An old woodblock stamp from Silver Fox Stamps just about fit perfectly.  I didn't end up making this card, but last night I pulled out the embossing powder to see how it might look. 

The moose doesn't quite fit in the cup, so I had to not have one of his back legs visible.  I really like this idea, and will probably make an actual card from the moose cup (which is not really adhered to any of the layers below).  I think if I try this again I might find a bigger cup so the entire moose fits inside - I am sure I have one - and/or use white pigment ink instead of white heat embossing for the moose foam.  In the end, this card seemed too involved to quickly replicate, so I went with my second card idea.

Here's this year's official Moose Day card made with Altenew inks, the Concord & 9th Stitched Turnabout and Tim Holtz's moose from Into the Woods.

Happy Moose Day!!!

Woodblock Wednesday, take 1...

I saw a blog post the other week under the heading of "Woodblock Wednesday."  The idea was to create a card using stamps in your collection mounted on woodblocks.  I love this idea because it encourages you to use the older stamps in your collection, rather than always reach for the newest stamps closest to hand.  I have so many woodblock stamps that I adore, but don't reach for as frequently these days because the clear stamps and cling stamps are just so much easier to store and use, especially with the help of the MISTI.  I can't believe I've gotten to this point.  I remember back in the day when I would never even consider buying an unmounted stamp.  Look at me now...

I decided to take this challenge to a new place:  not only to use woodblock stamps in a card each week, but to use this as the opportunity to convert the woodblock stamps to repositionable cling stamps in hopes I might reach for them more often.  Here's my first card in this series, sent to a friend to thank her for hosting me over a dance weekend:

Image:  Picture Show; Quote:  Renaissance Art Stamps; Diecut frame:  Spellbinders

Card promts: Style

I love it when key things coincide:  a card-making challenge with a prompt that resonates and the time to do something about it!  This week, Addicted to CAS (Clean and Simple) presented the code word "style."  This is right up my alley, falling right into my usual card formula.  I made two cards even!

Image:  Moon Rose; Sentiment:  Rubbernecker Stamps

Image:  Scarlet Empress; Sentiment:  my custom version of a stamp from Rosie's Roadshow

Hey gorgeous...

I fell off the card-making wagon during dance camp season, but I finally got a little time in the craft room this weekend!

Last week I watched a Jennifer McGuire video about a technique she calls the embossed watercolor lift.  The short version is you watercolor a background, stamp and clear emboss a background stamp over the watercolor, and then use water to fade the color.  The stamped image under the embossing retains the original color while the rest of the background color begins to fade away leaving a cool effect.

This technique was a great thing for me to try for a number of reasons:

-I'm not short on background stamps
-I'm very much a watercolor novice, and I love the look of it, so I keep trying to practice
-I've noticed that many card makers make lovely backgrounds, and then just pop a sentiment over it, and voila!  They have a great card.  This has rarely been my way.  I tend to focus on the image, and make that fit the sentiment, or the intended recipient, or the occasion in some way.  It was a good exercise for me to just make a background and not overthink it.  Not too much, anyway.

I used Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire, and Seedless Preserves Distress inks, and an old Marvy dye ink pad - Plum or Wine, I forget which one.  I stamped and embossed the Gibson Girls Background from Lost Coast Designs, and then used a paintbrush to wipe away a bunch of the color. 

The paper was quite warped by the end of this, but using a stitched rectangle die was great for making it flat again.

Finally I added the Hey Gorgeous sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio (three layers in black over vellum).

This was a fun technique to try.  Using my heat tool was a huge time-saver in-between steps.  Next time, I'll try a different watercolor background - stripes of color was a stress free way to begin, but my guess is that just like acrylic block watercolor backgrounds, once you do the over-stamping, most background color imperfections fade away.

In other crafty news, I visited a new-ish craft store not too far from my house over the weekend:  Creative Inkling.  I know one of the two of you who reads this wants to take a class there with me sometime.  Valentine or holiday card making retreat, anyone???

Card formulas...

I was watching a May Park video the other week where she mentions a favorite card formula - a go-to design that just works but is infinitely variable as you change images and ink colors.  This is what I crave in card-making, fashion, meal-planning, dance program-writing - everything - something simple that just works, that I can turn to again and again.  Here's a basic card design I love:

Formula:  Image, often on the left side, some kind of (often snarky) quote or sentiment, simple border.  I made this one a few weeks ago, took a deep breath, and sent it to my mother.  Image:  Red Castle Stamps; Sentiment:  River City Rubber Works

Looking through my file of scanned cards, I turn to this formula again and again...

I made this one right after I got home from a stamp convention with some just-purchased products.  In a daring move, the image is on the right side!  I used a stencil for the background and lightly colored (and added sparkle to) the image.  Image and sentiment by Character Constructions; Background stencil by Neat & Tangled.

I know I've had this stamp forever!  And look at me attempting some watercolor!  Stamp:  Woman with Cup by David Walker for Uptown Rubber Stamps; Tea Packet sentiment - Stampington (it's not this one, but a similar one...).

I will probably never have enough Gibson Girls in my rubber stamp collection!  Here I stamped the image and sentiment, and then sponged some ink on top.  Image:  Flonz; Sentiment:  custom stamp I had made based on a much-loved button not unlike this one.

It turns out I have two rubber stamps with this same sentiment.  This is one of a pair I made.  Image and sentiment by Technique Junkies.

This is one of a series of cards I made for my favorite place in the world, riffing off of their logo.  Image:  Stampscapes; Sentiment:  Stampa Fe

And finally, a valentine from several years ago.  Image:  Moon Rose; Sentiment:  Just for Fun

Portable crafting...

Summer is a time of traveling for me (Dance Camp!!), and brings with it all kinds of wishful thinking like I will have so much time for reading - I'd better take at least three books with me, and my Kindle, just in case.  And then I manage to only read a few pages from one book each night before falling dead asleep.  Crafting on the go is another one of these things aspirations.  I imagine I will have lots of downtime for working on a project, or making random things.  So I dutifully pack too many supplies, because I can never decide ahead of time what to work on, and maybe get an hour once, or not at all.

Last summer, in an attempt to not carry so much (as if), I focused on wreaths and the wreath builder system from GinaK Designs, and I actually made a few things I didn't hate.

People are making beautiful wreaths out there, and I aspire to that, but I find my success rate is mixed.  But I do love the idea of wreaths or other geometric designs not made out of flowers.  This is one I made last summer with a bunch of small stamps from the Stampendous Charm Collection.  I love the monochromatic simplicity of it, and the surprise when you look closely and discover the small images that make up the whole.  Someday, I'll actually turn this into a card.

I'm going back to camp in a few weeks.  Oh, all 1-2 people who look at this, what should I work on this year?

Recurring themes: Cityscapes

This is a post I started writing in 2015 and have been meaning to finish ever since... 

I find I have inadvertent themes in my stamp and die collection:  background stamps with script/French/indecipherable writing, Gibson Girls, mail art and faux postage, snarky quotes, sassy women, moose, oceans and water, and on, and on.  Another recurring theme: cities and skylines. Maybe it was growing up in New York City, but I find drawn images of buildings, towns, cities, city maps, row houses, etc. alluring. When I finally added cutting dies to my collection, I had to have all of the cityscape dies. 

This 4th of July, I played with a few new purchases:  a cityscape die from Ellen Hutson and a fireworks layering set from My Favorite Things.  I dragged out my ancient embossing powders and chose a few of the best metallics.   If/when I do it again, I'd use a transparency to plan out the fireworks a little better - may putting one burst below the skyline, adding a few more, and thinking about placement and balance - always a challenge for me.

I have this someday project of cutting all of my cityscape dies, and stamping all of the city stamps and looking at them side-by-side.  I wonder how many of the dies in particular would look identical?

Stamps:  Fireworks by My Favorite Things
Die:  Big City by Ellen Hutson
Inks:  Versamark and Tim Holtz Distress Oxides

This could be vodka...

My grand plans for the July 4th holiday involved making at least five cards.  At least!  Which means I made 1.5...

I saw a card using this stamp set on Coffee-Loving Cardmakers, and thought about it for a long time before ordering the set from Cat's Pajamas recently.  The set features two of my recurring card themes and stamp purchases:  coffee/tea related stamps and saucy/sassy/snarky/wry/irreverent (which is the best descriptor???) sentiments.

I also wanted to practice with my watercolor markers, so I just stamped and embossed a bunch of images, and used my favorite for this card.  And look at me actually using some rhinestones I got for free with a stamp purchase a year ago.  I like a clean and simple card, but this one needed something.

Thinking about the card again this morning, if I were to do it over, which I might, I would leave the mug plain, or stamp or pattern piece a design on it, and then stamp the image with the sentiment in the same location on the inside of the card, leaving the sentiment as a surprise for the recipient.

Stamps:

Image:  This Could be Vodka by Cat's Pajamas
Background:  Love of Coffee by Picket Fence Studios

The perfect thank you card...

Saturday was my birthday!  My sister, who knows me so well, sent me a tomato spoon.  And, of course, I wanted to make her the appropriate thank you card...

I tried to spruce up the card with a subtle tone-on-tone background image (tomato red, of course) using Impression Obsession's Dotted Floral Cover-a-Card stamp, but the true find was that I had a stamp of a tomato spoon!  Well, sort of.  As I was browsing through my stamp catalog, continuing my trip down memory lane, I saw an Impression Obsession Tea Tools stamp:

I masked the other stamp elements, added a thank you greeting, and called it done.  Don't tell anyone that it's really a bon bon spoon...

Seeing what happens...

I find it so easy to be stymied when I don't have a specific project in mind, or an intended recipient for a card.  Last night I reminded myself that the only way to get past that is by doing the work - just put stamp to paper, and something will happen.

This card started from me just stamping out a couple of stamps from a new-to-me set on some scrap paper, just to see what they looked like.  It's simple, which is completely my style, but I might try this one again and see if some pale coffee rings works as a background, or detracts from my focal image.  The inside reads:  Coffee is my love language.

All images and inside sentiment:  Coffee Talk by Joy Clair.

Another Rainy Day...

We've been having this spate of gloomy, rainy, intensely humid days in my part of the world.  I feel lucky to live and work in places with climate control.

In a rare burst of inspiration and creativity after a stamping convention a number of years ago, I made this card, which captures the current state of things.

It's a simple thing - two stamps, no embellishments, and these days cold be easily mass produced, and have better ink coverage using the MISTI.  Background:  Rain Cover-a-Card from Impression Obsession; Foreground:  Umbrella People by Technique Junkies.

Those bygone days...

I wasn't feeling especially creative last night (turns out I was hungry - who knew?), so I worked on my unmounted stamp catalogue.  I have a bunch of stamps that I've either unmounted from their original wood blocks and then remounted with cling foam, or that are cling-mounted duplicates of stamps I already had.  As I was looking through my mounted stamp catalogue for company and stamp name references, paging through that binder, was a wonderful trip down memory lane.  Yes, I'm now securely in the unmounted camp, for ease of use, storage, and the game-changer stamp positioning tools that all but remove the possibility of inking mishaps, but I don't want to lose track of and stop using those older images I love and collected over many years.

Above is a favorite card that I never quite had the courage to send.  Marvy dye inks on glossy paper, mounted on black felt, gold paper, and then the perfect shade of purple card stock.  Image:  Acey Deucy/Lynne Perrella.

Wait, what is a blog again??

Oh, I remember, a web log, a journal, a record of what I'm doing, in this case, in the craft room.  I've tried a couple of different ways to record a snapshot of what I'm doing, but the paper versions - inchies and ATCs involved making a thing, and then an extra bit for the journal.  Now I'm trying an old scheme:  online, one photo, 1-2 sentences, supplies.  What are the key things you want to know about a craft project?

Impetus:  This week's Splitcoast Stampers clean and simple challenge prompt is balloons.  I've been wanting to play with this Concord & 9th set for ages.  Also exploring the idea that the image on the front of the card, the sentiment, and the intended recipient can have a little incongruity and it's not the end of the world.

Supplies:
Image:  Happy Balloons by Concord & 9th
Sentiment:  Tealightful Day by Pinkfresh Studio
Background:  Mini Cloud Edges stencil by My Favorite things
Inks:  Altenew, Versafine, Impression Obsession

Getting Organized - Still...

Unmounted stamp catalog - example page

They say that rubber stamping is actually three different hobbies:  shopping for/buying stamps and supplies, organizing said supplies, and then actually making things.  So true.  And while it's always a good time of year for stamp and supply organization, somehow January seems like the time to buckle down and cross some of these tasks off the list (although, if you do the shopping bit, you can never really finish the organizing bit, can you.  Darn.).  I'll probably post more about my latest organization endeavors over the coming weeks, but this is a slight tangent...

Way back in 2015, I got a MISTI (I posted about it here).  And then a year later, I got the smaller version, the Mini MISTI.  And then this past summer, I got a Tim Holtz travel-sized stamp platform (with its useful case!).  The MISTI is definitely my favorite, but all of these do one thing very well:  they prevent stamping mishaps that ruin everything.  If you're a stamper, you know this moment...

• Your paper moves at the last second
• You missed inking a spot on a stamp, or didn't use even pressure everywhere
• You drop your stamp on the good paper by accident
• You do any and all of these things and you only had five minutes to make anything anyway and now everything is messed up and your card won't get done and everything will be horrible forever

The MISTI fixes all of these things with magnets and cling and magic (but not for wood mounted stamps, alas - but I persevere and take risks using these, and am one-by-one, converting them to cling mount - that's yet another post...).  But enter my stamp organization process, where I am finally creating a catalog of my single cling-mounted stamps that live on individual 8.5 x 11 sheets by stamping them out on 8.5 x 11 paper (see example at the top of the post).  That's too big a piece of paper for each stamp to be happily stamped out using the MISTI or the Tim Holtz platform.  But I can do this - I have acrylic blocks.  Uh huh.  Spoiler alert...

Because I'm left-handed, I work from the bottom-right corner of the page, and work my way up.  All was going fine until I dropped the inked stamp into the wrong spot - twice. Click on the image below to really get the full effect.

Stamps by Flonz, Hampton Art, Technique Junkies

And then I clearly missed a spot with my inking, pressure, or both.

Quantum Background by Deep Red Stamps

But since the catalog pages are just for me, even with the stamping flubs, they still do the job.

And for me, the added bonus of working on this project is that I remember what stamps I have, and where to find them so I can get some inspiration for some actual card-making!

Sentiment:  Viva Las Vegastamps

What projects are you working on this January?

Happy New Year!

Another year, another attempt to actually use this platform...  Can I do it?  Ready, set...

I wish I could remember where I first saw this bear from the Essentials by Ellen All Inside set by Julie Ebersole, but it was on someone's blog somewhere, at some point.  And clearly it stayed in my consciousness, because at some point, I just had to have it.  And all the accessories, of course.  I don't often turn to "cute" for my card-making, but I just can't resist this bear, and I knew it would be perfect for my holiday cards.

One of the key features about this bear is that it can hold things.  The matching die cuts out around the arms so you can slip in an object.  I made several test bears to practice cutting and stamping.

To go with the holiday/winter/warmth theme, I added some presents, including one proudly toppled over by the cat (my cat), and decided to give the bear a coffee cup to hold (like me, who likes nothing more than a warm beverage at all times of the year).  The Bear Ware sets don't include a coffee cup (hint:  Ellen, Julie, I know you'll never see this, but so many more bear accessories needed.  I'll send you a list...), so I used this one from Endless Creations.

I stamped all of the presents, masked one of them, and stamped the cat.

Then I masked the presents and the cat, and sponged on some Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide.

I stamped and colored the coffee cups, and fussy cut each one.  I didn't want the bear to be cold, so I die cut a scarf from the Bear Ware 2 set.  

The bears, of course, needed rosy cheeks...

Before the final assembly, I colored the presents and the kitty (to resemble my cat, Bunny), and stamped the cobbled together sentiment from Flora & Fauna's Holiday Word Party set.

I even used some of the leftover bears to create another card.

I look forward to using this bear often, and sharing my adventures in card-making with (all two of) you over the coming year.