Coming Down

I feel as if I'm coming down off a high from a really great weekend with my daughter, Liza's college graduation, and seeing her twin brother who came up from Harlem, NYC. It was the kind of high that kept me going as far as getting up in the morning and going to work and now I'm coming down. I'm off tomorrow so that's a good thing. Before I got involved in helping my daughter decorate her graduation hat and my making her a crown I had played around with making some stencils with a hot glue gun. It was trial and error. Some of them turned out pretty sturdy but some were not thick enough and ripped when I peeled them off the glass. But I did have some fun with them. I like the "organic ness" of these prints. Thanks for stopping by.

Making Cheapo Stamps

I made my first attempt at stamp carving a couple of years ago. I started with some erasers from The Dollar Store. I figured I'd practice on something cheap before I carved on a SpeedBall block in case I wasn't happy with it. The blue and two dark pinks are erasers and the light pink is one of the first block ones I carved. I don't like it much but I have used the lower left one a lot. It shows up often in my work, so often it's becoming brittle, and dry so I attempted a few more on blocks. Oops. I repeated this. I'm sorry. I meant to show you where I drew designs in to piece of craft foam and pieces of an egg carton to create these. Talk about some instant gratification. So simple. This last weekend at my mixed media class, I gave everyone a piece of craft foam to create their own stamp on the spot. It was fun to watch the different designs appear and how they used them. I had given everyone a big piece of brown paper to work on and most everyone used their craft foam stamp as a border. Oops. I think I repeated this again. This is what happens when google chrome wasn't cooperating this evening and I had trouble keeping my eyes open after waiting for 45 min for me to try and finish this post........ Did I mention that we all tried my hot glue stencils that I shared with you on yesterday's post? So remember to save that egg carton or foam package from the grocery store. Grab a ball point pen and you'll have a stamp in 5 minutes.... Thanks for visiting. P.S I didn't repeat after all. Good night my friends. It's time to go. .................

An Accordion Book Giveaway

I took a piece of watercolor paper and cut it in half and made two little accordion books. I covered the paper with pieces of torn paper, maps, journaled and old book pages, tissue and music paper. I used joint compound with a stencil to give it more of a raised effect. Joint compound is a lot cheaper than heavy gesso and it goes a lot further. I sprayed the paper with several spray inks, added a homemade stamp, washi tape and doodled with some paint markers and gel pens. Here's the backside of one of them. Here is another one. and again, the backside. Can you tell I love these colors or should I say this color combination? So I'm thinking that since I am approaching the 3/4 mark on my blog in terms of followers, I am going to give away one of these accordion books. I will give the 75th person that joins to follow my blog here and goes here me one of these books. Please send me comment with your snail mail address if you are the 75th person. I will mail internationally if you like/want the book. I haven't been to the party for several weeks so I'm headed over there. If you haven't been there do check it out. You'll find wonderful art and community. One more thing I wanted to share. Look what sweetness I got in the mail recently from "Fuzzie Fingers" in the United Kingdom. I love the card and her art. You can see more of it by going to the party. Thanks for stopping by.

Becoming Mail Art Cont"d

On the 16th I showed you the way I was using up paper scraps of which 99.9% were all from my own art. It started with this which became this Which when cut up in to 4 x 6's some of which look like this: I am sorry about some of the poor pictures. I madly ran around looking for black cardstock to use to show off the pictures since I couldn't find much free clean space on my work table. I need to press the paper before mailing as it's a bit warped from all the layers of glue, paper and everything else. You get the idea. Good way to use up scraps and make some new art. I managed to get 10 post cards out of two large sheets of watercolor paper and what was left I can use for a couple of artist trading cards and the rest of the scraps get used again for something else and so on and so on...... I like them, some more than others. I think I'll do more. I might try it on file folders next. I noticed a year ago on this date I was working on altering a book and haven't seemed to move past the front cover. Yes, I did make it past the front cover and a couple of inside pages. Gee, I must have gotten sidetracked somehow, somewhere a long the line. I want to go back and work on that. Thanks for stopping by.I hope you are well........................................................................................jo

Becoming Mail Art

I've been using up paper scraps of my art, and there is a lot. It's not that I think I should save every little darn piece.......... Gluing random pieces of paper down is pretty mindless- watching- Netflix- kind- of-stuff. Since my dog Buddy can no longer climb the stairs, given that he is old and very visually impaired, I have been spending my evening art time downstairs on the lounge with a breakfast tray, so I can keep him company. My intention is that this will all become mail art. I started with this. and it has become this. And here's another one. I used scraps of painted on wax paper, markings from trying out my homemade stamps, merchandise labels, pieces of gold doilies from the dollar store,and cut up pieces from my Gelli Plate prints. I want to finish putting the final touches on with markers and pens etc. Here a couple of close ups. I have made copies of much of my art so I can use them again and again. The people know me pretty well at KINKOS. My intent is to have these chopped up into 4x6s today so I can mail them out. I'll show you what they look like at the mailing stage later. Then I need to work on getting my taxes done. Yuck! I hope you have a good day. Thanks for sharing a moment here............................................. jo

More Homemade Stamps

The last several days I've been trying to carve more stamps. So far I don't feel I'm very good at it, although, I suppose it's like anything else, with more practice I should get better. Right? Carving does take time and patience, and perhaps, that's what I'm lacking when I sit down to do it. Anyway, here is something I made with some home made stamps I carved. MY MAN thought it would look cool on a summer shirt. Also, I attempted to make some stamps with a glue gun which didn't show up very well with a stamp pad but offered some interesting effects with the gelli plate. Here's a couple of the stamps. I made a couple of them on a heat resistant craft mat, peeled them off after they were dry and glued them to a cardboard square, and a couple of other ones, I made right on the cardboard. Tomorrow I will share with you what I made with the stamps and gelli plate. Ah, the gelli plate. The possibilities seem endless. One final note I wanted to share and that is that I have some new pieces in my Etsy Shop. I would love it if you would go there and look. They are posted on the right side of the blog. Thank you. Thanks for stopping by..............................jo