I think...

...I might feel the need to make some of these...

Eraser Stamps

I found my lino cutting tools when I was in the cupboard looking for some white acrylic paint that I knew was in there somewhere. I even found the paint eventually. I like the feel of the cutter sliding through the soft rubber, much easier than working lino, which is just as well, because I don't have any lino, but have access to erasers in any supermarket. The first is a simple bare tree. The blue splodge is not a carefully carved bird, but a speck of dust bunny that picked up the extra paint.
This one is supposedly a Work in Progress. I cut the outlines, then inked and stamped just to check the general design before removing the rest of the rubber. I rather liked it in this state, so may leave it like this and start another without the negative effect. I used my springy hammer hole punches to make the circles, then cut around the line with my finest V cutter blade. I'm not sure about the down-pointing branch on the left, but it does fill the space. Looking at it makes me think of the little stalk left after I have eaten all the grapes. I may use these as you see them above, in the centre of a plain white 4" card, or may use them as the focal point of a postcard or ATC, or I may just accept the fact that I enjoyed making them without having to find a use for them at the end of the process.

I like to make things in threes; it seems more satisfying for some reason. Maybe because it reminds me of milking stools; three legs and no wobble on whatever surface you need to use them. So to stop these two stamps feeling insecure, has anyone a suggestion for a third?

Another postcard...

that I am working on. More painted scrap card background, with stripes from the top layer of a paper napkin scrap, and paler stripes from the centre layer of the same napkin. The flower is fabric from my scrap bag, and again I have used my home cut diamond stamp. The fabric edge is held down with dark red glitter glue. I have done more of these postcards, but as some of the swappers read this blog, I want to keep them guessing.

Am I Blue?

No I'm not, but this postcard is. The base is scrap card from the cover of a drawing pad given a coat of acrylic paint. The turquoise patch towards the centre is a scrap of shaving foam marble paper, and the dark strip along the bottom is printed chiffon, courtesy of someone who wanted a dress shortening. This was all layered together using PVA. When this had dried overnight, I added some decoration with home carved stamps and a Kaleidoscope ink pad, and the focal point is a reduced vintage postcard, glued on with Uhu and bordered with a textured fabric paint that I found in the Todo Cien (Spanish equivalent of the Pound/Dollar Store).

At long last...

Edit: ATC now traded.
...an ATC. I haven't made one for ages, but I was playing around making layered tissue paper backgrounds for some cards, and some off-cut oddments turned out to be just the right size.

The background is made by first laying down a sheet of polythene, then a layer of white tissue, squirting this with acrylic floor sealer and some water based paint in various colours, another sheet of tissue, a topping of polythene, then going over the sandwich with a brayer to spread everything around and merge the colours. My next step, while this was still wet, was to remove the top polythene sheet, add another layer of tissue, then coat the whole surface with floor sealer again, as this is what gives the paper its stability when it is dry. I left this layer quite crinkly to add a little texture, then used a dropper to add brown writing ink that crept along the wrinkles and spread out into the paper, fading gently as it went. I left the whole thing to dry overnight. When it is dry, you have a choice of using the matt crinkly top surface, or the shiny smooth surface that has dried against the bottom polythene layer. I did take a quick photo part way through the process, but as you can see, it is out of focus, badly exposed, and the wet surface is reflecting too much light, but you get the general idea..

Bags more where that came from...

More Pink Petticoat; inside they say and Bags of Birthday Wishes. These images were coloured with watercolour pencils. The black and white backing paper is PP again, and the swirly pink and green paper is courtesy of Fred. The black ribbon came from a stall on the Wednesday Rastro. I have returned to the doodles to add a little pazzazz.

A different sort of stencil

Brass embossing stencils rather than homemade acetate drawing aids. Three with the addition of a decoupage flower, the last with the cut out bird backed with Ferrero Rocher wrappers. A little chocolate never goes amiss...
With the exception of the first one, these will go into the stock box and will have a greeting added before sending. I had a letter from my friend Irene in England today, so I think the teacup will be on its way to her with a letter inside shortly.

More cards while I'm in a scanning mood. Hurrah for Blogger's scheduled post facility! Last time I used my little 5 petal punch I hadn't got the doodle-bug. This time I punched one in card and used the negative as a stencil to draw outlines before punching the flowers. I think the style goes well with the images from Pink Petticoat. More Pink Petticoat. This batch of images has been coloured with ordinary cheapo coloured pencils. The black and white background paper is Pink Petticoat, and the pink stripe is something from a stock I had from years ago when I had a printer that used three colour cartridges. I used to carry on printing after one colour ran out (it was always the yellow) so have a lot of magenta and cyan sheets.




A little black doodle goes a long way...right over the page in fact!

My Very First Blog Award

Given to me by Eve, who reckons I helped her find her knitting MoJo again.

More Doodle Do

Progressing from the Happy Birday doodle birds I did in April, (last one for a while, I promise) I made some Best Fishes. I'm sure you get the idea, so I'll only show one.
It doesn't show very well here, but I found a little goldfish bowl in a dingbat font and used it on the ribbon. I quite liked the doodle cards with punched out paper flowers that I made a while ago, so I decided to try something on a larger scale. I used a paper template that Mel posted on her blog to cut an acetate stencil, used it to draw around on pages taken from a magazine (this was a yummy looking lobster dish) and then used the same stencil to add a ghost outline once the flowers were glued to the card. The background doodle was based on one from Mel as well.

I used the same doodle in white on the green card. the flower is courtesy of Fred,
or should I say Tracey? Thank you to all these excellent Bloggers for their generosity in giving me a springboard.

In the post...

......two fabric postcards from members of ArtWeMail. The first is from the Shaping Up swap that had to include squares, circles, stamps and paint. This is from KR.The next is from Lynn. This was a Black & White swap to celebrate the Indie Car Race. The hearts are machine embroidered.

Hip Hip Hurrah

I'm not sure if this makes me an X-rated blog, but I do think I might make this girl some bloomers. Now I have seen the close up, I'm just glad that I didn't position that off-centre tail lower down, just above what now appears to be an anal sphincter...
May I introduce Hippolyta? I was asked to knit a test run of a pattern written by Eve. I'm not sure I did a very good job stuffing the head, but I do like the way the moss stitch suggests the hairy dimples of a real hippo's nose.

I

Blog Candy Giveaway

The Funky Fairy has a giveaway, and she has some funky papers to download as well.