Stamp Carving Progress and Journal Play

   I have been having just too much fun lately with my Stamp Carving 101 class and tag making along with it for a swap I'm doing with Lenna Andrews. You can visit her wonderful blog and see the tags she made for me from Lesson 2 here. 

   This is the stamp set I carved from Lesson 2 about interlocking stamps and the base I started with for my tags:

   I began by puting a light coat of gesso on my stamps and randomly stamping around the tags. (Tip: anytime you're using acrylic paint, gesso or modeling paste on a stamp be sure to have a container of water at hand because you need to clean it off immediately.) Once the gesso was dry, I sprayed yellow spray ink over the tag slightly wiping some off where the gessoed stripes are. I then repeated that with a red spray ink.



   And these are the finished tags:

   I used Jet Black Staz-On ink to stamp with my newly carved stamp at the top. Along the sides I used Staz-On Pumpkin and Azure and repeatedly stamped in a haphazard manner. The stamp at the bottom is from the Bordering on the Edge Dylusions stamp set.  To me this had a very Southwestern or tribal feel to it so I chose a Native American quote to go with it. Lenna and I both have a love for quotes so for each lesson's tags I do I'm going to simply add a quote to allow for the carved stamps to be the focus.

   Then I finished another journal spread for Art Journal Everyday this week. Here is the background I began with:

  I started by using an old credit card to randomly swipe some gesso over the pages. Once dry, I sponged a variety of Distress inks to cover the pages, then took a baby wipe to remove some of the ink over the gessoed areas. This technique for gesso came from a link on Julie Balzer's blog to Traci Bunker's blog. I then used Julie's lotus blossom stencil on the lower right corner, a Dylusions stencil on the left pg with some black acrylic paint and stamps from two Dylusions sets:Bordering on the Edge and In Betweenies on the upper right page.

  This is the finished spread:

     I had taken this journal along with me when I went to my friend LuAnn's house earlier this week to play with her new Dylusion stamps and inks so I stamped a few images on the pages. I finished it the other day by using my Caran D'Ache Watercolor crayons along with a red and a white uni-ball pen (Signo) in places for some added color. I used a favorite Helen Keller quote- "My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation."

   Off to get some housework done so I can relax and carve my next lesson's stamp. Wish me luck-this one's going to be much more detailed :)

  

                       " The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."

                                                                                         Joseph Campbell