welcome to the hop!

Don't forget to hop on over to IACW for the wonderful Easter themed blog hop which is happening now!
There is lots of lovely blog candy to be won...as well as some rather fabulous ideas to inspire your crafting...so what are you waiting for..?
:0)

damask post take two...

wooo hooo!!
i've finally gotten Blogger to accept my pictures and the damask design post can now be seen properly :0)

click here or scroll down to see it!

Bubbly Scrumptious...

...did you see my card over on Bubbly Scrumptious today..?  click here to view it :0)

i'm sorry i can't show you a picture here...but click the link and see if you can spot my mistake!!!

Stamp Carving 101 lesson 6...damask!

This has to have been one of the most surprisingly enjoyable lessons so far...damask designs and I are not natural bedfellows as they tend to be a bit subtle {tone on tone} for me...but I had a go at designing my own and I absolutely love it!!!


I started off my making a drawing, which I did half of, and then folded the paper to transfer the design to create a symmetrical pattern...here is the drawing and the finished stamp together:

when its printed out it looks like this:

pretty cool, huh! ;0)

But don't worry if  you're intimidated by the idea of drawing  your own damask design...Julie provides templates for people who want to use her designs!

If you look closely at the stamp you'll see that i carved it really deeply to give a good clear impression and create a really bold damask design.  This is personal choice of course, you could go for a really dainty design...but i've never been accused of being dainty!!! lol

and here it is stamped onto an old napkin in fabric ink...all i need now is a plain white table cloth and i'm going to stamp it all over to match the napkins...and who knows...i might even be a big brave girl and iron them so they look a bit better!! ;0)

As always i'd love your feedback...what do you think of my design?  do you like it stamped in pink...or do you think it would have been better in a dark colour?  i'm waiting to find some deep purple fabric ink actually to do the table cloth and the rest of the napkins...watch this space!

Its a Creative World...

...have you been over to the Creative World blog lately...today there is another stamp carving post with a journal page by me...but also details of the rather exciting blog hop coming!!

lesson four in Stamp 101...a set of stamps

This was a fun lesson...and one that i've done very roughly and rustically...in fact...now that i've seen my stamps in huge on the screen i may actually go back and tidy them up a bit *out of shame* ;0)

The idea of this lesson was to get out heads around creating shaped stamps and in sets that are co~ordinated so they work together.  Julie had a really cute bunting set to share and some chevrons a bit like these...i decided to make mine chevrons as i think they are really useful for corners of for making fun borders like the wonky one i test printed below:

I think small image stamps are often overlooked in terms of their usefulness...just look at this rather funky quitled star type pattern i've created by repeat printing two of my chevrons to make a sort of flower shape...

and the sort of 3~D box i've created with a tiny square and a chevron...

there must be no limit to the number of variations of these sorts of designs...so i think i'll go and play a bit more!

i do hope you're enjoying seeing the fruits of my carving labours...and do join julie's class...she's awesomely funny and a great teacher to boot!

Bubbly Scrumptious update...a LO!

do hop on over to the Bubbly Scrumptious blog today and see the cute LO i've made using some 12x12 scraps to make a 6x12 page for my book of me :0)

lesson 3 in stamp carving 101...

My head cleared a little more today so i decided to have a little go at some simple, soothing stamp carving and today i opted for Julie's lesson 3 of the stamp carving 101.

Julie's design was a contained chevron pattern that could be repeat stamped seamlessly and was cool...but i couldn't see myself using it much...and as energy and coordination are in such short supply i thought i'd adapt it to a border that i was much more likely to use.  No point wasting time, energy and rubber on something that doesn't get me itching, right? ;0)

To help you follow along with my design process...i've stamped out my stamp at various stages during its evolution {as Julie recommends} and you can see the progress from simple chevron lines in stage one, adding the stitched border a la Julie in stage two, and the addition of shading in stages three and four:

its funny how doing it like this is less intimidating too...if i'd drawn out the finished stamp right from the beginning...i might have been tempted to think...help!  *that's going to take all day*...but actually...the whole process took twenty minutes from start to finish! :0)

and here is a shot of the stamp as it is when inked...and another of the tag I've created using my funky new border stamp!  I have to say, i'm rather chuffed with this little border stamp and can see myself using it in my journal or on scrapping pages in the future too...so well worth the effort, i'd say!

Julie Fei~Fan Balzer's Stamp 101 e~course...

As a little Birthday treat to myself, I decided to join Julie's Stamp 101 e~course...a step by step course to the basics of stamp carving...and its BRILLIANT!!  I would really recommend this class to anyone who fancies a go at carving your own stamps :0)  click here to be taken to her e~course page.

I've done a little stamp carving {and in the old days lino cutting when I had strong fingers}, so i wasn't sure how much i'd learn...but what with the chemo~fog and all i thought a little prompting in the form of daily lessons might get me up and running...and it has!

Now, i'm only on lesson 2...but here is what i created from Julie's easy to follow nesting stamp tutorial.  Her's was straight lines...mine is circles...and very rustic wonky circles at that!

Here is what you get when you stamp these 2 stamps though using different colours {i've used Stazon which is why its staining the stamps}.

Perhaps this makes it clearer...I started with this drawing...and ended up creating this cute little tag!

The observant among you will notice that i haven't told you how to do this...and that's because i don't want to steal Julie's thunder, after all her hard work setting up this super class...i really think you ought to join it and get all the details from the horses mouth...so to speak! ;0)  Also...she explains it much better, in video format than i could ever do here!!

Ok, that's it for now...i'll be back when i can manage it...and in the meantime...i hope you're all having a crafty time out there :0)

dreaming of texture...

a little canvas play today...all the details over on the its a creative world blog...just click here for all the details :0)