Clear Acrylic Stamps

Last week I was gifted with clear acrylic stamps and an acrylic block. I had seen these before, but was unconvinced of the value compared to traditional stamp blocks. And had I not been gifted with these, I probably would have delayed trying them even longer.

This is cropped from my journal, an experiment with the clear stamps and traditional stamps. All but the wording was done with the clear stamps. This is also an experiment in building layers of colors.

Now that I’ve tried them, I have to admit, I am a convert! Yes, I will be purchasing my stamps in acrylic if at all possible from now on. They have several advantages, the first, in my eyes being that you can actually see where you are stamping at. No more guesswork, no more hoping it’s lined up where you want it, you look through the acrylic and place the stamp exactly where you want it.

The next advantage is storage. After you use the acrylic stamp on the block, you can peel it back off, place it back on the sheet it came on and store them taking up much less room than traditional stamps do. A definite advantage in a small house.

And the final advantage is cleanup. The ink washes off the acrylic so much easier than traditional rubber stamps. I was even able to clean them without using any stamp cleaning solution. YEAH! No more stamp solution smells!

There is a disadvantage, they are a bit pricey, or appear to be on first look. I’m actually not sure they are pricey the more I think about this. A sheet at the local stamp store was running in the $10-15 range, but that sheet had several stamps on it, so on second thought, perhaps they really aren’t that pricey. And I’m convinced the advantages outweigh that one possible disadvantage and I’ll be purchasing more of my stamps this way in the future.

Thanks to those friends whose gifts pushed me to try out the clear stamps………….want to go shopping you two? I know the perfect stamp shop!

Prepping Watercolor Paper

These are the beginnings of backgrounds for an swap I’m participating in. Each member is to make 25 pages based on the theme of “winter” for the swap. I decided for my pages I would use watercolor paper (140#) and do a wash technique on the very bottom layer. Then work my way forward with stamps and paints and images.

What I didn’t do was to pull out my art techniques book and read up on watercolor before I started! But, I’ve been known to just jump in and see what happens.

What I learned was that it’s probably best to read first. If I had, I would have “stretched” these dry pages before I did the wash, and according to the book, they would not have then curled. Stretching, apparently, is done by taping the dry watercolor paper to a solid surface. Then brushing it with plain water to soak it, and allowing it to dry while still taped. Which should then maintain a flat surface as you apply further layers of watercolors.

Live and learn, and who knows, maybe they’ll still flatten out?

Another week gone in a flash!

WOW, another week has gone by in a flash! This one was a great week, full and busy. I started the week off with the delivery of my IQ (Intelliquilter) system for my Gammill. After several months of debate, the decision was made a while ago that computerized quilting was going to be a necessary part of my longarm business. And the system is working as good and easy as I expected it to. I spent a lot of time this week on quilting and learning the menu’s. Yesterday I even started doing custom on a quilt (one of mine) with the system.

And I finished a small art piece. This piece is dedicated to my paternal grandmother.

Grandma (who always signed herself as grandmother) has probably had the biggest influence on who I became as anyone in the family. She was an artist, she painted, she baked, she loved to read and she passed too soon, when I was just a teenager. Her piano was priceless to me as a child and an adult. I have one of her paintings and her sketchbooks, and treasure them dearly. This piece has a photo transfer of her just before she passed on. The flowers are photo printed on organza and taken directly from a scan of a watercolor drawing in her sketchbook. The music is a printed collage of the pieces I learned to play on her piano as a child. The edging is done with chennille yarn.

I also started back to work on a piece that’s been sitting quietly waiting for me for way too long:

I asked several friends what they saw when they looked at the above piece, flower stalks or seaweed. The unamimous answer was seaweed, which tells me I have a lot of work to do on this piece yet. Yes, it is intended to be flowers when it’s finished.

This week also brought several surprise presents in the mail. One of which I have taken a picture of. My Secret Quilter from the MQR forum sent me this surprise package:

Aren’t the colors in those batiks absolutely wonderful? And the tumbling block will hang in my studio window. I need to do a special chain for it to hang from, something in silver and beading. And the card, well, it contained another tease about who my Secret Quilter is…….and I’m still on the case trying to solve the clues. LOL

Tomorrow I’ll take pictures of the wonderful hand-made jewelry that came in today’s mail! And to everyone who called, or e-mailed or stopped by today (or yesterday now as it’s after midnight) THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!! Each and every one of you made it a WONDERFUL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!