Baked and Stamped

passion

resist

hidden

orb

dream

solace

partake

I had picked up an old baking sheet at a garage sale because of it's wonderful patina and distressed surface. I had thought of using it as a substrate for a project at one point. After seeing Cat's post about stamping at  "In the Light of the Moon"  I thought that I would get out the steel stamp set that I got at another garage sale and make some stampings. As you can see some of the letters don't have such high definition so I experimented with sanding the surface before stamping. I'm not sure if  they didn't show up because of the quality of the stamps or the fact that I was stamping against some soft wood. The reverse side had a great embossed quality that I really liked but of course the letters are backwards then. I dropped some alcohol inks  on the lettering to highlight the indentations. In the end some are still not quite so readable but I kind of like the diffuse effect that makes you looks a little harder to see what it says and might not dominate the work that I use it in. 

What do you think?

Paint, Ink, Beeswax & Images~ ATC's

I unearthed the high grade printmaking paper that I had left over from a printmaking class I took in the early 90's. I decided to play with some of the acrylic paints in bottles that I had bought and experiment some more with my inks blending and brushing colors and dropping ink drops onto the paint. Since the application was thick and saturated I would blot the paper with another paper doubling my decorated surfaces. I cut these up into ATC-sized pieces 2.5 X 3.5 inches to use later.

Later on I stamped designs on some and added my images and text. I had just decoupaged some boxes with vintage Bingo cards (that I received in a giveaway from Amy at Mittens) and had a few snippets of text left from them which I used.

I had picked up some beeswax to use in some encaustic work but haven't yet gotten the damar resin that's needed to harden it properly. I haven't been schooled in the process yet so I was winging it by just using melted beeswax on it's own. I had some printed images on muslin that I thought would become more translucent with the application of wax but it just seemed to coat it rather than enhance except for some really gauzy worn fabric.

After scraping and distressing the wax I was left with some nondescript textural pieces. I had some mini scrapbooking rivets to play with too. Here's what I came up with~

Which one speaks to you?

"Strings"

waxed, stitched inked and riveted muslin

"Capture a Spiral and Turn it to Gold"

waxed teabag, gold coil, stamped and waxed background

"Somebody Stop Him!"

text and image from vintage children's book

"Postage Due"

printed muslin and ephemera catalog image

"Vertically & Horizontally"

moon piece cut form old printmaking project, Bingo text

"Modern Glyph"

Vintage dressmaking book, stampings

"Be-Bi-Bo-Bu"

waxed fabric, vintage sheet music, stamping on inked, painted and blotted paper

"Music with a Flourish"

stamping, vintage sheet music, waxed fabric, stitching

"Diagonally"

Image from vintage Japanese dressmaking school book, Bingo text

"12 Different Ways"

Bingo text, vintage company stamp

"Vertically or Diagonally"

Bingo text , harnessing diagram and waxed muslin

"Japanese Stitchery"

stitched, painted and stamped muslin, image from vintage dressmaking school book

"It makes you think"

Dolly Dingle paper doll, game image

"Balancing Act"

Chinese text from travel pamphlet and stamping

"Five"

Bingo text, stitching, ink

"Free"

bottle cap (from Artymess), charm and stampings

Craft Cram Part Deux~ A Hodge Podge With the Mod Podge

And then I ventured into the realm of collage for pure play.

I like that this was my own photo from our trip to Burma.

Anemone picture from a Dover book printed on vellum

Vintage illustration of a Dutch girl holding flowers

I started this piece last year and cut off the parts I didn't think worked so well.

I had a stash of root vegetables on hand.

Pre-painted paper from a color swap.

More experimenting with stamping.

Vintage photo from a blog giveaway.

Not sure why I had to give this seventies era gal a turnip head but she was asking for it.

Must be the diseased blood slide that sets it off although the little guy in the corner kind of looks like a fishy.

Make sure and smell the roses.

Somehow this works, not that there's rhyme or reason to it.

( not any that I'll reveal anyhow!)