STAMPING ONTO BUTTONS

STAMPING ONTO BUTTONS

You might have noticed that I've been doing lots of experimenting lately with inks and various surfaces. This is another example.

I was fairly confident that Versafine would work on wooden buttons but as most of them are plastic, wondered how Staz-On would go.  (I know that this does not involve paper but my intention is to use the buttons for papercraft projects so......)

The red button was fairly flat and the stamp was OK, although it was really hard to stop it slipping on the shiny surface.  The second button, even on the reverse (shown) had a bit of a curve (as do most buttons).  I tried using an acrylic stamp without a block so that it could bend with the surface, but wasn't able to hold it well enough and as you can see, I ended up with a blodgy mess (its supposed to be lace).

I think my conclusion is that unless there's a compelling reason I won't be stamping onto plastic buttons and if I need to add some pattern I'll just reach for my Sharpie pens and draw on the design.
After all, how hard can it be...................

STAMPING ONTO METAL WITH STAZ-ON

BLACK INK STAMPED ONTO METAL

....Just thought I'd share how cool Beethoven stamped onto the reverse of a Diet Coke can (using BLACK Staz-On) looks.......Lots of jewellery potential here!!!

STAMPING ONTO BOOK PAGES

Quite a while ago I shared an example of printing onto book pages.  Stamping onto book pages is even easier!!!!

The bird doesn't exactly go with the text (from a John le Carre novel) but if you were thoughtful you could make some more meaningful pairings between stamp and background.

SUPER SIMPLE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT

SUPER EASY CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT

I'm a bit prone to sifting through the paper bin at work and "rescuing" potentially useful bits of this and that.  Every now and then, I feel compelled to make something with them just to show that I'm not just a crazy paper hoarder. (Yes, all right, I know the two aren't, strictly speaking, mutually exclusive).

Anyway, should you come across some perfectly good strips of light card in the bin or otherwise, you can use it to make an ornament by cutting one piece the length you want it to be and then cutting long strips of differing lengths, folding them in half and securing them at the top and bottom.  A staple would do, but I've drilled holes with my new screw punch and used a split pin to hold the ends together.

I've added some twine as a hanger at the top, threading it through the hole before the split pin went in. A lot of variations are possible using the same basic principle, but I'll leave that up to your imagination.

SHADOW STAMPING WITH ACRYLIC STAMPS

REVERSE STAMP BACKGROUND

Oh dear, this is not an original idea but I can't remember where I heard/saw it.....I'm happy to add an attribution if anyone could suggest the source.

Anyway its a simple but fabulous idea - just use a tiny bit of double sided tape to stick your acrylic stamp upside down on your stamping block, and then use it as a "shadow" for underneath the image.  In this example I used silver underneath and crimson on top.  You'll have to take my word for it that it looks better in reality.

(I probably shouldn't mention that a little lick and stick is a speedier way than double sided tape to stick the stamp onto the block for the first step.)

COLOURED PENCILS ON WOOD

COLOURING STAMPS ON WOOD.

O.K so last week I worked out that Versafine stamps well on wood.  The next issue is deciding how to colour it.  The images were stamped onto a piece of sticky-backed cherry wood.

I did some little samples first.  (Bottom right corner) Alcohol based markers bled very badly into the wood.
Water based markers were OK but a bit overly bright for what I had in mind.  I finally settled on pencils, and was pleased with the results.

I was interested in the top example as I think with a bit more thought you could get a nice faux intarsia effect.

STAMPING ON WOOD WITH VERSAFINE

WOODEN SHAPES WITH VERSAFINE STAMPING

Most articles reccomend using Staz-on when stamping on wood, but as I wanted to use an non-water based varnish on another project, I was interested to see if a water clean-up ink would do the job.  (A solvent based varnish makes Staz-On bleed and blur).

I'm pleased to report that Verafine does the trick beautifully with only the tiniest amount of bleed, even although the text on the stamp I used is tiny and very finely detailed.

Its hard to see the size of these wooden shapes from the drawing, but the clock is about 2.5cm wide (i.e. they are little).

Right now for the next project............

DOUBLE STAMPING

DOUBLE STAMPING

This is a bit like kiss stamping, but instead of removing colour you add it by using an inked background stamp to stamp onto another fairly solid stamp inked with a contrasting colour.  You then stamp with the latter so that the outline of the solid stamp is filled with the pattern of the background stamp.

I was happy with how well the black pattern showed up on the pink ink, although I think I'd use other colours if I intended doing anything other than playing with this technique.  I'll be playing with it a lot more though, as it has lots of possibilities, especially if you make your own "solid" stamps from fun foam and die-cuts.

NAIL POLISH MARBLING

NAIL POLISH MARBLING

R. Maria Sabina wrote an article for Craft Stamping magazine outlining this technique and I couldn't wait to try it!  Basically you just drop some nailpolish on top of water, swirl it with a toothpick and print off the result.

As with most things it wasn't quite as easy as this.  The author did address most of the issues I had but of course I read the article properly after
the issues arose.  So, for fellow skim-readers here's a few tips.

Firstly unless you have a very warm room, use lukewarm water - most of the nailpolishes I used just sank in little drops to the bottom - something I ascribed to the brand (which did make a difference) but was probably a temperature issue.

Secondly, as mentioned, all the polishes I used were of the cheap and chips variety (no more that $2.50 per bottle) but there was a lot of variation between brands - some just sank, others created a "skin" on the top of the water, and a couple of the brands seemed to interact with each other to make a sort of lumpy mess.  In other words - buy one bottle of a single brand and do a test run before you get carried away.

Thirdly gloss card has bolder results than matt but the latter still gave a nice albeit more subtle result.

And lastly......wear rubber gloves, or you'll be typing up your blog posting with dark green fingers!!!!!

Despite making a bit of a mess of the whole thing, I was. overall, pleased with the results, and might give it a go again soon, having learnt a few lessons from the first attempt.

VASES FOR PAPER FLOWERS

REPURPOSED JARS - TWINE VASES

The papercraft aspect if this project are the flowers in the vase - the lilies that have featured previously, and the little text flowers that were made by stacking up three layers of two sizes of retro flower punched book pages.  The layers are secured with wire threaded through a button and twisted underneath to form stems.

Actually the flowers are a bit of a pretext to share these little vases (made from an empty jam jar and herb container).  I was feeling a bit overly tired and wanted something that involved a minimal amount of brainpower (since I'm not very good at sitting in front of the TV and doing nothing with my hands) and saw these in a craft book from the 1970s - all the go back them, and making a revival now, I think.  Just pick a jar, get some string, and wind, coating the jar with a thin layer of tacky craft glue as you go.  I had some hessian trim in a contrasting colour to add as a feature but this is optional.  If you like to fold paper flowers or want a container for pens and pencils these are ideal - very low cost and even lower brain power required.

CORK STAMPING AS DIGITAL PAPER

I haven't done any digital bits for a while so I thought it was about time.  I keep some examples of things that I really don't like as well as ones that I do (although not as many of them!).  It sometimes helps to try and work out what it is that you don't like, so that you can produce more work that you do.  (If that makes sense).  My start image was this rather horrible concoction of stuck together papers and brown paint stamped on with a cork so.......what don't I like?  Well, for starters the colours are foul, the white panel is too stark and the cork stamping just looks like muddy blodges.  so can it be saved??

I opened up the picture in Elements and started with the colours which just don't work together.  I played around with variations adding lots of blue and green until it looked a bit better.  The cork stamping still looked a bit splodgy and messy to I went into the filters gallery and from the Pixelate section selected and applied "Pointillise" which introduced a little order to the "blodges".  Last of all I just used the elements cookie cutter tool to cut out a butterfly and there you are...!!
Truthfully, I probably won't ever use this background again, but I had fun trying to make it at least semi-presentable!!

ACCORDION FEATURE FOR CARD

TIE WITH A RIBBON

I really like little accordion books, and there's no reason you can't adapt them for cards as well.  This little book ties closed and features Darkroom Door stamps, but the format is handy if you're making a card that lots of people want to sign - just make the book a bit bigger if they want to add their "best wishes" as well.
Just an aside....the feather is a Couture Creations die that I've chopped up a bit to make a bit more "feathery" and I've tied two together with wire - white card on the bottom and  velum on top. I've added just a teeny spray of water to the vellum to make it curl slightly - again, it just gives a little more body to the die cut.

ACCORDION FEATURE FOR CARD

DIE CUT WITH FABRIC

DIE CUT WITH FABRIc

Thin cotton fabric stuck to thick packaging card with double sided Jac paper, then die-cut looks good, and is an alternative to paper or paint/ink.

If you cut with the fabric face down on the die, the edges bend over slightly and you can get away without having to ink the sides.

You might have to experiment to find out which of your dies are up to the task as the ones designed for thin paper won't have enough cutting power.  I haven't tried a doiley die, but suspect the more intricate cutters wouldn't work very well either.  This is a thick Sizzix die, but I expect most of the nesting dies and the old silver Cuttlebug ones would work too.
As long as the stack you use is not too thick for your machine, it won't hurt to experiment!

DISTRESS INK EMBOSSING

DISTRESS INK EMBOSSING

I was going to put this little example in the bin about three times but something stopped me.

It was created by swooshing a few different colours of distress ink, straight from the cubes onto the plastic surface of an embossing folder,( whilst talking to a room full of people, although that bit is optional)  then running it through the Cuttlebug.

Distress inks are very watery . (They are supposed to be), this means that they tend to bead on plastic and smoosh together more than a lot of other inks, when this technique is used.

I kind of like the random nature of the result.  If I was doing it again with a bit more thought I'd choose colours closer on the colour wheel (perhaps yellow-orange-red) and maybe even add a little spray of water to encourage the inks to spread a little bit more.

There's a l lot of potential to play here and, for those who stress about such things, the ink came straight off the embossing folder with a baby wipe!!

EMBOSSING WITH ALUMINIUM FOIL

ALFOIL EMBOSSING

This is a simple technique that just involves wrapping some stiff cardboard (I used packaging) with a two or three layers of aluminium cooking foil, and embossing with your Cuttlebug (or whatever machine you have).

I just secured the foil with a bit of tape at the back but some double-sided Jac would be a more stable way to fix it.

This was a quick snap taken under a fluorescent light but I'm quite taken with the photographic applications of a really shiny embossed surface, as well as its obvious craft uses.  (If you look closely there's a little bit of me in this shot!).

Colour could be added in a variety of ways.....perhaps for future posts????