Stamps and Fabrics

I finally made time to carve some more stamps, three of them are now in my Etsy store as well as some more packs of sun printed fabrics.

A series I'm making called simple folk.

Abstract flower

Another abstract flower

Another fabric pack

And another

Summer here has been late arriving but boy has it arrived with a vengeance, hence all of the sun printing, 39 deg c yesterday, 40 deg c 104 deg f today and then within ten minutes it's dropped to 26 deg c, that's Melbourne for you, take your coat to work just incase. Tomorrow's another day.
As if Queensland hasn't suffered enough with the floods, they are now waiting for a cyclone to hit the very north of the state, they forecast it to be one of the worst on record, Thursday morning will tell.

Good Luck to anyone living up there, who stops by here, we'll be thinking of you.

This guy's a regular visitor to our garden along with his friends, he's a black cockatoo. They sit in the tree in the photo and crack open the rock hard seed pods with their very strong beaks. They eat the seed in the middle, then drop the rest onto the metal roof of the shed below, it sounds like a hail storm.

Catching up and etsy

I seem to be constantly playing catch up at present.

The photo below is of some of the wonderful gifts I received from an art group get together, which was over a week ago now. Patsy, Dot, Julia and I met at Jacky's farm and had a wonderful lunch and get together. The beautiful beaded piece was from Dot using some of her lovely hand made felt.



We had a holiday today, Monday, to celebrate the Queen's birthday. I still haven't worked out why we have the holiday in June when her birthday is in April. I'm not complaining though, it gave me chance to decorate some more papers and add to my Etsy store.

This photo shows my area where I work to decorate the papers, it's not in my studio. I use the huge table I have for my workshops, it makes life so much easier.



These are some of the papers that go into my paper packs.




This is a laser print of one of my collages that has been scanned into photoshop and then I've changed the colour and added filters to it. This sheet comes in the pack too.




I've also added a small hand made journal, using my decorated papers, to my store. This has decorated pages and some original collages as well as fabric tags.




Finally I've added some more hand carved stamps.





I'd also like to thank Laura for giving me 'The Lovely Blog' award. Thanks so much Laura, it's much appreciated.

Stamps and stuff

I've been busy carving stamps and organizing classes, the brooch class is now full.
I'm really pleased with the stamp below, it's a repeat design that uses a motif often seen in Indian style fabrics. It can be used as it is singly or continuous. I used it with acrylic paint on sheer fabric. This is something I haven't done very often but will be great in my fabric/paper journals.

Theses stamps are all available on my etsy store.





This one is pansies and can be used in either direction to extend the design.



I can't seem to keep away from the poppy seed head, this is one of my favourite designs, they are always different as I draw directly onto the carving block.



I like the houses too as they can be repeated right across the page.



I've also been busy making jewellery over the past few weeks. This necklace is now living with Jacky, the lovely lady who makes the fabulous Klimt dolls.
Jacky loves working with fabrics so I made a little book from fabric and added the word 'textile' behind mica in the metal centre piece.






The necklace below was a commission from lovely Linda I showed some of it in an earlier post, it's now winging it's way to the US. I've called it a 'stitch in time' as it relates to all things sewing.

Journal and stamps

As usual I'm working on a dozen things at a time. Can't seem to help myself. I'm also making kits for an upcoming vintage book workshop I'm teaching from home. I haven't mentioned it on my blog as the class filled in two days. I've been very lucky with classes having such wonderful, enthusiastic students, keen to take on new challenges.

The photos below are of my new journal inspired by DJ's class. I've used my hand decorated papers, pieces of art and some of the fabrics I found in my treasure bag from my previous post.









Some of the papers are decorated with the new stamps that I've added to my Etsy site. I always do a few test runs before I sell them to make sure I'm happy with them.



This is something I did in Photoshop. I stamped the individual stamps onto separate pieces of paper, then scanned them into my computer. I them converted them into brushes and created different sizes. This is the result. I've printed a smaller one and added it to the journal. This is another way you can use your stamps.






Here are some button and fabric kits I've added to Etsy






These are my new stamps that I've tested on some of the journal pages above. They are now available on my Etsy. I've reduced the price of my existing stamps on etsy as the Aussie dollar is so low now, this makes them a bit more affordable to my Australian customers.

New hand carved stamps

Just a quick post tonight, it's getting late and I have to go to work in the morning. I've been busy rearranging my studio AGAIN. It seems to be an ongoing process.
I also spent quite a large part of the day carving some more stamps and finishing off a necklace. I've added three of the stamps to my etsy store.
I try to make them all unique so that they are one offs. I'll have more later.