Rubber stamps are very appealing. They come as a block of lovely light maple wood, with a rubber image attached that produces a perfect image every time; or they come as a lightweight set of acrylic stamps for perfect placing. All very pretty and helpful - but also expensive and not environmentally friendly. So it's time to have some fun with stuff and do it the Ethical Cardmaker way.
I'd been eating this cabbage for weeks. It had begun as a huge green tasty thing, and was now a pale, limp Lump. Time to splosh paint over it, methinks. A friend of mine had some poster paints left over from making flags for a Eurovision Party
(I have a wide variety of friends) and had kindly donated me the leftover paint, so I got sloshing.As you can see it looked distinctly odd, but the result, when pressed on paper, was a surprisingly sophisticated Jackson
Pollock-y type thing. I was well pleased - a background paper of a unique kind!The weird pink thing that scanned oddly on the right is actually a polystyrene tray that someone had bought peaches in. My friend Cathy Park (see previous posts) had told me about polystyrene tray stamping - you draw/write with biro on the inside of the tray, ink up the raised image this produces on the bottom, and away you go. This peach tray saved me any effort at all - one peach has a sunburst pattern on it, another has the number 4, and there are also the two letters V and M. Readymade stamps from someone else's rubbish, which is one of my favourite kinds of craftiness.
You probably remember potato printing at primary school with some fondness. One hacked away at half a potato until one had produced a rough cross or circle shape, and splodged away until one had produced a nice splotchy mess for your teacher to fake-smile at encouragingly. Well, you can still do that. It's more fun when you're a grown up and can do whatever shape you want. For small motifs or shapes, carrots are even better, being harder. Go for it!
There's another item, however, that you'll probably have at least one of in your house, if only on the end of a pencil. I mean a rubber. If you've ever had a stationery set and you aren't a small child or a draughtsman, it's probably unused. Even the one on the end of the pencil can be used - slice the top off neatly if it's uneven, then you have a small circle stamp for the centre of flowers,
cartoon eyes and so on. But with a bigger one, you can make your own permanent, rubber rubber stamp! (Note to American readers - I believe that you call these things erasers, rather than rubbers. I'm not talking about condom art - yet.)
Take your rubber and draw a shape on it. I've chosen a teardrop. Then cut away the excess (remember - the raised part is the part that will be the finished image) with a kitchen or Swiss Army knife. That's it, really. And it's yours for years.
Now you can stamp! I made a rain shower backing paper which I think is rather pretty; then I played about a bit more with various colours, and used the shape for petals and leaves.
So the end result is a 'flower in the rain' topper which is now awaiting the right recipient. Very sweet. The paper, incidentally, came from a letter I received yesterday. The letter informed me that a shop I had never heard of was moving premises. Why was it sent to me? How on earth did I end up on their mailing list? Strange. Ah well, at least I found a use for it.So the paper, the paint and the stamp all came from things lying about my hovel, and other people's waste.
One further idea is to do a section of a repeating pattern, so that one can use the stamp as a border pattern. For instance, a section of Greek key pattern or celtic knot could be repeated down the edge of a card, if you've the patience to draw and cut it out once. Or even a simple heart or random swirly shape could be repeated as a border. As always, have fun and play!
Love to all,
Jehanine x
