Fun Rubbermoon Stamp

Rubbermoon images are so unique and many of them are positively "off the wall".  They make me laugh!

Bind it ALL

Yes, everything that isn't nailed down gets made into a book.  I love books.  My latest Bind-it-All project is a book of card designs, probably the first in a series.  This book focuses on designs using square, stamped images.  It contains cards I have made myself, cards I have been sent (the green one comes from my talented sister, Dianne), swap cards, and cards I have made in classes.

The idea was hatched out of my obsession with good design, and my inability to create a design quickly when I want to use a certain image on a card.  So, whenever I find a card design that I think is strong, I save it in a series of stacks sorted by image size and shape.  When I have enough for a book, I'll bind them together with my Bind-it-All.

Although I have the same sort of system devised for the many cards I see on blogs which I think have strong design, very few blogs give you all the measurements you need to recreate the cards quickly.  By having these samples,  I can quickly re-create a design I like.  In my dreams, I have taken all those Internet Favourites I have saved and created samples for my books.

My sister says I think too much.

Green Boxes with Threads

With the March swap behind me, I'm starting to think about the April design prompts for the Vancouver Artist Trading Card swap - dark green, boxes, and threads.

Thinking About Christmas?

Not really.  But I've been thinking about square cards, and made this rather unusual one with a new Rubbermoon stamp and some pencil crayons.

The Power of Thirds

I was playing with some clean and simple (CAS) cards last week, and was reminded again of the rudimentary design principle, "The Rule of Thirds".

For a good discussion of the "Rule of Thirds", see this tutorial by the Queen of CAS herself.

I hope everyone is enjoying these first days of spring!  Yippee!

Smile!

I'm busy preparing swap cards for the Part of My Art stamp club that meets the last Saturday of each month at the False Creek Community Centre on Granville Island, here in Vancouver, BC.

I hope any local stampers will join us - new people are always welcome to drop in.  Be prepared to smile - we always share a lot of fun and laughter.

More Colouring, Rubbermoon Style

Here's another artist trading card coloured with pencil crayons in what I call the "Rubbermoon Style".  Check out this link for more information.

Desperate Stampers Do Desperate Things

When I was in Montreal visiting my sister, we created these tags:

I say we, because my sister was very important in the creation of these tags.  I was sick and uninspired and she nudged me along, including dragging out to the kitchen three of her "go-to" stamps.  If you look closely, you can see them:  some prickly branches, some dots, and a scribble.  She said to me in her enthusiastic, emphatic way, "You absolutely must have these stamps!  Anytime you don't know what to do next, you just get out these stamps and it will all come together."  "Hmmm", I thought, in my much more hesitant way.  "I often don't know what to do next; I wonder if she's right?"

She had also given me a challenge that no serious stamp collector could resist.  I couldn't find them in any stores, but I ordered the twigs off the net because Stampscapes has a nice low shipping cost if you don't order much.  One down, two to go.   Last week I made a last ditch local expedition to find those stamps.  No luck.

With all my stamps you would think I have lots of dots and scribbles by now, wouldn't you?  A search through my stamp catalogue yielded some dots all right - a big background stamp made from textured wallpaper.   That got the wheels turning, I tell ya.   Why not just cut a bit into a small shape I can stamp about with panache, like my sister?  Some fun foam for mounting, a plastic handle I don't use, and it was done in five minutes.

What do you think?

Under the Sea

Here are some ATC's I'm working on for the next Vancouver Artist Trading Card swap:

These started out as salt and watercolour backgrounds, and I added the embossed sand, stamping and other collage elements.  Only 19 more to make!

As Winter Drags On

It seems cooler here this year than it usually does in early March.  I'm consoling myself by playing with the papers I gathered during a week in Hawaii in January, and remembering the lovely warm air and sunshine.  I've made a journal from brochures, and attached ticket stubs, bus transfers, etc.  Later I will add photos and more journalling:

The Piker's Guide to Oahu

Pikers ride the bus

A trip to Pearl Harbour

Salt Backgrounds

Last week I made some backgrounds with watercolour ink and salt.   Salt never does what it is supposed to for me so I put water on it with an eye dropper.  It made interesting backgrounds, but dissolved the salt into a crusty mess I had to sand off.

Stay tuned for what I plan to make with them!

March Vintage Collage

Here's a sample of some more vintage collage Artist Trading cards I'm working on:

I applied acrylic paint to a security envelope and then stamped on top of it.  The bead embellishment was inspired by Stamping Mathilda.  Godelieve is one of the most inspiring stampers for me.