Carving my way…

Mary from Joyful Ploys was doing it this week. Julie shared a whole bunch that people she knew had done on Balzer Design. I did a little bit of it with my friend Kim in Montreal last week.  I watched a couple of videos on You Tube this morning to inspire my own, like this one from Journal Artista, Paula. Then, I spent a couple of hours today, getting really into doing it myself.

I am talking about carving my own rubber stamps.

I love creating my own tools, ones that make my journal pages even more uniquely mine.

Most of the stamps I carve are simple, bold kind of designs. Nothing too specific. That way they can be used in a lot of different ways.

One thing I got from Paula in the above mentioned video was using both sides of a piece of carving rubber or a white eraser. Then you can make twice as many stamps with the same materials !

I carved this kind of lollipop tree shape on one side of the rubber…

And this second tree shape with random dots on it on the other. I also carved a teeny house with a chimney.

I tried out the stamps on this piece of dictionary page, using acrylic paints in a few colors and a make up sponge to apply it to the stamps.

I was kind of on a roll after that.

I also carved a tropical looking flower,

a kind of chicken foot, or leaf pattern, a crosshatched heart,

another heart with an edge around it, and some kind of weird tribal looking design with a scrap piece of the rubber.

I will probably add some more paint to these dictionary pages and use then in bits and pieces in my journal.

I will definitely use these new tools in my journal pages as well.

Maybe some will end up in some other places too, like this strange bird one that I carved at Kim’s house :

I stamped it with black Staz-on ink on a sheet of sketchbook paper and then added some more pen lines.

With some yummy Neocolor Watercolor crayons, my kooky bird turned out kind of cool.

Perhaps a Valentine for someone special ?

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Off to dinner and a movie with my pal Sonia tonight. Tomorrow, haircut and lunch with Lois.

Friday, some artsy friends are coming over to my house for a special project. More on that later….

Next week, I leave to going south to FLA to meet up with some special blog friends !

Looks like February is going to be another great month for time with friends !

Happy Friendship February, Fabulous Ones !

Big Love !