WOYWW #442: One Eyed Challenges (#PASC1117)

It's Wednesday, and time for another adventure with my fellow deskers.

For more WOYWW fun, you can head for the hub of the fun over at the blog of our fearless leader, Julia Dunnit HERE.

Some of my fellow deskers already have some idea as to the challenges I've continued to face since the optic nerve to my left eye malfunctioned at the end of summer of this year. Many of you have continued to boost my morale with kind comments. That's really been lovely, and I want to say a fond Thank You now for your recent kindness towards me. As I haven't been able to comment to your posts as much as I used to, such generosity has genuinely touched me.

One thing I keep discovering: my eyesight's strength has had either worse or better days. A better day was when I tried doing a man's face. That was 2 posts ago. I risked the strength of both my eyesight and my morale that time by trying something that I'd never done before: a full color painted sketch of an old portrait. 

Most days have not been as easy for my eyesight as that day was. All of it is tough to get used to in that I need to be constantly vigilant of how my eyes happen to be doing. I'm forgivably clumsy at times when there's delicacy required. Such challenges have often put a damper on my mood. I'm learning how not to lose patience with the whole situation as well as how to content myself with what CAN be done each time that I attempt something. 

Junk Journals offer unique challenges, too, especially in the area of materials used in the building of any junk journal. This one has a tendency to buckle at times, so I've had to use a curly paper clip whilst taking this week's photo. 

This time, I'm trying the November Pick a Stick Challenge, the prompts for which may be found by following the link HERE.  

The challenge calls for making a pocket. I've opted to make a folded paper bag pocket out of a sheet of deli paper to which I added one of the pretty embellished papers which Win Dinn sent me recently for our paper trade. The diagonal phrase I cut from a newspaper, while the other two collaged word bits are both from a magazine, as per the prompts. 

The words mean something on a very deep level to me today. I believe that art can help me keep adjusting even if it is my biggest challenge. As for the advice to not "stress about it," well, that would be another of life's challenges.

I've Gone Wacky for Customized Trim!

It is nearing the end of August, and so I have a Junk journal challenge to finish - it's a mad dash!

I am still uncertain whether or not I'll to be able to do everything I've thought of doing for that challenge, one that was issued by Kerry of Kerrymay Makes. Please go HERE for more about that challenge.

I've finished preparing a number of pages for the new journal, but keep needing to make a few changes. For one thing, I dislike overstuffed books, as they do not store easily on my already overcrowded selves.  I mention this due to the fact that I've had to edit out an entire signature. But more on that for the next post when I'll (hopefully) be done binding the book.

Meantime, I wanted to trim things, yet found supplies somewhat lacking in certain areas, especially with the color ways I've chosen for the book. Kerry's challenge mentions using what we have, and so when inspiration finally struck me, I created my own custom trim.

Allow me to introduce you to my weird and wild version of washi tape that I call my "Wacky Tape." Lolz. I've outlined my process using photos with captions below.

My mad dash continues once a few bits of housework get taken care of! I hope to post the finished book for tomorrow's WOYWW.

Wish me luck!

WOYWW #414 Rough Cut Journal Goes Messy!

(Oh my goodness! Am I too late?) I love my Rough Cut and Wrinkled cereal box + duct tape journal so much that I call it my Playtime Journal.

It's a good one to use when I really want to relax, make messes, and silence the inner critic. Silencing that inner critic can really be a challenge at times, can't it? This journal seems to help with that a bit.

Here's that project. I'll explain further below, for those who have enough time for my messy musings.

For more WOYWW fun, visitors can head for Julia Dunnit's Stamping Ground where there is a Linky tool that allows her guests to join her weekly workdesk events. 

I'm back after a year long hiatus with WOYWW, but before I took that long break I posted about the making of my Rough Cut and Wrinkled journal. If you'd care to see more about its construction and innards, you may visit that post HERE.

The Mission Inspiration prompts I chose to follow this time I first heard about from one of my favorite vloggers, Shel C of Ocotillo Studio. They may be found at her recent nautical-themed video HERE. She got them from Mike Deakin, who also has a fun channel on YouTube.

I don't know whether you can see it, but there really is a torn section of some stamped deli paper I made for a previous post at this blog ( Visit my "No Gelli Deli" HERE) in the bridge between pages. While some of it smeared owing to a pigment issue, I still enjoyed the final outcome and so have chosen to leave it as is. Besides, I figured it would add some durability to this overworked pair of brown paper pages.

The project had already been underway since last year, so I had to alter it before it would fit the prompts list. Prompt colors this time include Teal, Lavendar and/or Grey. I made my own batch of Teal to use in this case. I tend to enjoy mixing my own colors in small batches and keeping them in tightly lidded small containers as I have less space than I used to have for my creative side.

The pages were already coated with some of my experimental homemade faux "gesso" along with some blended streaks of blues and greens. The paper underneath is from a used paper bag or else from brown packing paper.  That was last year's part. 

More recent additions were reconstituted (almost ruined out of neglect on my part!) modeling paste alphabet letters. The idea at the start was to have the letters, X, Y and Z be friends playing hooky outdoors and getting caught by a sudden spring shower. I later finger painted them in orange, red and yellow, respectively. 

The "household item" I used to make a mark may be seen in the photo at the top of this post. It's an upcycled little plastic cup from a sandwich place that delivers me yummy fresh salads now and again. It used to contain a serving of parmesan cheese. It was used to make the playful and childlike sun, upper left.

Another prompt is to use graph paper or composition paper collaged into the design. I couldn't figure out what had happened to my nice green graph paper, and so fudged this bit just a smidgeon by using a greenish ledger paper sheet instead for the grass at the foot of the page. I overlaid this with a thin glaze of Mod Podge + acrylic paint. 

I like sparkle when I am being playfully creative, so naturally there has to be glitter. I mean - c'mon! Ya gotta have glitter, right?  :) 
I've used 2 types of glitter here, one in a thinned Mod Podge runny formula into which I've added superfine iridescent clear glitter. The other one is applied glitter at the end, while things were still really sticky. The tiny shaker for it may be seen in my photo, too.

For the ribbon, yarn or string part, I chose to go with a remnant of textured yarn to use as a kite string. I painted over it using my teal, but it does not show up very well in the photo, unfortunately. The kite idea allows me to fit my XYZ picture into the Prompt theme ideas, which included the idea that we are to "Reach" and to achieve.

I opted to use torn strips of scrapbooking paper to one page to use under some words done using that Teal paint that I'd mixed. I had to use a fine tipped detail brush for those letters since my fine tipped squeeze bottles appear to have gone missing. That worked out OK for me, which was a surprise since I really am not very good at hand lettering. The other letters on the facing page I made using that same brush, but in vivid yellow this time in order to create balance for my Z.

The 3 focal points are, of course, the Modeling Paste alphabet letters that are "playing hooky" from school in a sudden rain shower. The best part of it is that we were enjoying a nice thunderstorm at the time! I love a good thunderstorm, despite any possible lightning, don't you? Everything smells and sounds delightful. I'll sometimes leave my windows wide open for a storm like that as long as the rain's not windblown in the wrong direction. 

I guess that's everything on the list now. Thanks for popping over despite my being tardy. Hope everyone's having a splendid Wednesday! See you all very soon!

~Rose

P.S. Here's the Final Reveal. Definitely wrinkly and messy fun for me!
:)

WOYWW #413 (with a long hiatus)

Making time for some WOYWW fun today, even though there isn't much for you to see.

If you want to see what everybody else is doing, just follow this link HERE to Julia's Stamping Ground blog. I can hardly wait to see what everyone else is up to today!

I'm tempted to title this post "A Blob and Some Bits" lolz. The blob is a mysterious chunk of gunk which I recently dislodged from the bottom of the jar it was inhabiting. I had to soak it in water for days in order for it to soften enough. The weird thing is that I still have no idea as to exactly what form of substance it was! The good news is that I now have a cleaned out art jar to fill with some other substance - this time with a waxed paper shield between the lid and the jar! It took forever to remove that stuck-on lid.

The hunk of mystery gunk or blob I posed at my cutting and punching station so you could see what it looks like:

Far from fascinating for the viewer, but it is what's on my work desk today. I guess I'll never figure out what that was. Heaven only knows!

The "Bits" are a few of the paper tiles that I made last month and that are shown in my most recent blog post here. I've replaced my Scrabble letters in order to add some more color and pizzazz to one part of my storage + display area. The rail is resting atop a tiny doll sized chest of drawers in which are kept small items used for collage.

Now to finally get to see what all of you have been up to!

:)

At last! - something to post about!

It's been a very long while since I had either the time or the inclination to start posting once more at this secondary blog.

What got me started were a number of factors. For one thing, I kept noticing how I was being left behind out of my own lack of attention to what a number of groups and people had been doing creatively online. But it took more than that plus weeks of deliberating before I could make art again. I had to do this in steps, even though I was impatient to complete the project.

The final piece fell into place when I saw a Shemi Dixon video on making letter tiles. I'd always enjoyed her channel, her DIY videos in particular, but for some reason that one video really sparked my non-digital studio side. I'll post  a link to her video below.

She started off with her idea that it's silly to spend $6 on something a person can make themselves. $6 for a little package! Not that Tim Holtz isn't a cool designer, but sometimes it's more fun to do something custom. See? There's a reason I appreciate her DIY videos!  :)

That inspiration led me to bring out last year's (oh dear! - a whole year???) deli paper stamped collage papers along with some paint, gesso, and my favorite glue of choice, Liquitex Matte Gel Medium. For my previous post on using found objects and regular rubber stamps for that deli paper project, please go HERE.

For my own project, I chose a former Amy's frozen food box, as I felt the heft and thickness of the cardboard would work well enough. The finished product looks like this:

But it had humbler beginnings that looked like this:

I kept finding ways to work around different problems at the same time that I was experimenting. Some of my stamp inks seemed to never quite "set" on the deli paper sheets in last year's project, even when I'd heated them using a dry iron with release paper sandwiched in between to protect the iron. So I glued them face down as a precaution, sometimes using paint, and at other times using my homemade gesso (gesso experiment also in a previous post here). I sometimes wish I'd stopped at that point. I mean, they really looked kinda cute to me.

In keeping with the DIY and reuse theme, I utilized a few things I had around the house:

Next, I had to add more color, this time so the edges would look finished:

A somewhat blurred but closer look at the plain tiles:

I really think I'll be experimenting some more and soon with Shemi Dixon's fun idea, only more for a "mosaic tile" kind of look in crafts and/or books. Some don't need alphabet letters. And anyhow, I am not that strong a stenciler! lolz

:)

Here is Shemi Dixon's fab video! I really like how hers turned out, don't you? Hers are adorable! More professional looking than mine, that's for sure. 

Hmmm. Guess I could use a better stencil set and some new brushes.

I hope to be able to add more soon to this very neglected second blog of mine!

Cheers!

~Rose

Auto Parts Stamps on White

Welcome to the Wild Stamp Deli!

Last week, I got a small box of deli paper sheets. The tip I followed in order to find the right ones was from Shel C. Thanks, Shel!

This week, for Carolyn Dube's "Let's Play" weekly Link Party (see link button in my right hand column) I tried a first experiment using a number of the sheets plus pigment ink pads. The stamps I chose were a mixed bag. Many of those stamps are old rubber auto parts. While they are not exactly hardware items, they at least would be unusual and also not the kind of thing generally to be found in most people's art kits. They are actually among my very favorite art tools.

Auto part, lower left.

Above that is something which I will explain later on.

Upper right, some sort of rubber pedal cover.

(?)

Lower right is a rubber stamp store blank + shelf liner imprint.

Left to right:

Far left--Regular rubber stamps.

Next--Rubber auto part.

Green is made using a broken off piece from 

a rubber flipflop which I sanitized.

Left to right:

Pink + purple + orange is the rubber auto part.

Black is 2 postage rubber stamps + 2 stray rubber car parts and London's Big Ben.

Lower right is a set of nature rubber stamps.

Again, left to right:

Lower left is 2 rubber auto parts + a cast off toy truck tire track.

The others are, of course, flip flop bit and rubber auto part.

Another view of the same pile.

I am really enjoying the new lamp bulb!

Ott Light bulbs really do light nicely.

Somewhere in this mix are imprints made 

using a cast off spark plug's rubber handle.

What I've learned by this experience:

When I heat set these sheets using an old light weight iron and my Talbot Arts Release Paper, what I noticed was that the pigment stamping ink did dry, but would smear if dampness touched it.

In other words, I will have to bear in mind that this will be an issue. I think that next time I will go with acrylic paints instead of stamp inks. Same stamps, just paint, not ink.

Can hardly wait to make some time for visiting everyone else's Let's Play pages. See you there!

:)