2022 Topic 10 : Up my Street {by Autumn Clark} with Hot Picks stamps

Hi everyone, it's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today, and I'm here to share with you a cascading chipboard mini book that started out to be just a fun little artsy book of houses, but ended up as tribute to where I grew up.  The more I thought about the concept of home as I worked, my little art book turned into much more.  I've filled it with historic photos of my very quaint hometown in rural South Carolina.

I chose to work with chipboard and my gel printing plate because I knew it would be loads of fun to have a big printing session and I always love working with upcycled materials. My coworkers save chipboard for me and I try to use it as much as possible! My specific idea for a cascading book was inspired directly from PaperArtsy Hot Picks stamp set 1601 (HP1601) and my wanting to showcase the row of houses individually across the pages.

 

 

The first part of my process was choosing a size for my chipboard. One day I came across a Bind It All machine at a second hand store for $4!  Imagine my surprise and giddy smile! I ended up cutting my chipboard pages to be 3.5" tall and 8.5" long. This made it easy for me, as a beginner to the Bind It All machine, so that I could simply punch each page one time without having to repeat punches on each page.

Leandra can attest to my love for choosing a color palette with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics. Not only do I relish the chance to pick a new combo, I also really enjoy photographing them all together! Ha ha! They serve as a great reference point for me to remember how I got the different effects when using my gel plate, as the layers sometimes muddy change the color in the process. I was really in the mood for some rich colors, so this time I chose Midnight, Brown Shed, Chocolate Pudding and Space Cadet. Later I decided to introduce Jade Fresco as well.

 

 

I started printing using my 8x10" gel plate, which was great because I could print two panels at a time. I made sure to lift all of the excess paint around the sides for a layered look. I wanted to try using my stamps on the wet paint on my plate. So I picked up PaperArtsy Hot Picks stamp set 1602 (HP1602). I love the ledger text and cool circles in this set for background work. I found it really helpful to have a soaking wet terrycloth towel in a dish beside me so I could clean my stamps with each print. I also found that the stamping worked best when the paint wasn't too thick on the plate. And the best part, was that whatever mark I made into my wet paint gave me a nice painted stamp that I could use to stamp onto the pieces I had already printed. A two for one effort - yeah!

 

 

Here's an example of how I blended my colors on the plate. When working with multiple colors I like to add a dollop of every color all on the plate first. Then I brayer from lightest to darkest, rolling the brayer off onto paper between colors so they don't get muddy.

 

I had all of my chipboard pages printed. Next, I needed to make my colored houses. I stamped them onto thin tissue paper and heat set to dry. Then I gel printed their backs because I thought it would be a lot easier than printing them with a brush, which can be very delicate. If I left a corner free of paint, I could easily pull the tissue without it tearing. Here you can see some fronts and backs of the stamped & printed tissue. In hindsight, I wish I had stamped onto the painted side because the tissue would have been a richer color when adhered, but you live and learn...

 

I adhered my cut apart houses on to my pages with matte Mod Podge. I started with the last page and used it as a guide to cut the next smallest page, so that the house would be perfectly visible. I tinted some of the houses with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Claret and Pumpkin Soup since they were a little too subdued against the very dark backgrounds. I bound the book with the metal wire so I could really get the feel of the finished project.

 

 

I wanted even more contrast throughout the pages, so first I splashed the pages with Cloud 9 Fresco, then decided to add in some stencil work with Grunge Paste for even more contrast. I used PaperArtsy stencil PS021 and Sara Naumann's PS219. The alphanumeric stencil was one of those freebies that PaperArtsy puts in with an order.  They are always a fun surprise! 

 

To add a bit more pattern, I adhered some torn elements from the new PaperArtsy Printed Tissue throughout my book. There are so many designs in the Printed Tissue, giving us such a broad range of uses. I also added some stamping throughout my book with PaperArtsy Ink & The Dog Mini Stamp 18 (MN18).

 

At this point I loved my book, but wished it could be more somehow, like a real treasure for me. So I decided to add a personal touch and filled my mini book with historic photos of my hometown. I really love the black and white pics against the abstract, richly colored background.

I was finally satisfied with my work and finished everything by adding a little journaling.

I know I say this in almost every post, but I find great satisfaction in turning something that would be discarded into art. This chipboard now has color, life and a story and now will be something I treasure as a result.

 

Needless to say, you'll be seeing me use my "new" Bind it All a lot in the future! If you already own one of these, I really hope this post encourages you to get out your PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylics and have a print-making/book-binding session of your own. Also, why not take some time to ponder on the concept of home for our Up My Street topic and see how you can use your stamps and photos to create your own tribute to home.

 

If you get one thing from this post, I hope it's the encouragement to keep going with your projects. If we press ourselves forward with each phase of creation, we are often very happily surprised by creating some of our favorite work. That was the case for me this time. It's been a joy, Autumn.

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2019 #9 Arty Wood Blocks: Recycling Day! with ELB by Lucy Edmondson

2019 Topic 9: Arty Wood Blocks

I am rather partial to a little row of houses, particularly wooden ones. In fact, one of the few decor items I brought with us from New Zealand when we moved to the UK 18 years ago (bearing in mind we literally moved with 6 suitcases, so space was tight) is a small row of delicately painted wooden houses. They still sit in our bathroom to this day. Lucy has added colour and texture to hers and plenty of other lovely little touches too! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Lucy from Lucy's True Colours with you here today, with a post using recycled wood blocks to make a row of arty houses, using my favourite Lin Brown Eclectica stamps.

I think most of us have found that the old style wooden block rubber stamps take up a great deal of space - imagine if our whole stash was wood mounted now, our ceilings would collapse! Having said that, I was lucky enough to be given a bag of wooden blocks when my friend unmounted her older stamps a while ago, and there is something rather lovely about these pieces of solid wood. So I was very delighted to have this theme pop up and have a chance to use them. To remove the stamps and labels simply pop them in the microwave. To remove any remaining tackiness, you can buy sticky stuff remover very cheaply on e bay and you can also sand any residue away.

If your wood still needs any prepping, you can give it a couple of coats of white gesso to ensure any colours you add stay true. 

To start off, I covered tissue paper with a huge selection of leaf and abstract stamps from Lin Brown Eclectica ELB 29, ELB 30, ELB 31, ELB 33, and ELB 34.

I covered my three house blocks with the tissue and also a large piece to act as a plinth (no, this wasn't a ginormous rubber stamp block but an off cut from my husband's new woodworking hobby which I hope will prove useful in the future!).

I used a wash of translucent Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints, Hey Pesto, Autumn Fire, Tango, Mustard Pickle, and Chartreuse, dabbing in areas with a tissue whilst it was still wet, to give some white patches. 

For the house blocks I used the addition of Beach Hut for some contrast with the base. I then dry brushed the houses with Snowflake.

I wanted some little mounds of earth for my flowers to grow out of either side of the doors so I used Lin's stencil PS025 with some Grungepaste and once dry, painted the soil with Fresco Chocolate Pudding.

For the windows I used Tim Holtz's Fragments. I had intended to use patterned paper behind them to look like wallpaper but then decided to just paint some cardstock with Mustard Pickle to give the impression of light as you walk past the houses.

As part of my recycling theme, I used the protective corners from a delivery of frames as my rooves. I had some old fashioned wooden pegs from clearing out Mum's house which I thought would be perfect chimneys which I treated in the same way as the houses and then pushed through a hole in the cardboard. But my favourite part was covering the cardboard with hessian to make a thatched roof! As I liked them so much and the houses were quite busy, I left them plain. The other roof had a chimney made from two pieces of dowel, and I covered it with canvas to which I had used my transfer technique to apply Chatsworth paper, and then used Lin's stencil PS005 with Grungepaste mixed with Mustard Pickle.

I used JoFY's stencil PS008 with Grungepaste and Tango and Mustard Pickle and made doors from shrink plastic from Hot Picks HP1509 and HP1601.

I then had some fun decorating the base of the houses with shrink plastic flowers made from ELB 01 ELB 02 and ELB 03.

I had such fun with this relaxing and colourful project, and my love of creating started to come back as I felt myself getting lost in the 'making' for the first time in a while. I didn't really encounter any challenges along the way, apart from a moment of doubt when my husband came into the room and said, 'I thought you were making houses?' ! I hope if you have any wooden stamps left you will consider making something with the blocks, as you can still, of course, use the stamps afterwards - and it means you can use them with the many stamp positioning tools now available, so that's a good excuse!

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