Illustration Friday: EXCESS

"Excess baggage"
Watercolor & acrylic ink on paper
for this week's Illo Friday :)

Hand Carved Stamps Tutorial Part 2

Whew!
The weather has been unseasonably rainy this week
and I thought I wouldn't have time to do Part 2 of the tutorial,
but the sun came out this morning :)
I'll be adding the explanatory text over the weekend
...I didn't want to leave you hangin'
I bet you can even start carving by just looking at the pictures.
This tutorial was done with plain white erasers. you don't need to have
a special carving block to make simple & fun stamps.
Click on the images to see them LARGER
and look at all the details.
Part 3 next week!

Have a lovely weekend friends.

Custom pieces

Custom pieces for my friend Mariana,

she will frame and give these as Christmas gifts

to her little nephews and niece :)

Two "to do" lists down
and 5 more to go...

Stickers

My friend Mariana
makes the BEST cookies & baked goods
and she asked me to design two stickers:
One to use as a label for a jar she'll use to give
her delicious cookies as gifts this Christmas (see below)
and another one to have on hand for when she brings her baked goods
as gifts to her friends and family the rest of the year (above).

I did the illustrations with watercolor
and printed them on self adhesive paper.

...and had lots of fun packaging them!

To do lists...

I'm trying to tackle a whole bunch of to do lists these days
to be able to have a nice and relaxing holiday season.
I recently moved my "sand box" shelf from the wall on my right
to make room for the new inspiration boards and it's working really well.
It's great to be able to look up and see all the little treasures I have on the shelf
and get inspired to put a dent on those loooooong to do lists.
Wish me luck!

A lotta Lotta

I just recently bough these wonderful books by Lotta Jansdotter

and they're so full of inspiration!

Starting from the left there's
"Simple Sewing", "Travel Style" and "Handmade project"

Inspired by one of the projects in the "Simple Sewing" book
I made this cute and very simple draft snake filled with dry lentils
to keep the chilly winter drafts away.
I used an old pair of jeans and some more
Etsuko Furuya "Echino" fabrics.
And this pretty sun hat that I took with me to Acapulco.
I used a linen/cotton canvas
and lined it with some beautiful
Nani Iro fabric.

You can purchase Lotta's Books at
www.jansdotter.com

...and see some pretty handmade goods inspired by Lotta
in this Flickr Group

Bible verse of the week: Psalm 19:1 & 4:8

Psalm 4:8 says:
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep:
for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

I LOVE that verse!
Great choice Oliver :)

I didn't post my verse for last week because I was away,
but here it is :)

Visit our Flickr Group
to see more illustrated Bible verses.

Next week's verse is:
Psalm 23:1
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Illustration Friday: THE ZOO

Although I am not particularly fond of looking at caged animals
I think these guys look quite content :)

Watercolor and micron pen on Fabriano paper.
5 x 7 inches

Hand Carved Stamps Tutorial Part 1

This is a list of the tools that I use to make my stamps.
You can certainly use other alternatives.
I am linking each item to Blick Art Supplies
simply because they have good photos
and it's where I usually buy my supplies,
but any of these things can be bought at any other
art/office supply store in your area.

1- A Speedball linoleum cutter is the tool you will use to carve your stamps. I use the No.1 and No.5 cutters. The No.1 is for carving out fine lines and the No. 5 for carving out large areas of the stamp.

2- You can use any kind of dense/soft eraser to make your stamps (I recommend Staedtler erasers, they work like a charm) or carving blocks made specifically for this purpose like MasterCarve, E-Z Cut, Soft-Kut and many more. For the purpose of this tutorial I will make stamps with erasers which are easily available to everyone.

3- A trusty (and highly dangerous) X-Acto knife for cutting the eraser or block material to the desired size or shape. Be careful with this tool! and always put the protective cap back on after each use.

4- Any type of archival ink pad. There are so many kinds of ink pads available out there! I use StazOn, or VersaColor, you can also use black ink pads from office supply shops.

5- A No.2 pencil.

6- Some plain white paper to do some stamping tests and to draw the image you want to transfer on to your carving block.

7- And last but not least: an idea ;) You have to decide what it is that you want to make...I would start with a basic simple shape. I use my teardrop shapes all the time or just a basic triangle like the happy Christmas trees I recently posted. Practice, practice, practice and in no time you will be making more intricate shapes.

Part 2 of the tutorial will be posted next friday so stay tuned!

Carving the bird

Although I didn't do any turkey carving yesterday
I did have fun doing some unconventional bird carvings
with my Speedball cutter :)

I can't believe we're almost at the end of 2007.
Where did time go?
I'm getting ready with some new Christmas stamps to play around.

I haven't had time to do the Hand Carved Stamp tutorial
I told you I would do...
but it's at the top of my list :)
I'll post some resources tomorrow so you can start gathering the tools you'll need
to make some beautiful stamps for this holiday season.
Beware: It's highly addictive!

It's official...

Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving
with your loved ones today.

I'll be back on the 20th...

We are going on a little trip to sunny Acapulco with some friends till the 20th...
If you buy anything from the shop it will be shipped on the 21st. :)

Thank you for visiting & all your lovely comments!

Wings

"The key"

"Pleasant pheasant"

"Blue bird with flowers"

Done with watercolor & ink on handmade Yute paper.

These new guys will be available
in my shop later today :)

Interviewed

My friend Lori Pickert
at the Inspiration Boards blog
just posted a really fun interview with me,
You can read it by clicking here.
Thank you Lori,
it was an honor to be interviewed by such a
smart and sweet friend like you!

I whipped up these really easy single panel curtains
for my bedroom this weekend
with some gorgeous Echino fabric
by Etsuko Furuya.

Bible verse of the week: Psalm 98:7-8

Watercolor and acrylic ink on Fabriano watercolor paper.
Click on the image to see it BIGGER.

This week's Bible verse
was chosen by my good friend Oliver

We have created a Flickr Group
in case anyone out there wants to join us or leave a comment :)

I get to choose next week's verse: Psalm 19:1
Have a wonderful and creative week!

Bird collection

I got some amazing goodies in the mail this weekend.
I'll be blogging about all of them this week :)

Illustration Friday: SCALE

That's all I could come up with this morning :)
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Done using a Micron pen & my own hand carved stamps

Noviembre

Journal pages for the first two weeks of November 2007.
I stamped the background with the eraser of a No.2 pencil
& wrote Manolo's name with wire.
Click on the image to see it
BIGGER.

Finger puppets

To say that I'm hooked on this needle felting thing is an understatement :)
What you can do with a simple barbed needle
and some fiber is like magic to me.
I needle felted finger puppets for my kids into the night...
I still need to make an alligator for Israel today.
Thanks for all the wool birdie love,
your comments made my day!

Needle felting

I had been dying to try out needle felting

so I bought some supplies (felting needles & ecofriendly foam)
from the talented Moxie of Made by Moxie.
She has a great step by step tutorial here if you want to see
how she makes her cute finger puppets.
I watched a video at the Martha Stewart website that also helped a lot,
you can see it here
This birdie is my first ever go
at needle felting and I LOVED the whole sculpting process.
He is made with 100% wool roving
and his little feet are made with embroidery thread covered wire.
It took me more than 5 hours to make him.
Now I'm off to make Israel and Daniel some lil needle felted critters...
Here's the little birdie
playing outside :)

Bible verse of the week: ISAIAH 40:31

Watercolor and ink on paper.

My friend Oliver and I
will be illustrating a Bible verse every week
and posting it every Monday on our blogs.
I got to pick this week's verse.
You can see Oliver's illustration here

Oliver chose Psalm 98:7-8 for next week's illustration.
We have created a Flickr Group
in case anyone out there wants to join us or leave a comment :)
Happy Monday!

A special drawer...

My hand carved stamps
were getting a bit out of control,
so I had to give them a special drawer.
So many blog visitors have asked me about my stamps that
I plan to make a little photo tutorial
on how to carve you own stamps soon
...so stay tuned.

Illustration Friday: HATS

Hand carved stamps, watercolor and
micron pen on paper.

Click on the image to see it
((((BIGGER))))

Hurray for hats!

Wren

This little wren doesn't want to get wet.
Watercolor, ink & collage on wood veneer.