You Can Still Doodle Even When You Use Stamps

This was another stamp from Art Impressions that I got carried away with.  I stamped and colored her then decided to fill in the background around her rather than cutting her out.  After I got the "wallpaper colored there was WAY too much wall so I decided to hand draw family photos around her...then of course I had to add the cake and the potted plant.  I have a feeling a dog will show up next, but I am calling her done for now.

Oh! And I really don't love the hair on the original stamp so that was easy enough to modify... And, OF COURSE, she needed a necklace...So, even though I have started using more stamps lately I still do my doodling.

   

Using What I Bought

I One of the things I am notorious for is buying stuff then not using it after it gets here... This week I ordered 250 pages of solid 12"x 18" white label paper.  I remember that sometime last year I did a major search for larger paper but now I can't for the life of me remember why!  but, as soon as I saw it I ordered it... I got it today so I was determined to do something with it!

I used my vinyl cutter to cut the word "chosen", one of my favorite because it reminds me that I was chosen by God to be in His family.  I was able to make it 12"x 7"!!  All at once, from a single sheet.  Love that!  I would have had to break it up if I had used a standard 8.5"X11" sheet.  

I use regular vinyl for the black background so it will stick to whatever I decide to mount it on later...right now it is just waiting.  I see all kinds of things I wish I would have done differently (of course) but at least now I see what to fix.

Oh! I colored the letters with my Spectrum Noir markers.

DIY Binder Insert Strips ... Recycle!

A few days ago someone on Facebook asked where to get these:

I will admit that these strips are not that expensive but if you need them in a hurry and you have the supplies on hand .....  My first response was "make them yourself" and I explained how I would do it...today I decided to do a little tutorial.

1- find heavy plastic that is at least 9.5" long.  I have used transparencies in the past 

but today I wanted to recycle something...  I used this SPELLBINDERS packaging.

2- Cut the edges off so that you have only the two flat pieces

3- Stick Scor-Pal double stick tape on the very edge of one of the plastic sheets then cut it .75" away from the tape so you now have a strip of acrylic about 1.25" wide (if you use .5" wide Scor-pal tape.

...continue until you have all you need or you run out of packaging... I was able to get a total of six from this packaging...plus a couple more strips I can add .25" to.

4- Using a sheet of 3 hole punched paper mark your hole placement with a sharpie.

5- Punch the three holes... I used a heavy duty punch drill to punch through three pieces at a time, that way I only had to mark one.  You can probably tell from this close up that the three strips are different sizes...sorry!  I didn't measure, I just cut.

6- I removed the protective paper and stuck the piece of acrylic to the back side of a ruler...of course it can be stuck to the back of most anything you want to add to your 3 ring binder.

And here it is in my binder, ready when I need it!

Just FYI this is my SCRAPRACK Create and Carry Binder 

that I am loading with all my jewelry making tools, beads and findings.... So now I have a quick, ready to travel jewelry making kit!  So, I will definitely need a ruler!

30 Day Color Challenge

Hi all it has been a while!  Sorry about that...It seems I start every post that way now.  I hate to admit it but I haven't done much doodling for months now! So that means no blog posts.  I have been trying to get this place organized... I even put a work table in my living room! I figure, since I live alone I can do whatever I want...so I did!  I will post a photo soon, I'm just afraid to take it now, I am using my iPad to write this and it can be temperamental at times and I end up losing everything!

Anyway, I have decided to take a 30 day Color challenge hosted by Kathy Racoosin just to get myself active again!  I started yesterday with this... A set of Art Impressions stamps (created for Michael's) ...  Colored with Spectrum Noir markers

 

My initial intent was to fussy cut around each character then use them separately later...but then I saw the legs of the chairs and thought NO WAY! So I colored the background around them.  That's why he looks like he is sitting behind her...I would have done it differently if I had started with this finish in mind! Now that I look at it I could still fussy cut everything but the legs then stamp the legs directly to a separate background .... Hummm...new challenge, I will do that and show it.

Anyway, today I decided to use Clear and Simple stamps (sold only through their site) to do samples of different coloring tools, watercolors, alcohol markers, colored pencils, and die based markers:

Nothing special, but I do know that the Spectrum Noir pens were MUCH faster and easier to get the shading done.  I think my favorite will be to use both SN pens with the colored pencils together.