WOYWW #285: Make your own stamps from silicone putty

Hello deskers! Welcome to another round of WOYWW.  The photo shows my desk on Tuesday afternoon. I have labelled a few things of interest, which I'd like to talk to you about.

• On the right hand side you can see a page taken from a 1930's dictionary which I picked up at my local charity shop. I ruthlessly ripped it apart but not before I had checked its value on Amazon. I couldn't really identify the exact edition, so it could be worth anything between £0.01 and £30.00.  I hope it's the former otherwise I'll be banging my head against the wall!

• The item labelled 'wip journal cover' is the cover off the old dictionary. It was a bit tatty and smelly, but now it's fresh and yummy! I covered it with gelli prints. I'm not sure what I will do with it yet. Perhaps I will turn it into a junk journal. 

• The envelope labelled 'tag swap' contains the very first decorated tag I've ever made and it's ready to be shipped to the Netherlands as part of a monthly swap organized by a mixed media sharing community on Google+. I'm very excited about this swap! I'll share the tag with you when my swap partner has received it, otherwise it would ruin the surprise! Actually, I've just had a brilliant idea! I might turn the dictionary cover into a tag journal to store all the tags from the swap! I quite like that idea!

• The little pot in the middle contains some skull beads I picked up from Hobby Craft at the weekend. They are really cool! I was there with my 10-year-old son and we had a ball with the bead pick 'n mix. They have these pots you can fill with your own selection. It was so much fun!

• The dominoes and playing cards are from eBay. They were REALLY cheap. I think the cards were 99p and the dominos £1.49 including postage. I bought them with the intention to alter them and use them in my art.

• And finally the topic of my post today: my home made stamps from silicone putty.

What is silicone putty?

Silicone putty (aka silicone plastique) is marketed as a mould making material, primarily for sugar crafts in cake making. Of course, you can also use it to make moulds for other materials like polymer clay, for example. 

Silicone putty is expensive and mould making requires quite a lot of this stuff, so it's not very cost effective to make your own. You're better off getting some cheap moulds from China.

However, have you thought of making stamps out of silicone putty? It takes a lot less material to make stamps, because you don't have to make it as deep as a mould. 

You can make texture stamps out of your stencils, die-cut shapes and numerous found objects as well.

How to make stamps from silicone putty?

It is very simple. Just mix an equal amount of the two parts of the putty (usually white and blue) and press it into your stencils, diecuts or other dimensional objects, making sure that they're lying on a smooth, non-stick surface. An acrylic or glass plate or ceramic tile is ideal for this. In about an hour's time your stamp will be firm and ready to use! 

Tip: When moulding paper diecuts, I always coat the surface with gel medium, so the putty wouldn't stick to the paper. Also it's a good idea to use two or three shapes on top of each other to give it some depth. It will  work with just one layer, but your stamp will be quite shallow. 

Here are a few stamps I've made with silicone putty.

Stamps made from stencils and punchinella

Texture stamp made from corrugated card

Stamps made from die cut shapes

A stamp made from a dimensional object (metal medallion)

Have a go at making your own stamps from silicone putty and don't forget to have fun! See you next week for another post of WOYWW!

Easy-bind Gelli Print Journal

This is my second Gelli print journal. If you remember, I really struggled with the binding of the first one, trying to glue the spine together. I was hoping to find a binding method that would work for my gelli prints to make another journal. I wanted to have the same print on opposite pages to make a seamless background. Most binding methods don't work like that. I knew I'd found the perfect method when I watched my friend's +Anikó Dóbiász's video.  Here, each signature consists of just one sheet folded in the middle and the signatures are stuck together back-to-back to create the book. This method is shown at 12:40 in the video.

I stuck my gelli prints on black cardstock measuring 9.5" X 7.5". This gave me enough leeway to position my 8" X 10"prints without the white margins showing. I used 3M spray mount for sticking the papers together. I find this is the best method for gluing large, flat surfaces without the paper wrinkling. Instead of gluing two signatures back-to-back like the video shows, I stuck them together with a third gelli print, first securing the joint with some masking tape. Here's how I did it:.

Two signatures placed side by side secured by some masking tape

Third Gelli print stuck on top of the two signatures to hold them together

I continued adding my signatures this way. My journal only has nine double-pages, so it's quite thin. I finished by sticking a cover to the back and front of my journal cut from thick kraft card (300 gsm) and secured them to the spine with a 2" wide cloth binding tape. I added some white ribbon as decoration and used my crop-a-dile corner chomper to round the corners of both the covers and pages. This is what my undecorated journal/booklet looks like.

Here are some of the inside pages. They lie flat and provide a seamless background to create on. I'm not sure how I'm going to decorate this journal yet, but I'll do another post to show you when it's done.

Art Journal page: Happiness (WOIW)

The inspirational word this week in the Kraafters Kommunity on Google+ is Happiness.

Happiness is something we all aspire to, yet how many of us can honestly say that we are truly, unconditionally happy? All too often we pursue happiness outside of us and plan to achieve it some time in the future, often connecting it to a certain event that needs to happen before we can allow ourselves to be happy. That day will never come. We have to make the most of our present situation and try to be happy here and now. Happiness is not something that happens to us, but rather an attitude. Happiness is a choice and I choose to be happy!

I created this journal page with this sentiment in mind. I started by applying two layers of gesso to my journal page in order to seal the surface and also to neutralize the brown tone of the craft paper. I used a painting technique which is based on applying and removing layers of acrylic paint to achieve a unique colour variation. I wrote about this technique in a previous post here.

When the paint was dry, I outlined the heart with a black Stabillo All pencil, added some texture stamps using white acrylic paint off my Gelli plate and stamped my title and the little birds with black archival ink. I had to go through the stamp marks with a black paint marker as well to make them stand out a bit more against the background.

I'm quite happy with this page - it would be ironic if I wasn't! I choose to be happy with it.

WOYWW #284: Playing with CitraSolv

I'm taking part in yet another WOYWW desk hop today. In case you're wondering what it's all about, just follow this link to the Stamping Ground. This is what my desk looked like on Tuesday afternoon. Let's just say it's a bit "busy" shall we?

I've been experimenting with CitraSolv for the past few days. It's a natural cleaning agent made from oranges, but make no mistake, this stuff is strong! Apart from being a powerful de-greaser, CitraSolv is also known to have some properties that dissolve certain types of ink, making it suitable for mixed media applications.

Altering magazine pages with CitraSolv

One of the properties that makes CitraSolv suitable for mixed media applications is its ability to alter magazine pages. You just sprinkle some CitraSolv on the pages of a magazine and watch the ink dissolve into interesting patterns. Be warned though, this is an extremely messy process and the ink will stain your work surface, so make sure you protect it. You're also advised to wear gloves and work in a well-ventillated area, preferably with the windows open or better still, outdoors. The best magazine to alter seems to be the National Georgaphic due to the type of ink they use, but it will also work with some other magazines or even some junk mail.

I've altered a National Geographic and used up half a bottle of CitraSolv in the process! I've achieved some interesting results, but I don't think I'll be using this technique again any time soon as I don't think it's very cost effective considering the price of CitraSolv. The pages I've made will keep me going for a while. You can choose to alter the images beyond recognition or just distress them slightly. Let me show you some of my examples below.

Some of my altered National Geographic pages

A photo of a couple of fishermen slightly altered 

A photo of a puffin slightly distressed - CitraSolv made it look almost translucent

A magazine page distressed beyond recognition

Image Transfer with CitraSolv

You can also use CitraSolv to do image transfers. I'm actually very excited about this possibility, as I've tried numerous image transfer methods before, but none worked as well as CitraSolv. You literally get a perfect result every time! 

In order to do an image transfer with CitraSolv, you need to use a toner-based image. This could be a print from a laser jet printer or a photocopy. I don't think this technique would work with an inkjet printer, but you can always try! 

You can only transfer an image with CitraSolv to a porous surface. Copy paper, watercolour paper, regular cardstock, chipboard, the rough side of tissue paper, kitchen towels, napkins, rice paper, wood, MDF, textile all work very well. However, you won't be able to do a successful transfer onto non-porous surfaces like acrylics (including any surface with acrylic or gel medium layers), wax paper (including deli paper), vellum, glossy papers. etc. 

The easiest way to transfer an image is to place it face down on your substrate, Soak a piece of cotton wool with CitraSolv, saturate the back of your print and then burnish with a spoon or bone folder. This is a very forgiving technique. You can go over the same area several times, adding more CitraSolv if necessary, just make sure your image doesn't move. 

Here are a few of my image transfers using CitraSolv:

Kitchen towel transfer

Rice paper transfer

Textile transfer

MDF transfer

Tissue paper transfer

Transfer onto chipboard

A transfer of my own artwork onto a piece of kitchen towel. It gives your images a soft look.

 And finally, here's a quick journal page I've made using an altered NatGeo page and some image transfers.

Mixed Media Pear Painting

Those of you who saw my previous post will remember that I attempted and failed at painting a mixed media pear. I'm happy to report that I had another go today and I think I nailed it this time around.

This paining technique involves applying multiple layers of acrylic paint to create colour variation and texture. It really isn't very hard to do once you practice it a little. I followed the instructions of a video published by Betty Franks of Mystic Tulip Art. +Betty Franks, Mystic Tulip Art  You can find Part One below. Look for Part Two on Betty's YouTube channel.

I used heavyweight watercolour paper to create my painting, which I mounted on black cardstock when it was completed, to make it more sturdy. I painted my pear with Liquitex Basics acrylic paints. Before adding the final layers, this is what my painting looked like:

The stamping you can see here is underneath the layer of paint, just peaking through. On top of this I added more stamping with archival ink and white acrylics. For the white stamping I used a home-made foam stamp and a piece of drywall tape. I really like the texture the drywall tape created. Here's the final result:

In the close ups you can see all the different layers better: 

I love this technique and will definitely use it again. Why don't you have a go too? It really is quite easy and produces spectacular results!