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Sunday, October 16, 2011

I'm a happy stamper

Friends, readers, total strangers,

A confession. I thought I knew a little about stamping as I had read up a tiny bit on it. I had drooled over stamps and stamping and ink and thought all I needed was the desire to learn.

As I found out at yesterday's rubber stamping workshop at The Little Happyshop, you need to be steady with your hands. Let me just say this first. I enjoyed the workshop a lot. It might not show on my face but I did.


Who is this homeless looking guy? (Just kidding, Joe) He's the rubber stamp guru - Mr Joe Chiang of Monster Gallery. Yep, this is the man. Honestly, I took a bad pic of him. I blame it on the light.


Here's a better shot of Joe. (I pinched the pic from his facebook.)

There were five ladies in the class. It was held at The Little Happyshop and it looked like a happy shop. I kinda felt happy when in the shop so it's a good name. Very good fengshui!


These are the essentials for the class - rubber, scraper, sharp pen cutter, tracing paper and dark pencil.


The easy part is transferring the image to the rubber. A reverse image is transferred. Must remember this. I had to do this twice because the first time my outline was too thin. So I got left behind! I'm the slowest "kid" in class. At some point during the lesson, I heard Joe saying "Let's wait for Jane!" hehehehe


Cutting the outline is the hard part. If you're a stamper you'll know about the valley you have to carve out. I'm quite clumsy and was a little nervous about hurting myself. At home when I cook, it's common to hear me yell out in pain. In fact, my kids are so used to it they won't come running unless I cry out "Help."

Where was I? Ah yes, the valleys. They are harder to cut then expected. So I cut and I cut and at the end, my result is quite crude. My lines are jagged when they should be smooth. Also, I did not taper the waste enough so the stamping gets additional lines. But I got the idea. I'm the sort who gets better with practice.


When I reached home, I worked on the stamp a little bit more and it looks a little better.


This morning I had a few minutes to spare and decided to work on a new stamp. I made a tulip because I like using tulips in my embellishment. It looks like a crown. I'm not even sure I've seen a real tulip. Well, a tulip is pretty easy to carve but I managed to not get the precise outline again. Much more practice is required. Once I get additional rubber, I'm carving every day.


Ah, a peek at my inspiration notebook. Meet Teddy, my new bear. I named it after a dog. I have limited ink colours . I would love turquoise, teal, red and hot pink. I settled for this dunnowhatkindofblue blue. The pink was too light.


I combined the stamped tulips with some embroidery. I'm soaking it to see if the colour fades. If it doesn't, it'll become a coin pouch. What do you guys think?

9 comments:

  1. I think it looks great! I love the crude look.

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  2. Hi. Just read quite a lot of your blog posts I have gotten behind on. Great read as usual.

    Butterfly scrap bag - great

    Stamp design - great

    Hubbys mole - ummm lol

    Naked torso - great (have you got the wallpaper yet? pass on the link lol)

    All your bags - fabulous!

    bag construction advice - great

    Seven views of blog - sounds like I will be spending even more time on blogs trying out the views!!

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  3. I never thought tulipes might seam exotic to someone. how ridiculously european of me ;-)
    I think your stamp attemps are quite good. it really looks exciting! How fun to personnalize your creations that way. I can't wait to see many more of these!

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  4. Love it, it looked like a fun class to go to. I am a rubber stamp fan but have never carved my own I am so going to do it. I shall be cautious like you I injure myself most meal times mostly burning myself you would think I would have learned by now.

    Laurie Freeman

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  5. i think it's awesome!! love the embroidery (can't spell argh!) and stamping together!! ♥

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  6. When I was in high school I took a print making class, it was the best class. We carved rubber stamps too! So fun! I kind of liked the plane with all the rough parts around it :)

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  7. i got an excellent book by tsukui tomoko .it's japanese :http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/reader/4479920013/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link i wonder if this could help ;i got it in France and don't read japanese.it's full of drawings you can just copy them on tracing paper ,very easy .Y.S

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  8. I think it looks awesome and that there will be lots of stamped fabric in your future!

    I used to stamp a lot with purchased stamps - making greeting cards, etc. Started stamping on fabric a little bit and that's fun, but haven't tried too many carved stamps of my own lately - I just don't know what I would create!

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  9. oh, how exciting! i love rubber stamping, must have been such a great class!

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