Hand Carved Stamping Tutorial: Part 1

Hand carving stamps is no biggy, but I'm going to have to divide this tutorial up into sections because uploading pictures is a pain. :)

Firstly, behold, my collection:

My collection

In today's tutorial, I'm going to talk about materials. The tools you use is perhaps one of the most important factors in the success of your stamps. :)



1. speedball linoleum carving set
Finding this carving set may be difficult, but it's worth the search! It gives you control and accuracy! :)

2. x-acto knife
I use my x-acto knife to cut the stamp carving material to the size that I want. Pretty nifty, versatile tool.

3. versaFine, versaMagic, and brilliance inkpads
I LOVE different inks, but my favorites are the above. *sigh* These guys are super expensive, but they last a while, and they give your stamped image more than you could ever imagine! I like the versaFine because you can use watercolor with it. I like versaMagic because it gives a nice shadow to your projects. And brilliance? Well, it's REALLY bold and well, brilliant.

4. speedball carving material
It's true, this stuff is soft, but it does a fantastic job getting the fine details of your image! I love it!!! Also, it's a bit pricey. Take that back, it's very pricey. However, it makes carving less about physical strength and more about the carving.

Here are some of the pieces that I've recently done (which are now in the shop!):



Tiger Stamp



OC Orange Stamp

By the way, thanks for all the kind words about the GRAND OPENING of our ETSY shop! It makes us so happy, you don't even know. ;)

Etsy Store!!!

Polymer Clay PEAS in a LOVEPOD (SOLD)

I've always wanted to open my own little shop. So, with the encouragement and support (and begging) from my sister, we decided to open an etsy store up together.

Check it out, friends!

mushroommeadows etsy shop

We'll be stocking the shop regularly, so keep coming back. :)

By the way, first one to make a purchase will get something VERY special! ;)

earthquake.

I was at school this morning, and roughly at 11:40 the building started to shake. The first thing I thought of was "DUCK AND COVER" so I immediately crawled under the desk. Seconds later, I heard people telling us to run outside to an open area. After we ran outside, there were some guys on scaffolding (like the ones they use to wash windows), they were screaming, but more because they were having fun dangling up on top of the building, swaying back and forth. My school is actually located several miles from the epicenter, so it shook us up pretty good.

Fortunately there were no causalities or major injuries! Also, school was canceled for the day! :)

I'm at home now, and when I first looked at my craft table, I was like "oh man the earthquake completely knocked things around!" but then I realized it is just messy. ha ha. Time to clean up! :)

:)

My sister blogged about it, too! I guess it just was very traumatic for a lot of people in Southern California.

stamp progression.

Hello! :)

We finally have consistent internet connection at home!!! :) So, I guess I can't really use that as an excuse for not blogging regularly anymore. :)

So what have I been up to this past week? Well, I've been experimenting with polymer clay and, of course, stamp carving. The following picture shows the development of ONE stamp. The hard part of stamp carving is that once you get rid of something (aka a nose) it's gone FOREVER! :)



I'll probably be posting some of my other crafts as soon as I take pictures. Until then, hope you all have a pleasant week!

Oh yeah, Jenny from Stitcher and Scribbler gave me an award! THANK YOU! You must check out her site. She makes the cutest cupcake guys EVER! :)

peanut girl

peanutGirl
Originally uploaded by mushroommeadows

This is an illustration I did last night. She reminds me of one of the peanut cartoon characters. I think it's her hair.

Anyway, I just got home from work, and I think I'm going to pass out. :) I might have to take a nap because I have some major studying to do. I have a big test on Monday (so crafting seems out of the question this weekend. :( Pooh.)

first moleskine sketch

first moleskine sketch, originally uploaded by mushroommeadows.

Despite my school woes, I'm very excited about the new moleskine journals that I bought. Here is the first sketch in my journal.

:)

By the way, I'm experimenting with flickr. I actually posted this via my flickr account. :)

dropped.

During registration:

I dropped a class,
In order to add another one.
I ended up adding the wrong class.
My dropped class is now full.

I am going to have one pretty easy semester, but then I'll have to make it up with a terrible one next Spring. :(

And to make things worst, while I was freaking out over this entire ordeal,

I burnt my little clay things that were baking.

:(

cats! :)

I'm actually allergic to cats, but I love them anyway. Here's an illustration I did. There are definitely some kinks here and there, but I think I'm satisfied with the way it turned out. :)



Speaking of cats, Mika does some amazing pictures of cats and of course other paintings as well. And she was so sweet in giving me the award down below! YAY!

books!

I recently made a purchase on amazon for several books; one is for class (sniff) and the other one is for recreation (yay). Anyway, the latter one was inspired by the movie BECOMING JANE (which Yuzu inspired me to watch and I really like Anne Hathaway aka Princess Mia!) Anyway, what an awesome movie...

Oh yeah, I used some of my paintings as bookmarks. :)

and

Thank you Happy Doodleland

for the great tutorial on rounded corners!!! :)

bella. :)

I watched Bella today, and all I can say is that I loved it! It is a really sweet movie. :)

While I was watching the movie, I did a little painting (used my camera phone...sorry ha ha):

art gone weird.

I did a painting that I kind of liked but I cannot use my scanner right now, so I resorted to taking a picture of it. It didn't turn out well, to say the least. My camera phone definitely made it look abstract, but in a BAD way, leading me to use photoshop. Unfortunately, my editing only made it look even more strange. :)



By the way, thanks for all the school sympathy (I need it!).

See ya all later. Hopefully I can catch up on my crafting this weekend. YAY! :)

summer blues.

summer school starts today.

i am sad.

end of story.

lemon drops.

My sister,BUNZI, is doing a little giveaway on her blog. Hippity hop over there and leave a comment!!!

In my previous "log blog," as called by Blaze, I should have posted the following picture to show you the transformation of my wood block into a log. :)



As I mentioned before, I've been playing with polymer clay again. Polymer clay was actually one of my first crafty loves. :) Here's a little lemon drop charm I made yesterday: