Sticker Fun!

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I admired some beautiful (but pricey) art stickers in a gift store and thought I'd try making my own. Here's a look at how I started out.

You can buy specialty sticker paper but I was gifted a large quantity of address label sheets and had a try with those, using my own hand-carved stamps. Some I cut with a circle punch and others I hand-cut with scissors trying to leave a neat and consistent white border (which pretty much disappears on a white envelope). These stickers were most like the ones I saw in the gift shop.

If you're using address label paper, a little trick is to cut down a bit below the image, into the label below, and leave a tab of the backing paper. Makes it so much easier to remove the sticker when you come to use it.

Sometimes, like with the circle-punched stickers (or other shaped stickers), you can't leave that tab. Then I keep a pin or needle handy and use it to separate the sticker from the backing paper.

Another way I created stickers, a few years back, was using acrylic ink and water and making random, vaguely landscape-type marks across the label sheet. I also made similar marks with felt pens. Occasionally I added a moon to reinforce the landscape image. Then I cut the label sheet into four strips and peeled off the stickers as I needed them. At the time, I was disappointed in how the stickers turned out. Now I quite like them and think I'll play around with this technique again. 

Also around then, with the simple program that came with my Canon inkjet printer, I ran off a contract sheet of 20 small photos on the address label paper.

These meadow and hillside shots were taken with my old phone in the fall while out on a morning walk. I printed in high quality but they still came out a bit faded and grainy. But I kind of like that vintage look.

The fun thing about using a label sheet is you don't quite know how the photos will be disected when you pull them off to use. I like that! It gave me a fresh perspective on composition.

Inspired, I recently gave this technique another go and ran off a few sheets of flower photos (a group of 20 and one of 30). I picked photos with bright flowers and/or that had high contrast and they came out sharper. 

I've been in flower-themed mode this spring and these photo stickers will go well with the notecards I printed.

Below, you can see how the sunflower image, printed over two address labels, split into two when the backing paper was removed. Happy accident that I still ended up with two good images!

One for the back of the envelope and one for the front.

For years, I've made rectangle stamps with my red gate logo. Or stamped on larger address labels. Or made use of those packets of small round labels (like for the hearts). 

You can also buy rolls of blank round stickers. These are about 1.5 inches (4 cm) wide and I really the kraft ones.

But I really enjoy the look of the cut-out stickers and plan to keep playing around with them - perhaps even carving more detailed stamps specifically for stickers. There's something so satisfying about sending off a card or note with that bit of extra embellishment on the envelope!

If you've made it this far, thank you for following my art adventure! I'll try to not let so much time pass before I post again. Here's to a fabulous June!

A Tale of Two (or more) Pumpkins

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Looking for an autumn craft, I came across the Instagram account of Timm Sevitz, a former member of the Crate+Barrel display team and a current craft whiz.  In one of his posts (https://www.instagram.com/p/CwslWW8rNsj/) he demonstrated little yarn jack o'lanterns. These were geared to children - half a toilet paper roll wrapped with a chunky yarn and then embellished with a twig stem and cut out paper eyes and toothy grins. From my winter attempt at crochet, I had a ball of thick varigated wool felting yarn on hand in appropriate atumnal tones, and I gave it a try.

Immediately I was hooked. Below, meet Pumpkin Number Two, which quickly led to more than a dozen pumpkins! I eliminated the pumpkin face for a bit of sophistication. And I also used four to five (about 60 inches or 150 cm) lengths of yarn together to speed up the wrapping. This was especially handy with a fine yarn, like the acrylic-alpaca-mix for the taupe pumpkin on the right. For little kids, a single length of a really chunky yarn would be easier.

What captivated me about making these pumpkins (and I hope will interest you, too) is how adapting to the materials available informs what you create. I had limited yarns and often only small quantities of any one yarn. I did try a pumpkin in a single colour - a fuzzy novelty yarn in white.

I preferred the look of ones done with a varigated yarn (like above) and, once I realized I could create my own varigated yarn, had so much fun. It was a great way to use up odds and sods of random leftovers. Thickness or ply didn't really matter - the focus was on the mix of colours.

A special yarn could be saved for just the outer layers - like this one below (and a darker version) found in a thrift store. The label says, "An unusual Irish import textured yarn in a multicolored blend." The under layers were a combination of creams and taupes that coordinated with the textured yarns.

Below, you can see winding the specialty yarn over the under layers.

Another yarn-saving tactic I used was to line the inner side of the toilet paper roll with a folded paper napkin. This bulked up the hole and creating a tight fit for the twig required less yarn. I also remembered making velvet pumpkin pin cushions one year as Christmas gifts. These I'd embellished with wire tendrils. And since I seldom let go of potential craft supplies, I had a box of wire on hand! To create the tendrils, I wound the wire around a pencil and then stretched the spiral a bit to make a more interesting shape.

About this time, I got the idea of making a smaller pumpkin and constructed a little tube from cardstock. (This also works great for the larger pumkins if, like me, you go a bit crazy and run out of toilet paper rolls!)

Now I was wondering how fabric strips might work!

I tore the strips to get a rustic, thready look, although the neat-freak in me was appalled! To get a rounded shape, I padded both the inner core and the outside of the paper roll with scraps of quilt batting. The inner padding made getting the strips through a bit of a pain, but a crochet hook helped.

My favourite of the cloth ones was the tiny one done with strips of an old grey t-shirt. I twisted the strips as I wound and the bumps, to me, really resemble the contours of a pumkin.

I don't think I'm quite done yet with making pumpkins - it's occured to me I could create a varigated look with strips of different fabrics. Or by using the multi-coloured selvages, which I often trim from yardage and save. But if you've followed me this far, I'm sure you're pumpkined out! I want to wrap up this blog, though, with appreciation and gratitude to all the artists and creators who share their work on social media. Their posts are a never-ending source of inspiration, comraderie and enjoyment! For more of Timm's whimsical crafts, check out his web site: https://timmsevitz.com/

Not My Cup of Tea

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I'm always wanting to do a series of prints and/or collages showcasing tea in some way. Sadly, none of my ideas have ever developed into anything satisfying. Here's one that started off promising:

I had so many patterned papers - some my own prints and also origami and found papers - and the cup as a simple graphic shape appealed to me.

It was enjoyable coordinating the patterned papers! I also experiemented with three cups:

And a square card with two cups:

A bit of back story here. I used graph paper to get a symmetrical shape for the cup.

And I used a hole punch to create the handle. The punched out bits were a possibility for the dot I like to add to finish off the piece. I also made a viewfinder and went on the hunt through my mountains of paper for possibilities.

One of the reasons this series didn't go anywhere is because I collaged whole cups, gluing one on top of the other. This made for a thick, unbalanced card. (I had to use a rock to weigh down the cards to lie flat for these photographs!) Plus, all the various grains of the different papers and the substrate were at odds with each other, creating even more lumpiness in the finished card. Back then, I didn't realize that was the problem. Armed with a bit of hindsight, the other day I gave it another go. First, I stacked the cups. And played around with getting each cup nestled into the one below.

With the original try, I know part of the problem was I didn't set the cups deep enough - they had a sort of floating look to them. But I also had to remember these chunky cups would have a thickness to them and that had to be apparent in the stacking. I saw them as pottery rather than fine china so the wall of the cup would be substantial.

So this second time around I worked on getting a good stack. Then I marked where each mug slid into the one blow, and cut off the excess. 

I'd like to report this made all the difference - and it did. Somewhat...

I prefer three cups - four made the composition a bit crowded - and the card laid much flatter. I did go with a smaller dot - the hole punch piece seemed too much. But I go back and forth on that decision. There is a pull to use the big dot.

However, as is often the case, there is a past due date on some ideas. I discovered stacking patterned paper cups no longer fascinated me! But I did enjoy the second try - there is always something to be learned looking back at old work. 

Next post, plan to be deep into a new project! See you then! As always, thank you for following my art adventure!