Mount for unmounted stamps – my best use for the Creative Palette (and a cheap alternative)

So there is history here.  You might like to go back and read a few previous posts (or not, as you prefer.)

• My review of the CP v the Gelli plate and where I die cut it with my Sizzix

• Some pigment ink experiments on the CP
• My first experiments with the CP as a stamp mount, what led me to this post

That last link is full of warnings – press the stamp HARD onto the CP.  Don’t use it in this way if you worry about messing up whatever you are stamping on to. Shake the mount.  Wash the backs. blah blah blah.

I kept finding that, with every use, the CP surface got less and less sticky and washing it was too much of a bother if I had to do it every time I wanted to stamp an unmounted stamp.

I store most of my unmounted stamps like so:

In binders, and then in baseball card sleeves:

I have not ever wanted to go to the expense of mounting all the stamps, and bulking up the binders.  So over the years I have come up with a few different methods that work for me.  Generally, a strip of strong double-sided tape on a clear mount will do the trick.

I bought a bottle of Aileens Tack It (over & over) cause lots of people recommended it as a good way to make the red rubber, unmounted stamps into “cling” stamps.  It works, sure, but then you have to store all these sticky backed stamps. Ah … No.

Fast forward to the post of CP as mount and….an idea!

Yep.

Why this works – first, the CP is just a bit spongy.  Not too spongy, but enough that it acts as both the mount and the cushion and gives a nice image (might have been nice had I actually shown that – sorry, I’m out of practice at blogging) especially when stamping on to my cork-floor-tile-in-a-big-ziplock-bag stamping mat. Second, there is only the couple of CP chunks that are sticky. Easy to store.  I keep a lot of plastic packaging.  This is from a Spellbinders die.  I just flipped the halves so rather than tightly encasing the die, there is a slim open area that fits two of the sticky CP bits.

Perfect fit.

Now, this makes sense for me because I already own a (mostly useless for the kind of monoprinting I like to do) Creative Palette.  But the CP is not widely for sale anymore (or not that I could find) and if you don’t already have one, this is not a good enough reason to go buy one.

As a cheap alternative, I had a go at coating a piece of sticky-backed fun foam with the Tack It.  It worked just fine.

There is a slight issue with the fun foam being quite thin.  When you press to stamp the sticky surface can just grab the paper – I found this to be most problematic with tissue paper, not at all an issue with a paint-coated journal page, for example.  I did not find it as much an issue with the CP-as-mount.

In hunting for my CP package, I unearthed a nice gelli-print, so I can add at least one decent looking image for you LOL!:

Now I must decide what to do with it.

If you have a Creative Palette gathering dust, why not turn it into a set of stamp mounts? If you don’t have one, try the sticky-backed fun foam.  Let me know if it works for you!

Gelli plate play – it’s been tooooo long

NOTE:  Might be worth reading the next post before you embark on the stamping technique!

I have not really felt up to much crafty play for quite a while.  BUT I have been dreaming about the Gelli plate and remembering how much fun it was to play with.  I watched a video – well more than one, I’m sure – about resist transferring of a magazine image on to the plate, which you then pull off by doing a basic, heavy-bodied paint pull.  This one is the first one I saw, I think.

There was mention in some videos about the combination of the ink and glossy paper quality making a big difference.  Looking thru may magazines, which are mostly scrapbooking ones, I came across my ancient Rubberstampmadness mags.

The paper seemed thick and glossy and it also seemed that the image weren’t fashion shots but art and stamp samples.

There are a lot of stamp catalogs full of cool images, and some printed art work, like the BEAUTY image here that would all make very cool prints or additions to other art.

 

And guess what?  They worked a treat.

One video mentioned that some people had success with printing on an ink jet printer and doing the same process.  I did not.  I tried printing on pain paper, photo paper, on coated matt cardstock, on sticky label paper, etc. etc.  and nothing worked.

So that gave me a bit of an idea.  If I stamped on to the glossy paper, might that transfer? I experimented with about 8 different inks and a stamp.  The ones I had the highest hopes for (Archival Ink, Clearly Better clear stamp ink, Staz-on and Memento) were all fails.  Not expecting much I tried Distress ink, Distress Oxide ink, Adirondack and Kaleidoscope.  Also all fails.

Just on a whim I tried PIGMENT ink.  Crazy, but it worked.

I did have a few fails using cheaper paint but the Basics was good pretty much every time.

The process is simple.

1. Stamp the image using pigment ink. Get a good coating of ink on the stamp.

Sorry for the poor quality there – I had already used the image before I realized the photo was crap.  Doh! I suspect things like Versamagic or maybe even chalk ink MIGHT work, and COLOUR pigment ink will add a different dimension to it if it works! – I’ll try that next and see. But this is very generic black pigment ink.

I let the image dry but when I tried to dry it with the heat gun then transfer it, it didn’t work.  So I think the ink needs to by dry-ISH but not super dry.

2. Roll the paint onto the gelli plate.  I find the darker colours work best for this stage. You need a thin coat but not too thin.  Press the stamped image into the paint – I burnished one with a teflon spreader. one with my fingernail, one with a spoon.  Just make sure you get good contact.

LET IT DRY.

Remember the old Creative Palette that I hated?  I used one of the bits to roll out the white paint and get a thin coat on the brayer.  But you can also load the brayer by rolling in in paint on scrap paper.  Not too thick a coat.

As mentioned in a few of the videos, if you can SEE the image slightly, it’ll be a good print. Pull it.  Give the back a good rub.

And the coolest thing is that the text from the magazine transfers too!

I am so happy to have had a play.  It was seriously fun.  And now I know I can use my stamps as well as magazine images I am looking forward to more playtime!

Maybe even more regular blogging?  Maybe…..

My ATCs done!

Boy, am I out of practice!  But I managed to finish my ATCs so I am happy.  And I not only used and old tool that I thought was only fit for the bin (the Creative Palette) but I used something I bought and had not used yet.  It is a little stamp set from Tiger that cost me all of £3 and is so useful.  Doubly so since I bought two, recognizing that it would be useful to have multiples of letters and more than one upper case set.

You can see it comes with both a circle and a flat piece.  What I love is that the flat piece can be arranged either in a long strip of in two or more lines.  I may even get a third set to extend the amount of typesetting I can do.  To be fair, the font is dead simple, not anything to add any real style, and since I stamped the text then cut it out, printing the text would have worked as well.  But had I decided to stamp directly onto the background I could have.

You can see a couple of the ATCs – here is the whole set:

You can see I added a few little resin dots here and there.  I actually really like them! And it got me doing SOMETHING creative so for that it is all good.

Now off to help clear the dining room and hubby’s office – having one hardwood floor sanded and oiled, and a new wood floor added to make hubby’s home office warmer in winter.  The cold air actually BLOWING up from below the floor made working in there a challenge.  Also, dearest son will be visiting from tomorrow, as he breezes thru Europe on his way back to LA.  So I may be otherwise occupied and back to not crafting for a few more days.  Oh well, it was fun and I’m sure I’ll get back to it soon….

fingers crossed…

Finally, a use for the Creative Palette!

It has been far too long since I felt up to any crafting but knitting.  I am finally feeling a bit better and trying to flex my creative wings once again.

I am taking a free class from Carolyn Dube called Permission to Play (link in the sidebar) because I used to take part in her Gelli Print Party and I like her enthusiasm and her style.

I am not quite ready to jump in fully as I am very much out of practice, but a post in her group  showed some fab ATCs.  I remember that whenever I felt like I needed a little jumpstart, making ATCs usually worked a treat.  Little bite-sized pieces of creativity, very manageable, and using nothing too precious.

I collected up some stuff – I wanted to make use of the prompt (Using Cardboard or Trash) so I started by covering some cardboard with bits of the Sparks of Art-spiration Carolyn includes as an endless resource – mess it up? print another! I also dragged out a sheet of Teesha Moore stamps that I had not yet even cut from the sheet. And cut them.

I think I may have mentioned about 100 times how much I loathe mounting stamps.  I was not sure I had that sticky backed mounting stuff so I wasn’t sure how best to deal with them.  I considered using sticky backed fun foam, which I have done before and which works pretty well, but what had been in my head was the crappy Creative Palette pseudo-Gelli plate that I reviewed in the past.  Carolyn also has a video on using the Gelli plate to pick up the overflow from acrylic pours and when dry, use them as skins to add to your art.  I saw that a day or so ago and thought that THAT might be a good use for the CP.  It has languished in a drawer for YEARS and I hate to waste money so I’ve held on to it, SURE I would find a use for it SOMEDAY.) It was something I was already thinking about. A solution presented itself.

One problem with the CP is that is is really sticky, for Gelli plate-style pulling.

I had previously cut the CP into shapes with my Big Shot, thinking this was going to give me mini-gelli-plate style tools. It didn’t. But I pulled it out and stuck one of the bits to a stamp mount

and I pressed the unmounted stamp into the plate.

The first time I tried it the stamp fell off – it doesn’t grab the rubber supper firmly with just finger pressure, but if you are ready to stamp and you tamp the ink onto the stamp with a bit of pressure, it will hold.

And it’s a pretty sharp image, right?

So this makes me very happy!  It means I can pretty closely trim the rubber around the stamp without stressing that I have undercut the image, I can cut close enough that I can see where the image will be placed, and I don’t need to buy sheet after sheet of mounting foam!  RESULT!

Now, word of warning.  If you try this, I would shake the mount and make sure the stamp is firmly attached before inking.  It is a temporary hold, strong right after you have pressed the stamp into it and strongest after you have really pushed it down with the inkpad.  It will eventually loosen and you might have the stamp fall off onto your project if you dally.  Washing the CP (like you do with cling stamps) to refresh the sticky will help.  I guess it depends on your tolerance for error, and need for perfection.  For me, as I am not placing the images but will cut them out, it’s a great solution.

Sorry for the portrait style photos – after I decided to post it I realized my camera batteries were dead, the charger MIA and that my phone was downstairs.  My iPad was near so I used that for the photos.  Next time I’ll rotate it 90 degrees so the post isn’t so long.  It’s like I have to learn how to blog all over again…  DOH!

The perils of organization

Whenever I strive to get organized I always go thru a period of disorientation.  Where IS that thing I use 12 times a week, that I could find with my eyes shut cause it lived in THAT spot for years? Until I moved it when  cleaned…

OK, so I can’t say that the stamping gear thing was ever anything more than a bit of a novelty.  I did a few posts about figuring out a way to use wood mounted stamps in or around the gears, made a couple of cards for my card-stash, then boxed it up, and put it…somewhere.

When it came time to make a card, one I could see in my head even before I started looking for the supplies, could I find the darn thing?  I could not.  What I DID find was the set of looms I bought for DD at Christmas.  As I looked at them I thought Hummmm…..

This isn’t written in the form of a tutorial, since I doubt too many people out there still have MagnaStamp stamp mounts LOL!  but the general concept of adding a popsicle stick to the mount and the between-the-pegs spaces to place the stamps holds true.

With the edge of the mount bumped up against the loom, you can get pretty nicely spaced stamping – ignore the oddball one, as you can see I used the same paper to test out a variety of placements.

and inside too

Now, I can’t recall exactly how much the stamping gear thing cost me, but I know my local Tiger has the knitting looms for about £3.  No, it isn’t perfect.  You are never going to get the sort of precision you will get with the official product, so if you care about that sort of thing, buy the real deal. But if you want to get a reasonably well placed curve or circle of images, a knitting loom works well enough to create something like this:

 

Gosh it’s been a long time since I played with paper and ink.  It was fun…note to self: DO MORE.

{wink}

Resized Halloween-y digistamps

Still not entirely happy with the process or the format, but here is a sheet of the “stamps” from yesterday, in a smaller size.  I can only think to add them as individual .jpgs for them to be fully resizable.

 

I did get one comment that, so far as the online translator is able to translate, seems to say that the smaller size is better/more useful.  As I suggested I might, I’ve sized these to fit a 2″ circle punch.  And as that took up so little of a sheet of card, I added a few more that could (perhaps) work as a Halloween item – loosely, costumes, I guess.  The full set is here – same deal as before, click to open the full size image then right-click to save (or drag onto your desktop) and print full size to fit the 2″ punch.  Play around with them in PSE etc. to be able to size them more.

If you use them I would love to see how!

Halloween-y Digital stamps – sort of

Even since I found these images again (bought in the 90s from a place that no longer exists) I have wanted to share them as digital stamps.  I spent a very long time trying to discover the ownership but the most recent place I could trace ownership to denies they own them and the original creator has no idea either – but they did confirm to me that sharing them this way would have been ok under the original usage rights so I am going to go out on a limb and do so.  Frankly, I feel I have done my due diligence on this, and if someone owns the rights and objects then this may flush them out so I can have a conversation about them.

The next issue is how to share them.  Wordpress doesn’t allow the sharing of .PNG files (which would be my best choice) and I can’t seem to find the time to sort out the best way to share .JPGs so I am going to just share then as I have them NOW – that is one decent quality .JPG.  If you use a photo editing program you should be able to cut out a single image and print just that, and re-size it if need be.  Otherwise you can print the page and cut out the image.  I think they are arranged on the page so your options for cutting are varied. The biggest image is about 3 x 3 inches – in fact most of them fall in that area.  You should be able to click on the image to see it full size then right-click to download. I’ll test that after I add it to make sure. NOTE: Yes, that is right, it does work. I can also drag the image to my desktop with a Mac, but no idea if that works on a PC.   You can also opt to print the image 2 x on the page (in your printer dialog box – I’ve mentioned this many times before) and print the images in a smaller size, more like 2 x 2ish. And in fact that makes me think that sizing them to fit a 2″ circle punch might be worth doing – comment if you agree …

If you recall I used the screamer on an ATC recently:

Still entertaining the in-laws, so don’t expect to see me every day, but I’ll do my best.  Do LMK by commenting if you know how best to share these “stamps” or how you would like to have them shared and I’ll re-post them in a more useful way.  Assuming anyone likes them, and it’s not just ME that finds them totally quirky but oh so fun……

Make your own stamping plate

There has been a discussion on UKS about stamp+die sets.  The dilemma is to cut the paper or card THEN stamp the image or stamp the image and THE place the die to cut it out.  Last I looked I am not sure if one method was winning over the other.  But that discussion prompted a discussion of stamping plates – Fiskars has one (and I have that one, or did till I stepped on it and broke off a corner – DOH!)

and it seems there is a Martha Stewart one too – or at least a block with foam feet.

You know me – if I have a hankering for something but neither the time nor the cash to get it, I am always going to try to figure out how to make something similar from stuff I have hanging around the house.

What I used:

an acrylic block – this is one of the big chunks a mate cut for me, that I have used previously as a stamp mount for my Gelli plate. But any large acrylic stamp mount will  work – I got these from a craft show – maybe £10 for nine.  The larger ones are best

a strip of cork tile – I don’t see why Fun Foam wouldn’t work as well, one thickness or two stuck together.  You’ll have to play with it.  You just need something to make the stamp hit the paper fully, compensating for the foam.  When compressed it will be close to flush with the table but the little extra helps.

a Sharpie marker – to draw grid lines on the acrylic.  Not required, but it may help with placement and act like a positioner

a bathroom sponge – has to be the easily compressed foam, not cellulose sponge, for example.  You might find this sort of foam as kids foam stamps.  That’ll save you cutting them.

And speaking of cutting – I cut them with my Big Shot and a thick die, but you can just cut them in squares with scissors.

I thought this very thick sponge was TOO think so I cut the circles in half thru the middle

I stuck them to the corners of the block

and covered the gluey bit you can see thru the block with fun foam circles – totally not required. I used Fabri-tac, which held the foam perfectly to the acrylic.  Not sure what will happen if I ever try to WASH is, but I’m not planning on doing that – likewise the Sharpie lines.  they don’t seem to wipe off with a baby wipe so they might last,

I cut the cork tile so it fit between the foam feet

You can see what I mean about the cork or Fun Foam making up the difference.  Add the stamp.

just flip it over the paper and press

See? The stamp would be too far from the paper for a good impression without the cork.

and a perfect image!

I think you could add smaller foam bits to ANY block – you can still use the other side as a normal mount then flip it over to use the foam as feet if you need to.  But the point is, it took 10 minutes and I didn’t have to buy anything.  OK so the sponge was bought for another purpose, but it was 45p so not going to break the bank, now is it?

Off to work on the memory book a bit more.  Enjoying it, but I’ll be glad when I’m done…

Zetti stuff and about that house….

OK so I finally finished all the stamping of the Zetti grab bags.  What a huge amount of stuff!

Five sleeves of four 4×6 pockets

Three sleeves of nine 2.5 x 3.5 pockets

and two sleeves of 20 2 x 2 slide pockets

And, just cause so many people were curious, these are the two I will never use – the quotes themselves are fine, but that FONT.  It might as well be comic sans…. The other small one is the single duplicate I got.

I was cutting out some of the first images I stamped on white, just to test the fit on the little house.  I am torn – while I like the idea of colouring them I am also pretty in love with the stark B&W images.  I simply can’t decide.  I’ll have to colour a couple and then take a photo and look at them both.  Maybe that will help me figure it out….

{sigh} Sometimes I just struggle with creative decisions….

…but at least I feel like I’ve made progress.  I may have to set it all aside to work on DDs play-leader’s memory book, but I have a fear they will hoard all the stuff that needs to go inside till the last-minute, or the kids and parents will wait for the last-minute to hand over art, writing and photos. What ever have I let myself in for??

 

 

Bye Bye Zettiology – so sad

I was so sad to get an email that Zettiology was closing its stamp making business.  Teesha and Tracy Moore have been firm favourites of mine for years, although I only have a small handful of their stamps.  The shipping (and customs) fees to order from the States are HUGE, and there were only ever a few stamps offered in the UK. I kept putting off and putting off ordering any, thinking I would place a big order to coincide with either a trip BACK to the USA or a visit over to the UK of anyone willing to stuff a load of rubber in their packed shoes.  It never quite happened.  But the thought of not being able to get the stamps ever made me bite the bullet and place an order for a couple of grab bags from Teesha’s etsy store.

Now, grab bags are always a risk – you could get a tone of duplicates. You could get a ton of stamps you loathe and only a few you like and even fewer you LOVE.  Well, my order has arrived and I am doing the happy dance. I got a MASSIVE pile o’ rubber, and only ONE SINGLE DUPLICATE IMAGE.  Outstanding.

THIS is the pile of images I am 99% sure I am going to LOVE

This is the pile of images I will have to stamp to know if I like or LOVE them.

and this is the pile of images that I am pretty sure I will find a use for but I can already tell won’t be LOVES and may not be likes

Those are mostly text-based stamps, quotes, alone or with images.  Some look like they can by cut apart in various creative ways, but no matter how you look at it, that is a huge WIN.  I have already stamped a handful of the ones I KNOW I love (ok, the two small ones in the corners fit the sheet, but are def. LIKE not LOVE)

It looks like the grab bags may be gone, so I am glad I leapt rather than dithering.  But had I known when I ordered – really, like two minutes after I got the email – that she would offer last-minute, one time only orders of a few specific sets, I might have added them in {sigh} Oh well.

So I will be merrily stamping and assessing today.  I am far too lazy to mount each and every stamp, so I just stuck a piece of fun foam over a mid-sized block and applied some Tack it! to it – that lets me temporarily mount the stamps and makes the cutting a lot easier, as it’s just trimming the rubber.  I’m OK with needing to use a stamp positioner if I have to place them precisely, as more often than not I tend to cut stamped images out and then add them to a project.