Inchies - Housies (& Some Bleach Experiments too)

The current challenge at Inching Artists is little "housies" (I mean to say, how can you call anything so small "houses"!) When I first started stamping I fell in love with a little set of house themed Inkum's but at that stage I bought images without really thinking about how I would use them, so of course they never got used beyond the first trial stamping. I also used to buy stamps that needed detailed colouring, and once again I have to admit that I hardly ever did or do detailed colouring... Anyway when I saw the "housies" theme, I immediately thought of my little pocket set of Inkum's and sure enough, there they were sitting (looking at me very reproachfully) at the back of one of my drawers of mounted stamps (these are sort of mounted in that they are foam backed).

These stamps were perfect for this theme and fitted nicely on one inch squares! I have stamped them on a collage paper background, added some small text (Collections) and a rub-on number, rubbed the edges with sepia ink and sprayed them with my favourite Gold Moon Shadow Mist. I love the idea that every house has a story to tell...

I had quite a productive weekend although nothing was actually finished! I also did some playing with bleach (using a barrel type waterbrush) on various types of cardstock - you can see a little of each of the results below. You can easily see I was having a swirly sort of day! For once all of the cardstock reacted to the bleach!

I also tried an eye dropper with concentrated bleach on black fabric and ended up with something that makes me think of Halloween (which I don't relate to at all being an Aussie) or glow in the dark effects. This is the same fabric that went quite brown using a spray bleach a couple of weeks ago...amazing really. This was a really small piece of fabric so it doesn't matter that it is so weird a result. I also worked on my jigsaw puzzle pieces (involved a lot of looking for small images of vintage women, nudes, bathing beauties etc), did some printing onto fabric in readiness for some ATCs, postcards and small art quilts, worked on some experiments with the embellisher etc etc. All in all it was a lovely weekend and it was quite hard to go back to work this morning with so many works in progress.

Inchies - Rust & Finished Fibre Postcards

This week's theme at Inching Artists is Rust and, as I love the rusted look, I really enjoyed this theme! I have used rusted paper bought from Dale at The Thread Studio. I stamped it with text, swirls and texture stamps and then edged it with a deep blue chalk ink. I also added touches of orange and teal Starburst Stains as they emphasize the rusted colours and finished by gluing on "found" square rusted washers. I found these in the carpark when I was doing Beryl Taylor's workshops back in August. (I am probably going to do myself major damage with my tendency to always look at ground level!!)

I have also painted a canvas board to display these inchies - I have used Lumiere paints first and then added the same Starburst Stains and also some Verdigris Tintz to give a nice rich background. The scan is a bit blurry - maybe I should try and photograph them.

This is a scan of my finished "Patterns" Fibre Postcards - thanks to my new sewing machine, finishing them was a breeze! These are based on Macro-Suede upholstery fabric coloured with Shiva Oil Sticks, covered with deep blue organza and then stitched and beaded.

Now I must get back to my Circle Journal pages...

Inchies - Little Wings (& Beautiful Mail too!)

This week's theme on Linda's Inching Artists Challenge blog is "Little Wings". I just had to use bees for my inchies as Deborah is my "proper" name (it means "bee" in its Hebrew origins) even though I go by shortened versions of my name most of the time. I have always liked the connection with bees for some reason. I can't think of anyone who has called me Deborah much besides my Dad when he was alive and my husband when he is trying extra hard to convince me he is serious about something.

So my inchies this week are made with a honeycomb style (mesh) background stamp by Lucy's Stamps , a small Collections text stamp, a mini alphabet set, black ink, Moon Shadow Mist in Gossamer Gold (I know - EVERYTHING I make lately has MSM on it!), a tiny bee punch and Dimensional Magic.


The highlight of today's mail was this wonderful tissue paper study by Doreen Kinkade from the Surface Design Yahoo Group exchange. I am so disappointed that my mail-delivery person bent the envelope (Tyvek!!) in two and shoved it into my letterbox even though it was obvious there was a cardboard layer in there trying to provide some protection from exactly that fate! Anyway I have had the beautiful delicate leafy piece flattened under heavy books for several hours and it is now much flatter. The Emily Bronte quotation is lovely - Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.

A New Challenge - for Inchies!

The first theme for this new Inchie challenge is "Swirl" and for anyone that doesn't know, an inchie is miniature art - in a one inch by one inch format. Up until now I have only made fabric inchies and I found those very addictive and a lot of fun so I thought I would try my hand at a paper based one this time. I made eight as they are easy to make as a group and as I think they will make good little trades or alternatively will look great mounted together on a card etc.

These inchies are based on a piece of Basic Grey paper which I have stamped repeatedly with a swirl stamp in black ink. I have stamped miniature text in red as well but the red ink is not distinct in the final piece. The edges are inked black and the swirl shaped paperclips are glued on. The inchies are finished with a spray of Moon Shadow Mist in Medieval Gold which gives them a beautiful golden glimmer but of course it doesn't show up at all in the scan!

Gothic Arch Challenge - Moon

I joined in the first week of the new Gothic Arch challenge so really really want to try and make one each week so that I can make a book from all the pages and have a complete set. This week, which is the second week for the challenge finishes tonight so I am only just making it before the next challenge is announced! (Serious stuff, I know!)

So this afternoon I have created my arch for the current challenge theme which is "moon". When you are not well things definitely don't go as well either! My first arch was constructed of a transparency I printed and then layered onto silver glimmer paper which had been stamped with a favourite text image and then layered onto black cardstock. I machine stitched around the edges and then, fatal mistake, decided to add some extra bling by gluing some Judikins Silver Roxs to emphasize the stars on the transparency. The resulting blobs looked awful so I thought I would wipe them off before the glue dried and of course that removed significant quantities of the ink as well.

I chucked the whole thing in the bin and started again. This time I made an arch that was based on a beautiful piece of blue mulberry type paper that has little gold and silver flecks all over it. I layered that to cardstock and then decided maybe I could recycle some of the previous effort so I fished the first arch out of the bin. I cut around the little girls and the moon as they hadn't been affected by my earlier efforts and glued that portion to the same part of the new arch after stamping the text image repeatedly in silver ink on the blue background. I once again machine stitched around the edges and this time I limited my bling additions to some star sequins and silver pen dots. I have resisted the urge to do anything else although I really want to add SOMETHING (unspecified/unknown). Maybe it needs a "label" - a word or two - a reference to the moon maybe. Whatever it needs, I am not risking it.

PS I just saw that Linda has started an inchie challenge blog - the first week's theme is "swirl" - so of course I am going to have to join this fun too! If you like working small - have a look and join in!!