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Foam Stamplifier Challenge with the Creative Squad – Maura Hibbitts

This month my Creative Squad is playing along with my new Foam Stamplifier Challenge: All month long you can follow my daily prompts on Instagram and on the blog to amplify your foam stamps!!! Today Maura Hibbitts is following the prompt Mix & Match. She’s using my Mid Century Squared, Signals, and Jazzed foam stamps to dress up a monthly planner.

How fun is it to mix and match several Art Foamies into a project? For me, it’s a blast! I love to create layers with colors and designs, and I am mixing and matching to my heart’s content as I transform  a calendar. I use a large calendar to keep track of all my art deadlines, and I’m going to need a new one soon, so time to get started!

First step is to apply a layer of gesso to the kraft calendar and let it dry completely. 

I wanted a colorful background to build my layers onto, and came up with this idea. I took my 6×6 gel plate, and added a layer of paint with the brayer, then “stamped”my plate onto the calendar. I repeated this several times with one color, then added new colors. I also overlapped my blocks of color to make it more interesting. 

Now, it’s time to stamp a repeating pattern onto my calendar with the Mid Century Squared ArtFoamie (love this pattern!) and black acrylic. I brayer the paint onto the gel plate, press my stamp into it to get a good solid layer of paint on it, and then line it up and stamp the bold pattern. My gel plate acts like a giant stamp pad, only with paint. Use the heat tool if necessary to speed up the drying time of the layer.

Next layer is white acrylic with the Signals ArtFoamie. I repeat the previous step in order to get another overall pattern that I am mixing and matching with the black. 

Every calendar needs a bit of glitz and glamour, right? The Jazzed Art Foamie is perfect with a shimmer of gold.  I randomly stamped this image onto the calendar, again using my gel plate like a giant stamp pad with the paint. 

I mixed and matched three different patterns onto a very colorful background, and at this point it was looking a bit wild. I decided to tone it down and pull it together by rubbing on some transparent fluid acrylics with my fingers, and using a baby wipe to remove it a bit if I got too heavy fingered. Once my cover was dry, I stamped the months on the pages and started writing in the dates. 

Check out the details to see how easy it is to mix and match ArtFoamies to create delicious layers! Each design remains visible, but is linked to the others. 

I toyed around with the idea of adding a focal piece to my calendar, but decided I like it just how it is. I now have my own personalized, colorful calendar which will be fun to pull out and use for planning. 

Thank you Maura! I just love these colors and how my Mid Century Squared stamp pops when done in black. Awesome! You can find my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop. In addition to white Chalky Gesso, here are some of the supplies that Maura used:


Feel inspired? I hope you join us for the Foam Stamplifier Challenge this month. As you play along, don’t forget to tag me when you share your creations – I would love to share your projects in my next  “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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The Stencilfied Journal – Prompt 11

My wonderful friend Tina Walker is at it again – she invited several people to join her Stencilfied Prompts. The prompts are music related and each week she is posting a song. You can be inspired by the lyrics, the video, the album cover or anything related and the only restriction is that you have to use StencilGirl Product Stencils. Here is my take on Prompt 11:

This week’s prompt is “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. A good reminder to live in the now and to not use too many rainchecks ;)

I used my Van Vorst Stencil as well as my Hamilton Stencil and created the background by using Distress Oxide Inks with the stencils.

Love the soft chalky look.

Here are the Stencils and supplies I used:

Nat

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge Prompts 22-24

Day 22 – Plastic

Printing on top of plastic sheets or overhead foils is a fun way to create transparent elements for your work or nice dividers for your art journal but my favorite of all must be using Shrink Plastic. From wine charms, to embellishments to earrings. Using the foam stamps with inkpads of your choice, stamp your desired images.

Then heat the shrink film up as the manufacturer recommends and you will get a tiny version of your stamped image. Too cute! Here is a sample where I used the shrink film to create myself some new fancy earrings.

Day 23 – Scratch!

Another fun way to use Foam Stamps is to stamp onto some Ampersand Clayboard to create some great textured designs.

 

Stamp on top of the clay board with acrylic paint or spray ink or inks and then start scratching into the design. It is like doodling by scratching- better then coloring books- trust me!

Day 24 – Bits & Pieces

How about using bits and pieces of foam stamped paper to create something new?

You could create a tangram which is a puzzle which consists of 7 flat geographic shapes which put together can create a new shape.

 

Simply google tangram, print out the template, glue it on some white or black paper, start stamping with your foam stamps and cut it.

And then go and play …

Here are the different foam stamps I used for these prompts


In case you missed the prompt list  here you go:

Nat

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Stroll Through the Hood – March 2019

March!!! woot woot- finally things are getting warmer- LOL. I cannot wait to get the bike out again. Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and to get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.

Indoor light inspiration at a concert of The Chills – it was a fun evening out with a couple of our friends and bonus – just around the corner from us.

One of our fire place grates – needs some cleaning- how freaking awesome is this? I cannot believe how lucky we are to have it :)

We have four fireplaces – one is working again after we rebuild and relined the chimney and built a new fire box. One was at a bad spot so we moved it to my studio and – woohoo it didn’t crack! Score

This is how a dismantled mantel looks like. The mason created an inside brick wall for the mantel and I painted the wall black- I share some pix later once we have everything fixed up on the wall as well.

We also got some old vintage tiles at an architectural salvage place – they are for a border in our kitchen backsplash and mimic the design of our banister and some of the door frame designs. I know I am a  nut but when I spied those tiles I was instantly like “we have to have those”. That was before we even had the house and ever since I was worried they would sell the tiles before we go them…so ….last week I made it at 8am to the place to get them …yes….it is THAT bad ;)

Fun colorful mural in my soon to be hood.

And …the St. Pauli NYC sign – YESSSS -my home soccer team from Germany has a fan club in Brooklyn and we finally made it there. Loving it! Made me feel like being in Hamburg for a couple hours.

Hope you all have a great month and are up for some stroll through your hood! Cannot wait to show more pix from my new one and I will also put some house pix in once in a while.

Nat

Comments (6)

  • Laura Bohall

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    thanks so much for sharing your hood pics. we live in rural va and are surrounded by natural beauty, but not much wo-man created art!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      So glad you enjoy the little strolls Laura! Thank you !!!

      Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    Love love love those kitchen tiles. Be sure to post a pic after they are installed please Nat.

    Reply

  • Janene

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    I love your neighborhood! So many interesting things to see, and if you ever get bored (not possible!!!), you can always cross the river and find more great stuff to see.

    Those vintage green tiles are FABULOUS! I understand why you practically camped out in front of the store to keep from missing out on them. Can’t wait to see more of your home renovation adventure.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      LOL- yeah I actually just wanna move into the store hahaha- they have so many amazing things there. Thanks for joining the stroll :)

      Reply

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NEW Rubber Stamps – FAN-tastic Designs & More!

I have some NEW rubber stamps coming out today! These have been in the making for a while and ever since I have been playing with them I cannot stop – I keep building new patterns. Are you a pattern lover too? Well check these out: First is the FAN-tastic stamps:

There are the two sets: FAN-tastic Large and FAN-tastic Small. The large ones measure 2.75″ across while the small ones measure 1.18″ across. These have six patterns each and can be arranged in all sorts of ways.

It makes me all giddy to see the Large Fan’s arranged in this colorful way. 

This is the Jewett Fan from the small set – tiled up in a classic art deco way.

But ooooo, they can also be arranged this way! This is the Broadway Fan.

And then there are the single stamps: Solid Fan and Solid Fan small – because maybe you want to put a color under your pattern fan…

And then there is also the Fan-fare set of four mini stamps…

These can make patterns on their own and wow are there so many ways to play…

Use them all together and make some awesome patterns! I am totally smitten with these :)

Ok but there’s more:

Those yummy Floral Tile Sets – one as a large one and one as a small one.

Here are the small floral tiles all next to each other

And the big positive and negative stamps used on top of each other.

You can use them as is, with some of the Stencils I have and also with some of the foam stamps. ANNNDDD of course they can be used with the other new stamps as well :)

ANNNNDDD another one I am soooo excited about – the Hex Sets. Again they come as a Large Hex Set and a Small Hex Set.

This is the large Hex Set- which measures approximately 2.75″ across

There are so many ways to use the Hexagons and arrange them to make patterns

but also to use the positive and negative patterns on top of each other

I cannot wait to show you even more of the patterns and designs you can create with those stamps! I can honestly say:

The possibilities of these stamps are limited only by your imagination

Here are all new sets now available in my store:

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Sue Clarke

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    Brilliant combos Nat…especially made with the fan set!

    Reply

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge Prompts 16-21

Day 16 – Ghost

No, no, don’t be scared- this is a friendly Ghost prompt. I love to apply paint on top of a dried paint layer and while the second layer is still wet, I take my slightly wet foam stamp and press it into the paint and lift it.

This will remove the second layer paint partly and create texture making for a subtle and nice imprint and revealing the color underneath. My favorite second color for this is white- it just gives a nice antique plaster effect.

Day 17 – Shape

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I thought this would be a great day to amplifier your stamps using them to stamp out a shape…like a shamrock. Although …I guess I messed it up since a shamrock is a three-leaf clover ….oh well…you can tell I am not Irish- LOL – but hey, I tried.

Anyway you can use any shape of course and  you can cut it out of a piece of paper or like I do out of a piece of deli paper. Basically you are creating a stencil.

Then just fill in the opening with either one or more foam stamp patterns, and lift the stencil- the filled in area defining the actual shape.

Day 18 – Mask

Now of course you can also mask an area off and then define that area by stamping over the mask. Here I used one of my beloved Elephant Masks and my Downtown positive and negative Foam stamps.

You can easily cut out your own mask of course. And voila …there you have a it – love the background. So many options with this.

Day 19 – Spray

Another one of my super favorite foam stamplifier techniques is to use dye or ink sprays with my foam stamps.

Spray onto the stamps and print – I love the super vibrant watercolor effect this gives. So easy and yet so effective!

Day 20 – Texture

Another one of my old foam stamplify favorites. Use the spray paint we used yesterday as an embossing agent and create some nice grungy texture.

Spray your foam stamp with dye ink and stamp and while the ink is still wet sprinkle some UTEE or ultra thick embossing powder on top and then heat emboss it.

I love the raised water drop like texture this creates.

Day 21 – Brush

Using a brush to color in certain areas of a foam stamp is also a cool way to amplify the stamps.

When working with acrylic paint  you either have to work fairly quick in order to prevent the paints from drying to fast or you can use a little bit of retarder with your paints to extend the drying time a bit.

I hope you enjoyed this round of prompts. Here are the stamps I used for those:

Have you missed the prompt list? Here you go

See you tomorrow for a little Kaffeeklatsch! I’m showing off my new Rubber Stamps and chatting with you on Facebook. See you at 12noon EST :)

Nat

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge with the Creative Squad – Jennifer Gallagher

  

This month my Creative Squad is playing along with my new Foam Stamplifier Challenge: All month long you can follow my daily prompts on Instagram and on the blog to amplify your foam stamps!!! Today Jennifer Gallagher is following the prompt Spray! She’s using my Circle Drive, Signals, Amsterdam, Gnarly, and Mid Century Squared foam stamps to demonstrate the art of making and using a masterboard!

All month long the Creative Squad is playing along with Nat’s Foam Stamplifier Challenge. Today’s prompt is “Spray!” So I pulled out my favorite spray inks, Dylusions ink spray by Ranger Ink, and all of my n*Studio foam stamps and got to work. This tutorial will walk you through using water-reactive spray inks and artfoamies to create a beautiful masterboard. Knowing how to create a masterboard will make quick work of backgrounds for Artist Trading Cards and Coins, greeting cards, and more.

Begin with a sheet of heavy watercolor paper. Spray a little of Ranger’s vanilla custard ink spray leaving white space here and there. Next, using Nat’s new Signals foam stamp, spray the stamp with rose quartz ink spray and press the stamp in a few places. Mist the foam stamp with a spritz of water and press it into a paper towel to remove the pink ink. Repeat the process again with laidback lilac ink spray.

Add some additional detail with Nat’s Gnarly or Mid Century Squared foam stamps by spraying it with laidback lilac and pressing it in various spots around the paper. Once dry, we can remove some of the ink to recover some white space and add additional interest by spraying the Signals foam stamp with water, gently pressing onto an area, and dabbing (don’t wipe) the water left behind with a paper towel.

Spray rose quartz ink onto Nat’s Amsterdam foam stamp and press onto the paper.

For a fun metallic flair, apply Ranger Ink Perfect Medium onto Nat’s Circle Drive stamp and Amsterdam stamp and emboss with perfect pearls in pewter and perfect bronze.

I’ve turned my masterboard into artist trading cards and coins. The possibilities are endless. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Be sure to play along with Nat’s Foam Stamplifier Challenge and show us what you’ve created.

Thank you Jennifer – I love imagining all the possibilities for your gorgeous masterboard! You can find my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop. Here are some of the supplies that Jennifer used:


Feel inspired? I hope you join us for the Foam Stamplifier Challenge this month. As you play along, don’t forget to tag me when you share your creations – I would love to share your projects in my next  “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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The Stencilfied Journal – Prompt 10

My wonderful friend Tina Walker is at it again – she invited several people to join her Stencilfied Prompts. The prompts are music related and each week she is posting a song. You can be inspired by the lyrics, the video, the album cover or anything related and the only restriction is that you have to use StencilGirl Product Stencils. Here is my take on Prompt 10:

This week’s prompt is Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” . Loved playing with my Kassel Stencil since I felt that would fit the best with the lyric part I picked.

For the first pink layer I used acrylic paint over the stencil and then for the second layer I used spray paint.

For the figure I used oil pastels – still love playing with them, it is so satisfying to play with this creamy intense colorful medium :)

Here are some of the supplies I used


Nat

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