“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
I used some of our foam stamped masks from our Votive Candle Playdate and attached them layered to the art journal page. Here are Row Houses, Brownstone, and Lady Liberty.
I liked the raised look of the Grafix Wet Medium sheet with the acrylic paint and didn’t want to add anything to the background besides the journaling.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Riikka Kovasin from my Creative Squad shared this beautiful and bright art journal page last week and we are in love with the colors and composition. She used my new Row Houses and Brownstone foam stamps front and center.
Here is what Riikka had to say:
“The pink is Brownstone and brick red Row Houses. The background has Church and Powerhouse in there.
As Distress Ink is activated with water, I first cut the try out sheet into smaller piece, fitting inside my journal. I then used a wet brush to color the whole cardstock using the stamped images. On top I then layered some Izink ICE and then some acrylic paint covering parts of the buildings in the background. I cut the two buildings loose and added them to the page. There’s also some white scribbles, splashes and a sun/moon done using another try-out – a piece of synthetic paper with alcohol inks. “
Thank you Riikka for sharing this page!
Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and here are some of the supplies Riikka used:
For this spread I used my new foam stamps and acrylic paints. These were actually all kinds of test stamp sheets for our product photos but I loved the vibrant colors and thought it would be fun to layer them up.
Here is Hydrant looking very cute in pink and of course Lady Liberty in green. I stamped both Powerhouse and Brownstone along with my Powerhouse Rubber Stamp and Brownstone Rubber Stamp.
I was journaling just random thoughts on why I love living in a city.
Here is Church and Row Houses too. I just layered them as I wanted and then added a double sided adhesive to the back and cut where the journal fold is so it would be easy to open and close.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have some funky wrapping paper from Robin Seiz that is a work of art in and of itself using my Brownstone and Powerhouse foam stamps and Manhattan stencil. Our theme is: Good Morning Good Evening – Are you a Morning Person or a Night Owl? Or maybe neither? Create a project inspired by your preferred time of day – when you are in good spirits, doing what you love, and enjoying life.
Hello. This month’s theme, Good Morning, Good Evening, made me ponder the question, “Am I a morning or an evening person?” The answer is, BOTH. For me, it truly depends on the time of year. I am a gardener, so in the summer I love the morning. There is nothing more peaceful than going out to the garden early in the morning when the sun has just come up, and the birds are singing, and the dew is still on the leaves. When it’s hot, I move inside to the studio. In the winter, I tend to rise later and go to bed later. No matter what time of year, I love the glow of the sky when the sun rises and sets.
I used that glow as the inspiration for this project. I have quite a few special celebrations in August, and therefore, presents to wrap. I thought these new artfoamie stamps that Nathalie created would be perfect for making printed wrapping paper.
I dug out my 16 x 20 gelli plate, which I don’t use that often, but it’s a perfect size for larger printing projects like this. If you don’t have this size gelli plate, you can use whatever size plate you have and simply stamp it on your paper.
I cut 2 large pieces of white butcher paper (17” x 21”) or thereabouts, (I’m not much of a measurer) Next I generously applied Liquitex Unbleached Titanium, (which is a very opaque color) to the gelli plate. I used the brayer to spread it evenly, and pulled the first print and then a second print (also known as the ghost print).
I wanted a fun background for this paper and Nathalie’s Manhattan stencil was perfect. I was looking for something with a great pattern and some open space because I wanted the background colors to show through the open spaces in the stamps. I chose Golden Naphthol Red Light, Yellow Ochre, and Pyrrole Red Light, which when combined, remind me of both sunrise and sunset. I put the stencil down and applied the paint randomly to the plate and used my brayer to completely cover the plate and the stencil. I lifted the stencil and repeated this process 4 times until the plate was completely covered. I did have to work relatively fast so the paint wouldn’t dry too fast. In retrospect, I could have used some Liquitex Slow-dri Blending Medium to help keep the paint open longer. (but I didn’t think of that in the moment) :o) I pulled the first print on the butcher paper.
There was quite a bit of paint still left on the plate, but by now, it was dry. I spread a very thin coat of Liquitex Titanium White to the entire plate and pulled the ghost print.
I really liked the detail on the first print, but I felt the ghost print needed more color. I applied some Daniel Smith Gold Gesso with an old room key card. A little gold always adds a lot to any project!
I always go to my color wheel to plan the colors for my projects. I decided on Versa Fine Clair Blue Belle for the ArtFoamies stamp color. Again, I don’t often measure things; I typically just “eyeball” it. I stamped the Brownstone on first print. I was happy with the way the colors came through the spaces in the stamp as I had planned.
I wanted to use a different ArtFoamies stamp for the ghost print. I used Nathalie’s Powerhouse stamp. This ghost print came out with a grungy feel to it. I really love this distressed effect.
Home made wrapping paper can be whatever you want it to be; it doesn’t have to be occasion specific. My experience is that the receiver often loves the paper so much they want to keep it. I hope you try this project and that you enjoy it!
This is awesome wrapping paper Robin! Thanks for sharing and giving us some inspo for the upcoming holiday season too!
Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps and Stencils in my Online Shop and here are some of the supplies Robin used:
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“See… I am a time traveler… I travel 60 mins an hour to the future.”
For this art journal spread, I was playing with my new ArtFoamies on a Gelli Plate.
I rolled out magenta acrylic paint on my Gelli plate, then pushed the foam stamps into it to lift the paint and let it dry. Then I rolled out white paint on top and pulled a print while the paint was still wet – this takes off the dried paint as well. Also bits and pieces that were dried to the plate before I rolled out the magenta color came up too here and there and I love the grungy look that resulted.
Above you can see my Lady Liberty, Brownstone, and part of my Powerhouse foam stamps…
and here is Church peeking through some yummy grunginess.
I pasted these prints into my art journal and then also stamped some of the foam stamps inked up with Versafine ink in there too to add some other elements.
I used my E-Train rubber stamp with black archival ink for some detail and also my Love Knots rubber stamp with yellow ink from the Embroidery set.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a super thoughtful art journal spread from Maura Hibbitts using my new Brownstone foam stamp and my Santiago and her thoughts on our latest theme: Good Morning Good Evening – Are you a Morning Person or a Night Owl? Or maybe neither? Create a project inspired by your preferred time of day – when you are in good spirits, doing what you love, and enjoying life.
Good morning, good evening! Do you ever think about what your favorite time of the day is? Well, I still have to think about it and I realized I don’t really have a favorite time. I like to do certain things in the morning and other things in the evening. This got me to thinking about Yin and Yang and how there’s a duality in the world between light and dark, night and day. When you stop to think about it, there’s no day without night, and there’s no night without day. When it’s daytime on one side of the world, it’s nighttime on the opposite side of the world, so somewhere it’s always day and night. So rather than choosing morning or evening, I decided to work in my art journal to show the idea of the duality of day and night.
First step to create the page is to draw a large circle on a sheet of watercolor paper, and two smaller circles within it. Then draw a line that comes down in between the two, to create the shape of Yin and Yang. Cut these out.
Next step is to add some color to the shapes using inks. Swipe the inks onto a craft sheet, and mist them with a little bit of water. Press the paper into the ink and repeat as necessary. Let dry completely. Repeat the same process on a piece of scrap paper.
Using the ArtFoamies Brownstone stamp and several paints, stamp the image of the brownstone onto each of the shapes. I like to use a gel plate and a brayer to spread the paint out on and then stamp on this to pick up the paint. I used red and copper for the daytime brownstone, and a couple of greys for the nighttime brownstone.
Using the scrap paper that you made, along with the Santiago stencil, stencil in a bit of color with a contrasting ink.
In the black art journal, use a compass and draw a large circle that the Yin Yang symbols will fit within. Around the edges of this add your journaling with a white pen. Cut out small circles from your stenciled pieces, and add those above and below the brownstones. Fit the pieces together and adhere to the journal.
Yin and Yang symbols are used in many dualities, from male to female, and bright to dark. Just think about mythology and the Sun god and Moon goddess and these ideas begin to merge. I also use it to symbolize that I need both morning and evening in my day. For example, I enjoy meditating in the morning, doing a little reading, enjoying a cup of coffee, and then I get to my creative work. In the evenings, I love to watch the sunset and maybe take some photos of it, do some reading or perhaps watch a show, and wind down with some music. Since I enjoy both these times of the day, I could not decide on just a morning or evening as my favorite.
Have you thought about a favorite time of the day, or are you like me and you enjoy both the morning in the evening? Whatever time of day you love, enjoy the remaining mornings and evenings of summer and take care!
– Maura
Thank you Maura! I always love to learn more about our artists as they share their thoughts with these posts and the resulting art journal page here is simply lovely.
Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps and Stencils in my Online Shop and here are some of the supplies Maura used:
Looking for more inspiration from the Creative Squad? Follow them on Instagram here.
Last week Kim and I got together for the first time since 2019 for one of our epic Play Dates!!! We had such a nice time gabbing and making art and just enjoying the experience of creating together. Our project? Votive candles using my NEW foam stamp designs! It was an easy peasy project to get us back in the groove and the results are very nice. Here’s how we did it:
The supplies are simple: my new foam stamps (Clockwise from the top they are Powerhouse, Church, Brownstone, Lady Liberty, Hydrant, and Row Houses), Grafix Dura-Lar matte film, black acrylic paint, brayer, double stick tape, LED votives, and scissors or a paper trimmer. We also dressed some up with Posca markers, but more on that in a bit ;) The whole idea was to have the buildings and such silhouetted so that the light shines through all the details. Read on!
We started out by rolling black acrylic paint out on palette paper with a brayer. We both liked Carbon Black Golden Fluid Acrylic paint for this – a nice opaque black. Then we rolled it on the stamp (in this case, the Church stamp) and stamped it on the Grafix Dura-Lar matte plastic sheet – a matte white plastic that is kinda translucent with light behind it. You could also use a StampBuddy here too to ink up your stamps.
We left some room at the bottom of the film and stamped across the width, leaving room on either side to eventually tape the ends together. In this one I am stamping the Brownstone foam stamp.
Here I am inking up Lady Liberty…
… for a nice impression :)
A lineup of Hydrant stamps… cue the dogs!
Keep in mind that when stamping on plastic film the surface is slick and the stamps can slide if you aren’t careful.
The Row Houses on the left turned out fine but I slipped a bit with Powerhouse on the right. We each had a couple misfires so plan on having some extra sheets of plastic just in case.
With some of the mistakes, we created masks to use in building up more complex, layered scenes – a great way to use those.
Kim stamped Row Houses and Brownstone and then used the masks to add Church to the background for a little streetscape.
Looks pretty neat all together like that.
I first stamped Church, then added Powerhouse, and then…
…I added Row Houses to the left…
And then I finished with Lady Liberty!
We created a variety of sheets to move on to the next step:
I broke out my new Dahle trimmer and we cut things down to size. We experimented with trimming some with a margin around the image – room for tape and a little lift off the ground.
We also fussy cut some for a different effect!
Looking pretty good there Lady Liberty! The choice is yours on how you want to trim them.
We also tried coloring some in with acrylic markers.
Here are some details in those stained glass windows.
Using double sided clear tape we got ready for the final assembly.
Coming together and holding tight with permanent tape.
Here are our City Scenes votives ready for illumination – LED lights must be used with these to be safe.
Let’s light them up!!!
For the taller ones you may want to use a taller LED votive or stack the votive on something inside the sheath.
Love this one that I fussy cut!!!
And now after dark…
I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and maybe you’re feeling inspired to make some foam stamped votives of your own. Please do!!! And I hope you join us back here for our next Play Date :)
Here are some of the supplies we used:
“It’s scary when things change. It’s scary when things stay the same.”
Isn’t that the truth.
For this spread I just stamped with different versafine stamp pads using my new Foam Stamps like the Church. I also used some of my other stamps like the Solid Triangle Small from Triangle Love and the Fan-fare rubber stamp set.
I filled in some of the details with markers like here in the Brownstone foam stamp.
And here is the Powerhouse foam stamp with some details highlighted.
And here is Row Houses looking lovely in yellow.
Here is a tip – After using ink, clean your stamps with water and a soft brush to make sure ink does not transfer to your next project or other inkpads.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
You get such a clear and complete image when you stamp.
I have had some luck using Julie’s suggestion to stamp with a mat underneath, but I still get bothered by incomplete images.
Maybe it’s the “perfect” side of my brain. I continue to strive to let go. Nice new set of stamps Nat!
Riikka, I so love these colors and the page and the moon!!
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