Blog: Hope tag

Hope Tag – Saying it with Stamps

Sometimes against all the odds you just need a little hope. When I designed my Hope Tag stamp it was of course during yet another tumultuous time in the world and I was thinking how important it can be to have hope for the future. So among other actions, I designed a stamp to shout about Hope! And I’ve always been a fan of street art as a way to talk about issues so I wanted to play on that and do it in the style of a tag. Kinda like saying, “Hey, Hope is here!”

Sometimes I actually pop the stamp into my journaling to emphasize it, like I did here in this art journal page. And in addition to the Hope Tag you also see the Love Tag here because we all need that too :)

Although hope is usually working behind the scenes, it can be the lifeblood in our hearts as you see here, powering us through circumstances.

When everything in the background gets a little crazy and intense… there is hope :)

Sometimes you need to consciously add it into the mix of emotions, or even stitch it in to make sure it isn’t going anywhere…

…because it might be the opposite of what you are feeling!

But as far as I’m concerned, it is one of a few essential ingredients to a life well lived.

As we all look to a better future, Hope will be there with us, driving us and inspiring us.

And that is just a little bit about why I designed the Hope Tag stamp :)

Nat

Leave a comment

Pattern Monday 06 – Video from my Ledger

Happy Monday everyone – time for another pattern in my big vintage ledger! For this one I used my Lady Liberty and Hope Tag stamps. I’m getting ready for July 4 in the US with this one :) Check it out in the following video:

 

Here is a look at the finished pattern and the stamps I used:

Now it’s your turn. Here are the supplies I used:

Nat

Leave a comment

Say It Like You Mean It – Michelle Rydell

  

It’s Tuesday and time for a post from my Creative Squad! Today we have a fun and uplifting art journal spread from Michelle Rydell. She used my Stroll Through the Hood #1 stamp set for her take on this month’s theme Say it like you Mean it – Let your unique voice be heard and tell us what’s on your mind. Be bold. Be yourself. We all have something to say and sometimes we need to shout it!

One thing I have always been passionate about is music. I grew up with a lot of music in our house – my mom played the piano, and my dad loved to sing. I was fortunate enough to take dance and piano lessons too. Now, as an adult, music inspires a lot of my art. In fact, I am currently working on a mini-journal dedicated to song lyrics.

Today, I want to share a quick and easy way to make a journal page, using Nat’s Stroll Through the Hood set #1 stamp set! I’m creating this spread in my 4” x 5” mini journal. The song I am using as inspiration is “Hope” by Idini Menzel. I want to reflect the soft and gentle spirit of the song, so I start with some pink, orange and yellow paint, swirled with white to create a soft background

Next, I added a small strip of sheet music for texture, and pounced some coral paint thru Nat’s “What’s the Point” stencil to create movement in the sky. The “Brownstone” stamp creates the scene, and the lyric starts with the word hope, which is emphasized by using the “Hope Tag” stamp.

I wrote in the rest of the lyric with a journaling pen, added some stamped “Star Tags” to the sky, drew in a little bird, used a poster paint pen to color in the stars, and added highlights to the building. I finished the page by adding a border with an oil pastel, smeared with my fingers to create a softened effect. Here’s the final page…

Now that I’ve done a page with the Hope Tag stamp, I can’t wait to try one with the Art Tag and Love Tag stamps too!

Thank you Michelle for this gorgeous little masterpiece! In addition to some sheet music, Michelle used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:




Play along with us! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Julie Tucker

    |

    Wowwwwwww! This is gorgeous! LOVING that quote, the music paper and the buildings!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

Leave a comment

Say It Like You Mean It – Marsha Valk

  

Welcome to another post from my Creative Squad! Today we have a beautiful piece from Marsha Valk who used my Stroll Through the Hood #1 and #2 cling stamp sets to give her personal take on this month’s theme Say it like you Mean it – Let your unique voice be heard and tell us what’s on your mind. Be bold. Be yourself. We all have something to say and sometimes we need to shout it!

There are a lot of things on my mind: work and business, national politics, environmental and sustainability issues and even something as mundane as interior design. At this moment, as I’m typing this, current affairs in the US just aren’t in the forefront of my mind. But the Stroll Through the Hood #1 set is about a stroll through urban America. Not urban the Netherlands… So what was I going to do? I didn’t want to make another ‘I don’t want to’ spread. So I decided to turn off my mind and let the theme and the stamps do the talking.

Each time I read the theme ‘Say it like you Mean it’, I have a bad case of ear worm: the song ‘Sewn’ by The Feeling instantly starts playing in my head. But… I wasn’t sure what to do with it and I started thinking about songs that fitted the New York City feel of the stamps. And because I’m not currently in an empire state of mind, I thought of ‘I can’t see New York’ by Tori Amos. Also not sure about that song, I decided to go with both songs. They certainly were on my mind now!

I stamped some of the images in a notebook whilst I was working out what to do and that’s where the idea for the stars hanging from the sky came from. Then I stamped an urban scene at the bottom of the page.

Whilst I watercoloured the sky, I thought: you can’t see the city if there is no light. So that’s when I coloured the stars black. But the brief was to use one of the tag stamps and I chose ‘Hope’, so I felt that at least one star should shine its light.

In the end I needed to decide whether I wanted to colour the urban scene. I didn’t want to make it a black cityscape and colouring it would make it too visible, so I only added light grey lines and kept the rest bare.

The penciled and smudged words are the lyrics of ‘Sewn’ and the title in india ink refers to the Tori Amos song.

Thank you Marsha! We can always count on you to take the theme and really pull it apart to see what it means to you :) And the results are a gorgeously composed scene with beautiful colors and a couple surprises – like that cute suspended Star Tag lighting up the night sky. Marsha used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:



Play along with us! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (1)

  • Sue Clarke

    |

    Nice take on the guidelines Marsha. I can’t help but hear the Billy Joel song I’m in a New York State of Mind while reading your words. Now I’ve dated myself for sure. The stars are a nice addition.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Say It Like You Mean It – Tina Walker

 

Hello from the Creative Squad! This week Tina Walker is kicking off a new theme for us with a beautiful and very meaningful book that I am so happy to share with you today. Along with my new Stroll Through the Hood #1 cling stamp set, Tina created something very powerful using the new monthly theme Say it like you Mean it – Let your unique voice be heard and tell us what’s on your mind. Be bold. Be yourself. We all have something to say and sometimes we need to shout it!

Hi! Tina Walker here today with my take on this month’s theme, ‘Say it like you mean it’. The U.S. is in a pivotal period of transition and the theme this month is a perfect way to support and vocalize my feelings and thoughts. I am saddened by what is occurring in the current administration and I am standing up and fighting for my rights and the rights of others. I am incredibly proud of my project and it is one of the favorite things I’ve made in many years. It really does prove that when you are passionate and inspired, creating reflects a piece of your heart.

The pages for MY VOICE mini, are scraps of black leather. I cut them into various rectangle shaped pieces, both small and large.

Using stamps from the Stroll Through the Hood #1 collection, heat emboss each page with the various stamps from the set. I really love the white embossing against the black leather.

For just a bit of color, dry brush several sections of each stamped image. The idea is not color the image, but add highlights.

I am a person of few words. Instead of filling my mini with paragraphs and paragraphs of many words, I choose several that say exactly how I feel. My words of support and protest are stamped on scrap pieces of fabric. Machine stitch the journal strips to the leather pages.

Using small scraps of leather, heat emboss the graffiti words from the stamp collection and stitch to the pages with a decorative zig zag stitch.

The binding for my mini are large eyelets. It was a challenge to get the large eyelet holes through the leather, but in the end, it was worth it.

Do you create and put your thoughts and feelings to paper or fabric? Do you find personal liberation when writing or creating with your feelings? I’d love to hear how you voice your mind.

Wow. Thank you Tina for a such an honest and meaningful project. You are right – when passion and creativity come together in art, something truly special comes out of it. In addition to scrap fabric, a sewing machine, and various embellishments and jewelry, Tina used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:




Play along with us! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

+ Expand this article
0comments
Nat

Leave a comment