Flower Pounding

Flower Pounding

One day I found a tutorial on flower pounding. It sounded strange to me and I was really surprised what people do to innocent flowers ;-) (we have already seen that people stitch flowers).
Anyhow, the results are stunning!
As you can see on the photo, mine aren’t: I pounded on tissue paper in place of fabric and did something wrong. But this experience showed me that I’m not the woman to wallop little flowers ;-))


Links:
Flower Pounding
Inspiration: Google image results for ‘Flower Pounding’

Here at unikatissima:
Stitched Flowers

Stamped Appliqués

Stamped Appliques

Many of us have lots of beautiful stamps (some are self-carved, even from photos). Many have stamped not only on paper but also on fabric.
Nevertheless the idea of making stamped appliqués stroke me.

 

The tutorial is in German, but that is what she does in short:

  1. Stamp on fabric, best on smooth fabric on a rigid board.
  2. Heat set the colour by ironing the stamped fabric.
  3. To stabilize use iron-on backing or sew a zig-zag around.
  4. Cut the stamp close to it’s rim with good scissors (it’s called ‘narrow edged’ I think).

Great, isn’t it?


Links:
Making Appliqués with Stamps (German)

Here at unikatissima:
Eraser Stamps
Photo Stamps

Photo Stamps

Photo Stamps

I already presented links on eraser carving, but perhaps you want to go a step further and make stamps from your own photos?
I found a tutorial on how to prepare your photos for carving stamps.
The preparation of the photos is similar to the tutorial on making your own digital stamps (and while we’re at it why not making stencils from your own photos? ;-))
On the picture you see a stamp template I made from a photo from a magazine.
Not yet cut, first I must find a big eraser ;-)

 


Links:
Prepping Photos for Carving
Carving 101

art-e-zine: a cornucopia for artists
Make your own digital stamps
Stencil Art

Here at unikatissima:
Eraser Stamps

Inkjet Transfer Stamping

Inkjet Transfer Stamping

As I mentioned before, I don’t often stamp. Therefore I found the tutorial on how to make stamps with an inkjet printer very interesting.

I haven’t tried it yet and possibly I never will, because printer ink is also expensive, but who knows? Because I really want to ‘stamp’ the image on the photo and I’m sure that I wont carve it from an eraser ;-)

 


Links:
Craft Chi: Inkjet Transfer Stamping

Here at unikatissima:
Eraser Stamps

Eraser Stamps

Eraser Stamps

There are lots of tutorials on how to make stamps from erasers (look at the Google search result for ‘eraser stamp’).
I want to present three of them:

Some hints & tips for eraser-carving
This site shows how beautiful those stamps can be and gives helpful hints.

Kneaded Eraser Stamps
Craft Chi always have ingenious ideas and tutorials and I like the kneaded eraser stamp because it is a technique to create stamps from everything with a textured surface.

Making and Using Stamps with Watercolor
I liked this one because I don’t stamp so often and so I don’t want to spent too much money on ink pads. Using watercolour makes it easy to use different colours nonetheless.

By the way: On the photo you see my first attempts on carving stamps from erasers and although they’re very simple I still like to use them from time to time.


Links:
Google search result for ‘eraser stamp’
Google Suchergebnisse für ‘Radiergummi Stempel’

Some hints & tips for eraser-carving
Craft Chi: Kneaded Eraser Stamps
Making and Using Stamps with Watercolor

Faux Papyrus

Faux Papyrus

As I saw the title ‘Papyrus’ in connection with ‘crafting’ (English for ‘bricolage’) I was instantly interested.
And the technique is easy and convincing.
The tutorial is in French, but there are very good illustrating photos.

 

And this is, what you have to do:
Materials:

  • gauze or cheesecloth
  • wallpaper paste
  • some coffee for colouring
  • a soft brush
  • a sheet of plastic foil
  • some water

Prepare the wallpaper paste with some cold coffee, not to liquid and not to solid.
Put the gauze on the sheet of plastic foil and coat them with the paste.
Let dry on a flat surface.
Check the photos in the tutorial to better understand what to do.

I used my piece of Faux Papyus on a card with a leaf and some other background papers.


Links:
Tutorial on how to make Faux Papyrus

Serendipity Collage

Serendipity Collage

Create a lot of similar but not equal little squares to be used in card making, inchies* ‘production’ and other paper arts.
Take matching papers, tear them in pieces and glue them on a sheet of paper. If you like to, stamp it, paint it (to blend them a little) or doodle on it.
Then cut the embellished sheet in squares.

* What is an inchie? An Inchie is a 1″ square of art. I’ve seen them (in internet) made from paper, then embellished in innumerable ways or even sewn from fabric, also embellished in uncountable ways (see links beneath).


Links:
Once I have found lots of instructions on how to make Serendipity Squares, but I can’t find them back ;-(
Therefore I link here results of the Google image search for ‘Serendipity square Collage’:
Stamped Serendipity Squares (English) by ScrapFriends

Serendipity Technique Tutorial (English) by Art Without Anxiety

Serendipity Technique Tutorial (German) (select ‘Serendipity) by Anja`s Artefaktotum

Amendment (29. April 2008)
I found back my links and here are the missing ones:

Serendipity Squares (English)
Serendipity Do! (English)

Serendipity Squares Scrapbook Layouts: Search for ‘Serendipity Squares’

Serendipity (German)

Inchies – Inchies
Google image search for ‘what are inchies’
Google image search for ‘what is inchie’
Flickr search for ‘inchies’