Post Secret

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone thought I meant postage stamps were my hobby instead of rubber stamps. I'd for sure be stamping full time!

However, I do love postage stamps.

And I love office supply stores.

So put your hands together, and you have a very cool project.

When I was at CHA, I fell in love with Graphic 45's paper. It was warm, collagey, interesting and inspired this idea.

A while ago, I bought some full sheets of Avery label paper - 5353 is the product if you're interested. I also have bags of old postage stamps.

I peeled off the lining of the label paper - one row at a time, since the lining is in three pieces - and started sticking my stamps down one by one. Since they are all different shapes and sizes, some need to overlap a little - just make sure you cover up all the sticky parts.

When I had a rectangle big enough for what I needed, I stopped and cut the paper in my paper cutter. Look at this cool new Graphic 45 style paper!You can reanimate anything into paper with these label sheets. Just think of the possibilities. Wait - you don't have to, because I'm going to do it! :) Stay tuned.

Anyway, I took this piece and ran it through my Big Shot with the Stampin' Up! Bird and Leaves with Flower die and then just stuck them on some black cardstock, used reanimated music sheets as a background, and put it on a black base.

So now you know my secret! :)

Do You Get It?

See if you get what I did on this card.

The paper is retired Stampin' Up! DSP and the little bear is from Doodle Factory's new Oh Baby! set. I stamped him on a reanimated Hardy Boys mystery. when I opened it to rip a page out, a 1950 wheat penny fell out of it.

Cool.

I colored him with pure color pencils.
The reanimated book pages take pencil sooo nicely because they are a little rough.

So do you get it?

If you do, leave a comment. ;)

Bunny Week...

Is pretty much the best week ever!!!

I made this little fella for Bunny Thursday.

He's reanimating the pages of the last Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

I punched him out and then punched his pink ears from a cool pink ad from the same issue.

I made the grass just by hand cutting a strip of Kiwi Kiss paper. The ribbon is Stampin' Up!

The polka dots on the pink background are made with the eraser of a mechanical pencil. When they're new they are such perfect circles. Just pat them on your ink pad like a stamp and stamp them! I used basic grey ink. The greeting is from A good egg!

Happy bunny Thursday!!

Rare Find

Meet Rare Magazine. I love it. It's published here in Austin, and the paper and the images are usually very fetching. I would never be able to throw it away after I've read it, so here's a simple, three minute card with the issue with my favorite cover ever.

This gorgeous image is the work of a local artist - Nishi Kumar, originally from India. She adores Degas, and it shows. It graces the cover of the January edition of Rare. The flower lower left is mine - it's the large flower from Fifth Avenue Floral, stamped in white craft ink and embossed with white detail embossing powder.After I embossed the flower I cut it out. Then I ripped off the cover to use in another project, and look what I found. Ooh. I'm gonna need that nice chocolatey brown and the vanilla scallop, aren't I?I actually had to do some creative cutting and get two pieces to avoid the bride image. I pieced them together under the flower and you'd never know! :)

The greeting is stamped on one of Stampin' Up!'s new Canvas Cuts pieces.


Don't throw that magazine away. You never know what I'll do next...

Negative Space

I decided to use the negative space from a sheet of my Stampin' Up! stamps.

I carefully cut around the void left by one die cut stamp to get this wavy ring.It makes a very cool background for my little doggie valentine.

Check out the girl dog with the bow in her hair. Who could resist her? Little love note in hand...Well this guy certainly can't. I used my craft knife to carefully free his little arms.


Then I put a valentine in them.Then I put them on a card, with little hearts as the thought bubbles as he dreams of his tiny canine love.
The stamps are from the Doodle Factory. Click here to see the whole set. Check my sidebar for a discount if you want them.

More MetaStamps

I've really been having fun with these rubber scraps.

2009 is the year that the Chagall Window at the Chicago Art Institute reopens. I was CRUSHED when I went a few years ago and the window was down because of remodels to the institute. It's normally the first thing I visit in Chicago. A person should be warned when their blue "soul window" will not be available. A person might change their travel plans if they knew such things.

This is absolutely the most beautiful sight on earth, IMHO.I have sat in front of this window for many an hour, just absorbing it's mosaic-y, glowy, heavenly blueness. I would like to be buried in front of this window!! I'm sure the Art Institute discourages that kind of thing. :)

But this gorgeous window is what is what I had in mind when I reanimated my tr(ash) rubber into this mosaic background stamp.The creation of the stamp took maybe 2 minutes. Then I created two cards for you. The first is kind of a muted Valentine themed card. I don't particularly like traditional holiday colors, so I like to play with keeping the color spirit, but toning it down a bit, which is what I did here with the neutral, Sahara Sand background. I stamped my mosaic in Sahara Sand ink along the bottom. I added the greeting in black.

I didn't want too much of this pattern - I wanted a very simple clean card. I did something fun with the wide Pirouette Pink Ribbon though - I actually folded a length of it around the front of the card, and then looped each end to give a 3D soft curl on the front. I really like it. Looks like ribbon candy.

Then to make the fun heart, I took the new Stampin' Up! punch and positioned it at the edge of the cardstock to punch out the smallest one. Then I centered the medium heart around that and punched it out and voila - a fun heart within a heart!!
Hope you enjoy it!

Then I just added some self adhesive rhinestones to add a little sparkle!

Tune in tomorrow for the second card!

Meta-Stamps

Meta: Definition: self-referential; referring to itself or its characteristics, esp. as a parody; about.

So what is a Meta-Stamp? It's a stamp made out of stamps.
If you have ever purchased Stampin' Up! rubber stamps, or any stamps you need to trim and mount yourself, you have all the tools you need to make yourself a custom meta-stamp.

Stampin' Up stamps come in sets, with multiple images together on a sheet of rubber and foam, like this. You pop out the images, mount them on blocks or use them unmounted.But that leaves you with all this fabulous, cushioned, adhesived rubber...
What ever to do?

Here's an idea..

Start with the corners. Stampin' Up! has these interesting little carets in the corners.I cut them out of several sheets of new stamps I had. And my friend Joy, who uses all her stamps unmounted, donated some wood blocks to me.

So, a meta-stamp is born. To see a card made with this particular meta-stamp, check out my Understand Blue Blog. For more cool custom meta-stamps, stay tuned. ;)