STAMP CARVING FOLLOW UP

After our stamp carving lesson last month by Fiber Junkie's member Carol Sloan.....several in our group continued to experiment and brought new ideas when we met earlier this week.

Patsy found some fun foam at a craft store with a sticky backing......

From it she cut her own stencil and adhered it to a scrap piece of Plexiglas. Then her clever husband added a wood knob (not shown here) to make it easier to handle while stamping. She actually cut the foam, however a burning tool (seen above) could be used.....as it was below....

..........to add more interest to this commercial paisley stamp. As purchased, the stamp had a clean cut outer edge, Nancy used a burning tool to add scallops instead..... Did I tell you how clever these gals are??

She carved other stamps as well......look at the detail she managed to achieve....

Here's another great idea from Nancy.....carve a small square block....then using that same block, carve the edges. Here she cut simple diagonal lines. The size will match up perfectly to stamp a 'frame or border' around the center design.

I can barely contain myself with the overload of inspiration and information from our gathering on Tues. and am determined to practice the machine stitching methods Patsy shared. Thankfully, everyone can learn Patsy's techniques from her excellent DVD's.

Next month Nancy is going to continue our stamp theme by teaching us how to make our own embossed paper designs.

It all begins with a water soluble heavy weight stabilizer to make our 'paper pulp'.....sadly, we will all have to wait until early June to learn how it's done.