Category: stamps

30 Days of Lists // my listing book

6 Comments
December is almost here, and so is the December edition of 30 Days of Lists! I like to get things ready before hand, especially this time with the holidays approaching and things getting crazier than usual. So here we go, my listing book is ready to go and so am I!
For this edition I went a bit overboard and decided to try something new. I have previously used an A6 eco seawhite sketchbook, and embellished it with printed out daily lists, stickers, washi tape, and whatever felt appropriate for the daily challenge. This time I will be using something totally different and handmade. I have been enjoying very much making sketchbooks and notebooks lately from scratch, and this is no different. After much debating I went for an easy-to-make concertina book. 
I used two pieces of 4x5in dark grey cardstock and 8 strips of 12x5in watercolour paper, each folded in 3, and attached them together with double sided tape. If you are looking at making one for yourself, check this tutorial from design sponge.
For the front cover I used a bit of everything, from some ribbon, which will also hold the book together once I’m done, to a used first class stamp, but sticking to a black, red and white colour scheme. 
For the inside of the book, it got even more messy, but oh so fun to do! I splashed some red watercolour paint all over the pages, without giving much attention to where the colour would end up and letting it bleed in all directions.
Once dried, the real fun began!
For the daily lists, as usual, I printed out the complete list in advance. Surprises are not really my thing and although I do each list daily, I like to know in advance what’s to come.
For this December edition, I printed each title using some fillable Christmas labels from Catherine Auger (you can download them for free here). To avoid any spoilers, I deleted the titles from the pictures below, so feel free to have a look!
I drew some black stripes to divide pages and title areas, attached the daily titles and used some stamps, butterflies cut-outs and handmade rubber stamps to embellish each page. Here is a sneak peak of the inside of my #30lists // December edition book.
I’m planning to use a stamp for the date, as before, and maybe add some more embellishment as I go along. And I will be using a pilot G-1 0.7 for writing down the lists. Can’t wait to start listing! 
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
There’s about a week left before the start of this year’s December edition of 30 Days of lists. If you want to know more about this monthly challenge visit 30 Days of Lists and have a look at all my previous related posts here. You can sign up here (it’s an affiliate link), there is still time to register!

DIY Rubber stamps

 
A few weeks ago I came across a beautiful and captivating book on rubber stamps. The front cover was enough to make me buy it, and after flicking through the pages I was totally hooked. The book is Geninne D. Zlatkis “Making an impression”, and it’s about making your own rubber stamps, with lots of tutorials, ideas, templates and so on. She gets inspiration from nature and translate her interpretation of it into beautiful stamps.

The process of rubber carving is quite straightforward, as long as the design is simple and not too intricate. There are many tools and materials available, of higher quality and more professional than the ones I used, but as I didn’t want to wait, I just used what I had handy.
This is what I used to carve my own stamps.

  • small cutting mat
  • some scrap paper to try out my designs
  •  HB pencil
  • craft knife ( I used a Jakar swivel knife)
  • retractable knife
  • Some plastic erasers
  • ink pads in various colours

The first thing I did, was to ink the eraser surface, let it dry for a few minutes, gently wash it with water and let it dry again. This preparation process will become handy when cutting the design.

While the eraser surface was drying up, I tried various designs on a piece of scrap paper, bearing in mind the size of my plastic erasers. Once I was happy with the design, I copied it onto the eraser’s surface. This is the easiest way of trasferring your picture. For more complicated ones, I would suggest using tracing paper.

Using the craft knife, I marked the outline of my design and with the retractable knife I started cutting deeper and taking out the rubber around the picture. This is the most delicate part of the entire process; the more careful you are, the better your rubber stamp will be, especially if you are dealing with round surfaces. The coloured surface of the rubber will help showing the cuts. Now, the best way of doing this would be to use a lino cutter tool, if you have one.
You can try out your stamps during the cutting process, to see whether you need to cut more or make adjustment.

Once you are happy with the results, just ink it and start stamping. I’m telling you, it’s addictive…I’m stamping everywhere!