Thursday, October 25, 2007

Recycled Journal

Sorry I haven’t written up the wreath project yet. This week I’ve been experimenting with turning an old partially used blank marble tablet into a new idea journal. I often get my best ideas (especially the jewelry ones) from T.V. shows or magazines. I like to sketch what I see before I forget it, so I thought it might be helpful to have a blank tablet and pencil nearby my favorite comfy seat. Hopefully, now I won’t lose the little scraps of papers with ideas and sketches. I’ve covered the tablet with thick Japanese mulberry paper that I’ve hoarded for so long it became discolored and bug eaten, but I like to call it distressed. Gel medium has just become my new art supply friend because I discovered that it is like a colorless acrylic paint, which can serve as both a protective coating and glue. There are several brands of gel medium on the market and they are sold at Ben Franklin Crafts near the artist paints.
I was going to hold off showing you this journal project until later because it doesn’t really fit the fall theme, but then I
saw the most incredibly beautiful Asian rubber stamps. I don’t know if all our stores are carrying them or who the manufacturer is, but I found them at the Hilo Ben Franklin Crafts. The large stamps with flat, acrylic handles are very artistic and would make excellent gifts, which is why I thought I should show you the stamps now before they sell out. If you need lots of office, teacher, etc. gifts these large Asian stamps could be used to make card sets. I’ll show you a technique later to minimize the work needed to colorize the images. Ben Franklin Crafts also has some foam rubber stamp sets in Asian themes with a wood block look. These could be used for gifts with blank greeting cards and Versa Magic dewdrop inkpad sets. As soon as my new recycled journal is dry, I’ll show it to you….

Lynn

No comments:

Post a Comment