D.Z. Mars Creative

I made yet another penguin stamp in the last two nights.  No pictures as of yet, so will have to upload one later.  I'm on quite a penguin kick lately, and as I got a nice big sheet of pink SpeedyStamp, I can carve to my heart's delight for at least a while.  I also made a small bow stamp that I can use as a penguin hair bow (do penguins need hair bows?) or bow ties.  I am on a total carving kick. It helps that I am making sales again (amazing what actually putting effort into something will do!).  I sold a penguin shirt I made from a screen made on a piece of curtain fabric and using an embroidery hoop as the frame.  I used screen drawing fluid and filler, but because the screen is held in such a crappy frame, it's starting to crack.  It's okay; I'm trying to move from screens to stamps because I like the variety of designs I can get from three stamps together, as opposed to a screen with a set pattern.  Strangely, a sheet of stamp material is ...

I spent a short few hours tonight watching random tv shows (Old Christine, Glee, Ghost Whisperer), and while I did, I carved out this stamp: It's actually a pretty big stamp at almost 3" or so.  It's the first stamp / block I've managed to make that actually has some semi-fine lines on it!  Hurray! :0) It actually turned out well, considering I free-handed the original picture in under 30 seconds, on an index card, during my lunch break at school.  If only carving took such a short time.  But it's actually kinda therapeutic in a way. Well, that's that.  I'm so in need of vacation.  It's nice being a teacher; I get a lot of time off, I get time to make a bunch of stuff, and I do have a  good time while I'm teaching.  I have parent-teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday, then the rest of the week off.  Can't wait....

This is what I made today :0)  I think it's kinda cute, but then again, I really like this little cupcake stamp.  In any case, it's a dish towel, in case you couldn't tell, and one of those vintage-y looking ones made of faux-sackcloth.   You can get it here if you are at all interested. I am rather disappointed in my other project, though.  I used my new little fox stamp to stamp on an old hoodie sweatshirt.  As my students would say: "Epic fail."  The first time I did this, the paint stuck to the stamp, for some reason, and then blotched on the hoodie.  I tried to fix it by reworking the stamp a little and then restamping over the first lines in a darker color.  Okay, that was better.  Set the paint and decided to wash it because the hoodie was all creased from being folded up. Turns out the paint wasn't set.  Most of it came off, the black paint kinda smeared and it looks like a total fail, which I think it is.  Here you...