Luna's Baublebilities

Here are some photos of the scarves that I finished last week and a short how-to on stamp making.


Making a stamp for silk resist is very easy and requires only an idea, a piece of plexiglass, a plexiglass cutter (both should be available at your local hardware store), a sheet of fun foam and some glue - I use either super glue or rubber cement.

Your design should be fairly simple and read well as either positive or negative space. Transfer your design to the fun foam and cut it out with scissors. Scissors will create a smooth beveled edge that works well for gluing and stamping. If you have multiple shapes within your design, it is a good idea to draw a map of pieces onto your plexiglass with a sharpie marker so that you know where each small element is supposed to go once you start gluing. Use the plexiglass cutter to cut the plastic to the appropriate size for your stamp.

If you use super glue, apply tiny dots of glue at 1/8 inch intervals to the back of the fun foam and quickly stick the pieces onto the plexiglass. These should stick for just about forever. Try not to get your fingers too involved, you don't want to wear your new stamp all day.

Rubber cement allows for some adjustments after placement and is good for the accident prone. Apply a thin layer of glue to the plexiglass and to the fun foam. Allow it to dry until it is tacky on both surfaces and then press the foam pieces frimly onto the plexiglass. Lay the assembled stamp flat and place a heavy book on top for about an hour. This results in a sturdy stamp that can be removed in case you want to re-position the pieces or use the piece of plexiglass for something else.

Where to get a design motif?

Sometimes my design ideas come from my own drawings, sometimes they come from other design sources.

These carnation blossoms are two of my favorite stamps.


They are from a small study of carnation buds and blossoms I did about 8 years ago.
















I found the spear-like buds very intriguing so I made a stamp of that simple design and used it for a couple of years. then I wanted to add some variety to the designs I was stamping with that motif and created the blossom stamp to co-ordinate with it. They have ben very successful. I can create rigid, static upright motifs with these stamps or use them as a garden element, adding fern patterns, birds, insects or my signature moon stamp.



These fuschia blossoms were created in a similar fashion. I did a quick setch of a friend's hanging basket and later translated that into a set of fuschia blossom and bud stamps. These ae wonderful bcause in order to make the design read corectly, I stamp the flowers on, allow them to dry and then draw in stems and leaves with my fine line applicatr after the scarf is in the stretcher frame. This creates a scarf that can be painted in a groovy, 1970's stained glass window look.

The swallow image originated from a one of Graham Leslie McCallum's source books. I like these books because they are full of simple B&W line drawings of relatively simple design motifs. I like other souce books, too, but I find that I am often distracted & overwhelmed by the addition of colors or including complete designs on the page instead of simple elements.













I made the first stamp from a line drawing inspired by two or three of the swallow images in the book. I wanted another swallow, slightly larger and swooping in the opposite direction, so I simply traced the first foam swallow onto another piece of foam before gluing it to the plexiglass.

You can also get nice stamps at Michaels' and other shops that sell foam home decor and kid's craft stamps.
One your stamps are made, use a foam brush to apply Elmers School Glue Gel, diluted 2 to 1 with water and stamp the designs on the silk. Allow the resist to dry, stretch the silk and paint. Do not paint over the resisted image, as the glue is water soluble and will break down.

When the scarf is painted, cured and washed, you can embellish the resist design with textile paint or ink. I like Dahler Rowney's Acrylic inks - they are supple and shimmering and flow nicely onto the silk.

Wash the stamp with warm water after each use and allow to dry before storing it away and it will last for many years. You can also use the stamp for paper creations, for stamping paint or thickened inks to fabric or even for home decor.

First, Let me say that it is COLD.

And I am sick of it. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired and cold already. Doesn't bode well for the rest of he winter. :) I'm seriously considering putting the computer out by the woodstove and the TV in here where the computer sits. You can huddle with all of your extremities in a blanket when you watch TV - which we don't do much of, anyway - but your finger have to be thawed and mobile in order to type.

I'm sitting here wearing Bryan's fleece Balaclava, two sweaters, a pair of fleece pants and a thick, fuzzy blanket. All you can see of me are my glasses, my nose and my mouth. I look like Mrs. Who.

It will get better - we finally have all the insulation up in the living room, Bry is ready to hang sheetrock and we will be putting the windows back this weekend whether or not we get around to stripping them first. They can always come back out for painting in the spring and as soon as I get curtains, they will be covered most of the winter, anyway.

Anyway, here is a little of what I have been doing when I'm not huddled around the woodstove.

I started some silk painted scarves over Studio Tour and I have been comissiioned to make five of them for a friend before Christmas so I've been stealing a few moments here and there for painting up in my studio. (It stays pretty warm up there)

Above is a photo of my stretcher frame that Bry made me. It is not great for very wide pieces of silk but it can handle 1/2 to 3/4 of a yeard easily. The real genius of it is that its length is adjustable and the silk is held on the frame using rubber bands. I sew my silk to a dowel at each end, set my frame up to be about a foot longer than my scarf and attach the dowels with rubber bands. The rubber bands keep tension on the silk as it is being painted so that it does not sag and touch the table while it is wet.

In the photo you can also see my secret recipe resist. Elmer's school glue gel is great. I can brush it on a stamp and stamp designs onto my silk or apply it in lines with an applicator bottle. It is incredibly inexpensive, non toxic, no fumes, washes out easily if I make a goof, is sturdy enough to stand up to several layers of dye and can be tinted with silk dye to a pale pastel color should I want that option. Plus, if I run out, I don't have to special order it. When I cure my silk, it just disappears and leaves the resisted area just as soft as the rest of the scarf. I can then leave that area white or I can highlight it with metallic textile paint.

The scarf on the frame is a design that I call Thethuthinang - after the name of a rabbit in Watership Down. The name means "Movement of the Leaves" nd I think that describes this design well. I start with a series of flowing lines and simple leaf shapes drawn onto the silk with the applicator bottle and I paint the first layer of color on. I generally start with ver soft pastel shades in blues, greens & yellows or or pinks and oranges. It doesn't seem to work well with purples for some reason.


When the first layer of dye is dry, I apply another layer of resist in a similar lines and leaves motif.











I may paint up to three layers of resist and paint on a Thethuthinang scarf. This particular one has three but I wonder if I should have stopped at two. I use salt effects generously in this design and when it is completely dry and cured, I will iron it out and paint on some metallic highlights. I've tried using metallic gutta for the whole design but that looks terrible and I hate gutta. It actually has a greater tendency to fail than the Elmers' gel does. Plus it is expensive, stinky and usually impossible to remove.

I haven't got to the highlighting part on this scarf yet, but I will be sure to post photos when I do.


Here are some other scarves I'm working on for my friend. She requested one scarf each in blue, purple, green, orange and red. I've been taking the color schemes and developing my own designs for each one.

The first has a carnation bud & blossom motif with dragonflies and moons, painted in purples & violets.










The next one has a blossom motif painted in blues. One photo looks like there is a lot of purple there but it is really a deep indigo blue - my camera sometimes has trouble rendering blues well when there are aquas and indigos present.

The carnation, moon and dragonfly stams are handmade. Someday I will do a tutorial on making these stamps. It is very easy and they are great for aplying resist, thickened dye or paints to fabric and also handy for home decor. They are a bit big for card making but they would work well on paper if you had a large area you were working with.

I'll post photos of all the scarves when thy are cured and highlighted - but for now - it is time to go stoke thefire and get warmed up again!

May has been a very busy month with lots of glorious weather - except for yesterday. Yesterday it was 40 degrees and blattering rain all day. In the last two weeks we have enjoyed several warm and sunny days filled with the scent of apple, plum and lilac blossoms. Molly brought in several stems of plum blossoms to decorate the house with for her birthday party this month and set some on top of the computer monitor. It was like having a perfect Japanese painting in the study for a few days before they wilted.









Recent rainy days have stripped most of the more delicate blossoms off the stems so we are now left with just the lilacs, but all of the colors we have in our yard have burst open - white, lavender, dark lavender and red violet.

Even the rainy days have been beautiful - except for yesterday, but I already mentioned that. These rainy day photos were taken last Thursday. The leaves were still quite small at the beginning of the day but after a few hours of moisture and subdued sunlight, they were bursting forth so quickly, you could almost see the changes from moment to moment. Days like this make C.S. Lewis' description of the Narnian spring sound like an understatement.




















Here are some recent Round Robin Photos.


On this fabric, I added the 5th layer to an already full yard. I used my favorite handmade stamp - a stylized carnation blossom. I have found that this simple shape can form the basis for a number of very elegant motifs. Other artists have added amazing rainbow colors, discharged diamonds, silk screened tic-tac-toe-ish shapes and stamped circles.













The color on this second fabric is hard to capture. In reality it is full of beautiful aqua and green colors with deep Prussian blue square outlines. It looked really watery to me so I used bleach to discharge a couple schools of tiny fish on there along with some bigger fish to hunt them. Unfortunately, you can't really see the fish well in these photos, they are very subtle. One of the fascinating things about this piece of fabric is that one of the artists before me used a crackled resist to apply a deeper green color over the existing yellowish aqua. that's a process I have to try - I love the crackle effect. I also really like the pine bough stencil you can see here.












I've been meaning to post some silk fusion photos for a long time. Here are a few sheets of "paper" I have made using silk fibers and textile binding medium, some of them have machine embroidery. I love silk Fusion paper! This material is very sturdy and has a wonderful sheen. It can be sewn, embroidered, painted or drawn on - you can even make clothes from it! I like using it to make small pocket purses and greeting cards.

I'm intending to open a new Etsy shop this summer for textile and jewelry supples that will include sheets of silk fusion, supplies to make your own silk fusion, dyed silk cord and ribbon and filigree jewelry components. Maybe a few beads, too - though I really do have a hard time handing over beads to anyone. I really enjoy all of the processes involved in making silk fusion and wearables but with a very busy little boy in the house, I find that I rarely get to actually finish anything other than a few earrings now and then. I'd like to keep making lovely things, though, so maybe selling supplies will keep my skills honed while I enjoy this phase of toddlerhood Maxx is in.






Speaking of the boy - here he is. I hope you have a day as wonderful as this one was - sunny and warm with time to bounce around the yard, blowing dandelion clocks.

It has been a very busy week. My grandmother passed away last Wednesday and our household has been in a bit of a funk since. I have not been very productive and it shows the minute you step into the house!


Today I broke out some studio supplies to work on two bags. The canvas shopping bags were donated to the St. Lawrence County Arts Council by a former board member who thought they might be useful for a class or a fund raiser. The Arts Council is distributing them to local artists to be decorated and returned to the gallery where they will be offered for sale. My simple bags project utilized fabric painting and stamping & stenciling with home made stamps & stencils. I intended to add beads but the more I worked with the canvas fabric, the more I worried about attaching them securely. I'll sleep on it tonight and see if I wake up with any inspiration. I took photos during the process for a tutorial that I will put up as soon as I get an opportunity.

Anyone interested in buying a bag can contact the S.L.C. Arts Council. All proceeds will go to support the Arts Council.