Paper Doll Artist Spotlight

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about artistic rubber stamping is... With one single image there are so many possibilities! I absolutely love it when my rubber stamp customers email me their creations. It's often something I wouldn't have thought of doing, or is a similar idea but done in a completely different style. Each individual brings such new perspective to art, inspired by how they view beauty.



I just wanted to share with you Karen's paper art dolls. She sells them on ebay under seller ID keerng if you'd like to see what's currently available. She gives me inspiration and motivation to make some more dolls :)



It also makes me feel good to know I can help others start their own craft business/profitable hobby, especially with the economy at this point. I enjoy the idea of sharing, my Angel Policy allows people to sell a wide variety of items using my stamps or molds. I'll also be offering digital downloads/cd collections soon for scrapbooking, collage and die cutting. If any digital artists are following me, stick around because I'll be creating images you can incorporate into your art too (stock photography.)

Hooray! Tax day is OVER! + Stampbord Sneak Peek

Cats are ridiculous :) Last night when making a last minute double-check of all my expenses, I laid out all my receipts on the floor. The cats came in, and even though there's lots of places to lay down, they decided to plop themselves right on my paperwork. I let them sleep there for a while since they seemed so comfy on the paper. They lay down on anything new. I bought a laundry tub yesterday, set it down when i walked in the door... as soon as I turned around both cats were sitting inside of it.



I am so glad that tax day is over with! I had an unusually complicated return this year due to having to file a business loss. There were over a dozen forms I had to fill out :( There's got to be a simpler way to do this stuff... someone please invent it? Even though I'm not sure when the economy will start to recover, I'm hopeful that I can do better this year. I have lots of great new stuff planned and now that this is over I can get back to posting projects.

When I got to the post office there was a HUGE PROTEST going on. Swarms (hundreds) of people gathered and lots of noise as cars went by honking. They were all very upset about the insane amount of government spending. Something about how it equates to us being taxed and we the people have been taxed enough. It was wild, I had no idea I would have to battle my way across the post office parking lot to get in.

Stampbord! I've completed a few projects for the Stampbord website. I have no way of knowing which artwork will be posted or when, but at least one project will have a full tutorial on their site in May. Until then, here's a little sneak peek of a domino size Stampbord project. I won't be sharing any more of what I've done until they have posted them on their website. I'll be sure to post a link to the step by step tutorials once they post it.

Here's my little domino size flower pot paperweight:


I'll be 'craftin it up' some more soon :)
Kimberly

Upcoming, delays and misc.

Hi all! I know it's been a while and I apologize for being a bad blogger.

I will have tons of exciting news to share with you very soon. I recently purchased a Quickutz Silhouette and a Cricut die cutting machine (I like them both for different reasons.) I'll be doing a nice comparison of those machines and showing off some pictures soon. I plan to introduce a couple new products to my website including stencils, die cut paper shapes/stickers/embellishments, image cds for people to cut my designs on their own die cutters or to print out and use with paper crafting.

Many of you have suggested collage sheets of my color art, however I've decided against the expense of a nice printer and especially ink cartridges. Instead I will be offering large versions of my images on cds for you to make your own products from.

I've also been working on tutorials for Stampbord's featured how-to project of the month and galleries. The first of my tutorials will be their project featured in May. I have a few other nice long tutorials in the works to share with you soon!

On the not-so-bright-side, Ranger Ink, the manufacturer of Mold-N-Pour has been out of stock for about a month. So I'm running terribly low on mold compound and there is about a week delay on any order I receive with a lot of molds/compound. This should resolve next week, but I am forced to wait for them so I can't say for certain :(

It's tax time again! I always wait until the last week before I do my taxes. This is mostly due to the outrageous amount I end up owing as a small business, I need a lot of time to save up enough money to pay them! If you have any plans to start a small business of your own, my advice is to keep 30 percent of all your profits set aside for taxes. Depending on your state, this could be more or less. I think here in Oregon I get taxed more severe than some states due to our wealth of public services. For example, last year I only made $8,000 and I still had to pay over $2,000 in taxes. How the government expects me to live on $6,000 a year total is beyond me... But where there's a will there's a way (or at least a credit card.)
Anyway, point being I'm doing a lot of paperwork to try to maximize my business expenses/deductions and this is a very stressful time. If you have placed an order this week, I apologize again for any delay. Most stamp orders should be moving quickly, but mold orders are running about a week late.

Kimberly

New paper doll and domino rubber stamps!

Hi all, I just updated my website with new rubber stamps!
They will be shipping in about a week and I'll post example art once I get to play with them :)

Klimt ATC - I love Versafine & Distress inks, plus gel pens are neat!

I like to use Distress inks to color the background of an image. Previously I posted about spraying color using the reinkers, but here I've used a Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink pad direct to paper. By wiping the pad across the surface you get a random blotchy pattern. Then i lightly sprayed it with water, or you can rub it with a damp paper towel to blend it a little. That way you tint the remaining white paper.



I've been hooked on using Versafine as my rubber stamping ink for a while. The black is really dark black and it provides great detail without being too wet/liquidy like some ink pads. It also has the benefit of being waterproof, so you can use water based markers/other inks or paints over it without fear of smearing. (Here I used Versafine black for the Gustav Klimt art stamp and satin red for the spiral background.)



And for my love of all things sparkly I bought some gelly roll pens. The sparkly gold and red are my favorites (I think these are called stardust colors, they are not the same as the metallic gel pens. These are like dense glitter instead of thick color.) They add a beautiful glimmer when light hits your paper at an angle. I also used a white gel pen to make the image really pop. I've been seeing a lot of this technique while browsing stamping blogs and I'm glad I finally gave it a try. Using a white pen for highlights really adds a dimensional look to your stamp art :)

Rubber Stamp Background Patterns + Distress Inks

New rubber stamp sheet with patterns for making your own decorative paper or artist trading card backgrounds.





I recently purchased every color of distress inks (all of the reinker refill bottles from joann online and a few of the ink pads in my favorite colors. I went nuts for them and Joann.com usually has them on sale 30 - 40% off, so I recommend ordering there!) Then I picked up some "Mini Misters" spray bottles at Michaels. Here's the results of my first time playing with the reinkers. I'm pretty happy with them. They are easy to work with and can be used to create watercolor paint effects.
Other images and instructions here: Work in progress - A coloring media tutorial

I've got a couple more stamp sheets and another project to show you... very soon!