CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO: stamps

July 05, 2014

Mollie Makes US issue 3

Penguin & Fish inspired octopus

Remember the big Octopus, my hand carved stamp inspired inspired by Alyssa Thomas' book under the Penguin & Fish label? you can find the full size project in the latest issue of Mollie Makes US edition. I love Alyssa's embroidery style and secretly hope she becomes a machine embroidery designer because Penguin & Fish + BERNINA 780 = unstoppable cuteness!

Alyssa's Octopus embroidery is featured in the 3rd installment of Mollie Makes US edition, so is a really appealing ombre kimono from Leanne Garrity. Another project that caught my eye is a mexicana headband that would be worth shrinking down to the size of a Blythe doll. So lucky that the editors sent me a copy to review!

You can subscribe to Mollie Makes here for a very substantial discount over the cover price or find it around your neck of the woods at Walmart and CVS stores ampongst others.

Posted at 08:28 AM in Mollie Makes, paper crafts, stamping, stamps | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2014

Almost there

hand carved stamps + hand made cahier

Just stopping by today to say hello/goodbye for a few weeks. Many thanks to those of you who have mailed your red scraps! I will be working with them soon. On Friday I am leaving my boys behind to fend for themselves while I travel back to the old continent to spend a little quality time with my family. We are all getting older and time seems to move ever onward ever faster with very little spent together. I miss my family terribly, sometimes so much it hurts and this little impromptu trip sounds like a dream come true.

My mother rented for us a cottage in the potter's village of La Borne for a week and later we will travel to Paris where I hope we can get our fill of exhibits and wear our feet to the bones!

I don't have much luggage space left for crafts but I would like to bring the necessary few things to practice calligraphy. For this purpose I crafted a little notebook made of the sewn pages of a Rhodia block and a piece of bristol. It was not hard to sew the pages, simply set your machine to the longest possible stitch length, sew down the middle back stitching at the start and finish and voila! To help guide the seam I creased the pages and used BERNINA foot #10, the edge-stitch foot, in the crease.

hand carved stamps + hand made cahier

To decorate the notebook some recent hand-carved stamps inspired by the books "20 ways to draw" did the trick. I love these publications for hand-carving ideas, you can always find something in there that speaks to you. I might bring my knives too now that I think of it. It might be great fun to draw and carve abroad.

For now I say A Bientot!

Posted at 04:19 PM in Calligraphy, CRAFTING, fine art, paper crafts, stamping, stamps | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 30, 2013

Keys + Verbena + Ink

The week so far has been a blur of same old, with very little time to create. But this morning's terrible weather gave K and I the perfect excuse to sit down, sip some tea and carve a few eraser stamps. White erasers are limiting because of their petite dimensions. I also struggle with small designs but it is a good challenge no less. Plus I am pretty happy with the end result so it's a win for Wednesday morning.

We tried the design on a brown paper bag in white ink and you will just have to trust us (the bags stayed at K's house): It was very effective. I plan on making sheets of gift wrap with it and procured a gold pigment ink pad this afternoon.

The only sewing of the week took place on Monday, the lemon verbena harvest was so prolific this year that I had to think of something to store it in. In a rush I put together a cheese cloth bag (very unpleasant to serge or sew) and twisted some butcher twine into a rope. The stars were an after thought, as in I tried putting them on after the verbena leaves were in, holding a book for support with one hand and stamping with the other, terrible idea! Sometimes when you do something you know will end badly, but much like a five year old, you have got to see it fall apart, it was one of those times. Human nature?

Finally, Let me share a curious collection of mostly 18th century keys my Tata sent me (MERCI TATA! je les aime et les tripote tout le temps!). This is an example of complete overkill. We were looking for skeleton keys to top gift wraps and instead she found those, all fourteen at once and I suspect not for a song. To find yourself the caretaker of this instant collection, it's a little overwhelming but I should recover no worries (pfffft!).

Posted at 05:34 PM in fine arts, paper crafts, stamping, stamps, vintage+antiques | Permalink | Comments (3)

October 19, 2013

Still Carving

I would like to first thank the readers who took the time to leave me comments this week or sent me an email. I really would have responded in normal times but the long hours spent between the school and taking care of Finn while finding out that this horrible cough is in fact bronchitis... well you get the idea! Thank you enormously for making the effort though, it really doesn't go unnoticed. In these times of Pinterest when most blog traffic comes from pattern links and random pins it is wonderful to feel that someone actually read and enjoyed what I am doing now!

The bronchitis has really hindered all things sewn and I find myself mostly sitting there trying to learn how to draw again. The idea of hand printed christmas wrapping paper sounds appealing right now, the mistletoe bellow might be a bit time consuming but nice.

mistletoe

I am thinking of changing how I stamp the berries by reversing the pattern. On a darker paper I could stamp them in white or convert the entire design to silver or gold. Time will tell. A glimpse of my new feather and tools bellow. The Kraft vintage tray has been uber convenient to keep all the carving equipment corraled neatly and ready to go.

Posted at 03:25 PM in fine arts, paper crafts, stamps | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 17, 2013

Carving Stamps part 2

The days of carving erasers might come to an end soon, even though I have a massive stash of unused little white rectangles now. With a little more practice I stated needing more space for larger designs and ended up procuring several sizes of speedy carve white carving block and opening Geninne's book with intent. I carved the large mushroom first, the larger the object the easier the details are to carve, then came two more mushrooms, a feather, a difficult book plate and an ampersand from another source.

Carving stamps

The problem with merely copying out design is that you will run out of material pretty quick. This made me anxious to create some drawings of my own. I should say that as a child I loved to draw with my friend Lenaig. We did it furiously, even had our little magazine stapled together but there is no doubt that she was the both the brains and the crayon of this operation. I aspired to draw like her but never got there. In fact I would be happy to draw as well as she did when we were 10!

Carving stamps

Despite the obvious handicap that is lack of innate talent I am giving it a try anyway, first with the "pumpkin thingy" as a friend put it and then with the dark green mushroom. But then yesterday after a frustrating time wrestling through Finn's homework I went to collect all the green tomatoes from the garden to ripen them in a paper bag. Handling their firm flesh, comparing their shades of green I got so inspired that I decided to take the next step and draw from a model. Be it a tomato. I made two fruit stamps and a leaf, the largest to date:

Carving stamps

I found out the hard way that when carving stems it is preferable to leave a sustantial amount of carving material around the narrow design or the stamp will break. It happened with one of the mushrooms and again with the large leaf. Carve and Learn I suppose!

Posted at 08:05 AM in fine arts, paper crafts, stamps | Permalink | Comments (5)

October 11, 2013

Captain Octopus stamp

This cold that started as a little sniffle has now taken a turn firmly down the red nose reindeer avenue. It took no notice of the fact I had a dinner guest last night, Lauren Dahl who I met recently at Sewing Summit. The fair was just soup and bread but she topped if off with French macarons which make any cold seem insignificant even if it's only for a little while. I just love Lauren's last name, it make me think of the English writer.

We spent the evening carving erasers and linoleum blocks and lamenting our lost ability to draw. What happens to us as we leave childhood? I think we stop practicing and start worrying... here are the only two survivors on my side of the table. Captain Octopus for little boys and a simple "numero" made the cut. I truly enjoy carving stamps, it's relaxing, cheap and portable. The perfect winter pastime.