New Stamps from Seth Apter

Seth Apter is a mixed media artist, 
author, teacher and art community maker/gatherer.

He is just releasing a new line of stamps, 

and sent me the set 'Pattern Play' to have fun with.

 

 

The set includes - 'Mosaic Tile'

'Bar Code'

and 'Birch Bark'

I played in my usual style of stamping onto a variety of papers

 

Which I proceeded to rip into tiny pieces and glue together.

My 'Patterned Play' stamped bits became
 a patterned landscape that my trees grew from. 
 

Here you can see the backside of my accordion book

decorated with a long strip of 'Birch Bark' decorated tea bag.

After completing this creation, 

I still had pieces of stamped paper sitting on my desk

So created some little houses with the little bits.
And then stamped a bigger background piece 
to put behind them.

The little bits of paper were getting smaller, 

but I thought they would look beautiful
decorating a paper pulp bowl
 that was waiting patiently on my art desk.

I love the lines that each of these stamps create, 
and know that they will be showing up in a variety of my creations.  

As I write this I haven't seen the other stamps or creations that other people have created, but am excited to check out the following links!

Seth Apter

Mary Beth Shaw 

Marjie Kemper 

Linda Kain 

Pam Carriker

Brian Kasstle

The full line of stamps can be viewed or purchased from
 Impression Obsession


THANKS  SETH!

 

Luminaries.......Once Again

For those of you that have been visiting my blog for sometime,

you may recongnize these creations. 

It has been a long time since I have made any.

These round luminaries are made from tea bags

which I open and empty and add botanical bits and paper/fabric, ink 

and other bits and pieces to.

They can either stand on a window sill

and have the light that shines through 

show off their bits and pieces

OR.....

 

I add a battery operated tea light

inside the tube 

and when turned on gives a lovely glow.  

I really love how the light shows off 

the tiny flowers, stems and bits and pieces 

in each one. 

I have been thinking about creating an online class 

to show how I make these

...... but so far it has just been on the 'thinking about it' list.

Here are a few packaged with paper instructions

(which means no light shows through - so they are not so pretty)

ready to go to the little art gallery in town. 

Collection of Pins

These collection of pins have been in my mind

and on my work table for months. 

They are made from pieces of scrape metal for the backing 

with a piece of recycled paper that I painted and stamped over

and then covered with resin. 

I picture them being worn separately or in groups of two or three.

I pinned them onto mailing tags that I joined together so they can stand up. 

And because it was a nice day, this was my work station for the day. 

A Bowl Binge

I enjoyed making bowls out of egg carton pulp for my 

Art at the Dump project,

so I decided to make a few more. 

I had been wanting to try making a bigger one

And so I made this one. 

I decorated it by adding some layers of tea bag paper

and some stamped on tissue paper and a bit of paint. 

I finished it off with a layer of wax medium to give it a nice finish.

I made a little ball of paper pulp as well, and decorated it in the same colours.

When you swirl the bowl, the ball rolls around in it very nicely.... it is funny the little things that bring me delight. 

I also finished a couple of small size bowls. 

This one was painted.... 

And this one was covered with layers of coloured tissue paper. 

They can't hold soup or anything,

but I think they will look great  holding all my many treasures

(probably rocks..... )

Besides building bowls, 

I have been trying to get out and enjoy our summer. 

I went hiking with my daughter and her friend

And we enjoyed some time taking pictures together. 

More hiking adventures and bowl making are in the works!

Cabinet of Curiosites

As part of the 'Art at the Dump' project

I drew and collaged this piece

on a paper covered piece of cardboard 

(paper and cardboard both acquired from the dump).

I used it to decorate the door of the 'Cabinet of Curiosities'

Inside the cabinet I added the pieces I created,

but left lots of room for pieces that community members were going to create.

I had fun playing with used light bulbs. 

 I added a hat and balls made out of egg carton paper pulp to this one,

and secured it to a block of wood with a furnace filter (found at the dump). 

The filter took a lot of work to clean up, but worked really well to secure the light bulb. 

This emptied light bulb is filled with feathers.  

The cabinet also contains bowls made out out egg carton paper pulp and

decorated with coloured sewing pattern paper,

corks decorated with hand carved stamps

and wooden blocks (found at the dump) decorated with collage and drawings. 

 After a day of community creating

where I was very busy helping so many people (mostly kids & youth)

create items for the cabinet, our cabinet was full.  

Some of the kids actually took their creations home,

which was fine as the cabinet still had lots of wonderful creations.