Sometimes the pieces of scrap paper I put under my rubber stamping projects to protect the work surface from ink end up with really interesting markings on them. Don’t throw these pieces out – when they’re dry, scan them and import them into Photoshop to make interesting textures that would be difficult if not impossible to duplicate with only digital tools.
Click here for Analog to Digital: Waste Paper From Stamping Projects Can Enhance Photoshop Art.
Laumeier Sculpture Park is located just off the Watson Road alignment of Route 66 in South St. Louis County. If you’re heading west, make a right turn on Geyer Road just before you reach Interstate 270 and you’ll see the park entrance shortly. If you’re looking for a place to pull of the road for a little while for a walk or a picnic, this park is ideal.
You can stroll on nature trails and open grassy areas while viewing a variety of outdoor sculpture. Bring the kids, because there are many art works that are meant to be climbed on or interacted with in some way, some designed specifically for younger visitors. Also bring your dogs – there is a series of six sculptures that is designed partly to make you think about the relationship between dogs and humans, and partly to provide an interactive activity area for dogs. There are even special sights and sounds to appeal to canine senses!
On a recent visit I spent about an hour and a half exploring the park on foot at a fairly leisurely pace and saw many but not all of the sculptures. I think Route 66 fans, who are usually partial to ruins, will especially enjoy “Pool Complex: Orchard Valley” by Mary Miss. This site-specific work consists of wood add-ons surrounding the ruins of a large swimming pool which incorporates the type of regional native rock work that Missouri Route 66 aficionados are so familiar with. See a short video about the work here. There is also a historic spring house in the park which is an unaltered example of the same type of beautiful stone construction.
See more of my photos of the park in this album.
I’m the editor and co-owner of the web site Sell66stuff.com, which was created to help increase commerce on Historic Route 66 by bringing the right products together with the right buyers.
I did a lot of updating on the Sell66stuff.com vendor guide over the last few days. Any businesses with Route 66 related merchandise you want to find an outlet for, check it out! http://www.sell66stuff.com/vendor_guide.html
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, here is an idea for decorating a drawstring muslin bag with Celtic designs. Fill with St. Patrick’s Day treats or a gift for someone who would enjoy Celtic designs at any time of year.
Click here for Decorate a Celtic Gift Bag.
I’ve been working hard lately promoting my upcoming class, “Polymer Clay Beads with Pearl Ex Pigments”. It’s the first in a series, so I’m figuring out some new processes and making several new promotion pieces. The next one should take a lot less time to promote, but only if I remember what I did and can find all the parts – there are quite a lot as you will see!
First I’ll make an action list of all the tasks to perform in a logical order.
I recommend you use my list above as a starting point and use it to make your own promotion checklist, adding and subtracting action items as needed. Then make some kind of master document that includes notes, links or whatever information you will need to carry out the tasks and remember what you did so you don’t have to figure everything out again the next time you have an event to promote. It’s useful to make this document in some kind of format that supports tables such as a private web page, Word document or Excel spreadsheet. Then you can put appropriate links and info in the row next to each action item to make everything easy to find and remember. If you are part of an organization share this document with others involved in the project so you can all benefit from the knowledge you’ll gain during the promotion.
When creating an identity for your company, it’s important to present a unified look and feel across all channels. A few examples of channels are emails, web sites, print ads and mobile apps. Common elements that help identify your brand can be logos, colors or fonts. Sounds, type of paper or photography styles are examples of other choices that can play a role in forming your brand identity.
Few would argue that this concept is wrong, but believe it or not at one of my former jobs I had to persuade some people to make the branding more consistent. Today I had an experience that illustrates why consistent branding is important. I was working on one of my mailing lists, and needed to find a first and last name for a contact in my database. I did a search online for the email address, and found a web site with a logo and color scheme that made me remember a business card that I collected about three years ago. I looked in my business card folio, and voila! There was the information I needed. I never would have remembered where I made this contact if I had not remembered the logo and color scheme. If your potential customers want something that you have, making yourself as memorable as possible with consistent branding can help!
This past weekend I had a lot of fun taking out fabric scraps and rubber stamping on them. Some of the stamps I used are from my Carolyn’s Stamp Store collection and some are stamps that I’ve hand carved and haven’t turned into a commercial product yet. Some of the geometric shapes used came from a Memory Essentials Terrific Tool & Tips set.
To get interesting backgrounds to stamp on, I experimented with brushing and sponging on Dye-Na-Flow paint and Crafter’s pigment inks. I did some masking with tape and also rolled some background stripes using a Memory Essentials Get Rollin’ tool.
I decorated this hanging candy holder for Valentine’s Day, but the
design is versatile and can be used for a number of occasions – just
change the collage piece inserted in the front of the holder!
Tutorial and free template here – http://carolynsstampstore.com/catalog/valentine_candy_holder.php
I repurposed this gift box into a nice storage box by doing some decoupage work on the lid. First I glued down antique imagery. Next I rubber stamped harmonious images onto gold and white tissue paper with Staz On permanent rubber stamp ink and glued those pieces down. After that layer was dry, I brushed varnish over the whole box top for durability.
Check out my Pinterest board for sources of free images to download and print out – Free Graphics and Fonts.
These tiles were made by hand carving rubber stamps and pressing them into stoneware clay. They were glaze fired to Cone 10.
Here is a tutorial I wrote about carving rubber stamps:
http://www.limegreennews.com/howcarv.html
And here is another about making ceramic tiles from rubber stamps:
http://www.carolynsstampstore.com/catalog/mosaic_table_top_with_textured_clay_tiles.php