Tag Archives: postoids

Faux Postage With Stickers and Image Transfers

Art, Holiday Crafts, Mixed Media, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Two finished Christmas faux postage sheets.
Two finished Christmas faux postage sheets. I’m going to make copies of these and cut them up to use on mail, tags, packages, and more.

Tom and I are spending part of this weekend planning our Christmas crafts, card list, and gift list. 2020 will be our third Christmas as a married couple! It’s always been part of my tradition to participate in as many Christmas crafts as possible. Since we are Roman Catholic, Christmas lasts a long time – over a month.  Both for cultural and religious reasons, the Christmas season for us is from the day after Thanksgiving to January 6. Activities all through this time period are how I celebrate Christmas, I don’t just celebrate it for one day. Integrating crafts and creative pursuits as much as possible is one way I show gratitude to God for the gift of being able to share creativity with other people, whether through a handmade gift, a piece of mail or a social media post. There is probably going to be more inspirational holiday sharing online this year than ever before and I’m going to try to do my part!

I’m noticing that Tom and I are developing our own set of Christmas traditions, incorporating some things transferred or revived from our families of origin, combined with activities that are unique to us as a couple. In no particular order we participate in:

1. St. Nicholas Day – we used to celebrate this when I was young, and since it is very special to me we have brought it back.

2. Daily Advent prayers with candles – we’ll be getting the candle set out soon!

3. Charitable donations.

4. Reverse Advent calendar food pantry donation – we did this last year and found it worthwhile so are going to do it again this year. It is a great way to remember to be grateful, keeping in mind what other people might really need instead of just what we want.

5. Christmas/New Year cards designed by me.

6. Handmade gifts.

7. Masses and worship.

8. Christmas poem by Tom.

9. #12daysoftomsbeard

10. Christmas Faux Postage.

11. Christmas decorations.

12. Holiday media and reading (such as Hallmark Christmas movies, prayer books and the Bloomin’ Christmas book).

13. Christmas baking and food.

14. Festive gift packaging.

15. Christmas stockings.

16. Christmas Journaling and Icebreaking Activity Cards.

Today I’m going to focus on this year’s Christmas Faux Postage. It’s going to play a part in this year’s card design and possibly other craft projects too so I’m working on the faux postage first. As I did last year, I printed out two each of templates for making faux postage that I made available online, and Tom and I each started building compositions on two sheets. Here are two articles I wrote last year showing how I made designs with the two templates, including links for downloading the templates.

Low Tech Faux Postage: Part 1

Low Tech Faux Postage: Part 2

This year to start off our stamp sheets, Tom and I sat down with the printed templates, stickers, red, green and white image transfers that I made last year, collage papers and various markers and pens.

Developing four Christmas themed stamp sheets
Developing four Christmas themed stamp sheets

I’m in the process of finishing up those stamp sheets by treating them in a similar manner as the ones in the two tutorials linked to above, Low-Tech Faux Postage parts 1 and 2. I have stamped out some tiny words such as “US Postage” on strips of scrap paper and am gluing them down where there is room on the stamps designs. I’m making borders with mixed media. I’ll add some postmark stamps to the sheets and use stamps and perhaps stencils to add a little fine texture here and there where I think it’s needed. When the stamp sheets are done, I’ll get color copies made and cut up the copies into individual stamps to use on all kinds of Christmas paper crafts.

Low Tech Faux Postage: Part 1

Art, Mixed Media, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, Tutorials, , , , , , , , , ,

stamp sheet collageFaux postage is a really fun mixed media project to make because it’s relatively non-threatening to create tiny works of art in a format that everyone is familiar with. There are lots of craft products you can buy that make it easier to make artwork that looks like postage stamps. A long time ago I designed some rubber stamps for this purpose and some of them are currently for sale in my Etsy shop. You can make this project with any other small stamps that you own also and a selection of paper crafting supplies. Enjoy!

1. Download and print out the two-page PDF file Low Tech Faux Postage. You’ll use the first page for Part 1.

2. Cut out some paper rectangles that are 1 3/4 inches tall and 1 3/8 inches wide from dark paper. You will need at least 16 rectangles.

Cutting rectangles from paper scraps to glue onto faux postage template.
Cutting rectangles from paper scraps to glue onto faux postage template.

3. Trim the edges with a paper edging scissors and arrange on your Low Tech Faux Postage sheet Page 1. You can think of your sheet as one composition made up of 16 tiny compositions if that helps you to get ideas. Glue down your trimmed paper rectangles.

4. Use a 1″ square paper punch and start by punching out one square for each rectangle from a selection of random scrap papers. Arrange until you are satisfied. If you have similar sized paper punches in other shapes such as circles, feel free to try them out. As you look through your scrap papers, you might get inspired to cut out other shapes. If you are moved to do so, go ahead and cut out whatever you like and glue down on your sheet without worrying about whether or not you’re “inside the lines”.

Paper collage on the template sheet
Paper collage on the template sheet. Mine is on the left, my husband Tom’s is on the right.

5. Take some tiny rubber stamps with words, phrases, numbers or symbols that have to do with philatelic stuff like stamps or cancellations. Stamp them in permanent black ink on light colored pieces of scrap paper. When the ink is dry enough to handle, cut or tear out what you have stamped.

6. Glue the torn or cut pieces to the collage work you’ve already done to help make each rectangle suggest a postal stamp design.

Stamped paper bits glued to collage
Stamped paper bits glued to collage.

7. Continue to add embellishments to your stamps until you think they look finished. Here are some suggestions for what you can add:

More cut collage papers, found or commercial
Stickers
Drawing – paint and gel markers are interesting choices to experiment with because you can write with them on slick surfaces and sometimes dark backgrounds as well
Stenciling
Image transfers
Design tape
Rubber stamping

8. When your stamp sheet is done, you can frame the whole thing to display it, cut apart your stamps to make tiny artworks, make color copies then cut apart the color copies, or put the whole thing in an art journal. Your imagination is the only limit and the most important thing is to have fun!

Speaking of the Lime Green News and studying other cultures…

Art, Mixed Media, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , , ,
Collage made with paper and rubber stamps
Collage made with paper and rubber stamps

I made this collage right at the time I stopped publishing the Lime Green News in paper form. I’m pretty sure I have a draft written on some floppy disc somewhere about how I made this collage and some others using outlines of black paper that I cut out with paper edging scissors to make compositions that look like postage stamps. I was going to publish the tutorial and a copy of the background for people to make their own stamps. I made several stamp sheets using this background as I recall. Such stamps are also known in the art and stamp collecting world as “Cinderella Stamps”, “Postoids” and “Artistamps”.

I never went back to the idea with this pseudo-postal background because I assumed that with computers and desktop publishing becoming more prominent people would not be interested in making faux postage stamps the “analog” way any more. But looking at this collage now that more than 20 years have passed since I made it I actually like it a lot. After going to that Gauguin show that I wrote about in my last blog post I’m reminded of how much I loved studying other cultures and abstracting some elements from them into and combining them with Mid-Century Modern type of abstraction. A lot of the black line work was made by rubber stamps. The Egyptian hieroglyphics stamp is a commercial rubber art stamp, but I carved all the others.

The above collage rearranged and with the colors inverted to use as a Facebook header
The above collage rearranged and with the colors inverted to use as a Facebook header

For some reason if I scan a collage and invert the colors in Photoshop, the results are often better than the original. I needed a new Facebook header so I rearranged the above collage and did a quick inversion. Fun!

Here is another collage I made using the same background
Here is another collage I made using the same background

Spring Faux Postage #2

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Card and envelope decorated with spring faux postage

Fake “postage stamps” are a lot of fun to make and are good decorations for greeting cards or mail art!

Make the Template

Tools and Materials
Square Faux Postage Template PDF or Rectangular Faux Postage PDF
Acetate
Tape
X-acto knife or Mat knife
Self-healing cutting mat
Metal Ruler

1. Download and print out one of the faux postage templates.

2. Tape a piece of acetate over the printed template.

3. Using a metal ruler as a guide and with the self-healing cutting mat underneath, use your mat knife or X-acto knife to cut out the squares on the template. You will cut through both the acetate and paper layers as you do so.

4. Remove the paper from the acetate. Now your template is ready to use.

Make the stamps

Tools and materials
Dye-based rubber stamping ink
Light colored cardstock
Colored pencils
Faux postage stencils
Sponges
Water container
Palette
Rubber stamps in a spring theme such as flowers and butterflies
Word rubber stamps for backgrounds
Tiny faux postage rubber stamps or other tiny word and number stamps
Decorative edging scissors
Heat tool

1. Tape a piece of light colored cardstock down on your work surface. Tape your acetate faux postage stencil in place over it, hinging it at the top with tape so you can lift the acetate between steps.

2. Squirt a few light analagous colors of rubber stamping ink on a palette. For example, light yellow, ochre yellow and light orange, or light pink and light peach. Sponge these colors inside the openings in the stencil while blending. Try to get the colors lighter toward the middle and darker toward the edge.

3. Lift the acetate (this is so that you don’t melt the stencil) and dry well with a heat tool. Stamp a word stamp as a background in a light taupe or light tan color. Dry the ink again.

4. Outline the inside edges of each opening with an analgous color of colored pencil – for example orange with the yellow inks, magenta with the pink inks.

5. Select a stamp for the main part of your image and stamp it toward the middle of each opening in burgundy ink.

6. Select some tiny faux postage stamps and stamp them in black around the edges.

7. Cut stamps apart with a decorative paper-edging scissors.

Following are the stamps I used in each sample.

faux postage with butterflies

The background stamp is by Stampington. Butterfly stamps are from 7gypsies then in black I stamped the following stamps from Carolyn’s Stamp Store:

faux postage with flowers
The background stamp and flower are both by 7gypsies. In black I stamped the following stamps from Carolyn’s Stamp Store:

faux postage with flowers
The background stamp and flower are both by 7gypsies. In black I stamped the following stamps from Carolyn’s Stamp Store:

faux postage with bee
The background stamp, bee and Fig. 13 are by 7gypsies. In black I stamped the following stamp from Carolyn’s Stamp Store:

If you would like to read my first spring postage tutorial, here is a link:
Spring Faux Postage

Stamping Halloween Postoids

Art, Graphic Design, Holiday Crafts, Mixed Media, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, Tutorials, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Stamping Halloween Postoids
Stamping Halloween Postoids

Yes it might seem a little early to talk about Halloween crafts – usually in early August I feel like I’m just getting used to the summer lifestyle. The Fall 2015 issue of RubberStampMadness is out and I want to let you know about it because my article “Stamping Halloween Postoids” is featured within! If you want to read it check the newsstand at your favorite craft retailer or go to the RubberStampMadness web site to order a copy. My four-page article will guide you step by step in creating your own Halloween Faux Postage stamps to decorate your Halloween mail and crafts.

I also have a selection of Halloween and Faux Postage rubber stamps available in my online shop Carolyn’s Stamp Store. I have complete postoid stamps and parts to help you design your own artistamps. Check out my newest designs featuring skeletal animals, crows, creepy bugs and more!

Halloween Faux Postage

Holiday Crafts, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , ,

Sometimes it’s fun to get back to the basics – rubber stamping and making faux postage! I don’t have any actual “Halloween” rubber stamps but I used what I had to make some disturbing postal imagery for Halloween.

I used assorted stamps from various companies plus some from my own Faux Postage collection –
http://carolynsstampstore.com/catalog/faux-postage-rubber-stamps-c-22.html

Stamping inks are Ancient Page and ColorBox Archival from Clearsnap and StazOn.

Valentine Faux Postage

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I had some fun this weekend using stamps from the faux postage collection from Carolyn’s Stamp Store to make postal art for Valentine projects.

Valentine Faux Postage

Images with an all-over design like the one above work well for header
graphics because you can accommodate it to several different sizes and formats. I like to change headers on my various web accounts seasonally. Here are the image sizes you will need for some popular web sites:

Facebook – 646 x 220

Google + – 823 x 464

Etsy – 760 x 100

If you’d like to make your own Valentine Faux Postage, I designed a special rubber stamp set to make it easier – Valentine Faux Postage Helpers Unmounted.