At first I could not decide what I wanted to create using the botanical printing method. I thought maybe I could make a set of sheets but then I remembered that we have a king size bed and sheets are expensive and I did not want to risk making an ugly set of expensive sheets. The bed in the guest room is a full but already has enough sheets sets as it is. While flipping through the suggested pieces Ms. Stewart has in her book I came across the canvas bag. Perfect! I have reusable grocery bags but they have lately started to smell like mold and I have been meaning to replace them. (I haven't because I could not reconcile getting rid of reusable bags if the entire point was to save waste). The canvas bags I purchased are not as big as the grocery bags I am currently using so I am not sure if they will do the trick for grocery shopping but I think they will make fantastic farmer's market bags, or just "running to target to pick up a few things" kind of bags.
To decide what botanicals I wanted to use I simply went into my front yard and snipped the most interesting branches from my plants. The red, yellow and orange bag is made from a branch from my rose bush. The green bag is made from a branch of my peonies and the purple bag is a branch snipped from my sage bush. I then took the branches in and pressed them for a day in a phone book. The next day they were perfectly flat and ready to use. Ms. Stewart's method of painting the branch then rubbing the brayer over it to transfer the image worked perfectly I must say. The activity was fun and simple and something one could do with a child and in an afternoon. I am looking forward to using my bags and have to say I am very pleased with the way they turned out.
The only complaint I have about this project is the cost. Fabric paint is expensive ($5 a bottle) and unless you plan on using it again, it is hard to spend that kind of money to get the different colors you want. I only used a tiny portion of the bottles and now have what seems like a life time supply of fabric paint that I will probably not use up.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
PROJECT 5: Botanical Pressing
I have to say the delicacy and beauty of pressing flowers is really quite enchanting. I felt like I was capturing the flowers at its most colorful moment and in essence, keeping it alive forever. I remember as a child my mother loved to press flowers and while I thought it was nice I never really quite appreciated it. Now I can see why she loved to do it. Making art out of these pressed flowers is absolutely lovely.
To press the flowers I put them between pages of a telephone book and piled more books on top of the phone book. This worked fabulously. I only pressed the flowers for three or four days, shorter than is usually recommended but my mother told me that this would be all right and that if you want the flowers to have a lot of color you should press them for a shorter period of time.
The flowers I made the cards out of are cosmos from my neighbor's yard. My four year old niece was visiting and my neighbor's daughter handed her a bouquet of cosmos over the fence. It was really quite sweet. We enjoyed them in a vase for awhile and when I saw they were starting to wilt I pressed them.
Unfortunately Ms. Stewart does not tell readers that spray adhesive can be tricky and can leave visible stains. I opted for the spray adhesive for the cards thinking since the flowers were delicate it would be a good way to adhere them to the paper without having to over handle them. I followed the spray's instructions, spraying outside and keeping about 8 to ten inches away from the paper. Even with that the spray adhesive left small dots all over the card stock. I foolishly kept using it on the other cards because I thought it would go away. It hasn't and so while the flowers are beautiful the cards are basically unusable. The spray adhesive also left a tacky feeling all over the card stock. After taking the pictures below I snipped off the ends of the stems so they were even with the ends of the card stock. I would warn everyone against using spray adhesive for this project.
I also decided to make coasters out of some other flowers I gathered from my flower garden. In the book Ms. Stewart uses glass coasters but since I had some old tile in my shed I decided to be resourceful and just use those. I spoke with my mother and she told me just to mix some Elmer's glue with water and paint it over the flowers and coasters with a paint brush. This worked great.
So for this particular project I think I just should have asked my mother for help instead of relying on the instructions of Ms. Stewart. I learned that lesson the hard way with the spray adhesive.
To press the flowers I put them between pages of a telephone book and piled more books on top of the phone book. This worked fabulously. I only pressed the flowers for three or four days, shorter than is usually recommended but my mother told me that this would be all right and that if you want the flowers to have a lot of color you should press them for a shorter period of time.
The flowers I made the cards out of are cosmos from my neighbor's yard. My four year old niece was visiting and my neighbor's daughter handed her a bouquet of cosmos over the fence. It was really quite sweet. We enjoyed them in a vase for awhile and when I saw they were starting to wilt I pressed them.
Unfortunately Ms. Stewart does not tell readers that spray adhesive can be tricky and can leave visible stains. I opted for the spray adhesive for the cards thinking since the flowers were delicate it would be a good way to adhere them to the paper without having to over handle them. I followed the spray's instructions, spraying outside and keeping about 8 to ten inches away from the paper. Even with that the spray adhesive left small dots all over the card stock. I foolishly kept using it on the other cards because I thought it would go away. It hasn't and so while the flowers are beautiful the cards are basically unusable. The spray adhesive also left a tacky feeling all over the card stock. After taking the pictures below I snipped off the ends of the stems so they were even with the ends of the card stock. I would warn everyone against using spray adhesive for this project.
I also decided to make coasters out of some other flowers I gathered from my flower garden. In the book Ms. Stewart uses glass coasters but since I had some old tile in my shed I decided to be resourceful and just use those. I spoke with my mother and she told me just to mix some Elmer's glue with water and paint it over the flowers and coasters with a paint brush. This worked great.
So for this particular project I think I just should have asked my mother for help instead of relying on the instructions of Ms. Stewart. I learned that lesson the hard way with the spray adhesive.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
PROJECT 4: Block Printing
It pleases me that I am finally updating my blog as I know it has been awhile since my last post. I have many reasons for my delay. The first is that block printing material is hard to find. First I stopped at my trusty neighborhood Hobby Lobby but they did not have the material I needed. Then I went to Boulder's finest hardware store/art store and while they did have a few block printing items they did not have exactly what I needed. I was finally forced to order the materials off line from Dick Blick but then of course needed to wait for them to arrive. Then when everything finally arrived I was too busy with work and then I had some lovely out of town visitors that I devoted all of my attention to.
The funny thing about this all? Block printing is the project I have most been looking forward to. It has always been a dream of mine to have my own stationary line. I walk into a stationary store and am overwhelmed. I love the feel and smell of all the different paper. I spent hours picking out my wedding invitations and still pull them out sometimes to remember just how lovely they are. I have made many cards before using different techniques but never block printing so naturally I was excited to try it out.
The first thing I realized is that I absolutely love the process. Cutting the thin strips of rubber off the block is very satisfying. I also realized that it is very difficult to pick a design that will transfer well to block printing. Because detail is something that does not lend itself to block printing it may not be clear that something will not work out once ink is applied and it is transferred to card stock. For instance, I tried making a buddha design in one of the blocks but it did not transfer well so I tossed that idea. The turtle and flower set below were fun to make but I was not extremely pleased with the outcome. My favorite is the lotus flower set below. I think the simplicity of the flower without any writing makes these cards sophisticated but the color makes them fun at the same time.
This is definitely an art that I will continue to practice and hopefully one day will master so that I can add block printing sets to my stationary line!
Tip: If you are a beginner don't use linoleum blocks, they are very hard to cut, My mom told me this and she is an art teacher so I followed her advice and used rubber blocks instead. They were very easy to cut from and I didn't have any trouble.
The funny thing about this all? Block printing is the project I have most been looking forward to. It has always been a dream of mine to have my own stationary line. I walk into a stationary store and am overwhelmed. I love the feel and smell of all the different paper. I spent hours picking out my wedding invitations and still pull them out sometimes to remember just how lovely they are. I have made many cards before using different techniques but never block printing so naturally I was excited to try it out.
The first thing I realized is that I absolutely love the process. Cutting the thin strips of rubber off the block is very satisfying. I also realized that it is very difficult to pick a design that will transfer well to block printing. Because detail is something that does not lend itself to block printing it may not be clear that something will not work out once ink is applied and it is transferred to card stock. For instance, I tried making a buddha design in one of the blocks but it did not transfer well so I tossed that idea. The turtle and flower set below were fun to make but I was not extremely pleased with the outcome. My favorite is the lotus flower set below. I think the simplicity of the flower without any writing makes these cards sophisticated but the color makes them fun at the same time.
This is definitely an art that I will continue to practice and hopefully one day will master so that I can add block printing sets to my stationary line!
Tip: If you are a beginner don't use linoleum blocks, they are very hard to cut, My mom told me this and she is an art teacher so I followed her advice and used rubber blocks instead. They were very easy to cut from and I didn't have any trouble.
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