Squares

Nice weekend?  I was at work as usual but when I got home I went straight into my craft room and created something.  Such a great way to wind down after a hectic day.

Hels Sheridan has opened a challenge with the theme Squares and so I set about making something for this.  I had recently bought some plain rubber for carving my own stamps and so I decided to start with a very basic design just to get the feel of the rubber and carving tools.  I enjoyed the process of carving, it was very satisfying.  Knowing when to stop cutting is the key to a good stamp. A lot of careful carving can be ruined by that last cut.  My stamp ended up looking like a flower although I hadn't intended it to be flower.  If you look back at some of my biro art you will see what I was trying to create - an ethnic, random pattern.

Anyhow, on testing the stamp I used a piece of scrap multi-coloured paper to print on and this gave me the inspiration to use bright colours for making the real thing.

I covered some squares of card with thin water colour paper and dipped the edges into some Ranger ink.  The paper 'sucked up' the ink and bled onto the face of the square.  I find this better than covering the whole card in coloured paper as not only can you get an exact match of colour for your project but also you don't need to colour the whole piece if you are going to being covering most of the face of the card up anyway.

Next I coloured some water colour card with various Ranger inks in bright colours not really worrying about placement of colours, just letting it happen.  Once these pieces of card were dry I stamped my hand made image onto the card using black ink.  It is amazing how the bright colours and the black ink compliment each other.  I cut the images down to fit on the squares and then punched holes in opposite corners for the hanging thread.

I used a faux leather thong in purple and turquoise together with beads to string the squares together to make wall hanging.

The overall result is very hippy-chick I think (taking me back to the days of patchouli and cheesecloth shirts).

Hope you like it?  Feel free to leave a comment and go check out what other people create in the theme  Squares on Hels blog.

Back to crafting, it is my day off after all. 

Kim xx