Finally A Chance To Letterpress

 I forgot to post about the letterpress experience I had at Maker Faire this year.  I had always wanted to try it every time we went but the booth was always mobbed, this time I lucked out.  It was so fun to get to try the machine out, and then they had it all set up so you could make a little book with a simple stab signature binding.  How do you like the awesome mix of fonts on that one little print?
Anyways, it was super fun, and now I see what the big deal is, what a handy little machine a letterpress really is. (puts on the exceedingly long and out-of-hand *someday wants list*).  Thank you San Francisco Center for the Book for having this fun project to do.

 I added to my alphabet stamps collection recently with this lovely set of upper-case cursive.

I tried them out in my newly-made, letter-pressed book.  In case you can't read it, I stamped: Do It Anyways and Art Comes To Those Who Wait.  Not my best stamping job ever (I need to remember to check the corners of stamps to wipe off the ink), but I like the look of the font a whole lot.  Above it you can see the paper I put down to avoid getting ink on my Olfa cutting mat,  after using it for a while, this paper looks super cool with all kinds of stamps and paint all over it.  Yes of course I save it to use in collage and altered books projects.

Cornucopia Package

Happy Monday!
Last week I received a package from Silver Crow with a very strange mixture of random goodies. Random goodies that I carefully selected myself of course. So what are they?

The Transfers Unlimited is a product I've been hearing about lately, and apparently it is a "As Seen On TV" kind of thing too. I have not personally seen it advertised on my TV though. It looks like it would be fun to use and I always like to see what kind of image I can get with one of these newfangled processes. I'm going to try it out on some fabric as well as some boring ceramic mugs that we have, more on that later when I actually use it. The hard part will be choosing something to transfer. My sons have been asking to make t-shirts with their artwork, so that might be a good use of it too. It is supposedly quite stinky when you use it, so I need to have a non-headachy day where I can do it outside. Or maybe I should just do it on a headachy day because it will give me one anyways.

A charm set of eating utensils to use as an embellishment on a small quilt about eating and food that I'm working on.

A big hank of vintage blue wired beads which were just too pretty not to buy, and hopefully will make a cool bracelet.

A vintage paper Halloween decoration that says Boo! on one side and has a smiling skull on the other because I just don't have enough Halloween decorations apparently. I'm starting in early on the Halloween decorating this year.

A package of miniature teeny tiny people because you never now when you'll need some

And a glass/metal hinged frame to be able to wear a small collage on a chain. I think I'll make a collage and then shrink it down on my printer so that it will fit. I don't think that I'm up to collageing in this small of a format, just don't have the patience or the super-duper scissors that would require.

Silver Crow really has a great selection of collage and embellishment stuff, rubber stamps, new, vintage, ephemera and artwork to purchase too, so go check them out.

Made At Maker Faire

One of the fun things we got to do at the Maker Faire was called Swap-A-Rama-Rama. Picture a big hall with piles of free second hand clothes that people were altering and changing and redesigning with sewing machines and designer help. When I was in there, it was jam-packed and there wasn't any room to sit down and go to town on a sewing machine, so I chose to just do the screen-printing.

I found this green and white checked dobby shirt on one of the tables heaped with clothes. It happened to be in my size and in good enough shape to work with. There was a big station set up with screen printer experts from a screen printing co-op in Oakland with a whole bunch of designs to chose from. I picked this one because the man doing them had a bucket hat with a ring of barrel-full-o-monkeys all around the brim. I totally wanted to steal that hat right off his head! I wish I'd taken a picture of him with it, but I was so fascinated with watching how to screen print. I learn by watching, so this should be useful for any future attempts I make at screen printing.



The design I chose has one of those iconic monkeys with a hat and juggling on a unicycle. We screened it on the side without the pocket. It didn't come out perfectly because of the rough uneven weave of the fabric.

I found on the trims table some nice black stretchy silky cording that I am planning on couching down to make some designs. I also have plans to change the buttons, maybe to black shiny ones.
When I do those things, I'll try to remember to show you a picture!

Another thing we got to do was hang out in the MAKE room where they had tables with piles of scavenged stuff, electronic and other stuff as well as some tools to use, including hot glue guns. I used a flooring chip for a background and hot glued on a carpet scrap that I artfully frayed ( I tore it because I had no scissors to use), keyboard letters, circuit board pieces and shiny circle contact bits that fell out when I took a remote control apart.
The letters spell out ENTER THUD. Fun huh? It was great to just sit down at a big table with other people and my family and make something out of the stuff right in front of me. Really cool.