love and lightning

Lately, I've been preoccupied with carving stamps out of erasers! These days, it's hard to muster up the energy to use the letterpress after the little one has been put down to sleep. But I've found I'm able to just sit at the dining room table, carve out a little image or two and stamp to my heart's content in a fraction of the time it would to print. The freedom to switch colours at a whim, isn't so bad either! But in the end, I finished the new cards with letterpress printed greetings since I didn't want to completely get away from it :) These will be available at this Sunday's Love & Rummage show at The Workroom. Hope to see you there!

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linoleum block on the lino-o-scribe

Over the last couple of weeks I was able to try out my first linoleum carving with the lino-o-scribe. Before I started I was so afraid that it wasn't going to work for some reason. But I gathered up my materials anyway and hoped for the best. I got some really helpful hints from Kinga, who also owns a Morgan Line-O-Scribe, on which type of linoleum she uses and how to set it up in the bed so that it's about type-high.

My first step was to decide on the size of linoleum I wanted. That was the easy part. Because the press bed is 14x22", I wanted to go as big as I could. The largest block I could find at my local art supplies store was 12x18" which was perfect because I sourced some cardstock at the same size. 

Next was trying to figure out what design I wanted to see printed. But I also had to think about 1.) what I could easily carve out and 2.) something that wouldn't take me too long do. I decided on hand-drawing a series of narrow hexagon shapes with various widths of lines on the inside of each. This was a good first-time design because there was just enough carving that I didn't get tired of doing it and that I got to use a couple of the carving blades. All of the straight lines made the carving go nice and smoothly too! Also, there's a nice balance between the negative and positive space. I wanted to carve as little of the lino off to make the best use of it's size. By keeping the design large, I was also able to see if there were any problematic, low or weak spots with the press and ink rollers.

After finally getting the lino to the height that the ink rollers could make contact with it, I was ready to test the block out. I was happily surprised with the result but as expected, I had some more carving to do at the top and bottom edges of the negative space to have it completely free of an impression.

As you can see in the photos of the prints, there is some variation with the ink coverage. I actually don't mind that. This design would look very different if the colour was completely solid throughout.

All in all, I am very happy with my first experiment with the line-o-scribe and a lino block. The press is in fantastic condition as are the rollers. I see myself doing many more of these lino carvings!

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hello again!

I'm back from England and what a nice find in the mailbox when I arrived. I was already starting to miss London so Jaime's postcard was the perfect welcome home note!

I haven't shaken off the jet lag (I'm such a lightweight when it comes to travelling by air) so a few naps will be in order. Thank you for the comments, suggested places to visits and well wishes on the previous post. Chris and I had such a wonderful time touring the city.

I'll be posting a couple of photos as soon as I've adjusted :) Good to be back.

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snail mail art

Some sweet paper goods trickled through to my mailbox last week. I have to say that a snail-mail-a-day keeps the blues away. Starting at the top is a Valentine note from Amanda and Cree. I don't even want to open it - the blue cardstock and cut out hearts are so darling peeking through the translucent envelope. Next is Jaime's Valentine rubber-stamped card. I love the script and Year of The Rabbit stamp. Thirdly, is set of Rhya's cute mini stationery. Her hand-drawn characters are adorbs. Last but not least, I was lucky enough to receive one of Victoria's chapbooks which includes her pen and ink drawings and an original and lovely poem. I just about died going through this little piece of art.

Don't these just make you want to send some mail?

Thank you ladies, for making my week. Hearts.

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Snap + Tumble gets a rubber stamp!

I got my custom rubber stamp the other day and have been stamping anything I can get my hands on (even fabric). I used to think that because I do letterpress, that everything in my packaging should be letterpress printed. And then I got over that :)

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