inspiration monday

 sometimes inspiration is as close as finding your favorite stripey-roofed house

and little heart hand-carved stamps in your craft drawer.  but what do you do when

you discover that your favorite yellow stamp pad has completely dried out?

with just a few supplies, you can create your own custom "ink pad".....here's how:

place a small piece of craft felt onto a protective surface (i'm using a plastic paint palette, 

but you can put your felt onto a piece of waxed paper, freezer paper, plastic mat, etc.).  

now, using a craft knife, scrape the side of a stick of chalk pastel onto your piece of felt 

until you have a nice little pile. 

with an inexpensive paintbrush,  add a nice dollop of fluid matte medium into 

your pastel shavings.....you can also add a drop of water to help mix it together.

once you have your new "stamp pad" made, it's time to get on with the stamping! 

if there's a portion of your stamp that you want to block out,  just place
a piece of tape over the area that you want to mask......

then, just press your stamp onto your colored felt......

and then carefully remove the tape from your inked stamp.

now just press your inked stamp onto your paper.

(important:  since the matte medium is acrylic, make sure to clean your

stamp right away.....you don't want it to dry on your stamp!)

you can mix all kinds of custom colors, and add other stamped images to 

your paper.......

and by the time you add some lettering and all your favorite little details,
you have a fun journal page that was actually inspired by
your favorite stamps and a dried-out stamp pad!

p.s.  and since the matte medium is 100% acrylic, it makes the chalk pastel
permanent, so there's no smudging!  woo hoo!


{this was created in my strathmore visual art journal using hand-carved stamps,
craft felt, chalk pastels, craft knife, paint palette, fluid matte medium, 
micron pens, 2B graphite pencil, watercolor pencils, waterbrush}