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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Behind the Scenes at Tree Wings Studio: Stamp Doodling

Hello again! In my last post, two weeks ago, you all found me a little bored and taking a break from my usual bead sculpting routine. I was rooting around in my studio organizing and such, and I had pulled out some of my older polymer clay stamps. I used to make stamps quite often and I remembered how much fun they were to make, so for this weekend I decided to play with them again.

Care to join me?
Daisies are one of my favorites and with flowers really starting to bloom here finally, I couldn't resist. The stamp pictured here is one of my early designs—a fun design, but some of the details are too fine and don't transfer well to polymer. Today's design is a remake of that stamp. Sometimes I go entirely freehand, but more often I start with a (very) simple sketch just to get the idea out of my head and to help me keep my bearings as I work.

And the other reason I like to sketch it out first—pencil transfers to polymer fabulously well! I simply lay my design on the polymer and burnish it with the end of an acrylic roller.

Ta-da!


My tools of the trade—needles!

And the rest is really fun—using the needles I simply doodle away, "drawing" my design into the polymer. I like a rustic, carved look, so I leave the edges a tad messy.

For larger space that I want to be more raised, I'll cut out parts of the polymer…

… and then smooth it out slightly leaving a nice impression.



And there you have it! A new doodled stamp! I think I'll probably do a bit more refining (amazing how much you notice when taking photos!) and then it will be off to the oven… and then the first stamping! I'll show you how it turned out in my next post.

Have a happy creative weekend!

 http://www.treewingsstudio.com/

13 comments:

  1. waiting to see the finished piece

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  2. That's so much fun! I can't wait to see the next step!

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  3. I had no idea you could transfer a drawing to polymer clay so easily. So cool. I'll add this to my ever-growing To-Do list! Thanks!

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    1. Yes, I was so excited when I first discovered transferring pencil—I use it all the time! Even for those free clip-art images, you can print, outline in pencil, and transfer. :-)

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  4. Wow, cool how pencil transfers to polymer! Great tip, pinning this one. Thanks, Rebekah!

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    1. You're welcome Kathy—glad to share! And thank you for passing it along. :-)

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  5. One more thing…what a great idea to put some beads on the end of your needles so that they can't get lost. Genius!

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    1. Those beads are a life-saver for me… I've lost my needles so many times (my studio is carpeted and of course I only have one needle of each size!) that I started to wish that I'd just step on it, because at least then I would know where it was… thankfully that never happened and I did always find them, but it sure did slow down a few projects!

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  6. Very cool!! It's amazing how many different ways there are to create texture!

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  7. That's really cool! I can hardly wait to see it finished.

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  8. I do this in clay! Why hadn't I ever thought to do it in polymer? you rock, thanks!!!

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  9. Just three words.... INSPIRING & THANK YOU :-D

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  10. Amazing!!!!!!!! You've set me freeeeee! Can't wait to try this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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