print me a notebook

I love print!...really? You can tell? I bought these plain recycled notebooks from Paperchase months ago, hoping to have a bit of fun with print. I essentially used the same technique as my DIY heart print tote so once again you'll either need a speedball carving kit or a piece of rubber and carving tools. I was desperate to get some fluorescent paint because fluoro and recycled board are such a happy match.

You'll need:

• Recycled notebooks like these
• Pencil
• Speedball carving kit
• plastic/ wood to mount (optional)
• 3 paint or ink colours

How to: 

1. Draw the design onto the rubber and carve your stamp with your tools or scalpel. Both designs are very simple to create. For the semi-circles I created two separate stamps but it might be easier to carve the whole line.
2. If you have anything sturdy and waterproof (wood/plastic) then back your stamp onto it but it's not essential. I was lazy and didn't bother.
3. Now ink up your stamps. I tried to do all areas with the same colour first, which may mean you need to mark these out. The pink and white were acrylic paints and the black was from an ink pad, which I have to say works the best. When it came to the acrylic, I painted the colour onto the stamps and had a few practises on spare paper to gage the right coverage first. 
4. Stamp each stamp, pressing down firmly. Repeat over the whole design, washing well between colour changes.

And now you can enjoy your new notebooks, transformed from ordinary to striking in a few simple steps.

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cookie?

I've been waiting for an opportunity to use this Birthday gift ever since June. My mum bought me this cookie cutter with interchangeable letters. Now it might sound lame but this was definitely one of my favourite birthday presents. Anyway I ditched the cutter from the packet and used a heart one instead, stamping niceties into the biscuit dough, packaged them up and voila, homemade Valentine's love hearts for the hubbie!

I'm not entirely sure where this cutter stamp is from but it's certainly not from England as I can't understand a word on the packaging! I did however found some similar things here if you fancy having a go.

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love to stamp

There’s something really nice about the worn, uneven look of a stamp, with each attempt looking slightly different to the last. It’s a sweet way to give something a personal touch. Here are some lovely finds for you to take a look at...

This is Anne Marie Loves Paper. The etsy shop is full of lovely type based stamps for you to play around with.

If you prefer a hand drawn effect the Eat Pray Create have some very sweet stamps. The way they’ve printed white ink on to brown paper makes a nice change. 

Here is one of my favourite online stationery shops called Wonderlust. There are some really eye-catching stamps for sale. See above for the whole range and make sure you check out the rest of the shop as well as the lovely blog.

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