Stamping at Studio Suzanne

People have been telling me I need to blog. I don't know that this is true, and I doubt that I have anything interesting that others would like to know about. But it's free, so here goes.

Last Thursday I had a play date at Studio Suzanne, the home of Oxford Impressions rubber stamps. You'd like Suzanne. She's really nice and she has very cool art stuff in her house and in her studio. In fact, she has a blog: blog.oxfordimpressions.com; you should check her out.

After eating really good chicken salad and looking at everything in her studio, we settled in to stamp. I started out by choosing stamps from her Country Girl plate and paper I thought would look good with it. The image of the little girl is a photo stamp, which gives a very realistic impression. For best results you stamp with a not-too-wet/not-too-dry black ink pad onto not-too-matte/not-too-glossy coated cardstock. Luckily, I was at Studio Suzanne, and she had just the tools we needed to make this art project work.

Usually I take a few passes at photo image stamps before I get a good impression, but the little girl stamped great the first time . . . except for her feet. Tragically, I amputated her feet, but I hated to waste the impression so I went with it. This actually provided me a great opportunity for design. One of the pieces of background paper I was using had all these great flowers and leaves in it, which I then started cutting out. Not only did I cover up her feet, but I got a great corner for the picture of the house and even put a leftover leaf in the bottom left corner. (Leaves are hard to contain in the fall.)

Suzanne showed me how to paint (yes, actual paint) the edges with black and brown to look like burned edges. You paint and then you smear with your fingers. I realize I may need to practice this technique a little bit. It doesn't really look burned, but it does look edged, old, and definitely distressed.

When I got home I wasn't perfectly happy with black and white stamped images, so I colored my little girl and my house with markers. I also added the bottom trim and a coordinating ribbon at the top, so I can hang it in my studio, where it will look fabulous and remind me of a fun night spent with my friend Suzanne.

Hey! I just finished my first blog post! The pressure's off. Whew!