Challenge #252 and Latest Hand-Carved Stamps

Challenge #252 - Tangle Within a Tangle

This week's challenge (here) was to create your string from a tangle, and then tangle inside it :)  How fun is that?!!

I decided I definitely was not going to look at what others did before creating my tile; I was afraid everyone was going to pick my tangle :).  I started out by going through my catalog of tangles - nothing but a bunch of step-outs in a ring binder and a bunch of 2x2 inch samples of tangles.  

I put some possibilities aside, and then went with the one I thought would be most fun.  I hope I don't go through everyone's entries and find out everyone chose Poke Root!!

Latest Hand-Carved Stamps

Here are the last hand-carved stamps from the #CarveDecember challenge.  I really appreciate everyone's nice comments about my stamps :)  

I'm going to grab a couple of these patterns and get a stencil cut from it.  I'm trying a seller on ETSY and see how it turns out.  If you know of any places that cut stencils from your art for a reasonable price, please let me know.

Arches that can be turned into windows :)

This is a fun stamp but hard to make a pattern with;
this is the best I could do :)

This was quite a fun one to carve and the print really fun to embellish.

Another fun one to play with;
I love the border pattern in the middle.

I love how this one turned out.  I feel it is not my usual style, but sometimes it is good to get out of your comfort zone :)

Challenge #251 and More Hand-Carved Stamps

Challenge 251 - Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day

The Diva's little boy has Moebius Syndrome and the family goes through quite a lot, especially the little guy - my heart goes out to them every time he is sick and they have to rush him to the hospital.  

This week's challenge is to use the Moebius Syndrome logo to help raise awareness for this disorder.  To find out more, please visit the Diva's post here.

More Hand-Carved Stamps

A few more stamps I designed and hand-carved in December.  I had a few days off work, so I had a bit more time - it was so much fun!

I'm still working on making this a pattern :)
Sometimes it is so off!! :)

Inspired by temple carvings in India.

Was designed as a border, but can also work as a pattern :)

Also inspired by designs I saw in India.  

I think I actually like it more as a border :)

This is a continuous stamp - I had carved a similar one but it does not make a continuous design.  I like how I can use it to catalog colors of paint / pencils; I think it would also work great for journaling.

Challenge #250 and New Hand carved Stamps

Challenge #250

The Diva's weekly challenge (here) was to go back to basics: 3.5 x 3.5 white tile, black and white, string, and pencil shading.  It is probably not that different than I usually do, but I did try to use some tangles I had not used in a while.

New Hand Carved Stamps

In December I carved a bunch of stamps to play along with Julie Fei Fan Balzer and a bunch of other people for the #CarveDecember challenge (here).  I did not carve one stamp a day (just did not have the time), but did carve as many as I had time for.  It even made me get on Instragram to share, encourage, and get encouragement :).  I had a lot of fun.

Here are all of them (bottom) and the prints on fabric above.  I will show a few at a time in the next few posts.

This is a very simple flower, sketched on paper in about 10 seconds.  It took a bit longer to carve :)

This one I carved on my wedding anniversary, so I had to go with the LOVE theme :)

This is a very simple branch, which you can print several ways to make crazy looking trees :)

Challenge #249

This is the first Diva's challenge of 2016; you can see it here.  I'm still trying to get organized after a very busy week off, so I'm only posting the challenge in this blog post and will share more next week.

I found the challenge really fun as I love both of the tangles: Auraknot and Diva Dance.  If you haven't tried them, I would recommend them - they are both easy and fun.

Here is my tile; I can't wait to see everyone else's.