Thursday, May 3, 2012

Project Fail: When life gives you stamps....

Turn it into art, because stamped curtains kinda suck!

Ok, let me back up for a second.

Remember when I asked if I should leave my curtains white


Or try to put this swoon-worthy pattern on them?


And then how I made wooden stamps, so that I could try to block print the design?


Well this whole project got side tracked when I got kicked out of my work area, and had to come up with a new one! Well... laziness may have played a big factor, too...

I finally got the shapes all carved out and set to work sampling a scrap from the curtains with the stamps.


These were the colors I was planning to use/mix to create the pattern.

I had the old yogurt cups to mix the colors in, foam brushes to add the color to the blocks, and a fabric medium... because I'm painting on fabric...

And of course I had to keep the kid busy...


So I thickly coated the paint onto the blocks, and pressed firmly onto the fabric (the cutting board underneath was to try to contain any paint that may have soaked through the fabric).


I was just not liking where this was going. I thought that it may have been because the colors were kinda childish, and you could tell it was stamps, so it just looked like a kid's craft... but I toned the colors down as I went... and was just not diggin' it!


please ignore the quality - my camera battery died

Obviously, this scale wasn't going to work on curtains (just... too small! Even after I resized it!), but apparently I am just not good at "spacing," either! The stamp-like effect was also not working for me.

Ok. This wasn't going the way it was supposed to...

But I still had all these cool stamps (that I wasn't just going to throw away since I put a lot of time into making them!). So I played with them for a while, and decided I would mount them onto a board and make some art.

So I found a little board, and went out back. Remember the stain that I'd made with the apple cider vinegar/steel wool/tea bag/rusty nail? It had all dried up, but I added a little water to my jar, and it totally reconstituted it!

Oh my gosh, it's even more beautiful than before!


It's a beautiful, rich, deep brown with some orange to add warmth. The picture looks splotchy because of the tree's shadow, but it went on more evenly than any stain I've tried yet! And letting it sit for so long drew out the rust, making it soo perfect! This might also be amplified that I put it on some beautiful Purebond Oak.

I played with a "layout" and finally found one I liked. Didn't even bother repainting the pieces. Just left them the last colors I used. Ahhhh, laziness...

Glued it all together.


And now I just need to find a permanent home for it.



"Lemonade..."

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