Images In Black and White

Where have I been? I’ve been a little lax in my blogging in the last week and I am going to make it up to all of you over the next couple of days!!! Promise!

I made a special surprise for Betsy over at Innovative Stamp Creations. She noticed my work over at SCS months ago and contacted me about being a Creative Architect for her company. Well… after I got over being stunned… I checked out her images, loved them, loved the other designers working with her said YES and the rest has been history! I love the artsy images that Betsy’s company has available! She is going to a show in the middle of July so I thought maybe this might be nice for display in her booth:

Images in Black and White:

(shhhhhhhhhh… don’t tell her she hasn’t seen this yet)

This is a tray with Dominoes. Time consuming but pretty easy… but I will caution you to stay away from solid image (or mostly solid) stamps that span over more than two dominoes… they are slippery little suckers and it’s hard to get a great image.

The tray I bought at Michael’s in the clearance section for… you’ll be surprised… $2. I painted this with a coat of black acrylic paint, sanded, painted another coat and sealed with mat spray sealer. I prefer using acrylic paint to spray paint…because let’s face it - for $2 this is not the best wood available and the first coat of paint brings up all the rough parts of the wood that you can then sand off to get a smooth finish.

I did NO prep to the dominoes. You can’t see in the picture but the sides of each of the domino is covered with Black Stazon - I rubbed the sides right on the ink pad. This gives you the illusion of grout. Make sure that you don’t get any ink on your fingers - it will go right onto the domino where you don’t want it!!! Then I let this dry overnight (at least 12 hours).

Before I stamped the images I placed the dominoes into the tray and started laying the stamps that I wanted to use on the dominoes. Once I was happy with the stamp placement I started to move the dominoes horizontally and vertically so that all the dominoes where going in the stamp direction for an individual image but that all the dominoes on the entire tray were NOT… I want some visual interest.

I then started to remove the dominoes needed for one image -working from one corner out to stamp and placed them on my table in the EXACT same pattern -this was to avoid putting the puzzle back together later. Again - once all the images were stamped - I let this dry for at least 12 hours.

Next I added some sponging around each of the dominoes… I tried to use a sponge like I normally do - but it seemed too harsh… So I used a cotton ball. Again - you get the pattern - I allowed this to dry for at least 12 hours.

Then I glued into place and once again - allowed this to dry overnight (at least 12 hours).

Tips… Hmmmm:

Keep your fingers clean - you don’t want any Stazon finger prints on your project!

Keep your Stazon cleaner right by your side with some paper towels. If you smudge your image or get a pesky finger print you can remove it RIGHT AWAY with the Stazon cleaner.

Remember Dominoes are a slick surface - don't press your image too hard!

Lay out your images before you start to stamp - make sure the images fit on your dominoes that way you want them to - I thought of it as tiles.

Some white space is nice - don’t feel that you need to cover every nook and cranny - but do stamp on every domino.

If you plan on using this to put wet items on it make sure that you seal the dominoes.

Well - if you read this far thanks for sticking with me!
KAT

Other Info:
Stamps - (all Innovative Stamp Creations) Thoughtfulness, Artsy Victorian, Assemblage, Art 4 Frames, Majestic Women, Flair of Summer 1, Rustic Artsy Swirls, daVinci Pears, Women Around the World, Art 4 Frames II, About Me, Alterable Words
Paper - N/A
Ink - Black Stazon
Other - Dominoes, Wood Tray, Black Acrylic Paint (Delta), Spray Sealer, Weldbond Glue