Communication and a nice warm feeling.

Even after quite a few years of blogging I still marvel at the links it makes to people all over the world. The above is a somewhat scrappy representation of how my little bags made these links. First came my visit to ‘Out of the Dark’ in High Wycombe, receiving a gift of salvaged wire and the idea of a possible workshop using offcuts of upholstery fabric, then to a request at about the same time for an article for Dales’ Australian emagazine. Now, with the giveaway, Els has received her bag in The Netherlands, and the other two are hopefully winging their way to India and the USA.

Give Away Results

The winners of the Giveaway are:

Maya Matthews – random draw

Els                   - because she took my breath away by how fast she was to comment

Jane LaFazio   - because she is always a cheerful smiling presence in Blog Land.

Let me have your addresses and I will forward a bag.

Here are a few pictures made using the Sugru stamps with the Gelli Plate. I also use the Diptic App on the Ipad.

SUGRU

I wonder if you have heard of SUGRU, I certainly hadn't until recently when I was offered some to play with. The story of its development by Jane whilst she was studying for her MA in Product Design at the Royal College of Art  is fascinating and shows a huge commitment to an idea over many years. One of my sons studied Product Design so I was particularly interested. It's actually a serious product with lots of practical applications, but it has also been taken up by the craft community for fun purposes. Here is a link to some of the ways people are using it creatively.

I made some stamps by rolling it out on cling wrap.

I made some flat impressions. My first idea was to use it to take impressions of some stitches. I only did this with a few odd samples etc. and it does leave a slight residue, so don't try it on your precious work. It was a hot day when I tried it and by the time I got to the black piece it was getting stickier. It is like play dough or even blue tack (which I have used before to make prints) but it dries to a firm plastic which allows you to keep the prints/stamps made.

I tried it with a piece of lemon which I once retrieved from the embers of a fire and with a piece of fern. Corks work well to hold the stamps, and in this way you can make three small stamps from one packet.

Wait 24 hours for the Sugru to go firm before printing.

 I liked the flat print blocks best and found the way to print them was like lino print i.e. by putting the paper on top of them and then I rubbed the paper with my fingers.

Mark Making in progress.

Slowly adding some stitch to the mark making piece.

Click to see in more detail.

Thank you to those who let me know that the Pages Tutorial element was not viewable. I have removed it as I could not work out what the problem was; I'll do a bit more research.

Aqua Vida ~ Life Water

This is June's theme over on the Sketchbook Challenge Blog, I have just posted. There is an interesting post about using Scraperboard by Judy Coates Perez   who chose this month's topic.

Don't forget that the giveaway here is open until 20th June 2014, see my previous post.