Cups of Tea Screen Printed Cards by Larara
LaRara is an artist working in Sydney Australia that sells to local shops, occasional markets, private commission and on her etsy store.
I really love her illustration work and this eclectic little collection of tea cups is charming! She also has a set of cards for sale with a variety of wooden chair designs. Her shop has a great inventory of thank you cards and holiday cards, so get your orders in now!
Superheroes Among Us 33 by Estasketch
I love this fashion design-esq illustration mixed with collage. EstaSketch is an Australian based artist that works in the 2D medium and creates some really wonderful original pieces for sale in her etsy store. She has a great collection of similar human figure drawings mixed with paint color swatches called “Colour theory”. I really recommend checking out her shop….I even like the way she’s displayed her drawings with paper clamps.
I also recommend checking out this artist’s blog!
Canal Street New Orleans Limited Print by MatteArt
I love this print! The colors and shapes are just beautiful. The artist, Matte Stephens, has has quite a career in illustration making work for the likes of American Express, Disney, and IBM. His work shows all over the world but you can find his beautiful art work at his etsy store, MatteArt.
A Happy Town In France by MatteArt
I could see these as fabric…but even still I’d love them on my wall. His city scenes, animals and portraits are all reasonably priced. Don’t wait to see him in advertising! Take him home!
Carving your own rubber stamps can add a beautiful and professional touch to your hand-made items. It’s so easy to do and worth the time it takes to carve.
I’ll be carving a version of the Megnificent Made logo to stamp my shipping products with. For this project you’ll need a printed or hand drawn design, a stamp pad, carving tools (speedball makes really great gouges with interchangable nibs), and a rubber eraser or carving block.
I’m using ezy carve printing blocks by Renoir. They’re really really easy to carve and cut like butter! I have memories of carving blocks in high school and struggling to get through the materials and gouging my hands with our super sharp carving tools….but no worries these blocks are heaps better!
I used a printed piece of artwork for this stamp. If you’re artsy you can draw your artwork right on your carving surface and skip this step. If you are using printed work, color in the image with a soft drawing pencil.
Put your artwork face down on your carving surface and tape it in place.
Rub the back of your artwork with a pencil, credit card, or bone folder. This presses the pencil off of the paper and transfers it to the carving block.
Your image should show up nice and clear! It’s backwards but that’s perfect for a stamp…
Use a sharpie marker to darken in your image and keep it from smudging while you carve.
Use your various sized carving gouges to carve away the negative space of your design.
Stamp Away!
You may find after your first stamping that there are some high spots in the block leaving ink on your page. Carve them back further as you find them.
You can mount your stamps on wood blocks for a more professional look. Some craft stores sell stamp handles. Clear ones are best so you can see where to line up your stamp.
Good luck and happy carving!
I’ve come across a lovely Sydney based artist named Kate Banazi that works mostly in silk screen.
I LOVE silk screened art as it is one of the first times I really got involved in design and discovered how much i love it. It’s something I’d like to get into again once I have the money to invest in quality inks and screens.
Her prints are beautiful and dizzying combination of graphic, color and shape. There is so much fine texture overlapping they feel like they’re in motion.
I also like the way she combines photographic images with a vintage feel, with boldly colored graphic patterns.
It’s not as though I’ve found one I don’t like yet but I really love this one:
"Sunscreen Screenprint" by Kate Banazi
You can check out Kate Banazi’s work for sale on Etsy at Alyoisiusspyker’s Shop. She has additional work for sale on her website at katebonazi.bigcartel.com. Don’t forget to check out her blog too!
I’d like to send out a thank you to pretty*swell at prettyswell.wordpress.com. She took the time to make a lovely post about my etsy store. Please take the time to stop by her blog and see what creative work she’s been up to!
Although I set some pretty high goals for the week I think I am in range of reaching them! I say this as it is midday on friday and I have some bags to finish sewing but regardless I have done well.
I managed to finish all of my packing materials. It was kind of on the back burner but I am happy to see it completed and off my mind.
The packing envelopes were hand printed and turned into hand turkies and octopus saying thank you for buying hand made.
I made about 200 total product tags which I hope (or maybe I don’t hope?) will last me a while. The camera bags will have one of these camera tags with button lenses tucked inside.
And the coloring books will have one of these logo tags tied on. Each has a different ribbon and button. There are lots of fun bright colors and patterns 
I’m looking forward to finally getting to send some out and get some feed back.
On top of all of this, the fabric I ordered for the coloring books has arrived and once I’ve finished the last of the bags I’ll be making books. My goal for the next week will be to stock pile those!
But if I want to make it to that goal I’ll need to get myself off the computer and back to sewing. I’ll keep you all posted on the very eminent grand opening of Megnificent Made!
