At Home with Helen

The mirror I just showed you reminded me of another piece I made using those Impression Obsession leaf stamps:This was inspired by a peg board I found in the pound shop. It had a design painted on it but I just sanded it down and painted it with emulsion. I wanted to do something on the theme of house and home and so chose the PaperArtsy At Home Plate 1 and Urban Snapshots Structures Plate 1 and made keyrings to hang on it. The stamps I used for the board had to fit on it (ie. inbetween the pegs proved difficult) - in the end I think I took them off the acrylic block and stamped them as is. A bit messy (no, make that very messy!) but it worked.
I stamped on paper and used it to cover the ends of the pegs and the bevelled bit - I tried stamping on it directly, but it was impossible.The house picture is also stamped onto copy paper and stuck on. Again I tried to stamp direct onto the wood but it kept going wrong (and I kept having to re-emulsion the whole thing!)I actually stamped it twice - once in the Adirondack dye inkpads Lettuce, Denim and Cranberry (love that combination) and then I inked the edges and round the windows in black and stamped over the top. It was really a case of trial and error!I then stuck that on before stamping the leaves over the top. The leaves are supposed to be coloured in a pale wash from each of the inkpads but they have faded somewhat.
The keyrings were an excuse to use stampbord which I still love, even though it's been around for a couple of years. I don't think I'll ever tire of it - there's so much you can do with it:Here I've coloured it in the same three colours, then stamped and etched to my heart's content! I've also added words that I stamped onto paper.

The middle piece stands alone, but the two outer pieces complement each other, using different ends of the house stamp:This actually now hangs on my wall - the first piece of my artwork that I put up! (I won't let anyone hang their keys on it though!!!)
Smiles!
Helen