What you been up too since I was here last week? What do you mean that is NOMB???? LOL....well, you don't have to tell all the sordid parts of what you've been up too, just the publically acceptable ones that make you appear to be a normal person will be fine.... stop your whining!
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I may have told you in a previous post that when I started refreshing my wardrobe around last November, that if whatever I wanted had a purple version, that's what I got (with some other colors too if I purchased more than one of the same design). It wasn't my intention when I started my shopping online, it just kind of developed as I went along. It's not that I have never had a purple piece of clothing once in a while in my life, just that it has never been my go-to color. As I began to start my purple pattern though, there was something that made me want to giggle to myself. I don't know why. I began to mentally call it my "Purple Phase" even though I have never personally claimed a color phase in my life.
So, when I decided to have my first calendar book for 2026, I bought purple. A week ago when I wanted steno pads to use at my work desk, I ordered purple, accidently order the bigger ones instead, then had to reorder. Now I have both sizes...LOL When I wanted index cards.. purple.... and of course after all of this, I simply HAD to have pens with purple ink... and they came this morning, before the sun came up.... before I got out of bed. Every time I order something purple now, again, it makes me giggle softly to myself. I can't imagine what else I might need, but if I think of something and they have purple, you know which color I'll be getting.
Why??? No reason, no reason at all. I tried to analyze myself and so far, the only thing I can guess is the catalyst for the purple papers and pens is that I may be filling the winter void... chasing away the after Christmas blues.... have I said a hundred times yet how I totally dislike cold weather and gray skies???
I bought some wooden stamps. These weren't the first ones. I meant to post those and some of the papers for the fun of it and I am still going too, but I then bought these (they didn't have them in purple LOL!) .... a fun snowflake set. It seemed appropriate for winter and the first ones worked so nicely, that I wanted more.
Here is a photo of this snowflake set. I took a photo of them sitting on my purple journal, in keeping with the situation. As you can see, two of them are not snowflakes. I am not sure if the star is supposed to be a snowflake or not, but it just looks like a star to me. I'm not sure if the one with the tri-curls is suppose to be something.....shrug ...but there you go. They are thick and easy to hold.
You can see a few of them again here. Didn't know I was going to take the above photo when I loaded this one. You can see some of the designs in play here.
BTW, this program is glitchy. While I was typing the above, before I could finish the word "here" the program jumped me half the way down the page where the e and the (.) were by themselves under another photo. What is up with that?? Not the first time though, I guess it can't auto-save and stay in one place at the same time or that is my best guess.
So last night I decided to play with my new set of stamps with the gel press. Maybe I will show more about the press when I make a post showing the first set of stamps. Anyway, you roll paint on the gellified press pad, make multiple patterns in different ways and then lay a piece of paper on top of it, rub smooth and when you pull up the paper, you never know what you are going to get LOL... Surprise! Sometimes it's good surprises and sometimes not, but it is amazingly fun.
The thing to remember on these is that I am making fun collage papers to use in my amazing creations, so these will mostly get torn up and used in various sized bits later on. I have created one or two by accident that I loved how they came out so much that I didn't want to tear them up, so I didn't!
I did use a couple of stamps from the first set on this one too, the spiral behind the snowfakes was a test to see how they would come out and the other spirals with the dots on them.
This piece was not showing snowflakes, but I had put the magenta paint on the press, laid an asemic writing design (regular stencil) on top of it, pulled the stencil back up which pulled up some of the paint and when I put my paper on top of it, it picked up the stencil pattern in the background. The blue is paint that was previously left on the press from a previous pull, that attached to this print when I pulled it up. That is part of the sometimes surprise. Sometimes you can guess what it will look like and sometimes not.
The papers I used were wet-strength tissue paper, deli paper (yes, the kind that goes around your sammy at the deli) & medical exam table cover paper. Yes... that's what I said, the paper that your doctor pulls up over the table (well, ok, he doesn't, but his nurse or assistant does).... when they want you to sit or lay on it. I can't take credit for figuring that out. I watch lots of art videos and someone else figured it out and shared the idea and it works for this type of thing quite well. All of these papers are somewhat thin and become mostly transparent (the paper part) when you glue them down. You still see the design, but the places that have no ink on them, disappears or nearly disappears. I love the transparent papers best.
The day is gray here and lightly sprinkly now and then, so the sun was not shining in for photos. Although this really doesn't show it, this came out to be a most beautiful paper. I had made a pull that had light gray snowflakes and when it dried on the press and then I used more color and did it again. when it pulled up, the hint of gray snowflake in the background made them look like shadows behind the white snowflakes. That wasn't an intentional act, it was one of those surprises I was talking about. As usual, much more lovely to the eye than the photo can convey.
This was not made with the stamps, but again with the asemic writing stencil in the background. The yellow and orange parts were leftover paint that was already on the press, so when I used purple and blue over the top of it and let it dry together, this is what the paper pulled up. I totally loved it, but more as an abstract art piece than collage paper. We'll see what ends up happening to it.
I had forgotten to say that the hacked up paper edges are because the original papers are much bigger than I needed for this 5x7 press, so I hack-cut them down to use. I will trim them before I use them of course.
The star stamp. Love that it is not just a single outling.
Another copy of one of the photos prior that included some of the stamps in the photo.
I didn't care for how the design turned out on this one, but I did love the color combo. This is not nearly all the papers I made, just a few random pieces.
I'll end with this funny thing. At my birthday lunch last Saturday, one of my sisters gave me a birthday present. It was a bag of all fun things she said and this is one of the things that was in it. This is a very soft headband that you pull over your head and then pull the top of it back over your hair to keep your hair out of you face while you wash it or put makeup on or whatever. When you do that, you then have the two snail eyes sticking up off the top of your head. I thought it was quite hilarious at the party and put it on for my sisters and Mom to see and made different faces while wearing it. I wasn't however, brave enough to take a photo to show here, but you get the drift. It's really the cutest crazy thing ever. I perched it on top of the candle holder on my vanity so I can look at it and it can look at me every morning. It makes me smile!
Okay the daylight hours will be winding down soon and I haven't done the first chore. I did take in my amazon orders and open them and I had a grocery order show up around 10 am that I checked in and put away. I suppose I will go to the kitchen now, clean out the frig, load the dishwasher and make some sausage cheese balls with some almond flour to go with my yogurt for my breakfasts this coming week. Yum! Yum! I will try to do a few other things too before the art table calls me over.... or I think I will.
Hope you are all doing well and that your hearts are happy.
