Design Principles for Altered Artists - part one!

Heya all!
I just thought I would post a little heads up on my current series that kicked off in the current Altered Arts Magazine (Jan/Feb 08). It seems that design principles can be a topic that mystifies many - I would like to say that learning and using design principles just comes down to practice and observation.

This months article explores the topic of Pattern and if you love paper and stamps (don't we all?) this could well help you!

A note about my example featured in the article: Some of you will be familiar with one of my other passions in life - Bodybuilding! The affirmations are intended to be read prior to training to develop the champion mindset. Credit for those words go to Pete Siegel, USA's foremost sports and peak performance hypnotherapist which was accidentally omitted from the article. If you are interested in reading the full eight performance enhancing affirmations they can be found in this article The Peak Performance Mindset.

Have a great day!
Kathleen

Sneaky Studio Peak!

Weeelllls Happy New Year! Hope yours is starting exactly as you wish. I am so fully confident that 08 is going to be a great year - I have a number of events and personal goals lined up and it is very exciting!

I thought today I would continue with my little studio tour. Yes, if you have read my early posts I usually call it a workroom but since I wish to live the life of my dreams having a studio is such a step up! LOL :)

I SOOOO love colour, I love little boxes, I love collections... so you know then I am bound to have a weakness for stamp pads right? A girl can not have too many little boxes of pure colour pleasure! and yes you have permission to tell your husbands that! This is my stamp pad station. I could say stamping station but since I tend to spread out the actually stamping tends to take place on my work bench. Also my acrylic blocks, unmounted stamps and wood stamps are hiding somewhere else!



This is the top part of that kitchen unit I talked about in my adhesives draw blog entry it is situated basically in the center of my studio. The adhesives draw is immediately under this bench top and then there is another drawer under that which holds ribbon.

The plastic drawers you can see hold my embossing powders and re-inkers with the rest of the space being used by stamp pads. Each stamp pad is stored by brand and type and if you look real close you will probably notice some favorites there: Stampin Up, Colorbox, Chalkink, Versacolor, Tim holtz to name a few.

The plastic storage box on the top holds lesser used stamping tools like stazon cleaners and masking tools. That's my daughter in the photo - shes 6 now!

To lay my hands on just the right pad I will either grab the closest one - ooops! I mean I will refer to my handy dandy stamp pad index. Each page is grouped by colour and then I will look through to find one in the shade and qualities that I need. I find using my index spreads the usage of my pads around more rather than reaching for old favs also sometimes memory and the colours on the top of the pads are not so accurate so by referring to an actual stamped image gives a true result. My stamped index is simply using a shadow stamp to give a solid block of colour.


Now I know I'm not the only one with a weakness for ink! Do tell!
Have a great day :)
Kathleen