Leaf prints. People love them. Perfect time of year. Buy cardstock, cut in half from 11 x 8 1/2 to 11 x 4 1/4. Double each sheet over and crease. That gives you a card 5 1/2 by 4 1/4; fits a standard greeting card envelope that you can buy by the 50's or 100's at an office supply. To make the prints, applying ink or paint with a brayer is nice, but you don't have to buy one if you don't have one. Buy the small RAISED inkpads at a hobbycraft store like Michael's. Dye ink dries faster but pigment ink is lightproof. Choose your leaves, and ideally put them in telephone books under weights for a few hours to flatten them, but you CAN skip this step. Next, put a leaf on scrap paper back side up (so the veins are up and will take the ink). Pat the ink on the leaf. Use complementary colors, or one color. Some people prefer just black. After the ink is applied amply, take tweezers or the petiole of the leaf and place it inked side down on a prefolded card front. DON'T LET IT SHIFT AROUND. Put wax paper or Saran Wrap on top (so you can see through it) and press the leaf to transer the ink. Do not let the leaf move. A clean brayer is good for this if you have one. Be sure you have pressed all areas of the leaf. CAREFULLY remove the cover paper, and lift the leaf off STRAIGHT UP. With a little practice, you can make beautiful prints. A "shadow" print can be made without reinking. Do about 3 on the card, overlapping them. A heavy image and two light ones looks nice. If anyone is remotely interested and I haven't been clear, reply or look up leaf prints on a search engine. Poison oak/ivy leaves are lovely, but I would pass those by. The more veinage the leaf has, the more impact the print has. Grape leaves work extremely well. Catamount

I use regular computer paper, print the image and spray with a fixative so that the ink will not smear or run and then I put it on the block with mod podge. I put a top coat on and then a varnish/sealant. I use a brayer to help get the air blubbles out from under the paper and when dry and putting a second coat on I also use the brayer. Connie

ANOTHER LIST!!!!Hooray!!

This message was sent to me by Barbie: Stamps that do not stamp clearly by barbieboop Why? Could be for a few reasons.. Try pressing harder Large stamps work best if you stand up and press them Stamp large images over a mouse pad or fun foam sheet Stamp lg stamps image side up and use a brayer to press the image onto the card. Some stamps get warped. The foam between the wood and the image gets smooshed. So, you can use a mouse pad to stamp on or remount them. Change the foam. New stamps and bold images sometimes need to be stamped a few times to get a good image. Allowing the ink to stain the rubber. Some images need to be lightly roughed up with fine sand paper. Some images have Âedges that stamp along with the image. Trim this portion off with an exacto knife or with sharp scissors.. If you can. Or. You may have to pull some images off the wood and trim the Âedges off then remount that image. Hand carved images stamp best the more times they are used. Or heavily inked. hugs, barbie