Last week I was about to start working on the book covers for the sample visual journal I’m making, when my supervising teacher opened the door to the art supply room and showed me her giant collection off all things art/collage related.  And said that I could use whatever I wanted.

oh.my.

I have never really been into stamps before (I figured I would use them once and then be done with them, so what was the point?) but she has the most amazing stamp collection ever.  Ever.  I now want to search for stamps. and to make my own so I feel a little more like it’s my work.

So anyway, I painted my bookcovers…

Gorgeous.  I know.

And then I took this girl stamp, stamped her on some white/off-white paper, cut her out and glued her on:

Seriously, how is it possible for a stamp to have that much detail?!  I mean, it’s not exactly a huge stamp.  Oh and the black on the bottom is from a dash stamp, from one of her alphabet stamp sets.  I did that across the top and bottom of both the front and back covers.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this, but I really like old keys.  So of course I had to use this stamp:

I stamped it onto a torn out page from another book (see the text?) glued a bunch of pages together, and cut it out.  Then I put it on some string and added beads, making it as girly as I possibly could.  I really don’t try to do that, but it always seems to happen when I’m doing anything artistic.  Also you can see some of the binding in this shot (yes, I taught 5th-8th graders how to do that.  And they really did, last week.  Looks like I might be able to do this teaching thing after all?)

You like?

I’m off to go tutor the non-art kids in the art class.  It’s actually a lot of fun, some of them have been turning in these papers that they write about visiting an art museum (they get to choose which projects they do) and it’s really funny/interesting to hear what they have to say about paintings they are unfamiliar with, but that I have studied and discussed endlessly and written entire papers about.  Again, I think I can really get into this teaching thing.

Oh and… LOST is on tonight!  Don’t forget.  As if you could.