Whiskey Tango Hotel?

I apologize if you are here from Art Journal Journey and don't want to see this latest attempt at recycling, please skip down to the end of this post.

Since I still had three wooden blocks left, for Day 7 of 22 I decided to go yet another route making stamps.

I'm still lazy enough I didn't want to sand the wooden blocks, so got out some white erasers I picked up at the dollar store a few months ago.

I decided on what I thought was a "square" block.

The first thing I did was cut into the larger eraser

with the help of my Fiskers cutter and self healing mat.

I applied what I thought was as equally thick as I could get, strips of eraser using E-6000.  Any strong silicone adhesive will work, though.  All of a sudden, the block no longer looked square.  But it was too late, now.

It was time to allow the adhesive to set up

while I gave my hand a much needed break.

Once completely set, I turned the block of wood over

and cut away the excess erasers.
 
Then it was time to ink the erasers and stamp.
Holy cow, what a mess I created.

Turning the piece in various positions didn't help, either.  I have to admit that the post title in lay (non-military) words says it all: what the heck?

What I did wrong (or at least, what I've decided I did wrong).

First, in my opinion, the block needs to be exactly square if you want the diagonals to line up properly.

Second, the top (the part that you will be inking) must be completely flat.

Third, if you can't make the erasers completely flat, use something else, like several sheets of fun foam, pencils, etc.

Fourth, if you want the diagonals to line up, they must be equally spaced.  Use a ruler if you need to.

Fifth, use my inability to make even ONE of the above things happen ideas work properly, and create a much better tutorial than I did today.

This is Day 7 of 22, and I made a mess of an eraser and a block of wood that would have gone in the chiminea pile had I not botched this tutorial.

By now you are probably shaking your head in laughter but I can't rewind the day, only hope for a better recycle day tomorrow.   And because I made such a mess of things, I decided to create a very quick entry for Art Journal Journey, where this month my internet friend Linda of heARTfully Inspired is this month's host of For the Record.  Here is my first entry for April.

This first entry for AJJ is Higher Love, by Steve Winwood from his 1986 album "Back in the High Life."  I was lucky enough to see Winwood in concert where he actually sang this song.  It's one of my favorites of his from that album.

Now Linda asked us to tell on our journal page which song we chose, so I wasn't quite sure if I did this right.  I quoted some of the lyrics that included the title of the song.

Thanks for visiting because your visits are really important to me and your comments always make me smile.