Horse Clean Up

Only a couple more miscellaneous horse stamps and we're done. Time to clean up after the parade.

Baby's First Pony, 2" x 2 1/4"

My Little AQ Pony (I couldn't help myself), 3" x 2 3/4"

She needs a name, don't you think? Marjorie is already taken, though.

When is a Horse Not a Horse?

For the Horsin' Around event, a number of people carved different images for a series called "When is a Horse, Not a Horse?" You could look on the event page for some of the other interpretations of this theme. For mine, I carved 5 different stamps. See if you can guess what they are (no fair peeking first):

1 1/2" x 2 1/2"

2 1/4" x 2"

1 1/4" x 2"

1 7/8" x 1 1/4" (bonus points if you figure out both answers)

2" x 1 3/4"

Some of these stamps will also be up for adoption, either together or separately, after they come home from Cherry Valley.

Horses in Art

There were four stamps in the Horses in Art series for the event (Horsin' Around, in case you're jumping in mid-stream). What can I say? The fat cave pony is my favorite. This series of stamps will also be up for adoption to be planted permanently elsewhere after they come home.

Cave Art, 1 7/8" x 1 1/8"

Chinese Art, 2" x 1 1/8"

Horse Rearing, 1 3/4" x 2 1/4"

Stylized Art, 1 7/8" x 1 3/8"

Horses in Mythology

The Horses in Mythology series contained 5 stamps. Since Winnebago County is a bit...(trying to think of a nice word for anal retentive...) um, controlling, they can't remain as permanent plants in the park where the Horsin' Around event was held (which was amazing, btw. Trail Rider and Co do a fantastic job with their events.). As soon as they come home, this series of stamps will be up for adoption.

Centaur, 2 1/2" x 2"

Hippocampus, 1 7/8" diameter (I saw this exact image in embossed gold on someone's bag at the event. Very cool!)

Pegasus, 2" x 1 3/8"

Unicorn, 1 1/2" x 2 1/8"

Epona, 2 3/4" diameter (Martini Man carved the same image for the event. Talk about good taste!)

The two biggest challenges for me in carving for the event were 1) finding images that didn't all have the same look to them, and 2) finding images that remained kid-friendly--especially in the mythology series. Not sure how well I succeeded on the first, but I was pleased to be able to accomplish the second without too much headache. Epona was the hardest (No, Don't do a Google search.). Maybe that's why MM and I ended up with the same image. It was the only acceptable, carvable one we could find. Now, if this had been a pin-up event, I would have had options. :P

Stampede

Now that the Horsin' Around event is over, I'm going to start posting the stamps that I carved. It will take a few days and by the time we're done, you'll probably be as tired of horses as I was. Let the Stamp-ede begin!

Toward the end of the carving marathon, I decided to start a Horses in History series. I had at least four images picked out, but this is the only one that was finished. I found a patch for the Pony Express National Historic Trail, and since patches and letterboxers are a natural match....well, it had to be done. We had picked up an old fiction story about the Pony Express for spare change at a library sale years ago, so I turned it into an altered book to put the stamp and logbook in and it became a HIPS box. Stamp size is 2 7/8" x 2 3/4".

Now, I'm happy to report, the stamp is headed west to be planted as a traditional box on the actual historic trail of the Pony Express. The Pony Express might have been a short lived venture that left it's originators bankrupt, but the idea was and still is big on bravado and romance. You know you've dreamed about it at least once.

Portrait of a Newborn

Portrait stamps are difficult, there is no question about it; but there are several things that can make it even more difficult.

• Teeth--I don't care who the carver is, I have never seen teeth done well.
• Familiarity with the subject--Carving a stranger is harder than carving someone you know (okay, that sounds weird). Knowing a person's expressions and personality helps in determining what is important in an image.
• Potential for offense--If you carve the image of a jellyfish, it's not likely to walk off in a huff if you botch the job. Carve your Mother in Law, though, and you'd better get it right.
• Babies--even the babies themselves aren't familiar with their own expressions, so how can anyone else be? Add to that their rapidly changing bodies and you have a conundrum in short order. And of course, hands are so very key to a baby's expressions--and we know how easy they are to carve, right?

Now that I've pointed out how hard portraits stamps are, it's going to sound obnoxiously self serving to say that I am very pleased with how this stamp turned out. But I am enormously happy (and relieved) with the results, in spite of how intimidated I felt in the beginning. I think I will always feel that way about such personal images.

I'll let you know what Mom thinks when she gets it.

Signature Worthy of Kings

Sorry. I couldn't resist the word play. It was either that or "Carving Royalty". Anyway...

The Stamp Exchange platform on AQ is a nifty thing. Get rid of stamps you don't want anymore or don't have time to plant, or find something you need. Help someone or be helped. With hundreds of stamps carved, I'm to the point of having no idea what to do with them all. The stamp exchange has helped me off load several. I also just carved the above sig for some new boxers. It was fun finding the different crowns for each of their family members. (permission to post granted)

I am aware of the argument that everyone should carve their own sig. They had.  They were just looking for something that better represented them. Since the image came readily to me, I decided to carve it.

Now I'm working on a new series of traditionals that I have in mind.

Bender Teddy

If you go down to the woods today (hic)
You're sure of a big surprise...

After the picnic, Teddy got a good look at himself and immediately checked into rehab.

Lesson for today: Do not carve stamps while watching Madagascar--especially when it is your last piece of PZ Kut.
No, this stamp is not going in the Etsy shop.

Pony

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes

PussyCat

The first of the stamps designed after the mobile characters:

"Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?"
"I've been to London to visit the Queen."
"Pussycat, pussycat, what did you dare?"
"I frightened a little mouse under her chair."
"MEOW!"

**all of these stamps from the mobile will be listed in my Etsy store.

Ahhhh....

...back in my element. This carving was a good reminder that your stamp will only be as good as your image transfer. The image I started with wasn't very clear and so carving it took twice as much work. However, I really loved that it had both candles and pinecones in it.

On the mundane side (for posting purposes, at least), we are all still struggling with whatever bug this is that has taken hold. And both of my brothers are visiting from out of state, along with a whole passel of nephews and nieces. So unless I can dig up some more retro postals, this blog will be a little on the dry side this week. But I will be back sooner or later!

Tag It!

In the middle of another adventure today, M and I made lots and lots of gift tags using the snowflake stamps (and about every other craft media that we could drag out.) Here are a few of the successes:
We stamped a silver snowflake on dark blue paper, mounted that on a kraft brown square and covered it with a piece of shimmery vellum. The curls are pipe cleaners.
The tag in the center is much cooler than the photo can show. We used a large snowflake punch on the blue paper and then mounted that on white background paper. We filled the center with an iridescent powder and embossed it. Since the center of the snowflake just had glue stick gel in it and not embossing ink, the result looks like tiny drops of wet mist.
The tag on the left is the snowflake punch cutout on white stamped paper on tan background. We took an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet and stamped a random pattern of different colored flakes on it and then cut it into squares with decorative scissors.
The tag on the right is the same stamped paper mounted on blue card stock and embellished with cute little snowflake buttons that were in a mixed bag that we found by sheer serendipity the other day. I asked the lady restocking the shelves at Michael's if they had any Christmas buttons and she handed the bag to me out of her cart. It was the only one in the store.
See, more of those buttons from the accidental find. For all of the tags we stuck to a color scheme of dark blue, light blue, silver, white and kraft brown.
These are my favorites. We stamped a silver flake on some paper scraps that we had (they have dark blue felt-like patches) and mounted them on slightly longer strips of dark blue. Then I used the same five stitch binding technique that I use on my logbooks and attached tiny jingle bells with silver embroidery floss.
These were our warm ups this morning. A silver stamp and a fun button on white and dark blue paper.

Now I'm wondering if it would be tacky to ask the recipients if I could have these back after they open their gifts so that I can use them again next year. ;)

Bag It!

One of M's first projects with the snowflake stamps was to create some gift bags. While we have an overabundance of wrapping paper, the only bags we have are for girlie baby showers. So, we made a few to use for packing our Christmas baked goodies.
Blue, white and silver snowflakes finished off with a dusting of light blue spatter painting (which doesn't show up very well in the photo) and the bags are ready. The surprise was that my messy little crafter did not like the spatter painting.

*On a stamping note, we had purchased a super cheap silver embossing ink pad from Michael's to use on the bags (Craft Smart pigment). While I have not tried it for embossing, it did not work very well for our purposes. The ink is very oily and the oil bled into the paper around the stamp image. It also never completely dried in spite of my taking a heat embossing gun to it. The pad was very juicy however and the ink cleaned up nicely with the Staz on stamp cleaner.

Project Blizzard

The books by Laura Numeroff in the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series are some of our favorites. They are perfect illustrations of the Sequences that I mentioned earlier. Our own edition began when I made the mistake of giving my crafty child the Gooseberry Patch Christmas books some weeks ago. She now has a list for me that will take until August to complete.
At the top of that list was her desire to make our own wrapping paper this year. To that end, I began carving...
In the meantime, about a dozen rolls of Christmas paper were discovered in the basement. No worries though. We have already dreamed up several other messes that we can make with the stamps. Stay tuned...

Reservations in Time

Very clearly, Heysukeyw is on a whole other plane of crafting existence than I am. In fact, I can't hold a candle to most of the participants of this round robin. First of all, she really took the "no limits" to heart and is taking us on an incredible journey back in time to visit with her Foremothers; a concept which I adore. To have even one day with the dear women of my past would be a treasure far beyond worth. But before we all need a tissue...
The depth of the colors and layers on this page are a feast for the eyes. Everything from the alien time machine to the burnt paper edges is genius. Do you notice how the flowers on the pocket line up perfectly with the flowers on the background making the transition seamless? Such attention to detail!
This tag with the wonderful old key pulls out of the pocket.

We'll head back to reality for one last trip tomorrow.

Reservations for Hawaii

I am pretty sure that if I ever got to visit Hawaii you would never, ever get me on the plane home. We have family in Hawaii and personal connections to the Islands in spite of never being there in person (that's another story). Which means that I LOVE everything about CW Sunseeker's addition to my logbook. The colors are fabulous and there is so much to look at! I could just lick the pages, they're so delicious to see!
Postage stamps, rubber stamps galore, tags with logos and miniature travel posters clutter the page. And when I say clutter, I mean that in a good way.

The mini Aloha postcard on the left opens into the postage and coin/sig stamp in the lower right corner of the picture above. The two "tea bags" open and are full of the little souvenir and tourist gear cards (which were stamps from the favorite vacations PLB ring).

**Sigh**

Reservations for Paris

Orion will be our guide today as we absorb the richness of Paris, France. Who wouldn't want to go to Paris? All the Art, Romance, History, Architecture and culture mean that there is something for everyone. J wants to see the Eiffel Tower, M wants to see the Mona Lisa, and I want to see it all.
The tag in the pocket pulls out to show Orion's sig and her note on the back.


One of the things that I particularly love about this journal is the stamps. Not just the hand carved stamps or other rubber stamps used, but as you will see, many people used postage stamps in some way as part of their design. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but that element ties the whole book together in a wonderful way.

*A regret~Unfortunately, I cannot portray all of the varied textures on each page. The embossing, different papers, ribbons, and three dimensional elements cannot be transferred in a two dimensional digital media. Some of the pages were a little more difficult to photograph or scan because of some of the "doolollies". You'll just have to imagine the other sensory experiences.

Reservations for Norway

The owner of each Artful Logbook was to decorate the first page according to their own theme. If I were truly given the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world, I would have a very difficult time deciding between Norway, Israel and Spain. And Greece. And Washington.
In the end I decided that since I live in a very Norwegian community (Ya, sure, you betcha) I would have much more opportunity to plant Scandi themed stamps. And I decided to do my whole page with stamps. As a pop-up.
If you live around here you may recognize these stamps as the contents of the Norway in a Pine Box letterbox. There are 12 stamps in all.

Reservations

Just when you (and me too!) thought the way back machine had run out of gas...

Back in January of aught seven, I received a delightful invitation to participate in a postal ring hybrid. It was called The Artful Log: A Decorated Journal Round Robin and was started by Heysukeyw. The idea was to pick a theme, create a logbook and carve a stamp and mail it around the circle. With me so far? The twist was that each person who received your logbook would then completely decorate a double page spread according to their interpretation of your theme. No limits. In this case the stamp was really secondary to the logbook. Oh, and did I mention that we were to title our logbooks in such a way as to disguise the true theme until the logbooks were actually in hand? So there was no way to plan what you were going to do until the next journal arrived in the mail. We had about two weeks with each book, so there was plenty of time to brainstorm and execute. If I had to pick one favorite postal out of them all, this would probably be it. (Wait, have I said that before?) I will be posting the pages of my logbook over the next 12 days. (See, isn't that clever? I can finish NaNo and you'll never even miss me.)
You're probably wondering what my theme was, right? Well it was titled Reservations, which seems straightforward enough until you take into account the online chit chat designed to mislead. *Insert Doctor Horrible laugh* So while my theme was fantasy destinations, it could have also been Native American or phobias.
The logbook that I sent out was created to look like a suitcase (Yes, I was taking travelogue in a different direction) and it came home delightfully battered and stuffed to the brim with wonderful art depicting all of the places people would go if there were "no limits".
In case you can't read it, the first page says: "Now taking Reservations for the ultimate vacation of your dreams! If you could visit any place on earth, where would you choose to go? A secluded beach? The bullfights in Madrid? Or back home to Grandma's farm? Tell me! Nitrocat and Kittens have their bags packed and are ready to go! We're leaving Newark, Illinois on January 29th, 2007. Next Stop....

Rube Goldberg, al Fin

THE END!

*click and scroll to see close up.