The Stamps

I knew that a hard part of this move would be being separated from all of my creative supplies, and all of my model horses, for so long.  I'd gotten quite content with the fact that I had a room full of horses and craft supplies (though, it was most often a MESS...) and that I could go down there and make something whenever I wanted to.  Granted, there were often days - or even weeks - when I didn't make much of anything, but the option was always there.  I was bothered by having all of those options packed up and shipped off (no really, on a cargo ship!), leaving me with nothing to feed the creative bug.  I did keep some of my cross-stitch supplies, and have managed to make a few new saddle pads over the past couple of months.  I am glad that I had that bit of a creative outlet to work on.

However, there is one small thing that I've been carrying with me for the past couple of months (or more).  In addition to model horse related things, I also enjoy paper crafts.  I haven't really gotten into scrapbooking, but I love making greeting cards, bookmarks, and so on.  I have quite a collection of rubber stamps, that had exploded over the past year and a half after I had been a part of a Stampin' Up club.  I love stamping, it is so much fun.  It is something I share in common with my Granny - the person that I get my love of creating crafts from.

I was a little sad that all of my stamps, ink, papers, embellishments, etc., etc., would all be shipped off.  Right around the time that the movers had come and taken everything, I ended up in Michael's.  I wanted to roam around and look at crafty stuff.  They have bins of stamps for $1.50 and I would almost always find something I want in there.  That day I ended up buying this little stamp set:

In the Stampin' Up club, one time we had used little banner stamps and a punch to make some neat cards.  I didn't have any banner stamps, but as soon as I saw these I knew what I could use them for.  So, I bought them and stuck them in my purse.

They've been in my purse this whole time - right alongside my wallet, passport, important papers, and other can't-do-without-during-an-overseas-move items.  Every now and then I pull them out of my purse and smile.  They make me smile I think, because they make me think of my Granny - I miss her already - and they make me think of all of the fun things that I'll be able to make once the rest of my supplies get here.

Maybe it's a silly thing, to be carrying a little package of cheap rubber stamps along on this whole crazy adventure we've been on, but they've brought a smile to my face more than once while things were going... crazy on this move and so that's why they have come along for the ride.

We've been in our new house for a few weeks now and the craft supplies have already started to trickle in.  Also, a couple more boxes recently arrived, containing more Studio supplies that were forgotten in the great Move.

References, fabric, yarn, yay!!

As for the rest of the Great Move?  All of the rest of our belongings are scheduled to be delivered on Thursday!!  :D

Soon, I'll be making stuff again...  Soon.

Stamps, Stamps, Everywhere

Last night I spent several hours in the Studio room.  I wanted to make some things, but that was going to be a little difficult.

Even though it's cool to see a sea of horses on my desk, it's not practical for actually getting anything accomplished on the desk, so they (and everything else) had to move. 

The first chunk of time was spent shuffling things around.  I put away my tools, paints, glues, sprays, and epoxy, and finally even more unpacking from the shows a couple of months ago.  I cleared off some of the top shelf of the desk and moved my little in progress herd up there and off of the main working surface.

Future class of 2015?  That's the plan.

Recently I had bought some empty cases for storing rubber stamps.  I decided to unwrap them and maybe do some stamp organizing since it turned out I was in that kind of mood.

This turned into a marathon of stamp sorting in which, at one point, I had almost ALL of my rubber stamp collection on the desk.

Horse stamps!

Wait... wasn't I supposed to be cleaning off the desk??

I have a lot of rubber stamps.  I think I should maybe go through them and try to weed out some that I don't use.  For a long time I had them all somewhat contained in the larger plastic cases, and stacked neatly.  Then over a year ago I joined a stamp club where I make a monthly order and my collection started to spread.  Now those stamps are popping up everywhere throughout the room.

I was actually kind of shocked when I realized last night just how many stamps I have!  I found a bunch of them that I can't even remember when or where I got them.  I was pretty confused, until I remembered that my Granny gave me a ton of stamps when I helped her move this past summer.  That's where all of the new ones came from.

My Granny did this once before and last night I couldn't help but to take another picture of one of the favorite stamps she gave me then.

I have no idea why I am so amused by that stamp, but I am.  A chicken marching band!  Have you ever seen something so funny?  I may need help...


After the unplanned rubber stamp wrangling, I did actually clear off the desk and make something - my intent when I'd first set foot in the room a few hours before.

When I finally left the room for the night, the desk was all cleared off and ready to go.

Craft Day!

I can always tell it's been a while when I pop on here and see the background of my blog is the wrong season.  For instance, today it was fall colors.  Um...  that was a bit ago...  So now we have an appropriate winter theme.

I really would like to blog more regularly... it's not that I don't have anything going on, it's just that I forget to come on here and talk about it.  I don't often take pictures while I'm working, so while I may have stuff to say, I don't have much to show and that would be boring, eh?

Recently, I dug out my old little "point and shoot" digital camera and made its new home in my Studio room.  Compared to our newer cameras, it is a simple little thing, but it is highly portable and is good for taking quick shots of what I'm working on. 

Yesterday was a cold, snowy day, which for me is good crafting weather.  I have been steadily crafting along, here and there, but yesterday I had an all day creative marathon.  It was wonderful!  I made some new greeting cards, did quite a bit of stamping, tried embossing by myself for the first time, and worked on some custom model horses.

Here are some pictures from yesterday!:


First up, a card that I made for my husband for Valentine's Day, which is also the anniversary of when we met.  The stamp on the front says: "Every woman wants a man who will ruin her lipstick and not her mascara".

I've had this gorgeous carousel horse stamp for a little while and hadn't used it yet.  A few days ago I made a Valentine's Day card with it and listed the card on ArtFire.  It sold!  (my first actual greeting card sale)  So, yesterday I stamped several more of them.  I'd like to do a series of cards, all different colors.

I learned how to emboss at a craft get together a few months ago, but hadn't tried it on my own.  I had these pretty tatted doily stamps and hadn't used them yet.  I tried a pad of white ink I'd bought, but it wasn't working.  I was bummed, until I remembered I'd just recently bought embossing ink and powder.  I tried it and was thrilled how they came out!:

I also cut up a bunch of scrap cardstock and paper into sizes to use for bookmarks, artist trading cards, and inchies.

Moving on, I started working on some horses.  I prepped a couple of Micro Minis for paint and then I got to this one...

I just wasn't happy with how he looked, so....  "off with his head!"

Re-attatched, next step will be sculpting his neck and some on his itty bitty head:

To show how tiny the micro minis are:

 Next up was a Breyer stablemate that I had started on last summer.  Here is how this one started out:

Last summer I had repositioned a couple of the legs.  He will be pulling.  A week or so ago, I did some preliminary fill and sculpt work on his legs.  But one major repositioning task lay ahead of us...

Again, "off with his head!"  It was just the day for that I guess....

After sanding down the top of his withers and shoulders and re-attaching the head/neck in an approximate position:

That one will also need a lot of fill/sculpt/sanding.  In researching horses that compete in draft horse pulling contests (my original plan for him) last night, I found that they tend to pull with their heads up, not down.  But I still liked the head down plan I've always had for him, so maybe he won't be a competitive pull horse, he'll just be leaning into a heavy load, or pulling a plow.

It was a good day of making stuff and I'm planning on more of that today!

Best. Thanksgiving/Christmas. Ever!

We went to Arizona to visit my Granny for Thanksgiving.  Years ago, before my Granddad passed away, Thanksgiving used to be the time for our family reunion.  Their Anniversary falls around Thanksgiving and it just became the time for all their kids and grandkids to gather.  We would also do Christmas at the same time, since everyone would be together.

This year was the first big family get together since Granddad passed away.  It was a bittersweet time for me; I loved seeing my uncles again, my Granny, and my mom.  It was fun to see my cousins again, they sure have grown up!  However, I still miss my Granddad and it just didn't seem right to be there as a family without him.  I like to think he was smiling down on us and laughing at our crazy stories and the good times we had.


My husband, Jeff, and I were the first ones to arrive, so we had some time to spend with Granny before everyone else got there.

Granny gave me a box of earrings that were from her mom.  Her mother never had pierced ears and neither do I!  It was a neat thing to find out about my Granny Margaret, that we shared.  So Granny gave me a box of beautiful vintage clip on earrings.  I was really excited, but she was just getting warmed up!

Some of my readers may remember the box of stamps that Granny sent me a while ago, including the "infamous" chicken marching band stamp.Granny is who I get most of my creativity from; growing up with her making all kinds of neat things inspired me. 

Granny pointed to a blue tote on the floor and said "You're not gonna believe what's in there and it's all for you!"

She took it to the kitchen table and said, "You like rubber stamps?" then flipped the top open. 

 

 

 The tote was chock full of stamps!!  Plus all of the side pockets were full of clear acrylic stamps, colored pencils, assorted embellishments, and..  even more rubber stamps!!

I was in shock, but there was more...  She also gave me two scrapbook paper cases - full of paper:

Plus a crimper tool, which I had never seen before, but here's what it does:

How cool!! 

Thank you SO much, Granny!  I'm going to have SO much fun with all of these goodies!  (I already am!) 


My Granny and I:

New Goodies!

Yesterday I went to town on a shopping trip.  I stopped into Michael's, one of the big craft store chains, because I had seen in the paper that they were having a buy one get one free deal on rubber stamps.  (I do love stamping!)  I also had a 50% off coupon for any one item.   

May I present, my new goodies!:

I first saw this carousel horse stamp quite a while ago and thought it was beautiful.  When I spotted it yesterday, I decided to use my 50% off coupon on it!  This one will be fun to play with and fun to color - so many possibilities!:

The dragon coin stamp I found in a clearance bin.  It was marked down from $12.99 to $4.99  I thought it was a neat design:

A couple of flower stamps.  They were in a bin of stamps for $1.50 each:

At times I've wished I had more stamps with messages on them - for holidays and certain occasions.  I have a couple sets of alphabet stamps, but they are more..  "cutesy".  I've been thinking lately that a good set of more formal alphabet stamps would be nice - to be able to stamp my own messages.  So I used the buy one get one free deal on these two:

Last up, found in a clearance bin of stickers were these fishy playing card stickers.  They were marked down from $2.49 to 99 cents.  I thought they were too cute:

All together I found some good deals on some fun new supplies.  Best of all, I finally used a gift card I'd gotten last Christmas, so in the end I didn't pay anything out of pocket for these new finds!  Merry Christmas to me...  a year late, or a month early...  ha!

I hear the Studio calling my name.  I wonder what I can make with these new goodies.  :-D

Christmas Time is Here

Another spaced out (as in length of time) blog entry starts...  Now!

Christmas is right around the corner and I received a gift from my Granny that I'm pretty excited about.  She sent me a box full of vintage rubber stamps that came from when her niece was a teenager.  There are some pretty cute stamps there and some that are quite quirky as well - can anyone say chicken marching band? 

Yes, I'm serious, haha... 

I'm looking forward to playing around with the stamps and seeing what kind of new creations I can come up with for them to be used on.  I see a bunch if new and fun paper goods in my future - yay!  Maybe I'll come up with a chicken marching band bookmark!  heehee...

I'm sort of in the middle of an overhaul of EVERYthing at this time, so not much crafting has been going on.  Though the bug has been steadily chomping on me as I come across supplies and items or pictures that inspire me.  My husband is in the military and has been deployed to the Middle East for the past several months.  He'll be home in a couple of months and while I eagerly await his return, Operation Organize the Entire House has begun!  (wish me luck on that - I may very well need it!)

On the sales front, my Nail Necklaces have been somewhat steadily selling, as they always do.  I'm also happy to report that I sold my second ever online dreamcatcher.  I've sold many dreamcatchers over the years in face-to-face sales, but only two so far in an online venue.  That made me happy.  Now if the cards and bookmarks would start selling...  Maybe all I needed was a chicken marching band stamp... 

(I'm sorry, I just can't get over that one, I think it's too funny!)

I guess that's all for now.  Funny how the last post I made I was horrified that I still had a winter background..  now it's winter and I have a summer background.  Sigh.  Ok, it's not really funny, I'd say it's more tragic.  I really do want to get better about blogging.  Maybe that can be a New Years Resolution for 2012. 

Hmmmm....