The Return of the Absent One

Dang! Where does the time go?! I was perfectly aware that I had not posted anything for quite awhile, but TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! Gee whiz.

So now I've returned with an obnoxious vengeance - posting yesterday and working on 2 posts today, without any explanation of my whereabouts the past 10 weeks. But since you are a faithful blog reader, I'm sure you are used to such blogging behavior and perhaps you have even behaved this way yourself. Anyway, on with the post...

I have many things to tell you about but right now, I need to keep it short since I'm procrastinating cleaning the house. I still need to get the house done in about an hour, but I like living on the edge, so I'll cram this post in as quickly as I can (for the added adrenaline rush).

The past couple of nights I've been working on posting new items in my Etsy shop. I painted these wooden necklaces quite awhile ago, but just got around to posting them:

I hadn't planned on selling any jewelry, but these tiny pieces of wood were so fun to paint, I couldn't help but make them into something. If I do some more, I might think of some other purpose for them, like a tiny wall hanging or something.

Last night I worked on these:

I've been a little down/grumpy lately, so working on these have been very calming. I love to make tags and carve rubber stamps. I think I'll have to keep doing this - it's much cheaper than therapy!

I currently have 54 items for sale in my shop. I'm hopping to get up to 100 items in the next few weeks. I've read that more items helps increase shop traffic and I would love to have more traffic.

Ok, well, better go clean so my kids won't be embarrassed when their friends come over! :)

New Stamps

My Sister-in-law visited a few days this week and part of our visit included craft time. She is very supportive of me and encouraging, so it's not hard to be inspired to create. We stayed up late a couple of nights and these are some stamps I carved:

I love doing these rubber stamps, but still have a hard time figuring out what I should be doing with them. I like the designs of these three and will probably do some tags and mini cards. It will be nice to have some new designs on my Etsy site.

Latest Stamp Carvings

Here are my latest hand carved stamps. I think I'm running a little dry on ideas, but at least I'm carving...I guess.

Law & Order & Tags

I've been making tags, though I'm not sure why. They're fun and easy and I can do them while I watch t.v. I had over 100 episodes of Law and Order recorded on DVR. If I watched all of those shows and didn't do anything else, well...nothing would be done. It turns out that after several days of watching 1-3 episodes of L&O per day, I couldn't take it any more. No matter how attractive I think Sam Waterson and some of those detectives might be, there was just too much killing going on. So, I deleted all the episodes (except for one) that I had recorded and canceled all future recordings.

I didn't really mean to go into my t.v. viewing habits in this post, but sometimes stuff just happens. Anyway, here are some new tags that are made from rubber stamps I carved. I hope you like them.

Custom Hand Carved Stamp for Soap Scentsations

After seeing some hand carved stamps I made, my friend Kristi Mott, asked me if I would make one for her. Krisit is the owner of Soap Scent-sations, a lovely online shop with hand made soaps, lip balms and other bath and body products. She was interested in stamping cards to include with her soaps.

This photo shows the design I came up with, based on the design Kristi already uses for her packaging.  I had a great time carving this stamp and would love the opportunity to create more custom stamps. I've found that stamp carving and designing is currently one of my favorite things to do. Seeing the final results is very satisfying.

Take a moment to check out Kristi's shop (she also has an Artfire shop). Her soaps are wonderful. They're pretty, they smell great and they lather up quite nicely. (Lather is important to me, so I thought I'd mention that). Every time I use one, it feels like a special treat. But don't take my word for it, hop on over and order a few bars for yourself! :)

I Did This Instead of Sleeping...

Everyone in my family has had some sort of ailment in the past week. I'm just getting over mine, so I should really be sleeping. You know, getting rest so I can get healthy, letting my body rejuvenate so I don't have a relapse. Instead, I spent time carving eraser stamps! I've found that this is what really relaxes me lately, especially if I like the way the designs turned out.

I've been working on getting some things ready for an art fest I'm doing with my friends on Thanksgiving weekend. It's kind of an overwhelming task because there seems to be so much to be done and not really enough time to do it. Carving stamps helps me be creative, without having to commit too much time. Besides, I'll be able to make tags out of some of these and sell them at the art fest!

Block Party

Yesterday I facilitated a group of 8 women in a linoleum block printing workshop. It was held at Artlandish Gallery in Columbia, Missouri and it was really fun! I met some nice people, had a few laughs, saw some great designs. But the most fun part was watching as each person saw the first print of their carving on paper. It was truly amazing. Lots of "ooos and ahhhs" going on in that room.

We also carved some plastic erasers for some really cute hand made stamps. I was inspired to carve out a small lino block last night before I went to bed. Here's how it turned out:


I'm happy with the way it turned out and can hardly wait to print some different colors on cards and make some prints for framing.

I've been working on carving a few stamps and rubber pieces. It's very satisfying and there is the element of immediate gratification. I can carve a quick stamp in a few minutes, make a quick print then go cook dinner (or whatever thing I need to do). I can squeeze making hand made stamps in any part of my day! I'm soooo addicted. Here are some of the stamps I've made: