It's mine, all mine

I actually had another weekend adventure-themed post all written and ready to go, but apparently I'm not allowed to post it until after Easter dinner, because apparently there might be spoilers for people I might be seeing in real life. Or people from California who come up to visit. You know who you are.

So that's coming.

In the mean time, here's another fun stamp-related post. :D

I may have to declare April to be the Month of the Stamp due to all these stamp-themed posts, won't I?

Especially as the tutorial I'm working on is stamp related as well. Hmmm.

Anyway... I had seen this new Cavallini stamp set online and had saved it to my Pinterest. It's great, right? Well, on Sunday I went down to visit my very favorite stamp store Impress and what do I see? And only one copy left? Zoom into my basket it went.

And so worth it.

See that black and white number paper there? Yeah, I stamped that. Awesome.

You'll be seeing this set more. A lot more, I'm sure. Now if only they made a matching alpha. Swoon.

Back to working on the Portland mini.

Hope you are well.

Stamp Carving Round 2: Victory!

This week I made it a goal to tackle the stamp carving task from my 30 before 30 list. This was to be my second attempt (see notes on earlier failure here) at stamp carving.

This time however, I was much better prepared. I prepped by reading a few very good blog posts (thanks Julie!) and a very excellent episode of Scrap Time (thanks Christine!). I also decided that nothing less than Speedy Carve (which is the good stuff) would do for a base.

To make it easier on myself, I decided to go with a geometric design, and make a stamp that was medium sized. I used the number one carving nib for pretty much the whole thing. It took me a couple of hours, a can of trusty diet coke and several episodes of Castle and Criminal Minds, but I got one finished!

I started by using my Tim Holtz ruler to measure out some triangles that were about .25" high. And I just started drawing until the stamp seemed big enough.

I very carefully and patiently carved out the outlines of the triangles that were to be carved out. I really liked how it looked, so I may do something similar with a different stamp. 

Then I just started carving and gouging until all the pattern was finished.

The whole process was quite soothing, actually. The finished stamp is a bit imperfect, but I'm digging it--It has a little bit of a Yellow Owl Workshop vibe going on, in my opinion. :)

I am so proud! I can wait to use this stamp on a page. Hmm.. the wheels are turning. 

Also super happy to scratch another goal off the list. :)

Happy Friday!

When arts and crafts run into science

So.. as part of my Thirty Before Thirty list, I wanted to successfully carve a stamp. Because, you know, I'm a little stamp crazy.

This weekend, I picked up a few stamp carving supplies at the art store, including various cutting nibs and two different kinds of stamp base. Based on Julie's reccomendation, I picked up some Speedball Speedy Carve rubber, and also a block of this cheap white art store brand (for practice).

I decided to start with something a little complicated.

And... well... it started out pretty good, but I lost patience and this was the result. Craft failure.

Turns out the material I got to practice on was just too brittle for a finished stamp. Well, for one with curves and detail, anyway.

I'm not entirely disappointed though, as I plan to use the leftovers from the practice block to get the hang of my remaining cutting nibs. I figure once I master that a bit more I'll use the good rubber for my base and then start with something simple. Like a geometric design or a chevron or something ;)

Have you ever had a craft experiment that was pretty much a complete failure?