Friends and family know how much I love gift wrapping. The process of brainstorming and gathering odds and ends to put together into a pretty package relaxes me. This activity also allows me to indulge in my guilty pleasure of … Continue reading
I am not in the habit of making New Year’s resolutions. I don’t believe in making promises I won’t be able to fulfill. It’s already a challenge to achieve my life goals. Why would I want to complicate my life even further with unnecessary undertakings?
This year, however, feels different. Three weeks in, 2013 is already shaping up to be a very promising year for me and my husband. All the excitement and anticipation make me feel bold enough to publicly declare my resolutions.
This year, I intend to:
Craft resolutions for 2013. (Friends, I know the scrapbook is way overdue. We’ve been married for 2 years already No need to reiterate.)
These resolutions will help me in maintaining this blog, too.
What are your New year’s resolutions?
My friend Janice, a very talented artist and clothing designer, sent me a message with a link embedded in it. The link led me to a site about stamp carving. My curiosity was piqued, and I moseyed over to Google to search for more information on stamp carving. Many sites recommended erasers as a suitable alternative to rubber carving blocks. And since I have several erasers just lying around the house, I decided to make my own rubber stamps.
Ishtar Olivera’s tutorial was my reference for stamp carving. Her step by step instructions were very easy to understand.
Since I am very impatient, I skipped steps 1 – 6 (transferring image from paper to eraser) and drew directly on the eraser.
I drew on the eraser because I have the patience and attention span of a goldfish.
I don’t have actual photos of the carving process because I was too excited to finish the project. In my excitement, I accidentally gouged out one eye of the owl, so I took out the other eye to make it look like a sleeping owl. Also, taking out the white spaces can be challenging when using a craft knife. I had to cut at an angle to give the thin lines a sturdy base.
End result is this:
My very 1st stamp: owl
I used the stamp to make the birthday card for a colleague.
Happy Birthday from Owl of Us. Each owl represents a person in our office.
I love stamp carving. I love it so much I made 2 more stamps on the same day.
Lyra stamp and Box stamp
I made the face of the Lyra stamp blank so i can change the expressions. I drew the face using a tech pen.
Love is a process. Stamp carving and I are still in the getting-to-know-you stage, but I am already in love with it. While stamp carving doesn’t love me back just yet, I hope in time it will love me, too. 😉
-Lyra
Other helpful tutorials:
Stars for Dreams‘ post “DIY: Make Your Own Rubber Stamp”
Mairuru‘s post “How I carve a stamp with eraser”
In a perfect world, we have ample time to do things we enjoy. Like reading books. Watching movies. Hanging out with friends.
Crafting is a hobby I discovered in the latter part of my x number of years on earth. I crafted on and off since elementary school, usually for art projects that were included in school requirements. My passion for making pretty things was ignited when I started preparing for my wedding a little over two years ago.
Unfortunately, adult life gets in the way. My full-time employee status keeps me from dabbling in nothing more than little craft projects after work hours.
With the handmade movement gaining ground and the crafting community expanding everyday, I think it is high time to take this hobby seriously. Do I want to pursue this full-time? Yes, that is the goal. But the timing is not right, and there are still so many crafting techniques I have to learn.
Maybe I will reach my goal sooner rather than later. But for now, I’ll stick to crafting after an 8-hour work day. 🙂
craftereight aka Lyra
-Lyra
crafter eight 