Step Forty Four: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Dearest Sylwi

Ever since I saw your Step Six on creating stamps, I've wanted to have a go myself!

Last week, I ordered the rubber stamp material and a carving tool and was thrilled when it arrived in time for this week's Step!

Inspiration for my stamps this week, came from the extraordinary website of Wilson A. Bentley, Snowflake Bentley, in the shape of images like these...

By adapting his camera to work with a microscope, back in 1885, Wilson Bentley became the first person to photograph a snowflake.

He went on to take more than 5,000 photos of snowflakes during his life, forming a collection of exquisite images, all of them different. It's really an extraordinary collection!

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

~ Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, 1925

First, I traced the snowflake in pencil, simplifying its shape, ready to carve...

I transferred the pencil snowflake onto the stamping mat by placing the drawing, pencil-side down and rubbing the back of the tracing paper with a ruler.

When I began carving, I realised I didn't have quite the right tools for the job. I didn't realise the cutters came in different designs! My cutter had a hook on the end and was quite large, whereas I think yours (and Gennine's) were almost like thin scoops? 

I was too far down the line to back out, though. I used the smallest blade in the pack, but it was a bit too clunky for the delicate design of the snowflake. However, I did the best I could! 

I had meant to do three, but ran out of time! :-) So, two it was...

I used the stamps to cheer up a gift tag, the outside of an envelope and also, created a liner for an envelope. 

I found fantastic instructions for envelope liners here, at Paper Source. They sell liner templates, but I just created my own.

Have you had any snow yet? None for us here, but the temperature has really dropped and is set to plummet further over the coming days, with a possibility of a dusting of snow! Yipee! 

Well, when I say "plummet", I mean we might get into single digits! Gee we might even hit zero! ha ha! 

I think "plummet" is more what it does on your side of the Atlantic! :-)

Lots and lots and lots of love

Fi

xx

Step Eight: Just breathe...

Dear Fi,

What a day!!!
I don’t want to complain and I don’t want to describe in detail how I was “fighting” with my project today. So, shortly... (hopefully)

I couldn’t decide what to do, I wanted something easy and fast today because I have so many things to do and I didn’t want this project to take all of my time. I also wanted something green because I dream about spring, which comes to Calgary around June and stays for about a week and then disappears...

I decided to make a small cute stamp and then make “something” with it... a postcard maybe? I wasn’t sure. So it was supposed to be quick and easy and probably it would have been if not for the fact that I encountered technical problems with printing. Instead of making one stamp I made three using the different materials and the same idea. And instead of being done within an hour I spent half a day on unsuccessfully figuring out how to print!!! At the end I just decided to use colored pencils to colour my vague print... end of story ;)

So today, my Dear Fi, I learned that I’m able to carve three stamps in three different mediums (the exploring part!!!) in less than 10 minutes. However, what I'm unable to do is to use my stamps and to print them properly (that part totally sucks!!!).

I find it totally ironical and at the same time completely accurate that I chose to work with this powerful Japanese proverb today: Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. Breathe.

I think that sums up all of my efforts to be and do things perfectly. For the most part while working on this project I was tense and stressed out not only because it was taking too much time (how much is too much?) but also because it didn’t work (as I wanted it to work). However, I think that the hardest part to accept was the fact that I didn’t have any ideas as to why it was not working!!! I was absolutely clueless.

It seams that learning about printing is unquestionably a “must” in my case.

On a positive note I realized that the most pleasurable task today wasn’t the project itself but taking the pictures. Dear Fi, I won’t tell you how many of them I took today and how long it took me to choose a few for this post. However, I can tell you that I’m enjoying setting up “the scene” more and more and taking pictures for the purpose of this blog. And this is something I did not expect at all. I discovered that the display was the only way to “enhance” my simple work today. So I played with the settings and this is when I started to feel more at ease, this is when I stopped thinking about painting, carving, or doing something else, something better, something bigger and more complicated for today (he, he). This is when I started to BREATHE...

So to end on a wise and beautiful note I will use a few quotes I was reminded of while working on this project. These come from Tao Te Ching in Stephen Mitchell’s remarkable translation:

The Tao is always at ease.
It overcomes without competing,
answers without speaking a word,
arrives without being summoned,
accomplishes without a plan.

***

He who stands on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn’t go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can’t know who he really is.
He who has power over others
can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work
will create noting that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.

{ha, ha, ha - perfect!}

***

{I couldn’t resist to include this one too, but I promise I won’t type the whole book}

Some say my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.

{ah! nothing more to add...}

:*

Sylvia

Step Six: Stamp madness...

Dear Fi,

There are so many things I would like to share today that I don’t know where to start. Yesterday evening when I couldn’t think anymore about my papers, resumes, and deadlines I got this crazy urge to make a stamp. I was tired. However, I wasn’t ready to go to bed and my brain was swollen from all this reading, writing and thinking. I thought about other things I could do, instead of making a stamp, before going to bed but even reading a book felt too painful to me. The “stamp idea” was stubbornly flashing in my head until finally I decided to give it a try. If I want to be honest I need to admit that I have wanted to make a stamp for... years. And I never did. As I never did maaaany other things.

Anyway, yesterday I took out some tools and an artist carving block (which I brought from San Francisco only to find, one week later, that I can get them in my university bookstore he, he). I started... actually... I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I wasn’t sure which cutting tool to use first, I even didn’t draw anything. I thought that it would be OK to be spontaneous since I was sure that the first one will go to waste anyway. Besides, I wanted to learn something and to discover “stuff” on my own. 

There was a sign on the carving block which stated “cuts like butter”. I quickly learned that this was true, which works as both an advantage and disadvantage (especially if you are a carving novice). It was very easy to carve but unfortunately it was even easier to destroy whatever I did if I didn’t pay enough attention to my hand. After I finished carving my first stamp ever I realized that I don’t have an ink pad. After searching for a while I found an old one which was gold (sic!) and dry (sic!). When I tried to use it anyway I rubbed away a piece of my stamp, yes it was that delicate, and yes it was a lesson I won’t forget ;) Since my old dry ink pad didn’t work I tried to use paint. Oh! my luck - it didn’t work either. The paint dried so quickly that I had a problem detaching my stamp from the piece of paper. In the end yesterday’s experiment was a disaster. I couldn’t even see how the stamp turned out since I was unable to print it on paper. I went to bed very disappointed, I wasn’t sure what I would do today.

In the morning after dropping off my son at the bus stop and my daughter to preschool I came back home and sat in my not so comfy red armchair. For about 20 minutes of my precious time alone all I could do was sit in this chair, breath, and drink coffee. I was contemplating my choices... stay in red armchair and do nothing, go back to bed, start to do something, anything?

I think that sitting still helped me because I got an idea. I imagined a nice square paper with nine divine coloured hearts beautifully printed and framed. I wanted to make these stamp hearts, at least six of them, each with a different patterns. However, I had no idea how to do this, I had only one piece of carving block and the worst thing was that I didn’t have any ink pads.

I started to carve, and I need to say that it was a very meditative process for me. Surprisingly, I was able to finish my project before picking up my son from the bus stop. It was very good timing. I could go to the store to buy some ink pads before lunch. The only problem was... I really didn’t like how my stamp looked, I couldn’t imagine if it will work, and I was honestly afraid that it would be another disaster. However, after applying ink on my carved block I couldn’t stop staring at it. It wasn’t a disaster at all!!!

When I stopped staring and then printing it on paper (which wasn’t that easy at all, there is lot about printing I need to learn) I took pictures. Dozens of pictures, and I couldn’t stop doing this either. However, it was time to cook dinner, time to take Bruno to his piano lesson, time to eat dinner and clean up, time to put the kids to bed... and... here I am nine o’clock (again!) writing this post.

As you see my Dear Fi, there was no “final” outcome, no nine divine hearts nicely framed in a square frame. However, there are a lot of ideas, and the satisfaction of trying something new and liking it. I think I’ve become enchanted by the art of stamp making. Also, I’m afraid that it might become my new addiction which wouldn’t be bad if the supplies weren’t that expensive!

BTW, somebody asked me very nicely to post this picture as a message for a :*SSS*: Special Sweet Somebody you know...

Below are the pictures of the process and some advice:

1. If you have never carved a stamp, please go visit Geninne's blog and watch her tutorial before even touching anything he, he.
2. Or, at least think before, with naive enthusiasm, starting your project. I mean, be sure that before you fit six or eight hearts on one carving block you will be able to divide them later to use them separately.
3. No matter what: don’t draw on your carving block! It really is soft like butter and I almost got a heart attack after touching the block with my pencil. Geninne has a better way of doing this. However, I was “above” transferring any drawing from paper to the carving block because I thought it would take me a lot more time than just drawing right on the block. Next time I won’t be. Besides, next time I will have this cute bone folder I couldn’t afford today after spending money on these beautiful and unfortunately rather expensive ink pads.

:*

Sylvia