Handcarved summer stamp Part 3, Bunny on Beach

I made this stamp based on my memory of going to the beach as a little kid. Not so many families were able to afford taking a vacation or going for a trip those days, but my mom used to take us to the nearby beach and it was a huge and an exciting event during summer breaks. We had no box full of toys, no DVDs, or no Nintendo but somehow we never got bored back then.

Mini Album, Remember MN

I made this album as a farewell gift for Ogino family who has been here in the US for three years and is going back to Japan at the end of this month. We all had a lot of fun together and hope they remember the time in MN as a good memory. I added blank pages at the end and lots of their friends left massages. I love the “Remember” stamp and foam stickers and used a lot in this album! Added score card of the golf course we played together. Brochure form the skate rink became one of the pages. Cut out 3D fish photo.We remember you!

Customized stamp order, Today I marry • • •

This is a customized stamp we have recently made for Michelle. The whole process of making this stamp, communicating with Michelle, was really fun. She wanted to use this stamp for her wedding programs. The size of the design is 1 ½” x 3 ½’. Our stamps are usually smaller as we want them to be versatile. So, this became the largest of all stamps we have made. Wood block was dyed and distressed as the plane wood block looked to simple for the size. We hope she likes it. We are glad to be able to take part in the creation of her wedding programs.

Handcarved stamp, customized stamp orders from St. Louis

We got two customized stamp orders from St. Louis when we visited a friend there. One of the orders was from Shiho who is a friend of our friend in St. Louis. She brought a design with her and wanted to add “Shiho’s Kitchen” under the design. This cute design only measured ¾” x ¾” and some part of it was very detailed. I could have made the design a little larger to make it easier to carve but I decided to use the original size. The bigger size didn’t look as cute as the original one.
The other order was from Madoka. She wanted a personalized stamp of cosmos flower. I designed a single cosmos flower and added her name to it, but there was too much empty space between the flower and the name. I could have filled that space with leaves if it was a design that uses other flowers, but cosmos doesn’t have pretty leaves. So, I added one more cosmos instead.

Mini Album: Animals Always

I wanted to make a mini album since we visited St. Louis Zoo in May with our friend and her 3 years old daughter. This historical zoo was originally founded in 1910 and was selected as America’s #1 zoo by Zagat Survey & Parenting Magazine. When I saw the phrase “Animals always” on the zoo sign, I decided to use it as the title of this album.

I used clearly heavy overlays from Hambly for front cover and embellished with rub-on.
The title is made with chipboard stickers and “always” flash card. I was very happy when I found that “always” flash card in my stock pile.
When I was brainstorming for the mini album in early June, I was inspired by Anthropologie JUN catalog which collaborated with Hatch Show Print. I used big alphabet stamps for every page as subtitles.
My scrapbooking ideas come from something that I may easily let it go in daily life such as the zoo sign or shop catalogs. Getting new idea is like a treasure hunting, isn’t it?

Handcarved summer stamp Part 2, Shell

This shell design couldn’t have been carved without new v-shaped gouge I recently ordered from Japan. I depend heavily on general craft knife when carving stamps but always had difficulty carving hairlines. I used to avoid hairlines as much as possible when I designed images for new stamps, but not anymore! I can carve 4 hairlines within 1/8” with the gouge.
The design look simple but I am personally very satisfied with the result.
Pastel colors inks such as light blue or light yellow would go well with the stamp.

Cross stitch framing, emergency order from St. Louis

We had been working on several orders for customized framing of cross stitch samplers. The following two cross stitch samplers were sent to us from St. Louis as emergency orders because the senders would go back to their country very soon. We had to finish the framings and send them back to St. Louis within 7 days. We had enough time to make frames and to mount samplers but what makes us nervous was that the senders asked us to pick frames for them; they might not like the one we picked. We chose lightly distressed dark navy frame for the light blue sampler, Mounted with foam under the cloth to make it 3D. We picked lightly distressed wine red frame for the other. As the other one did not have enough margins below the design, we mounted with matt to hide the edge of the sampler. Custom framed cross stitch sampler were sent back to St. Louis in time.

By the way, a friend of ours in St. Louis who referred the senders to us said that they were very happy with the frames.