Art of the stamp

After Tina had texted me about the letterboxing, I immediately looked up the websites she told me about. I was intrigued. I looked at all the stamp making tutorials and devised a plan to get the tools necessary. I kept getting thwarted by snow or lack of funds at first, then came a fateful day... I was called by my mother-in-law to come and help her clean a house. Good thing is I would get a little spending cash and could finally afford to get the supplies for stamping!

View from the house I cleaned! Tis a beautiful view!

I was telling my mother-in-law all about letterboxing and making the stamps and she tells me something ever better - several years ago when the (grand)kids were younger, they all were doing some stamp projects -annnd da da da da! She had rubber left over AND the carving tool to make stamps!!! Oh the joy!!! I was so happy!! After working, I stopped by her house and gathered the supplies, excited to get home and start carving. Mind you, it's a 2 hour trip for me to get back home from here and my head was swimming with stuff to carve!

Once I arrived home I pulled out the materials and with gleeful anticipation, starting wrecking the rubber! I mean I was pretty terrible at using the tools and as much as I tried not to, I kept gouging chunks from the design... and not to mention I completely forgot that letters have to go on BACKWARD or they don't come out right! Tina and I had already discussed what we wanted our personal signature stamp to be, so I had sketched it out. I didn't want to do that stamp first, I needed to learn how not to mess it up.

Took me a few hours, but I completed it.

Hello sheep doctor.

But I didn't have ink. I didn't have ink for a week after I started doing these. I first bought a test pad - a child's ink pad of dubious quality. But it was big, and cheap, and suited me just fine!

P.S. it was also red!

 My mother-in-law says keeping ink in a ziplock bag will keep it fresh for a long time. I'm going to take her word for it!
 
So blah, blah, blah.. I kept making stamps. I have quite a few now.

My personal favorite is the Supernatural one in the bottom left corner.

I'm getting better at it slowly. My hope is one day to plant a few boxes. A couple in memory of some people we've loved and lost. I'd like that.