Hand-Carved Bird Stamp

Back in May I told you how excited I was to find a hand-carved stamp project by a favorite artist of mine, Geninne Zlatkis, in the book Craft Hope. The picture below shows the book with my uncarved stamp (with the images already transferred to it).

Since then, I have finished my bird stamp, and these are the materials I used (below):  a Speedball cutting tool, which has blades in five different sizes and shapes, and a block of Speedy-Carve, also from Speedball.

After a couple of hours of work (spread out over a couple of days)  I had these two awesome stamps!  I love them!  Carving stamps is a lot easier than I expected it to be, so I encourage anyone who is interested to give it a try.

I visited Geninne's wonderful art blog and found a carved stamp tutorial which is a great place to start if you want to try carving your own stamps.  She recommends using Color Box inks, so I bought this cool rainbow of colors for myself!

Each color separates from the others, so you can apply the ink to the stamp.  See, I told you it was cool!

I used my new bird and flower stamps to make all these cards.  I played around with different colors for the birds and flowers.

My daughter was standing behind me at one point, and she said "Put the flower stamp in the middle of the colors!"  I tried that and ended up with some pretty multi-colored flowers for my bird to hold.

These cards are exactly what I have been wanting to have on hand--I can say I made them myself, and they are really cute, but each card only took a moment to create, so I don't have to ration them, or feel that they are too precious to use.  I can make and use as many as I want! 

My Favorite Planner: A Product Review

I want to show you my new favorite calendar/planner, because it would make an awesome gift for any woman who likes art, watercolors, birds, or nature.  I bought it at a museum gift shop this summer, but I've only recently started to use it, and I love it!  It is drawn and painted by the wonderful  Geninne Zlatkis.  The covers are flexible and there is an elastic band closure.  This is the front, decorated with her signature birds:

This is the inside front cover.  I LOVE Geninne's birds!

 There are undated pages like this for weekly planning; you can start any time of year--just write in the dates.

Then there are 13 of these monthly pages, which are also undated, so you can start whenever you want to.  I started mine in November!

The calendar pages are interspersed with blank note pages, and full-page artwork.  So beautiful!

 

This is the inside of the back cover, which has a little pocket.

Do yourself a favor and click on Geninne's name (above) to visit her blog.  She posts beautiful pictures and artwork every day; she is a constant source of  inspiration to me.

I love this planner so much that I just ordered two more on Amazon! (They call it "Avian Friends Pocket Planner" if you are looking for it there.)  I am using mine to plan out my blog posts; the small size is just right for that (just 4 1/2" x 5 3/4"), and the pretty cover makes it easy to find amongst all the other "stuff" near my computer.