Carve December Day 10

We’ve been putting up our holiday decorations, in between working. And I have been trying to squeeze in the stamps. I haven’t really been following the prompts and they are only suggested, anyway. I am trying to create a bunch of of holiday stamps that I can incorporate into my own creations. Last year I created greeting cards using my stamps. This year’s Christmas card had to be done before Thanksgiving in order to get the discount from the printer. I was able to get that done so no hand assembled cards this year.

Today’s holiday stamp is a Christmas stocking. I sketched a few and I might do a few stocking stamps for variety.

Carve December Day 9

9 days done. I almost forgot to do today’s stamp. I sat and sketched out my design while listening to Christmas music. I like to listen to a variety of Christmas music from carols, to classical, to contemporary. Sometimes sneaking in Soundtrack music like Love, Actually or Scott McCreery’s “Five More Minutes.”

During the day, I’ll occasionally take a break to let Chloe and Mack out for a potty break. I mentioned the other day that I saw a hummingbird. I’ve been hearing them buzzing around and today, I laughed out loud when I saw one checking out my neighbor’s fake poinsettias attached to her lamp post. Poor things. I’ll have to remember to move my (real) poinsettias closer to the edge of the patio so that they have real ones to visit. I don’t know if they’ll get anything out of them though.

Here is my stamp, which is sort of an experiment with the positive and negative space.

Carve December Day 8

I wanted to go back to doing holiday stamps. I played around with reindeer ideas because today’s prompt is energy and a flying reindeer definitely has energy. This stamp was quick and easy, after drawing a bunch of jumping and flying reindeer in my sketchbook first.

Here is today’s stamp with the various sketches.

Carve December Day 7

This morning, I let the dog children outside so they could go potty. I saw movement over by our potted flowers when low and behold, I spotted a hummingbird! I couldn’t get close enough to see any details, but it was a busy little bugger. Last night we had Great Horned Owls hooting it up, today, itty bitty hummingbirds.

Any time I see a special creature in the wild, I am truly grateful for that gift of nature. Taking the time to notice one’s surroundings can be full if wondrous things. Today was one of those days.

I played around with a hummingbird design today in between painting and putting up holiday decorations.

Carve December Day 6

I don’t know why it never occurred to me to draw a partridge in a pear tree. While I was growing up, we had these partridges and pears that we put on the Christmas tree every year. My mom had picked them up from Sears “on the Boulevard,” which was the flagship store in Philadelphia. I don’t remember which Christmas they first appeared, but I remember hanging the pears on the tree and using the wires built into the partridges legs to attach them to the tree. Most of the time, they would flip over and hang upside down so it took some creativity and multiple branches to get them to stay upright.

It’s funny what simple ornaments that you hang on the tree every year that invoke the strongest memories. Christmas is a time of traditions and customs. Like family gatherings, decorating the tree, making cookies, shopping for and wrapping presents. Holiday music and favorite holiday movies and big meals and celebrations.

And a simple partridge in a pear tree is a traditional member of the annual cast characters that pop up during the season

Carve December Day 4

Day 4’s prompt is “little.” I decided to make a little kitty based on one of my Kringle Kitty designs. I winged it, drawing the image directly on the Speedy Carve. The nice thing about these small carvings is they don’t take a lot of time. The hardest part of the whole process is getting past what I want to carve.

I used a small piece of Speedy Carve. I carved the image first and then I decided to remove the background. After stamping it a few times, I cut back the shape a little to minimize the carved background.

This was a delicate piece and the cutter slipped a few times so I had to make adjustments. I try to work slow but occasionally I knick the rubber which means that I have to make adjustments, especially on these smaller pieces.

The small stamps are really fun to make. If you think these are difficult, they really aren’t. The main ingredient is patience and not being hung up on being perfect. During December, they are especially useful as a meditative practice before I get to work on other things, like commissions.

Ktingle Kitty Stamp