My Favorites, Card 2

"The Raven" was made for one of my Quickie swaps, in which the participants have a week to make a card and send it in the mail. You can only use stamps that are already carved and materials that you have lying around the house.

This stamp is kind of a spoiler. I originally carved the image for a box in North Carolina (it's missing last I heard), but I loved the image so much that I carved a smaller version and made it into a hidden in plain sight box. My cat broke the "in plain sight" part, so it might be retired unless I can fix it.

The background is just black cardstock with handpainted swirls in a metallic green paint. Each card is (obviously) a little different. I love that paint. I can't use it often because I'll start looking around for things to paint. Very dangerous.

Blah

I've been feeling very uninspired and, well, blah lately. I haven't been happy with most of the cards I've been making and I've been feeling that they aren't "good enough" (for lack of a better phrase).

So I'm going to go through cards that I've made and point out a few of my favorites. Maybe that'll get me going again.

The one in this entry is my favorite of my cards. It's "Eilwynn" from an Amy Brown swap. I love carving fairies and I absolutely adore carving Amy Brown fairies (I have one of hers sitting in my "Images I really want to carve" file that I really want to do this summer. It's kind of dark, but it fits my mood right now).

Anyway, this is Eilwynn. The scan doesn't do her justice. I saw this image and just fell in love and I'm very glad that my stamp is pretty close to the original. The colors are gorgeous-shades of brown and a beautiful light blue. It took forever to color all of the cards, but it was worth it. The ribbon is a sheer, irridescent blue held on with brass brads. The main part of the card is just cardstock (I think the name of the color is "mink"). This card is different than what I usually do in that it actually has some embellishment. It's still simple. I usually don't have the patience to deal with fiddly-bits, but sometimes I suck it up.

Speaking of Letterpress...

I love carving letterpress images. They're usually elegant and look fantastic as stamps (as well they should, since they start out as a kind of stamp). This card, "By the Light of the Moon", was made last September in preparation for Halloween (my favorite holiday). It's a layered stamp. The first layer is the blue/teal color, then the yellow moon and the black outline is last. It was my first three layer stamp (up until then, I had only done two layers) and I like the way it turned out. The design is also very forgiving if you don't line up the pieces exactly right, which I always like. The stamps are on white copy paper and then just attached to a piece of grey cardstock. Simple, like all my cards.

The stamps were hidden in Bloomington, MN for my annual Fall/Halloween gathering. Unfortunately, it might be missing. *sigh* I haven't had a chance to go and check on it and don't know when I will between the crazy overtime at work and school. Ah well.

Persephone

This card was created for Esmerelda's "It's All Greek to Me" swap, which was Greek gods and goddesses themed. I had to do Persephone. I love myths and legends and the story of Persephone has been a favorite of mine since I was little. She was a fertility goddess and at the same time, the goddess/queen of the Underworld. This dual nature has always intrigued me and over the years, she's become one of my favorite goddesses. For more information about Persephone, check this site out.

For the card, I wanted to bring out her two sides, but I couldn't figure out a "cool" way to do so. I ended up using some spring wrapping paper that I ripped and then taped to a dark colored cardstock. Persephone is heading towards the dark side of the card (representing the Underworld) and looking back towards the earth (the wrapping paper). I don't know if anyone caught that, but it was the best I could come up with. I wasn't terribly happy with it when I first made it, but now that a few months have passed, I really like it. The wrapping paper is so vibrant and I think it contrasts nicely with the dark cardstock.

Ugh, How Ugly!

Once upon a time, there were two LTC swaps in which the participants were to use the ugliest paper in their collections and to just cut it up and stamp it. No embellishments. Participants in each swap would vote on the ugliest card in each swap and the winners would receive a special, one of a kind LTC as a prize.

Group 1 winner: Pink and Green Psychedelic Vomit by The Red Cat
Group 2 winner: Hey, Who You Callin' Ugly? by FreezyCat of Bikercats

We decided to have a little friendly competition and see which paper the LTC community thinks is the ugliest. We both think our respective cards are eye-searing, but here's a chance to let your opinions be known!

Here they are in no particular order:

Hey, Who You Callin' Ugly


Pink and Green Psychedelic Vomit


So, which one is uglier?

Seriously, does it need to be this cold?

As I'm sure most of you have heard, the Midwest is under a severe cold snap right now. It's a brisk -6 with a -26 windchill right now. It's supposed to get down to -20 tonight with a -35 windchill. It does not need to be this cold. Seriously.

One of my favorite things to do when it gets this cold is to bury myself under a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book. I'm currently working on Stardust by Neil Gaiman and The World Without End by Ken Follett. A nice fantasy book and a huge historical epic-perfect for forgetting how cold it is outside.

The LTC featured in this post is called "Reading Pixie" and was made for a Fairy swap. The little pixie is so cute-I love his antennae. It's stamped in brown on tea-stained paper that I printed part of Mr Simonelli, or The Fairy Widower, a short story by Susanna Clarke, one of my favorite authors. I figured using a story about fairies would be appropriate, even though most people would have no idea what the story is. There's also a little rhinestone under the pixie. I wasn't quite sure about the orange paper and the burgundy background, but I think it works in a weird kind of way.

Studio Ghibli

I'm a huge Miyazaki fan. Howl's Moving Castle is one of my all time favorite movies.

This card is called Studio Ghibli Logo (very creative title, eh?) and was made for a Studio Ghibli postal ring. It was a little bonus present for members of the ring. The stamp was originally carved for another Miyazaki postal ring. It was my first time carving Japanese and I think it turned out pretty well. Also some of the smallest letters I have ever carved.

Another thing that I've noticed by looking through my cards is that I love using origami paper. And, yes, this one uses origami paper. :) I used a pack of blue-themed paper and each card has a different blue paper background. I love the texture of this paper-it feels like very thick rice paper. Usually when I use origami paper, I'll mount it on cardstock since the origami paper is very, very thin.

I have another Miyazaki LTC available, Lupin III: Lupin and His Gang if there are any Miyazaki fans out there who would like one. And yes, that one has origami paper as well. :)

I have a ton of Miyazaki stamps lying around (mostly of Howl's Moving Castle and Lupin III), so expect more Miyazaki/Ghibli cards from me.

The Snow Queen

Wow...I'm really bad at this whole blogging thing. :P I've been kept busy between finishing up the term, being sick and the whole holiday thing. So here's an LTC that fits the season. We're in the midst of a winter storm here in Minnesota (there's "freezing drizzle" right now according to weather.com-I'm not venturing outside to check).

The Snow Queen was made for a regular bi-monthly swap. This was the first card that I made for that group. The theme was winter, so I turned to the Hans Christian Anderson tale. I love old illustrations for fairy tales and I love how this stamp turned out. It's just stamped on plain white paper that I mounted on a metallic white card stock and a stripe of metallic icy blue cardstock. The colors are really pale, so they don't show up too well in the scan, but I love the sheen of the papers. The faint little dots are course glitter that I sprinkled on the blue paper. I wanted it a little more glittery, but the glitter looks a lot like the heavy snow that we sometimes get, so I traded glittery for snowy. This was the third LTC that I made and I've found that I like using the whole "stripe of contrasting paper" thing on a lot of my cards. My cards are usually about the stamp, so it's a good way to showcase the stamp image.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

I usually don't post pictures of LTCs that I still have available, but this one is applicable to what I did this past weekend.

Evan and I went to go see Cinematic Titanic on Saturday night. It's several of the people who were involved with Mystery Science Theater 3000 basically doing the same thing with really bad horror movies. Saturday's selection was Blood of the Vampires. It was an absolutely ridiculous movie. Apparently, the Phillipino actors that they got to play the servants didn't have "hispanic" enough skin, so they put them in black face. Really really bad and offensive black face. Needless to say, the Cinematic Titanic guys had a field day with this.

If you ever get a chance to see Cinematic Titanic, I would highly recommend it. They are hilarious!

About the LTC: The stamp was originally carved for the Great Lakes 2008 gathering that celebrated all things Minnesota. I never really got a lot of the MST3K jokes until I moved to Minnesota since they reference a lot of local places and people. Now it just adds another level, so I had to carve an MST3K stamp. I'll probably end up hiding the stamp somewhere near Hopkins, MN. The stamp image is embossed on movie posters of some of the films they skewered on the show. The posters are: "The Brain Who Wouldn't Die" (my personal favorite-I love the woman's face on the card), "The Sidehackers" (Hard riders! Mounted on BURNING STEEL! With only their leathers between THEM and HELL!") and "Teenagers From Outer Space" (Thrill-crazed space kids blasting flesh off humans!).

I only have "Teenagers From Outer Space" and "The Sidehackers" available if anyone would like one.

A Permanent Souvenir

It was five years ago today that I got my first (and so far only) tattoo. I was studying in Bangor, Wales and thought it would be the perfect time to get a tattoo. A friend and I took the train to Llandudno and we both got inked.

I've never regretted getting it and probably never will. The term I spent in Wales changed me and I fell in love with the rugged beauty of northern Wales. (If you ever get a chance to go to Wales, you have to go-it's amazing!) This tattoo is like a little piece of Wales that I get to carry around with me for the rest of my life.

The tattoo is a celtic knot-type design with three cats. My mom still swears that all she sees is fish, but trust me, they're cats. If you can't see them, their tails are the outer circle and their eyes, ears and a paw are towards the center. The stamp is about the same size as my tattoo and was originally carved for a postal ring. I'll probably turn it into a traveler at some point. The LTC is just a print out of a road map around Bangor (the red star is Bangor) and then I embossed the imprint of the stamp. This was my first attempt at embossing and it looks a little spotty, but I think it adds to the "tattoo-ness" of the image since it looks like a tattoo that has been freshly inked. I love this card because of it's meaning and the fact that you can see three of my favorite cities-Bangor, Conwy and Beaumaris.

Oh, and where is this tattoo? You'll never know. :P

Ok, maybe not. It's on my lower left back and you can sometimes see it when I bend over. Which is how my parents found at that I got a tattoo.

Where Have I Been?

Wow...this hasn't been updated since May!

Where have I been?

Short answer: Around

Slightly longer answer: Let's just say it wasn't a very fun summer.

Nothing particularly bad happened. It was just a difficult summer.

There were a few good things:

Spent the 4th of July in Marquette, MI with my parents, brother and aunt & uncle and their families. The last time I was in Marquette was about 10 years ago. That trip really made me realize that Marquette and my aunt & uncles' house on Lake Superior had a huge impact on me and my childhood memories. I can stand in the middle of their lake house and tell you the view from the windows and where things are in the house.

Finally hit 300 finds! Find 100 was in the Outer Banks, find 200 was on Mercer Island in Washington and find 300 was in Chanhassen, MN. About time I have a milestone in the state I actually live in.

School has started again. I'm taking two classes: Management of Libraries and Information Centers (yuck!) and Preservation and Conservation (yay!). The Preservation and Conservation class is the first of the archiving classes and is absolutely fascinating. That class makes me excited about school again. The Management class is the last of the "required" classes that I have to take, so I can't wait until it's over!

The LTC at the top of the page is "Lotus Blossom". It's one of my stress relieving cards, meaning just use materials that I have on hand when I'm feeling frustrated and just need to do something fun (which happened a few times this summer). It didn't scan very well, but I like it. I used three different patterns of origami paper for the background.

Cycles Perfecta

In honor of "Ride Your Bike To Work Week", here's a bicycle-themed LTC. The stamp was originally carved for the first Mucha ring last year (which was absolutely amazing!) and, yes, the stamp is actually 2.5 x 3.5 (well, it's actually a little smaller since there's a little border on the cards). My favorite part was carving the hair. I love carving flowing hair-it's so fun!

It's colored with my trusty set of colored pencils. I honestly don't know why I like to use colored pencils on so many of my cards. It takes forever to color them, yet I do it over and over. It just looks so pretty.

I'll probably end up planting this stamp eventually. I kind of want to put it near a bike path (for obvious reasons), but this is one of those stamps where if it goes missing, I am not carving it again. I nearly went cross-eyed carving it the first time! Maybe I'll think about putting it in a bike shop. Less chance of it going missing. Hmm...

Stella!

No, not that Stella!

I originally carved Stella for a postal ring. She's just a piece of clip art that I received from the weekly Dover Sampler email (it's from the publishers of all the Dover books-things like clip art, textures, etc. Every week they send out a free email that has samplers from their various publications. There's a lot of good material for stamps-like Stella!). I carved her in about an hour and a half, which just seems amazing when I look at all those little stars. She's about 3.5 inches tall and about an inch and a half wide. As a postal, she was almost lost twice and now that she's safely home, I don't think I'll ever plant her in the wild since I love the stamp too much. That seems a little silly, since it's just a piece of rubber, but I would be heartbroken if she went missing.

The "Stella" LTC is black paper with gold glitter, gold paper and then Stella stamped in black.

The Perfect Latte

The Tea LTC group decided to move on to coffee for the next round. I chose to do my favorite coffee drink-a latte (well, a skim latte with plenty of foam and a raw sugar sprinkled on top in a cup and saucer). The best lattes that I've ever had have been at a sidewalk cafe in Florence, Italy (I guess that one was really a cappuccino, but it was absolutely amazing!) and at a coffee house in Seattle. I love the artwork that the barista creates using milk and espresso. When I worked at a coffee bar in college, I would always try to create swirls and whorls every time I made a latte. I had to incorporate the coffee art somehow into the card. I created the stamp from a photo from the internet. It was absolutely amazing to see some of the coffee art that's been created-flowers, leaves and even a couple of characters from Miyazaki films.

The bottom card is an advertisement for Rajah Coffee from the late 1800s drawn by Henri Meuniere. It was also available for trade in a full-color version for non-trading group members. It was one of those images that the second I saw it , I had to carve it.

My First LTC

Yes, I've gotten into the whole LTC (Letterbox Trading Cards, although I think Letterboxer Trading Cards makes more sense since letterboxers are the ones making them and the stamp might not end up in a letterbox. But what do I know?) craze. It's not surprising really when you consider my little paper fetish. It gives me yet another excuse to buy pretty paper and carve stamps.

The one above can be blamed for getting me hooked on LTCs. It was created for a tea-themed swap last summer. I love carving Asian images and I love how this stamp came out. It's one of those that I just stare at every time I come across it while rummaging through my stamps and think "Did I really carve that?" I hate having it sit in my drawer o' homeless stamps, so I'll have to find a suitable place to hide it. Maybe in or near a Japanese garden. There are six different origami paper backgrounds to this card and I got quite the kick out of asking people which background they received. I had no idea which one I would would receive back, but this red one is one of my favorites. It was one of the patterns in a package of origami paper that I bought at Uwajimaya when I was in Seattle last July. I also love the T'ien Yiheng quote on the back:

"Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world."