Knutselaandrang

Weet je waar ik ook acuut aandrang om te knutselen van krijg? Van nieuwe knutselspulletjes. Ik loer ook graag naar fijne knutselspulletjes, vooral op internet. En geloof me, ik heb al best veel knutselspulletjes. Dus ik mag van mezelf niks kopen op knutselgebied. Maar stempelbenodigheden zijn een uitzondering. Want stempels maak ik als cadeautjes en dan moet je wel goed materiaal in huis hebben, nietwaar?

Al heel lang aasde ik op een fijn gutsje, waarmee ik nog gedetailleerder zou kunnen gutsen dan ik nu doe met mijn Speedball-gutsensetje. Voor zo ver ik wist was Stampeaz de enige webshop die zulke gutsjes verkocht, omdat zij de laatste paar Staedler-gutsen opkochten voordat die uit de handel werden gehaald. Af en toe verschijnt er eentje in de shop, maar ik greep tot nog toe altijd mis.

Toen las ik op Stampij over Pfeil-gutsen, die eigenlijk bedoeld zijn voor houtsnijden maar ook prima zouden werken in rubber. Die moest ik hebben! Maar ze waren nogal prijzig en dus kocht ik niks. Totdat manlief en ik een weekendje Arnhem boekten. En in Arnhem zit Baptist, dat is een soort houtbewerkersparadijs. Dus moest en zou ik daar die guts halen, dat scheelde immers verzendkosten en ik had hem heus echt nodig. Om een lang verhaal kort te maken, ik legde m’n verhaal uit aan de meneer in de Baptist-winkel, liet hem mijn gutsje zien waarna hij me niet echt serieus meer nam maar wel het dunste v-gutsje wat ze verkochten voor me opzocht en tadaa, nu heb ik dus een 1mm v-guts. Niet van Pfeil overigens, maar van Flexcut, dat volgens meneer-de-expert door het dunnere ijzer beter geschikt is voor rubber.

Natuurlijk moest ik daar wat mee maken. En dat werd deze struisvogel, die ik ooit tekende voor m’n zeefdrukles als onderdeel van een ‘Vreemde Vogels’-print. Ik tekende er iets meer details in zodat ik goed m’n nieuwe aanwinst kon testen. Dat was nog even wennen, zo’n nieuw gutsje. Voor dunne lijntjes, die echt niet met m’n ‘oude’guts kunnen, is hij perfect, maar voor de rest pak ik toch liever die oude. Misschien is het een kwestie van wennen, ik weet niet. Ik ben er hoe dan ook blij mee.

En ook met het resultaat. Ik was dit al zo lang van plan, maar ik had blijkbaar de motivernede werking van nieuwe knutselspulletjes nodig om het ook echt te gaan maken. Ik stempelde er mee in een oud Japans boekje. Daar heb ik een hele stapel van, maar da’s een verhaal voor een volgende keer.

Nu ben ik wel benieuwd, waar krijgen jullie knutselkriebels van?

On how I won a DaWanda voucher and bought a stamp

English below
Nooit gedacht dat het me nog van pas zou komen, m'n enthousiasme voor sinterklaas. Maar het kan gek lopen. Afgelopen december werden er op verschillende blogs vouchers weggegeven voor DaWanda. Ik wilde er heel graag een, want al jaren stond hoog op m'n verlanglijstje een 'Alphabet Rolling Stamp'. Die alleen via DaWanda te koop is. Athans, daar kocht Gennine's hem. Ooit bestelde ik hem al, betaalde, en hoorde nooit meer wat van de eigenaar van het DaWanda winkeltje. Ik was niet de enige, DaWanda sloot de winkel en Paypal regelde dat m'n geld terug kwam. En toen was ik er wel even klaar mee, maar goed, die stempel wilde ik dus nog steeds. Ik heb namelijk te weinig geduld om letters te gutsen. Ik heb dan ook enorm respect voor Karen, die voor zichzelf een heel alfabet maakte. Maar ja, zij kan zelfs portretstempels gutsen, daar waag ik me ook maar niet aan.
Ik dwaal een beetje af geloof ik. Ik wilde dus zo'n voucher winnen, maar op meerdere blogs was ik al te laat. En toen zag ik deze blogpost van Marieke, een dag voor sluitingstijd en met nog niet zo veel reacties. De opdracht was om een sinterklaasgedicht te maken. Dus dat deed ik en ik won! Ik bestelde m'n stempel bij Nothing Elegant, die heel behulpzaam was, en afgelopen week werd hij bezorgd! Ik ben er superblij mee, ik heb er al heel wat cadeaulabels mee bestempeld. Bedankt Marieke, DaWanda en NothingElegant.

English
I really wanted an 'alphabet rolling stamp', because I don't like cutting letters. I had seen one on Gennine's blog, and she bought hers on DaWanda. So when I had the opportunity to win a DaWanda Voucher, I tried to make the best poem, and I won! Thanks Marieke, DaWanda and NothingElegant!

Bente's birth announcement card

English below
Ik maakte Bentes geboortekaartje net als Daans kaartje zelf. Ik sneed de stempel, stempelde me suf, printte en knipte ook nog de hoekjes van alle kaartjes. Met hulp van manlief, dat moet gezegd worden. En ik ben zo blij met het resultaat!

I made Bentes birth announcement cards by hand, just like Daans cards. I cut the stamp, stamped like crazy, printed the cards and even cut the corners. With help from the hubby, that is. And I'm so happy with the result!

Stamped stationary

De brandweerstempel maakte ik als kraamcadeautje, en toen er nog een Lucas werd geboren maakte ik er nog een kaartje en schriftje mee. De vossenstempel maakte ik voor Ballee. Zij vroeg op Twitter om een vossenstempel te ruil en maakte voor mij de mooie handwarmers. Ik gaf haar de stempel op de Swan Market, waar ik ook Rianne van Diversitijd en Lisa Manuels van Elle Aime ontmoette. Natuurlijk vergat ik vantevoren een foto te maken, maar gelukkig stempelde ik nog wel een vossenschriftje voor mezelf.

Het kostte me trouwens meer dan een maand om deze post af te krijgen. M'n Twitter volgers weten het al, ik ben weer zwanger! Net als bij Daan heb ik daardoor wat minder energie, dus de blogposts zullen nog wel even schaars blijven. Maar wie me erg mist, ik Twitter wel bijna dagelijks :).

The fire truck stamp was made as a baby shower gift, and when another Lucas was born I used it to make some small gifts. The fox stamp was made for Ballee, who asked for one on Twitter and made me the beautiful wristwarmers in return. I met her, Rianne of Diversitijd and Lisa Manuels of Elle Aime on the Swan Market in Rotterdam. I forgot to make a photo of the stamp itself, but luckily I did use it on a little notebook.
By the way, it took me over a month to finish this post. The reason is I'm pregnant again and lack energy to make blogpost. But I do tweet a lot, so if you miss me, you can find me there :)

The risks and joys of buying online

You all know I love to buy from independent sellers online. I'm always looking for unique items to decorate my house. I've bought numerous prints on Etsy, and many handmade, vintage or other products in mostly Dutch webshops. Usually I recieved nice packages, really quick and more often than not nicely wrapped and with great extras.
I've always tried to spread the word about these shops and their amazing service on my blog and Twitter because I know shops like that can use all support.

However, I also once had a really bad experience which I can't get out of my head. I was still relatively new in online (indy) shopping when my friends gave me some money for my 30th birthday to buy something pretty for  my home. I bought a cushion and a towel at a Dutch online shop I had read about in Dutch magazines. It felt ok, since I also 'knew' the owner via our blogs (and now also Twitter). So I thought it was safe. Then, I never received my items. I have send a couple of emails, and the answer was always: ' I am waiting for a delivery from my agent'. After a couple of months I din't believe I would ever get it and asked for a refund. I never got my money, although I've kept asking.
This person is still active in the blogging community. I could meet her in person if I would go to meet-ups of Dutch bloggers, so it feels like someone I know has stolen my money. Now every time I buy something I feel hesitant.

The thing is, although I always tweet or post about good service, I've never done so about this bad experience. I've thought about it a hundred times, because I know some of you are still buying at this shop and are taking a risk of loosing their money.
Still it feels like it's 'not done' to do so, I don't know why. I guess one of the reasons is that I don't want to discourage anyone buying from Indie sellers, because in the end usually it is a great experience. I do know I wish someone had warned me.

So guys, whats, your opinion on this? Ever hesitated buying online? Ever had a bad experience? And did you share that experience online? Did you go to the police? I'm so curious for your thoughts!

Stamping away

I meant to make some hand stamped wrapping paper for a while, but it took some time to find white ink and Kraftpaper. The ink I found a year ago in Stockholm and I recently run into the paper. So when I was making a package for Kerry from The seventy tree, I had a good reason to finally try it. At first, the stamps weren't very visible, but when I added some water to the ink pad, this was the result. I think it looks quite good. 

White ink from Versacolor by Tsukineko, also available via PSikhouvanjou.

And since I had the stamping tools out anyway, I thought I could give another idea a try as well and so I made this stamped notebook. The idea was to make a symmetrical pattern, but I didn't have the time to draw lines first, so I just stamped away...And now I actually quite like the random pattern. I'm not sure what would be better. What do you think? Next time I'll make both, so I can compare. 

Notebook via Dille & Kamille, red ink Colorbox by Clearsnap

Birth announcement cards

Daan was three weeks early, and hadn't decide on a birthday announcement card yet, even though I wasn't surprised that he came early. We couldn't easily find a nice card that we both liked, so I decided to make one myself. It took me more than a week to draw some designs, cut the stamp, decide on the text, find the right cards, ink and corner cutter and make the cards while taking care of a baby, but we managed to send the cards in the week after the due date, not unreasonable don't you think? it was the first craft project since his birth and since then I haven't found time to make something else, so I'm very happy that we managed to make these.

Ink by Versacolor via PSikhouvanjou, rubber and cutting tools by Speedball via Stampeaz.

Still renovating our house...

Hi guys, it's been a while, isn't it? I just couldn't find the time to make more blogposts. There are so many things I would like to do before the baby is born and I just don't have as much energy. We are renovating the guest room, so it can be both guest room and study in one to make space for a nursery. And we are having new windows and doors in some of the rooms and replaced a radiator. In between, we thrifting furniture for the nursery and renovating that too. If you are following me on Twitter, you'll get a glimpse of all that.

But, although I haven't been blogging as much as I would have liked lately, I did make some pictures and scans  for my blog.  This stamp I made for the son of a friend who was baptised last summer. 

…and inspire to cut some new ones.

The shades of green and the shape of my Cat’s Eyes ink pads inspired me to cut some new stamps. I know it’s not the most original design, but I think they are great to experiment with different colour combinations.

New inkpads make my old stamps shine…

I bought some new colourful inkpads from Colorbox and the colours are amazing. Beautiful shades of green and turquoise, and bright orange, yellow and red. They really make my stamps shine. I immediately made some cards with my own handmade stamps and I love the result. Only next time I will use cards with a little less texture, because the ink cannot reach every spot. I like textured paper better than normal paper though, I think it adds to that handmade feel. But I need to find a compromise, paper with just that little texture, don’t you think?

Stamps for kids

I made these stamps a while ago, but never pubished them. In fact, the stamp for Bram, my little nephew, was the first kids-stamp I made. But I forgot to take a picture or to make some prints for myself, so I had nothing to publish. Lately, when I visited him, I made some prints to show here.

The other one I made for a collegue, but I guess I just forgot to publish it here.

How to and where?

Since I started this blog, I get many questions on stamp-carving techniques. So when I stumbled upon this video I knew I had to post it here. Geninne basically uses the same technique as I do. I found out she also has a very nice blog, on which a 'Hand carved stamps' tutorial can be found.
When i started making stamps, I learned a lot from this website.

However, I also get questions by Dutch readers, who want to know where you can buy Straetler or Speedball rubber in Holland and I don't know the answer. I buy it at Stampeaz. Does anyone knows a shop in Holland which sells stamping materials?

Learning the hard way

With every stamp I carve I learn something, usually because of the mistakes I make. For example, I forgot to take pictures of the first stamps that I gave away and stamp any prints either, which I now regret I little, because I would like to keep an ‘archive’ of the things I made. So when I made the stamp for Siep, I quickly took some pictures.



It gave me a good purpose for the ‘Floddertje’ notebook that my husband gave me a long time ago. (I will tell you about ‘Floddertje’ later). I can use it as an archive by stamping prints in it with every new stamp I make. My last post shows the prints I made with the Siep stamp.



As it turned out, you can make really nice patterns with stamps, another good lesson. I adore the Siep pattern. It looks like those little images they make for children to learn reading.
So yesterday I decided to make some patterns with the stamps that I have. Some turned out really nice, but I also learned another important leasson: don’t stamp on the backside of a page, because it will show through the paper. The Siep-pattern is ruined, but at least I learned a lesson!

Smile!

Now my stamp-making skills have developed a little, I felt confident enough to make a stamp for a gift for someone who is not family. So for Siep, the new-born baby of my sailing loving friends a made this cute stamp. I had to make the whole stamp in one night, and by hurrying so much I cut a little too much off the 'e', but I still think it is very cute, and my friends, who love handmade stuff, really appreciated it. And that feels so good, when something that you have made by hand put a smile on someone's face.

Learning by doing

For two of my favorites stamps I preferred a better looking solution, so I sawed two blocks of nice wood, sanded it, stamped the picture on it and varnished it and this is the result. I think it looks much better than the previous ones, although I think I still made some small mistakes that I hopefully won't make next time.

Practical practise

I am still learning the basic techniques of rubber stamp carving myself, but I can tell you a little bit about the material by now.
here are different types of rubber. I use Staedtler MasterCarve, which is white, or Speedy Carve, which is pink. The white stuff looks and feels exactly like eraser. My experience is that the white rubber is more flexible than the pink rubber. The advantage of this is that it cuts more easily. However, there is also a little down-side. Because it is flexible (and thicker), it happens easily that the rubber twists or wobbles a little while stamping. On a stamp, there are always parts that have ink on it, but that are not supposed to touch the paper. But because of the twisting, it might just touch the paper and leave some marks. For me, it is part of the charm and character of stamping, those little carving lines, but too much is not pretty. Mounting the stamp on wood is a way to make the stamp less flexible and improve the stamp. So last week I tried this with some stamps I made earlier. I had done it before with stamps that I gave away, but I didn't have stamps mounted on wood myself. So this is how they look.
It is very practical, but it doesn't look very nice, so that is something to work on.

As original as can be

When I read the funny story about Nina’s seven Dala horses I immediately knew I wanted to make a Dala horse stamp. Later I learned Nina has one of those too. That made me doubt for a while if I still wanted to make one. But I guess this is what happens when you see a lot of creative work on the Internet, you learn soon enough that your ideas are seldom very original. And because I didn’t want to kill my renewed love for crafting even before it came fully alive, I carved my own Dala horse stamp. And while I was carving, I decided to make also a two sided ‘orange slice’ stamp and an ‘&’ stamp.

Since Ninainvorm inspired me anyway, I thought I could just as well try to make some little collages and so I did. I am quite happy with the result. My only handicap was that I had hardly any nice piece of paper in my house, so I immediately ordered some Japanese paper from CraftingBug on Etsy. They arrived this weekend and I am very happy with it.

My mother-in-law

As I told you in the previous post, my mother-in-law is an amateur bookbinder. Which is great for me, because she made me some really nice notebooks over the years. And this year she even made a beautiful Photo album for our wedding pictures. I adore it. The cover is made from hand painted paper that we found in a shop for art supplies. I immediately loved it and thought it matched the wedding invitation that we made very well. So we asked her to make a book for us and she said yes. I know she spend many days to make it, but it is the best gift we could wish for. And she stamped it in the back with the stamp I made for her. Now all we have to do is put photo’s in it.

Stamps I made

Previous posts might suggest that I didn’t do anything crafty since last summer, but that is a bit exagerated. In fact, I made quite some stamps, of which I gave two of the nicest away (without taking a picture). One of them I made for my little nephew and showed a little train and his name. The other one was made for my mother in law and in fact consisted of a set of four stamps. They showed: ‘Ex Libris’, ‘Handmade’, her name and a rose. The idea was that they could be used seperately or I combination to stamp her books or the handmade (note) books that she makes. Because they were presents I glued them to little blocks of wood on which I first stamped an image of well, the stamp of course. I put them in little wooden boxes that I also stamped. They made nice gifts (although I wish I had taken pictures of them). I planned to make wooden blocks for all my stamps some day….

Stempels (1)

Na een periode heel veel met boeken bezig geweest te zijn, heb ik nu het knutselen weer herontdekt. Ik ben op het moment vooral into het stempels maken. Op internet zag ik nl. allemaal mooie handgemaakte stempels, dus dat wil ik ook kunnen. Volgens allerlei knutselsites kan je met een gewone gum en hobbymesje een prima stempel maken, dus bij de Hema een gum gekocht en aan de slag. Als eerste een lieveheersbeestje gemaakt en vond het zelf best goed gelukt. Onder werktijd me dus even verder verdiept in het stempelmaken. Inmiddels weet ik dat er ook allerlei speciale materialen voor te koop zijn, al kon ik nergens vinden waar je die in Nederland kan kopen. vanmiddag nog een stempel met een kipje gemaakt. Je ziet de vooruitgang, hij is al veel fijner. merkte ook meteen dat gum en hobby-mes niet meer voldoen, dus vervolgens via internet in Amerika wat gutsen, rubber en mesjes besteld. Even van de gunstige dollarprijs profiteren zullen we maar zeggen. Hoop dat het pakketje snel arriveert, ik ben tenslotte een ongeduldig typje. Maar ondertussen ga ik wel vast wat ontwerpjes maken....