Thank You!

stamping thank you cards
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

For being so wonderful. Please bear with me while I deal with a teething baby that fusses all day and doesn't sleep well at night. I'm trying hard to keep up with everything and am struggling. Right now my online activities including blogging, Etsy and blog reading are suffering the most. Since I end up wearing her most of the day I generally need to keep moving. I try to catch up on reading blogs at night but am often too fried to comment. I'm a bit of a lurker these days.

I don't know how I pulled it off but I managed to not only print out some thank you cards but I also finally Gocco printed some Moleskines. Sketchbook and graph paper. Didn't intend to do graph paper but Jon got some by mistake and I didn't notice until it was too late. All done while wearing miss blee! except for the new stamp I carved





I hope tonight goes better than last night and that Tuesday is better than Monday. Ugh!

I've also done my first week of cloth diapering during the day. Jon is the night shift so for now this is weekday only but it is going pretty well. It is a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Stamps!

More carved blocks
Originally uploaded by pinkbathtub

Thanks to everybody that wished me well yesterday. I had a much better night sleeping last night and feel much better this morning as a result. It is a amazing how much more rested one can end up feeling when you don't wake up to puke in the middle of the night!

Anyhow, I am inspired by this gorgeous set of stamps by pinkbathtub and the stamp making photopool on Etsy. Stamping is so similar to what I do yet so different.

The cheap Speedball stamp material I picked up at Michaels sucked just like I feared it would. I made a decent "thank you stamp" but it isn't very crisp and it really does feel like it is about to fall apart if I don't treat it very gently. A corner (that is not part of the design thankfully) already broke off. I knew the pink stuff is better but they didn't have any plus it is so much more expensive I thought I would give this stuff a go. Plus these inspiring and well carved stamps are not pink so maybe it isn't so bad. Found out they are not carved in the white (actually off white) Speedball material but a totally different brand. A brand that Dick Blick has so I picked up one small block of the pink stuff and one small block of this stuff so I can compare.

My replacement gocco supplies came in the mail yesterday so I can get back to experimenting with that. But of course my studio is too much of a mess right now for goccoing. But I will clean it and get back to messing with it because I would like to see it work! If I do ever get it to work I have this thought of combining gocco printing with stamping. I think it could be cool.

Jon is working from home today and is going to come with me to my appointment with the mid-wife. Just a standard visit. He'll get to hear the heartbeat again and that will be cool. It always is.

Yesterday I decided to raise the price of the piece I blogged about. I've never sold a piece that size for more than $15, but I have grown to love it so much that I just won't part with it for less than $20. I was rather nervous about it when I first made it, about the colors that is why I started with such a small piece. But being a bit daring with color paid off and I ended up with some really strong pieces and that is one of them. One thing I am loving about that ginkgo block is how it works so well for so many different sizes of paper. Anything up to 9"x12".

I hope everybody has a lovely weekend. I'm probably not going to post again until tomorrow. I have a lot to do and have been quite tired lately.

happy thoughts needed!

Spring Ginkgos
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Thanks to my wonderful pregnant body I have an early addition to this post. Before I get into anything else I just have to ask, why am I throwing up at 4am during the 8th trimester? I thought I was done with that hell! It was caused by and was nothing but stomach acid and it was just awful. Did I have a spicy meal for dinner? Is peanut butter and honey spicy? I had been awake on and off for hours with an itch in my throat and an upset stomach for hours when finally my body just couldn't take it. And the pain in the small of my back is unreal at night. Seriously body, thanks a friggin lot! I really appreciate all you are doing for me these past eight months. /gripe

I hope everybody had a great holiday if they had one and hopefully a day off of work at the very least! Really the only thing good about this holiday for me was that my husband was home with me and I like being around him.

I'm not all that into the forth of July or holidays in general really. But this one is probably one of my least favorites. Not just because I am not exactly proud of my country at this time but because I don't like the crowds, fireworks stopped doing anything for me when I was ten and I think it brings out the bad side of many people. And I can't even relax and enjoy a beer this year.

Last night a group of people across the street that are pretty well known for disturbing the area were lighting fireworks in the middle of the street for hours. A rather heavily trafficed street with lots of parked cars and houses. This kid would look for coming cars and if he saw none he would run out and place a firework int he middle of the narrow road. A number of times cars did appear and nearly ran over the firework! I called the cops but nothing happened of course. The lady on the phone was rude and kept insisting that the streets I gave her don't intersect. Yes, they do. I live on the corner of both of them. She asked me to go outside and check the address of the ouse so I could give it to her. First off if I go outside I could get hit by the sparks from the fireworks and I don't think the huge crowd of people would take to kindly for me asking them to move so I can see the house number on their door. Fireworks bring out the stupid in people.

To top everything off there was a Red Sox game at Fenway this afternoon. We went to see the Transformers movie at the Fenway theater. Nothing like drunk Sox fans at one in the afternoon. When we were coming back to our car one of them was pissing between our car and the one next to it. If a pregnant lady can hold it despite having a four pound weight pressing against her bladder so can this guy! There was so much piss by the drivers side (but not on the car thankfully) that Jon had to crawl through the passenger side to get in.

The Transformers movie actually wasn't that bad. That isn't true, it was bad but it knew it was bad and that really did help it out. At no point did it ever even attempt to take itself seriously. So it was stupid but overall I enjoyed it. Kinda like 300, just a bunch of dumb but action filled eye candy. I didn't go in expecting much so I couldn't be disappointed.

I carved a stamp with the white stamp material and Speedball cutting tool when we got home and while the stamp turned out pretty well I don't want to use that material anymore. It is just too crumbly. The stamp feels like it could break in half so easily. A non vital corner already chipped off. I'm going to stick with the more expensive pink kind for any future stamps. I would like to find a better source for it since it is not cheap at the Dick Blick store and they don't offer it bulk (or at all) on their website. I also made more stickers and probably will today too.

To counter my rather nasty mood I am placing this happy piece with its bright and bold fauvist colors. I'm really loving how flexible my ginkgo block is to printing in various sizes.

I see a different midwife tomorrow because mine will be out of town. Jon wants to come with so he can hear the heartbeat again and I am always thrilled to have him with me. I hope he puts together my oh so comfy glider chair tomorrow! My poor hips and ankles could really use it.

Impulse Purchase!

Stickers on purple lace
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers! Not that I am feeling all that patriotic myself, especially lately. And fireworks lost most of their appeal years ago. It certainly isn't worth braving crowds of people in Boston just too see them, especially with how my hips have been feeling. The thought of going out to the Charles to watch the display makes me shudder. Maybe we will have burgers or something tonight but sadly no beer for me.

Thanks to one of the many bloggers I read on a daily basis I ended up getting a cute little machine to make my own stickers last night. First I made some promo type stickers using printed out images of shrunk down art and when those turned out so nice I turned my attention to my real love. Making originals! And here is the first set I came up with. I don't have a ton of prints to work from so I don't think I will have many of these for awhile. Until then I will make what I can and probably do more for promo than for sale. The computer printed out ones are a nice little something to stick on packages. I'm always looking for different things to do with my art.

I also picked up some tools to try stamping again. I tried it around Christmas last year with not the best results using my woodcarving tools. From what I have learned the cheap Speedball tools with the thin blades are actually better for carving stamp material than my fancy wood tools. The blades on my woodcarving tools are just too thick. Getting used to the feel of the very different material will take a bit of time. I am used to wood not rubber. It might be interesting to make cards that are a mixture of gocco and stamping.

Jon is going to see the new Transformers movie today and I don't think I will be going. It really doesn't sound like my kind of a movie. Even though I had a couple of the transformers toys growing up I wouldn't say that I was all that into the series. I rarely watched the cartoon and I didn't see the original cartoon until Jon made me watch it a few years ago. It is terrible. But he is a boy from the 80's and he and his other boy from the 80's friends are all pumped to go see it no matter what the reviews say. Suddenly his standards are totally thrown out the window. It's cute. But I will be lonely while he is at the movie.