v.2

The weekend before last I did some more carvings for 2 swaps. Well, one was for a tag on the Quality Crafts forum on swap-bot and one was a personal swap with Orit. Orit made some nice comments on my carves on flickr and when I went to check out her flickr stream, came across these delicious looking Israeli chocolates! A private swap was soon set up! I sent hers out on the 3rd of March and have not received word that she got them yet. I am pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog so will post the photos here.

She wanted something with either a bird or a tree. This was the first one I did. I finally tried out the PZ Kut. This is the A grade. I love it! I actually prefer the B grade, which is ever so slightly rougher surface, which I used for this stamp:

I just love how this one came out! I love the B grade so much, I placed another order! In my original order, I also ordered the A and B grade with the orange but have not tried it yet. I’ve read on other blogs that the orange gets a little blinding when you are carving.
Then on the swap-bot Quality Crafters forum, I joined in on a tag (someone lists a few items, you pick one you want and then you list a few items-I tagged someone for an owl stuffie, he will show up in a future post as he is just too adorable to leave out!) and someone tagged me for a personalized stamp carving. Her daughter’s name has a unique spelling, Geill (pronounced Jill), so you can imagine how hard it is to find personalized things! This is the first one I did (on grade A):

At the very last second, I slipped and made a tiny nick on the top of the G. I tried to ignore it but couldn’t so decided to carve another one (in a different font of course!). I did send both stamps anyway. This time I used grade B:

And because these blocks are thinner than the other ones I’ve used, I decided to mount them on some wood I’ve had for ages (for mounting rubber stamps before the invention of the acrylic blocks and EZ Mount).

A few weeks ago, at the last minute, on one of my ‘days’ off, I jetted out to midtown to check out a Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya. It was such a last minute thing that I didn’t even tell Yves or my friend Pete, both of whom work within blocks of the bookstore (it was also a rainy and crappy day). I purchased 2 Japanese carving books and a carving block with images already printed on the block (I chose a frog for Sienna-I haven’t chosen to mar it yet!)

The 2 books is mostly just images to use for carving. Some are so cute! Here is my next carving venture, which I started yesterday. I think if I actually pull this through, it will be a miracle. I don’t know what I was thinking, there are so many details in it and tiny! Plus I’m not even a big fan of Marilyn Monroe! I just saw this image and it was screaming to be carved. Sigh….well, stay tuned! I’ll post the finished product sometime in the future!

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