giveaway winner!

giveaway?  what giveaway?  i don’t remember a happy stuff giveaway.

oh, you mean that one back in june?

yes folks, i may be slow these days, but i did not forget my promise to do a giveaway in return for your fabulous stamp ideas.  last weekend at women’s retreat, i brought supplies to teach stamp carving to anyone who showed an interest.  of course, it was all just an elaborate ruse to make sure i had some time to carve stamps myself during the weekend.  and i did.  i had several lovely uninterrupted hours in which i could use a moderately sharp tool without worry that some little person sitting on my lap might try to stick it in his mouth and i actually made four stamps!  (from creating the original pencil drawing to finished stamp)  i knew i wanted to get my giveaway stamp done for sure and i’d actually done the sketches for my favorites way back when you lovely readers first submitted ideas to me, so the first stamp i carved at retreat was….

beaver with a hammer!  actually, shawn i loved all of your ideas, but this one seemed the easiest to draw.  seriously, you’re full of good ideas.  what, do you read picture books a lot or something?  :)  since this was my first stamp in awhile, and the first time i’d done this sketch, i had a bit of a time figuring out the positive v. negative space.  for instance, in the original sketch, his eyes are just little black dots.  but when you carve that in the negative, the eyes become little blank holes.  like a soulless beaver.  so i had to enlarge his eyes so that he could have pupils and now he looks a bit like maybe he’s had too much coffee, but hey, it’s a recognizable animal holding a recognizable tool and i consider him a success.  and yes, his body shape and general demeanor are rather similar to the literary fox, but that just strengthens the “i’m discovering my own artistic style” theory.

other stamps that i carved this weekend include:

the modern crafter’s requisite owl (although someone pointed out that this one is somewhat penguin-y) and a bird holding an envelope and:

a cupcake with a stripey candle.  nice solid standards to add to my collection.  and a very satisfying craft it was!

oh, and if you didn’t win this giveaway, don’t despair.  there were so many great ideas that i might be returning to that pool soon if i need more inspiration and if i use your idea, i’ll send you either a copy of the stamp itself or something cute made with the stamp (a stack of cards, for instance).  feel free to submit more ideas on this post if you want, but i can’t promise you a stamp before 2015 or so.