More penguins

I made yet another penguin stamp in the last two nights.  No pictures as of yet, so will have to upload one later.  I'm on quite a penguin kick lately, and as I got a nice big sheet of pink SpeedyStamp, I can carve to my heart's delight for at least a while.  I also made a small bow stamp that I can use as a penguin hair bow (do penguins need hair bows?) or bow ties.  I am on a total carving kick.

It helps that I am making sales again (amazing what actually putting effort into something will do!).  I sold a penguin shirt I made from a screen made on a piece of curtain fabric and using an embroidery hoop as the frame.  I used screen drawing fluid and filler, but because the screen is held in such a crappy frame, it's starting to crack.  It's okay; I'm trying to move from screens to stamps because I like the variety of designs I can get from three stamps together, as opposed to a screen with a set pattern.  Strangely, a sheet of stamp material is cheaper than a blank screen.  Screens do get clearer results, though.

I also have a potential sale for a customized item from a block as well.  Hurray!  If only I didn't have such "hobby A.D.D.," as my little brother calls it.  He has it, too, btw.   Oooooh, sewing, ooooh carving, oooooh, shoe painting, ooooh, writing!  Never follow through with much.

My dog-sittee, a puggle, was playing tonight with my hyperhund while I was carving and watching t.v.  All of a sudden, there were blood spots on the couch, and they were not from me or my carving utensils (thankfully, I suppose).  Turns out the puggle's ear was bleeding from the rough-housing he and my pup were doing.  He dribbled blood all five doors back down to his place, but I think I staunched it fairly well with Wal-mart Neosporin when we got back to his place.  Left a note for his "daddy."

Speaking of the Hyperhund, now that he has his zap collar, I have had no need to use it, thank goodness.  He has been responding just fine to the vibe option, which is nice.  He had stopped responding to it on his vibe-only collar, but I think it was because the strap was loosening.  This one has a better strap, so we'll see what happens.

That's all for now.  More later.  Must go to bed (at 10:15 on a Friday night!?); I'm so boring!

Penguin!

I spent a short few hours tonight watching random tv shows (Old Christine, Glee, Ghost Whisperer), and while I did, I carved out this stamp:

It's actually a pretty big stamp at almost 3" or so.  It's the first stamp / block I've managed to make that actually has some semi-fine lines on it!  Hurray! :0) 

It actually turned out well, considering I free-handed the original picture in under 30 seconds, on an index card, during my lunch break at school.  If only carving took such a short time.  But it's actually kinda therapeutic in a way.

On a completely random note, I'm feeling kinda like a bad doggie owner right now.  I had to get the hyperhund an electric collar, which I swore I'd never do.  But he runs off-leash at the doggie forest preserve every day (probably about 12 miles a pop), or he's hyper for the rest of the evening.  He needs a whole lot of running.  However, once he gets on a coyote or deer scent, he's off and he runs so far and fast that I'm scared to death that he's not gonna come back, not because he wants to, but because he gets lost.  Another dog at the forest preserve got killed last month when he ran off on a scent and ran into a highway quite far away.  Got hit by a semi.  These dogs go insane on deer and coyote scents.  I don't know if there's any training that would keep them by their owners in this case.  My dog is well-trained, even with squirrels and rabbits and ducks, which he would love to  chase.  Deer and coyotes, forget it.  Hmmm. 

Well, the collar is a pager collar by Unleashed Technology.  It vibrates first and you can go to stim if you want.  I had a vibe only collar for him, but he quickly learned to ignore that.  At any rate, I figure I'll only use it when he does go nuts on a scent, to break his focus.  He's part pointer, part weim, part GSD, so he's extremely nose-oriented.

Well, that's that.  I'm so in need of vacation.  It's nice being a teacher; I get a lot of time off, I get time to make a bunch of stuff, and I do have a  good time while I'm teaching.  I have parent-teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday, then the rest of the week off.  Can't wait....

Dish Towel and Naughty Fox

This is what I made today :0)  I think it's kinda cute, but then again, I really like this little cupcake stamp.  In any case, it's a dish towel, in case you couldn't tell, and one of those vintage-y looking ones made of faux-sackcloth.   You can get it here if you are at all interested.

I am rather disappointed in my other project, though.  I used my new little fox stamp to stamp on an old hoodie sweatshirt.  As my students would say: "Epic fail."  The first time I did this, the paint stuck to the stamp, for some reason, and then blotched on the hoodie.  I tried to fix it by reworking the stamp a little and then restamping over the first lines in a darker color.  Okay, that was better.  Set the paint and decided to wash it because the hoodie was all creased from being folded up.

Turns out the paint wasn't set.  Most of it came off, the black paint kinda smeared and it looks like a total fail, which I think it is.  Here you can see my shame:

The foxes were originally meant to be dark orange.  My paint was also a fail because it had somewhat dried and coagulated to a thick orange paste.  Oh well.  Some things just aren't meant to be.