Blog Giveaway Winner & New Stamps

The blog giveaway winner has been chosen!  Ironically, the random number generator picked "7".  I'm looking forward to sending out a heart journal & newly created postcard to Heather.
Not only was a winner chosen today, but the new stamps came in.  Boombox, stag, cityscape, headphones, and retro camera are mostly new designs, but Joe created the headphones quite a few years ago- one of my faves.  So excited to get some new designs to work with!
I was feeling a little creatively stifled by the lack of our current variety and Joe must have been too, because as soon as Soren went to bed we started busting out some new journals.  I'll try to post some pics by Friday.  Looking forward to listing them too- I think everyone will love them.

In Honor of Halloween...

 

Just posted Joe's 8 Bit Skeleton card in Blackbird and Peacock.  In the transition of moving all cards and journals from BBAC to the new shop.  Also have listed some skull journals, zombies and postcards.  Enjoying creating with the skull stamp- very inspiring.  My son likes that one.  Will be posting some Halloween cards, journals and postcards over the next couple of weeks.  Oh yeah!

Zombies Zombies Zombies

Romero's Night of the Living (1968) is the first zombie movie I recall watching.  A huge fan of more modern horror movies as a teenager, I don't remember thinking this classic was scary or entertaining.  Not until Dawn of the Dead came out in 2004 was I bit by the zombie bug.  A great film- never saw the original, but this one had me jumping up and down on the edge of the couch.
Quite a few memorable zombie films have come out that have stood out in the horror genre in the last 10 years: Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later (somewhat zombie-esque), I Am Legend (am I the only one who likes this movie?) and Resident Evil (I fell asleep during this one, but liked what I saw).  Rediscovering Sega's Zombies Ate My Neighbors and the very fun Bag O' Zombies Glow in the Dark made us recognize something a few years ago- zombies are IT.
Swept up by the zombie craze, Joe started taking pics of zombie figures and designed an 8-Bit zombie stamp.  Being a fan of stamping, I've utilized his stamp to create unique journals, cards, and post cards.  Zombies have survived the decade and are still going strong- looks like they are here to stay.  There are some really cool zombie related items on Etsy, but this one is my fav so far:  It's a really great print of a zombie-inspired painting: http://www.etsy.com/listing/47565406/zombie-portrait-procession-living-dead

Here is a moleskine journal that Joe stamped, which is listed on Etsy.  So much fun!

Hand-stamped!

Finally getting an image up of the shirt I hand-stamped.  I practiced mostly on clothing that had rips, stains, etc. using VersaCraft fabric ink stamp pads.  I was hoping to stamp over some of the stains and mask them with an image and was not successful.  After I heat-set the inked fabric, the stains (mostly olive oil from cooking) seemed to pop right out.
Another lesson- stamping on dark clothing is not recommended because it overwhelms the stamped image's color.  Yellow doesn't show up well on most colors, but works well on white.  Next time I'll try heat-setting on both sides of the image.

All-in-all I was pretty excited by the results.  The next day after removing the first batch from the dryer, I started on another.  Still stamping on postcards.  Going to list some artist trading cards that are original hand-stamped works by Joseph Von Stengel this week- just took some pics yesterday.  Keeping busy!