Handmade Stamps

It has been a joy to watch my husband's latest project, for his graphic design class, Hand carved Stamps. This is the same guy who cringes when he sees me online at addicted to rubber stamps, the same one who sees the bag from one of my favorite local craft stores and says "oh, not again." So for his final he has to study a famous typographer, he chose Frederic Goudy, and copy one of the fonts onto a stamp which they craft themselves. "This was actually fun" he says later.

These photos show what he calls the "rejects" --- I was like "WHAT?, People pay good money to have that distressed, grungy look on big honkin' letter stamps!" and I quickly stole them to add to my stash. I love how they look!!!! He's looking at me, thinking, exactly how much money have you spent? The kids are having a ball with the rubbery material {made by Speedball} although it is a bit messy while carving. And since they aren't allowed to use daddy's carving tools they are using various sharp pointed pencils to achieve their look. Yea, its been a little messy. Our daughter his making one that looks like a cow. Its still in the production and manufacturing stage :)

This week we are getting the Christmas tree up and preparing for little guy's 4th birthday, I just can't believe its that time again! {Sunday} so its time to return to decluttering the house for our December guests and activities. Once the house is clean for the small simple gathering it tends to stay that way much of December because of more guests or neighbors popping in. See, for me its a nice motivator to keeping it semi-tidy knowing that people might be over. {we go back to slacking in January, heehee} Christmas music will be on in the background to make it go faster :)

I do love this time of year so much, even for all the extra stuff we do "just because its Christmas" ..... for all the pretty-glittering-Christmas-tree reasons as much as the getting together with family and friends reasons and always, always trying to keep the true meaning of Christmas tops around our house with just little touches of Santa and more about the spiritual side of why we have so much to celebrate this particular time of year. Keeps it real -- not material or fabricated. I wish there was one day {or all} without all the ads and marketing promoting the buy buy buy, shop shop shop mentality!

This December I would like us to do more together, just simple things, just the 5 of us, and start bringing some new traditions into our little {now complete} family. We'll keep visiting the large toy train display that starts every December {little guy's favorite} and I am on the lookout for what else to do in Rochester.