Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Gelli Pad

Yesterday, while ordering stamp carving supplies I saw one of these:



Isn't it amazing? Life's just too short not to have one!

Thanks Dad!! ( He sent me some money for Christmas)

And here's their bog.

 http://gelliarts.blogspot.com/2011/06/welcome-to-gelli-arts-blog.html

It's full of ideas, techniques  and inspiration. I entered the give away for some MagicStamps. I don't usually win things but maybe luck will shine down.

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Hand Carved Rubber Stamps on Etsy


Hand carved tea kettle rubber stamp

I finally bit the bullet and decided to open an Etsy shop, selling my hand carved rubber stamps. Here's the link if you care to take a look:  IkkiPokki Rubber Stamps

I'm torn over selling them mounted or unmounted. So any suggestions are most welcome. Something in me wants to mount each one and add  a little handle, but that, of course adds more time and cost. I uploaded a few of each so we'll see what customers prefer.

I love carving stamps. Inking one up for the first time is always exciting because you're never quite sure how it's going to look printed. This little tea kettle was one of those " Ooooh, I like that !" moments.


Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Happy New Year!

I don't know where to start; it's been so long since I posted. I was having problems getting pictures to upload so I would shut everything down, thinking I'll try again later.

So here we are the first day of 2013 and I just want to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year and will attempt to upload some of the pics that I couldn't get to post last time. While I haven't blogged much, there has been quite a lot going on here on the farm.

First, this is Russet our Scottish Blackfaced ram. We found him not too far away. Who would have guessed that there was another SBF breeder so close! We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll have a bunch of little lambs in March.


You know last year when I said I'd been doing some stone work? Well this is the wall I've been working on: (It's still in progress) Don't forget to click on the pics to see them larger.

Before and after....




The driveway, before...


The beginnings of the wall











Ta Daaa!
 Not finished yet though. Just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. 

I still can't believe that I managed to find most of the stone just laying around in the pastures. Some came out of the creek bed and some was given to me by a neighbor. He had it left over from a retaining wall he'd had built and just wanted to get rid of the left overs. He still has some more and wants me to go and get it out of his way so I should be able to make more progress in the near future. 


Once it's done, I'm thinking of trying my hand at building a timber-frame lytch gate in the gap between the two walls.

I also finished the other side of the culvert:





So far we haven't had any torrential rains that raised to creek level. That will be the true test of it's integrity! In the past, we've seen the water way higher than the top of the culvert!