Hurrah, finally open!

Just a quick update, I'm really busy finally listing my wares on Etsy! Have a look, let me know what you think!

There's a sneak preview in the box on the right, which links through to the shop and listings, ok the shop is fairly empty at the moment but I'm gradually adding my stamps so keep popping back :-)

The 'Punk' stamp was my first item listed and it's had quite a few 'views' so far; everyone keep your fingers crossed that I'll get that first sale soon!

Birthday pressies and Etsy shop!

Thought I'd pop up a couple of pictures of some of my latest creations, some personalised stamps for my friend's kids for their recent birthdays... they went down rather well! I hadn't really thought of selling personalised ones before but the text wasn't actually too fiddly to do, so it might be an option.

This was a toadstool for the fairy mad Isobel...

and a super hero for 'Spidey' fan Ben!

I was especially pleased how Ben's came out and I've been constantly pestered since by my two to make them the same.

I've set up my Etsy shop finally (http://www.skullandcrossbuns.etsy.com/) and I'm just getting my first selection of stamps ready to sell and getting stupidly excited at the prospect!! Please have a nosey and let me know what you think so far :) You can always 'favourite' me in advance if you like ;-) Please check back early October, I'll be running a couple of special offers for the grand opening.

Right off to do yet more carving, hope you all had a great weekend...

Blows dust off blog...

Well it's been rather a long time since I last updated this so here goes!

After being made redundant in late March I pretty much went straight to work for another local mail order company, I love my new job!

Anyway, back to the stamps! Over the summer after experimentation and spending rather a lot of £, I was really struggling to get good results out of the polymer clear stamping kit. This was really frustrating as I had loads of great designs with now not much to do with them. I spent a bit of time searching the web for some inspiration and found a fantastic selection of pictures of hand carved rubber stamps on flickr and had a bit of an 'Eureka!' moment!!

Now the only real experience I had of hand carving before was doing Lino printing in secondary school using incredibly blunt and virtually prehistoric carving tools (our Art department was massively underfunded...) I sourced some cheap erasers and a basic carving kit and got some fairly good results and it was really nice to feel that I was getting back on track..

Fast forward to today and I'm almost ready to start selling! I've got some wooden blocks, some slightly better tools than the school ones (I bet they are still being used there now and still haven't been sharpened ;-) ), found which carving medium suits me best and lots of great designs under my belt. I'm faffing around on Gimp tonight to create my Etsy banner, so watch this space!

This picture is of some of my works in progress, let me know what you think!

Plotting

So, I've had a really positive couple of days business wise. Me and hubby's mate Dan popped over last night who is a software developer (I think...) and it knowledgeable in all things 'web'. Needless to say setting up the online shop for selling my wares is rather a steep learning curve but very exciting nonetheless. Lots of talk of Google Analytics and metatags and optimisation and lots of blank expressions on my face.

I have been finishing my first set of designs over the past couple of days, some folksy-style Russian dolls, in varying sizes and patterns. I think primarily I will be concentrating on designing and making clear unmounted rubber stamps to start off with, business-wise. I've been looking into the start up costs and they aren't too high and making the stamps myself means I'm not tied down to large minimum orders from suppliers etc etc.

Anyway, better get back to the light box, these designs don't draw themselves :-)

It begins...

Well I thought I would start one of these blog thingies as a kind of diary to document the start (hopefully!) of my business and of day to day goings on in the family as my memory is so blinking awful!

I'm sat at home with a poorly Eddie who decided to throw up all over himself en route to nursery and we are gradually watching our way through the Disney Pixar back catalogue, just for a change...

A bit of background on my current situation, I've just found out that it is pretty likely I will be made redundant from my current part time job. I've been there since leaving uni and to be honest this is probably the kick up the bum I've needed to actually use my degree and have a job I might actually enjoy. So following my love of design and card making I have started to go into business making and designing my own rubber stamps. The start up costs are remarkably cheap and I have lots of unique and rather funky ideas up my sleeve, so watch this space :-)