Happy Mother's Day: Quilter's Edition

I don't know about all the other mommies I know, but I had THE MOST WONDERFUL Mother's Day courtesy of my wonderful husband and our little minions. I got my favorite breakfast (pancakes!!!) made and ready for me when I was done sleeping in. I got some beautiful flowers, and I also got some cards with options for the day's activities. My options were:

1. Go to the aquarium.
2. Go to a NEW quilt shop.

Hmm... I absolutely LOVE the aquarium. Probably more than the average person. I love the aquarium like children love the aquarium. Yes, that's it. I'm a huge woman-child when it comes to going to the aquarium. But the quilt shop... I felt selfish picking that one, but Scott actually anticipated I'd pick that one and bought me some Swedish fish (which I also love) so I could get my own kind of aquarium experience. I suppose he knows me better than I think.

QUILT SHOP!!! He took me to the Fabric Shack in Waynesville, OH, and it was the most amazing fabric experience I've ever had in my life. We were there for a couple hours, I think, but I made my seemingly-selfish outing about my kids. What better way to spend Mother's Day than to start a quilt for your firstborn? Yay! It's not about me, anymore!

The people there were amazing! This is the stash I ended up with before I left. I think most of it's Moda fabric, which is my new favorite. The brown deer on the chartreuse are my favorite of this lot. Oh, and the RVs. They're pretty awesome, too. :)

I told myself I didn't want the quilt to be too 'baby', but it ended up a little 'kiddy' anyway. I don't care. I love it! (If you don't know the song by Icona Pop, it's one of Joey's favorite songs, and I just sang that as I typed it.)

Since I bought the fabric yesterday, I have completed my very first quilt block. Ever. And it is glorious.

So out of this seemingly selfish quilt shop outing for Mother's Day, came an awesome quilt block that I made and am immensely proud of. And it's all for Joey. (Rosie will get hers in time; no worries.)

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Make Your Own Rubber Stamp!

This is a really fun and easy project (depending on your stamp design, I suppose) that will set apart your crafts from everybody else's. Seriously... who else will have this stamp?!

Customizing Your Own Stamp

materials
*image to transfer (make sure it's flipped horizontally so it will be the right way when you stamp it)
*linocut or a large eraser (whatever fits your image; Michael's sells linocut!)
*rubber cement
*cutting tools

steps
1. Use the rubber cement to adhere your image to the linocut block. Please make sure your image is flipped horizontally! I made this mistake the first time I did it, and wanted to kick myself when I went to check the proof. :) Argghhh!

2. Know which part of the image you want to be the stamp. I wanted Ohio to be the stamp so I would cut all the linocut away except the state of Ohio. Use your sharpest tool to cut around the image's outline so you can start cutting away the larger portions of what you don't want.

NOTE: If you wanted the stamp to be the outline around the state of Ohio, you would cut away the state itself.

I also wanted the heart to be an outline so I took a finer tool and then traced around the outline of the heart. I then used a small, curved tool to cut out the inside of the heart at an angle so I didn't weaken my state outline.

3. Now it's time to check your proof! Stamp your image to make sure you have all the necessary linocut cut away to get a nice, crisp image. Cut more if you need to.

And now you have a totally unique, one-of-a-kind rubber stamp. Just another thing that makes you awesome. ;) If you wanted, you could mount your linocut stamp onto a wooden block. Our local arts store sells wooden blocks so you might have to do a little looking. I haven't seen those at Michael's, yet. Or you could make your own! I just ran a couple lines of removable adhesive down the back of my stamp so I can use it on any of my acrylic stamping blocks. Whatever you do, have fun with it!