Last week, I was looking at Ebay, like you do, and searching for Gibson Girl rubber stamps, like you do, when I came across one I didn't have - which seems almost impossible. As I was considering making the purchase, I looked at the seller information. The seller turned out to be a rubber stamp store that used to exist in Connecticut. When I had extra time on my way up or down the NE corridor, I would sometimes take a detour and visit that store. The last time I tried that, which was several years ago now, they were gone like so many. But here they are again on Ebay, no doubt selling off their inventory. Before I purchased my Gibson Girl with Hat stamp, I decided to look at their other offerings. I mean, who can resist the siren song of combined shipping??? My one other purchase: a Van Gogh quote about the sea in my favorite almost unreadable scripty type by East Coast Art Stamps, a company I've never heard of that I know is long gone. The two woodblock stamps arrived on Friday and I was inspired to use the quote stamp immediately.
I knew I wanted to pair this quote with an ocean image, of which I have many, and I chose this layering set by Papertrey Ink: Text & Texture: Ocean, which I hadn't yet tried. I always struggle with choosing colors, so over the weekend, I took a few hours and just tried this stamp set a bunch of times with various shades of green, teal, and blue.
I did something novel and even wrote down the color combinations so I could have a visual aid for next time. Crazy, I know. I went with two shades of teal from the Altenew Sweet Dreams set: Teal Cave and Galactic Stream (the names make the colors extra special...).
My plan for the quote was to stamp it on white translucent vellum, let the ink dry for a million years, run it through my sticker maker thing, because all pieces of tape and drops of glue are visible through vellum, and then put the whole thing together. Such a simple plan, really. I stamped the quote on two pieces of vellum just to be sure I had an extra when I screwed up one of the pieces. PS, I messed up both pieces in different ways. After waiting about three hours, I ran the first piece through the sticker maker and smudged all of the ink. After waiting about 15 hours, I tested the ink on the second piece, and smudged it. Time for another plan.
I cut another couple of pieces (this is when I discovered I was down to my last sheet of white vellum), ran them through the sticker maker first, then stamped, and then clear heat embossed the pieces so I could finish the card before quarantine ended. But alas, clear embossing, while it made the piece usable, thickened the text, making it more arty than readable.
I still like the concept, and still sent the card - if it was a disaster, the card would still be in the house - but I plan to remake it. Next time I will try a) using dye ink on the quote, which dries faster, b) waiting at least 24 hours before touching the vellum, c) positioning the quote closer to the bottom of the card, and d) adding more color to the sky - you almost can't see it in the photo.
The quote calls the Mediterranean Sea the color of mackerel, like a mackerel sky, I guess, but meaning changeable in color. Maybe I'll try get some of that color variation into the ocean...
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