A Girl and Her Stamps

New rubber stamps

Recently, I received some long-awaited rubber stamps in the mail.  You might remember my old alphabet and numerical rubber stamp set, which is currently used in my shop listings seen here.  I love this stamp set to pieces, as the font style and size is visually perfect for framed art where letters need to be bold and visible--with clean lines in order to be aesthetically appealing.  However, when it came to creating stamped wood-branch slice ornaments/hang tags with these stamps, I could only fit four-to-five words across, max, on the small wood pieces that I prefer to use (which are only a few inches across).  I was not the only one who noticed this issue as potential buyers often asked if I could stamp entire names on wood slices.  Needless to say, I could not accommodate their requests for entire names to be stamped rather than initials--until recently when I found the above smaller-sized alphabet stamp set that features an Art Deco-type font.

And as you know, I am drawn to most anything with an Art Deco aesthetic.

Some have wondered what the difference really is between individually hand-stamped letters and computer-generated letters.  The most obvious difference is that computer-generated letters lack the character--or as some may say, the imperfection--of hand-stamped letters: the outer stamp markings and the imperfect line up of letters in words; the varying degree of letter saturation, a subtle nuance that is missing in computer-generated fonts.  This extra handmade touch is what I find to be so inherently appealing about hand-stamped art.  The final product may take five times or longer to create than designing a rubber stamp on a computer and stamping through that means, but hand-stamping individual letters is so worth it for its ingrained uniqueness that varies so beautifully per item.

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As this year closes and a new one opens, I have been excitedly testing out this new rubber stamp set, eagerly making and test running even more custom-stamped wedding decor and other lovely bits and pieces, the first of which can be seen here and here.  I'm positive that more items will be added once my brain acclimates to the post-holiday season stillness--it's all currently still a manic buzz in my ears (this holiday season, that is).  The colors mint green and black have been a recent infatuation of mine, so I'm quite sure that that 1920s-ish color combination will be a prominent feature in some creations.

And I find it appropriate considering the new stamp set is Art Deco-inspired as well.