An old eraser given a new life.....

Believe it or not, my aunt took the trouble to find her old eraser just so that I can practice my skills in rubber stamp carving! hahaha! So here it is, the old eraser (a Faber Castell brand).....at the mercy of my lino cutter hahaha....LOL!

I was thinking hard about what design I would do on this little eraser.....which is by the way only about the size of my thumb! As I was looking for ideas.....I thought of making a house and a small tree beside it....so that I can use it to make a card for a new home. I have never made a card like that before and was thinking of doing so for quite some time now......so I went ahead with the idea. :) I used a ball point pen to draw the little house and tree....

Here it is after I have dug out the outer part of the drawing....kinda tricky there....especially the area between the house and the tree. I was afraid that I might cut too much and eventually loose part of the roof! hahaha!

Ok....that is the bamboo stick.....I sharpened the ends and use it to drill tiny holes in the tree.....I want it to look like as if the tree has some fruits on it hahaha.....so funny!!! I even drilled a hole on the front door of the house....can you see it??? LOL! ;)

Not sure if you notice this......but you can see from the original drawing to the end result that the house and the tree seem a little smaller......that's because I have accidentally made tones of mistakes and had to amend them....so as a result, they became smaller.....oh well! Lesson learned! :D

So here it is.....tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! My second rubber stamp! :)

Carving a stamp...first time!

I got this gift from an angel in Maine hehehe......I got a lot more gifts that she packed up in a box but this particular gift here, the Speedball carving tool set is my most favorite! Maybe because it was something that I've been aiming at buying for a long time now. Suddenly, one fine day.....there it was, in my own hands.....unbelievable!

I wanted to play with it as soon as I can! So I did! Tried my hand at carving a motif on the rubber or eraser today hehehe..... I did my first rubber stamp and it was for my aunt......carved out the name NORMS......which stands for Norma Mohd Salleh.....heheh......NOR for Norma, M for Mohd and S for Salleh.. :)

Never thought that it would be so hard......maybe I was too ambitious! I should try a simpler motif next time round........need to buy some cheap erasers to do my experiments.....hahaha.....for beginners like me, I know I'm bound to make a tone of mistakes....so why waste the good erasers......use the cheap ones first! hahaha!

I'm just super excited about the whole experience. I never thought I would be doing this new craft this year.....wanted to do it for the longest time, and especially when I received a book about rubber stamping from the same angel some time ago hehee......AND a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a Malaysian blogger who carves out her own rubber stamps and sells them online too! I felt so inspired to do it......I love carving and have carved out designs on wood before. But that was so long ago when I was in my teens. And the wood block was so much larger. A lot of space to work with. It's a bit different in technique....although at some point, there are some similarity in it.

But when it comes to erasers.....it's a lot softer, breaks easily and I have to be gentle with it. I get so excited about getting it done fast.....a little impatient no? hahaha......just can't wait to stamp it! Thats all! hahaha! I just have to give myself more time to get the hang of it. I hope to do more designs on rubber and play more with my new tools. Wish me luck! :)