The unicorn of the sea!

On the wake of my last post, inspired to the seawold stuffs and animals, I am glad to present you a couple of new rubber stamps representing the magic narwhals! This curious animal, who live around the Arctic, can be considered the unicorn of the sea: it is almost a whale, but with a long, straight and helical turst in the front... really as an unicorn who live under the sea! Even though its existence is real and, differently to the unicorn, it is not a mythological animal, the narwhal is in any case hard to be seen and a lot of aspects of its life and habits are completely unknown... starting for instance from its turst, about which scientists have no idea about its exact function. In my opinion, this animal is the evidence about the existence of the magic, of a world in which the door is always open for imagination, in which the surprise for the enchantment could really exist.

For that, I took decision to carve a couple of narwhal rubber stamp: a littler and a bigger one, which can be found, not in the Arctic, but on my esty shop!

And, latterly I've done a treasury on Etsy, where I found a lot of funny items that I want to share with you... and I've launched the challenge: Unicorn vs. Narwhal, which is your favorite?

Summer hand carved rubber stamps!

Summer is drawing near now, the weather is more and more fine and the sun replaced clouds and rain. I do not if for you is the same, but during these days I'm really craving for the beach, for walking with my naked feet into the sand, for swimming into the seawater, and for breathing the unique air you can find only at seaside! Maybe, this feel for sea is due to the fact that I come from a seaside place, and the sea is in my DNA, but during this last time I feel that I can no longer do without the breeze of the Mediterranean...

And waiting for be back at home, I took inspiration to make a wide range of hand carve rubber stamps inspired to the sea world: a little fish, an octopus, a lifebuoy, a helm, an anchor, a whale, a sailing boat, a lighthouse, an ice-cream, a crab, and a jellyfish... nothing is lacking in this my collection! You can find them on my etsy shop, I hope you like them...

And, as I always claim, hand carved rubber stamps are good not only for paper projects, but also used on fabric... here above you can find a sample: with my stamps I decorated a foulard... maybe to be used this summer while I will be driving my Vespa!

Customized hand carved rubber stamps

Everything could be turned into a rubber stamp becoming a mark to be reproduced without moderation! Business' logos, children's draws, designs, ex-libris... each idea is eligible to become a rubber stamp and serve you as a symbol for your stuff and to sign your crafting activities. Latterly, I've experienced to carve several rubber stamps for some readers of this blog... and this post is a little thank to everybody who gave in to temptation of having a very personal rubber stamp, specifically made for them under request... such as

Alda, of Luar Do Mocho, who loves very much owls and asked me to design a logo and to hand carve it for her coming activity;

Lulu, who has a stationeries shop on etsy and needed a hand carved rubber stamp of her logo for her business;

Charlotte, who adores handmade stuff, has a shop on etsy, contributes to the Etsy France blog and organizes events in France dedicated to this amazing world... she asked me a series of stamps representing the wide range activities of the handmade production;

Rosario, of Dona Maria, a wonderful handmade producer of wools with a shop on etsy, who asked me a rubber stamps of her business logo;

Laetitia, of Etsy France, who asked me to hand carve the wonderful logo of Etsy France...

Lindsey, of Lola's cookies, who has a really gourmand activity of authentic american cookies producer here in Paris;

Thank you very much to everybody, I wish you that handmade rubber stamps could bring you good luck!

Would you like to have a customized hand carved rubber stamp? Write me and enquire about... I will be happy to carve your own stamp!

My favorite illustrators # 3 LauraGeorge

draw by laurageorge

As anticipated in the last post, I'm glad to introduce you for this third issue of my favorite illustrators series the amazing work of Laura George! She is a very talented artist-illustrator based in Chicago, and I've found her some time ago on etsy, where she has a wonderful shop filled with delightful draws.

What I like in her illustrations is her ability in showing daily life under a different perspective, assigning a big value to each little aspect and each little emotion that too often we take for granted. And the postcard of her that I took decision to show here above, called "things I'm thankful for", expresses very well this attitude: the sun, trees, trips, music, animals, foods, everything could be special if fully enjoyed. Thank to a sweet and simple style, she's able to enclose in this card everything we need to be truly happy.

In order to express my admiration for her design, I wanted to turn her "hug" in a hand carved rubber stamp... here's the result, I hope you like it!

Living slothly

Some time ago, while I was exploring etsy looking for a little present for me, I've ended up in the wonderful shop of a very talented maker of jewelry. Mary hand makes a wide range of very cute characters, the one more sweet than the other. Yet, to chose my favorite one was not difficult because I'm really fallen in love with a necklace with a little happy sloth clung to the chain as pendant... now it is a tender friend of mine, a kind of totem animal for me, which comes with me everywhere I go. I love it very much, thanks a bunch, Mary!

Here in France the word "sloth" is translated with "paresseux", that means lazy, idle. This translation, however, has in itself a kind of negative judgement that is not able to do justice to the distinctive feature of this wonderful animal, whose proverbial slowness could epitomize, instead of a simply laziness, a tenacious struggle against the frenzied paces of our contemporary life . The sloth becomes, by this way, the ultimate anti-conformist that, thanks to its zen quietness and its sneering smile, seems to damn about the confusion that surrounds it.

draw by Laura Berger, alias laurageorge

By the way, I'm not the only one to adore these wonderful animal. Here above you find also a wonderful draw of Laura Berger, a fantastic artist based in Chicago about whom I'd like to write a post of my special my favorite illustrators series because I love very much her style. And below you can take a look to a tv advertising of some time ago in which the protagonist is a sloth who's grappling with very little but without ending daily actions... it always makes me smiling, I hope it would be the same for you!

And, me too I l this odd animal inspires me; here's the outcome: a hand carved rubber stamp and a felt necklace that you can find on my etsy. I hope you like them as well!

Timeless vintage brands #3 Penguin Books

Strolling around the dusty shelves of one of best bookstores of Paris, Shakespeare and Company, I discovered in a little display case an old book published by Penguin in 1938... and I was really surprised about, firstly, the fact that this publisher exists since a lot of time ago and, secondly, its logo, which has changed since then... Indeed, bringing the book at home with me, I became curious about the history of this publisher and of its wonderful logo, a great sample of timeless vintage brands about which I'm writing latterly...

Still during 1930s, good books were expensive, and people for reading them had to be either rich or have a library card. The only popular-price books available on the market were "lurid" fictions almost without cultural qualities... or at least that was what Allen Lane - the creator of Penguin Books - stated one day when, coming back in London from a journey to Agatha Christie's house in Devon, wanted to buy a book for the travel but did not found any good book in the station store... so his idea was to contribute to create a new type of books: the modern paperbacks! That's a good book that does not cost more than a cigarette pack. Following this idea, Penguin was incorporated in 1935, the original price of each book was 6 pennies, and since them it has as mark a little penguin on the front-page and on the spine...

What attired my curiosity is: why a penguin? Well, according with the website of the publisher, Allen Lane was consciousness about the novelty represented by the new brand and for it he desired a "dignified but flippant" symbol for distinguish his books, and a secretary of him simply suggested to use a penguin... indeed I find this logo really flippant, for that I took decision to hand carve a rubber stamp of it and to use it for my bookmarks! I hope you like them, you can find them on my etsy!