Well, it's been an interesting month, as I decided to teach myself how to stamp metal. My dad had a set of stamps that are, well, kind of small, but they're serving their purpose for now. The only anvil he's got is a piece of railroad track. I turn it on its side to use it. If I just carried it up and down the steps for a couple minutes, I could get in a serious workout for the day. At any rate, all I have is the alphabet in all caps, numbers, and an ampersand. Which means if I want to do a quote or anything like that, I have to be careful to not pick one with any sort of punctuation. I kind of faked it when I made an "Allons-y!" (sans exclamation point) ring by turning the capital I sideways, since the font isn't a serif font.
I experimented on a sheet I'd already tried a few months ago when I didn't have the railroad track. You can sort of see in the "Allons-y" square where the "S" got messed up. That's because I did exactly what you're NOT supposed to do and hit the stamp twice, which shifted the letter slightly and caused it to blur. It's probably a good thing I did it on the scrap. I don't have any liver of sulfur lying around and probably won't as long as I'm jobless, but right now the Sharpie-and-rubbing-alcohol method seems to be working out just fine. Here I was a little hesitant with the alcohol, so it's a little messy. I also accidentally turned the "O" sideways when doing "Doctor Who" but I think it actually kind of fits.
I saw this idea on Pinterest, and it caught my attention right away since I like to collect these stamped pennies whenever we visit somewhere new. It's a much more creative idea than just buying a book to shove them all away in. I had a metal hole punch that I bought when I bought the stamping supplies, but the pennies were probably a little bit thicker gauge than the punch it made for. It still works just fine, but it was a little difficult to use on the pennies. Apparently we visit our local aquarium too much, because I have three pennies from there. They have awesome designs, though. The Pepsi store is also in my hometown, and I discovered a little while ago that they expanded their store and added a penny machine, so this weekend when I was downtown with some friends, we made a little stop in there and I got another penny. I had to use a shiny 2013 penny, too :).
Then I decided to try doing a longer stamping project. I found a quote I'd pinned on Pinterest that didn't use any punctuation and sat on the floor, hammering it out. Yes, I've been doing all this stamping on the floor. The railroad track isn't exactly made for tabletop use. I was going to be all uber-serious about this and use tape to mark some straight lines and even spacing, but that would have taken too long, so I just eyeballed it. I like hand-stamped things to not be perfect, though. It shows that it was handcrafted, not machine stamped. Now, this is still a little too off for me towards the bottom, but I blame the fact that it was my first huge project, and I was watching a TV show at the same time and kept stopping and looking up. I was also a little impatient, but at least I didn't turn any of my letters sideways. I've started laying out the stamps in order now (as much as I can with repeating letters, anyway), which makes the process much faster and easier. I probably need to mark the letters on the stamps at some point...
These focals were already cut and hole-punched for me, so I went right ahead and stamped a couple significant quotes. My "process," as you can see, for the lettering is to color in the words with a Sharpie. I was a little hesitant with the stamping when I was doing these, so the letters are a little shallow and therefore not as dark. I think the only one I wasn't afraid to stamp was the round copper one. I got a little nervous, I think, because I told myself that I was going to actually use these in jewelry, no more practicing, time to get this show on the road, that sort of thing. The silver diamond at the top says "I will always find you," Snow White and Prince Charming's sweet little catchphrase on Once Upon A Time. The copper circle says "Bad Wolf," the message Rose scatters through time and space for the Doctor on Doctor Who. And the gold diamond says "Not all who wander are lost," a line from Bilbo's poem about Aragorn in
The Fellowship of the Ring. Of course, I realized later that it's missing a word, but I know I'm not the only one to write the quote like that, so I'm okay with it. Sort of.
Here is the necklace I made with the "Bad Wolf" piece. The blue bicone I added isn't the particular shade of blue I wanted, but I think it could still pass for something close to TARDIS blue. Maybe. Just go with it, okay?
Rose is one of my favorite companions, and there aren't really a lot of individual quotes for each companion (not that I've seen Classic Who, so I'm basically talking about companions with 9-11) that I can think of off the top of my head. Might be why I like the phrase "Bad Wolf" so much. It signals the Doctor about Rose, but it's also a sign that shows who other Whovians are. I have a "Bad Wolf" ring I got on Etsy, and it hasn't revealed any fellow Whovians, but I still wear it, hoping. Now I've added a necklace. This one, of course, is for sale in my shop for...ahem...
others to partake of.
And
this is the Once Upon A Time-inspired necklace I made out of the "I Will Always Find You" pendant. I would have thought I'd have a lot more green beads since it's one of my favorite colors, but I really had to dig to find this one. The green is to represent the peridot ring that Charming proposed to Snow with, which we know his mother gave to him to give to his true love. Or that love followed the ring, or something. They found each other (see what I did there?). Okay, I'll stop.
The only necklace I haven't put together yet is the "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" one. I want to do sort of the same theme as with these two: simple chain, a bead dangle that matches the fandom, and metal pendant. Lord of the Rings is tough, though. What color represents LotR? I could go off the extended edition movie cases, but that gives my green, a reddish brown, and blue. Pretty colors, but I don't really think they'd go well together as beads. I don't have any sword charms, or ring charms, or any other charm that fits the theme well, either. I thought about just stringing it on some leather cord and leaving it like that, but it seems a bit plain that way. I'll come up with something eventually, I suppose. Any thoughts? Ideas?
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