Don't worry this won't be another one of those sappy posts that reduces everyone to tears. I've had enough of that. Today's my mommy's 51st birthday. Don't say awwwwe....She's NOT old at all. She's pretty young to have a 34 (gulp) yr old daughter.
Since Sunday we've been in the ER most of both nights.
My mom, while playing with the girls, slipped, caught her big toe on the toy box and broke it. Pretty badly too. While on the way down she hit the middle of her neck on the door facing. Of course we thought she was done for until she said she could feel her toes. THANK YOU GOD! She says she was trying to break the floor so she could have a new one. NOT funny!!!!!
Her father (my beloved Pa Winnell) has chronic C O PD and has had enough to put him in an early grave this year. The attack he had yesterday was SO bad that the docs said they had 2 hours to get the breathing tube in or he would be gone. WHAT THEY DIDN'T tell us until later was that this is because one of his lungs had stopped functioning. ARG!!!!!! They put him on the vent and have him in ICU. He made it!!! They had him sedated to let him rest. They now have him awake and he knows everyone. YEAH!!! They are going to attempt to remove the vent this afternoon. Crossing fingers.
SO... we have had quite a bit going on lately. Enough to drive a body mad.
K...SO right before this last surgery John comes home from work and we are chatting as we do quite often (it's amazing after all these years that we still speak to each other and civilly too). :P SO...He's talking to me about his day and starts telling me about Don. Don is this guy who works with him and is one who keeps me in stitches. Don is one who has really dry and cracked skin which seems to get worse when he is on his motorcycle. At times his hands have made me want to cry. I've given him cuticle balm, lip balm, Creme De Sheer Awesomeness......So Don was at home bush hogging. He's got a big yard. :) Now John has a SERIOUS look on his face while he is telling me this and I REALLY begin to think something BAD happened to Don. I start to tear up because I "know" where this is heading and it isn't good. So he's cutting the grass when he begins to itch uncontrollably. No matter how much he scratched it would NOT stop. He can't take it anymore and decides to go in the house and do something about it. Don grabs the jar of Creme De Sheer Awesomeness and rubs it on all the itches. Instant relief. FINALLY! But wait...there's more....much more....what is this thing that is happening to me???? Erm....According to Don...it is a natural male enhancer as well. NO KIDDING, REALLY!?!?!? NO kidding! He said it erm...lasted for about 4 hours. I sure do hope Mrs. Don appreciated it as much as he did. By this time I am beyond pissed at John for making me believe something awful had happened to Don and laughing so hard I really am in tears. Don told me I should market this right next to Cialis. You know...If I had the funds to have it tested and then approved by the FDA I would do it in a NY minute. Don..I want to thank you for bringing such laughter into my world. My world is funny enough with John and the kids...but when he starts talking about you and the conversations you have shared or this recent experience...It's priceless....simply Priceless. Any time you need more Creme De Sheer Awesomeness you be sure and let me know.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
WHAT A MONTH....Better Yet..WHAT A YEAR!
WOW! May 6 was my last post. I set here wondering where the time went and then it all begins to flow back.
May 1 I get my HOPE tattoo. This was number 12
It is the Celtic knot for Hope. It's on my right forearm and I got it on my Pa's birthday. It hurt but not near as bad as the one I got on my birthday. In between these two my mom got the kewlest hummingbird. It looks like it is sucking nectar from the rose on her ankle. It's beautiful. I love the vibrant colors in it.
Birthday ink
This one I got on my birthday. The Hope knot was just about healed and didn't hurt so it was time. This is the biggest one I have and was by far the most painful.
That was about it for the fun though. Since my surgery in January I have had vision issues and headaches off and on. The reprogramming in April caused a significant amount of vision loss for about 3 weeks. It was kinda freaky. Watching my vision going down the toilet and knowing something is wrong but everyone is telling me it is adjusting to the reprogramming that was supposed to take two days tops. It ends up taking almost a month and never was quite right. I had an eye exam on my birthday that showed pressure on my optic nerve. Doc said I needed to contact my Neuro and have a visit with him. I contacted his nurse who said I should be in there first thing on the following Tuesday (26th).
Tuesday's tests consisted of a hellacious eye exam that sent me spinning. A shunt tap with dye insertion to make sure the shunt was working properly and a few CTs. Apparently I wasn't going to find out what was going on until Neuro called the next morning. Hind site...He KNEW what had happened. He called me at 7:45 Wednesday morning and told me the only option was to go explore what might be wrong. Ugh.....I don't have an option do I? So we leave at 5:45 in the AM on Friday (5/29) to go for "exploratory" surgery. Things went well in admitting. I had this WONDERFUL and beautiful woman who did nothing but keep me and John in stitches. I went to preop with the words of my wonderful Melissa echoing in my ear. "Tell them to give you whatever it takes to numb the IV area because those veins won't work with them". GOT IT! I told everyone I could find. Then she entered the room. Margaret aka nurse who knows EVERYTHING! Ugh. I told her that I needed something for my veins because they roll and, at the time, were NO where to be found. To which she said "NONE of my patients need that. I can get ANY vein the first stick". Let's just say I got a little ugly. I pointed my finger right square in her face and told her to look at my veins, which she refused to do at first and reluctantly did after I raised my voice, and see they are hiding. She rolled her eyes at me and gave in ONLY after I told her to either numb me or get the hell away from me AND one of the other Neuro's told her to go away so we could talk. He scanned my veins and realized that YES I do have a clue. I got 4 shots in my right hand and HE got THE ONLY vein available THE FIRST TIME. THAT man got a hug form me. Margaret ate some crow and left me alone after that. John came in and was very persistant about the NO Codine and Morphine thing. He's SUCH a good man. They gave me a sedative to relax and THIS TIME I remember going into the OR and getting on the table. I remember the gas. Now the fun begins.
My original catheter which was NOT replaced during January's surgery was blocked. drops of fluid were able to get through. Not good. The drain tube was kinked, AND the shunt was faulty. UGH! They could not remove the original catheter because my brain is VERY much attached to it. SO...they clip it off and drill a hole for the new one. OUCH!
The doc that attempted to put me off in January was the one to visit me in pre-op and recovery. He told me what they did and did NOT go speak with John OR my parents. They were PISSED! I spent 6 hours in recovery because they did not have the staff to cover the rooms for the guys coming out of recovery. I was SO sick. John came in and I couldn't look at him. My eyes were so sensitive to light I had to have a towel over them. He was AWESOME! He took turns with my parents. My mom was next. Right before she got there they were giving me ice chips. BAD! I threw up RIGHT as she walked in the room. NOT a good thing for a mom to see right after her kid has surgery. She started crying. My dad came in and did his thing. He's so funny. I know he was worried about me but that man would rather torment me than eat. When I FINALLY got in the room......the guy who brought me in smacked me in the head with his elbow. SERIOUSLY! Right smack in the middle of my head. I freaked. My parents had to leave. I believe my mother would have been thrown in jail had she stayed. I had no choice to to wake up at that point. It took me about an hour to fully come back from that one. Ice chips are NOT my friend at this point. Remember no Morphine or Codine so it's percocet time again. John tells the guy I need an antinausea with it. Dude keeps feeding me ice chips which my body is SO not ready for. They found out what I was telling them when it went all over the bed and all over the floor. WHAT A night. Things calmed down around midnight and I was able to FINALLY keep crackers and water down. I was SO hungry. It had been about 36 hours since my last meal. I SLEPT through the night. And then the fun began. The nurse that was on staff has no compassion. She came in once in a 5 hour period. The Neuro that came in at 6 AM to check on me asked me if I was supposed to go home. UMMM....YOU tell me if I CAN!!! So he said "if you're talking to me I guess you can". He checked about HALF of what he was supposed to and NEVER checked if I could get up and walk to the bathroom on my own. He ASSUMED I could. Of course I had to because my nurse never bothered to help me (like she is supposed to do after one has brain surgery). UGH! The weekend crew is the WORST! I WALKED out on my own. No offer of a wheelchair AT ALL. I didn't need one but I am ALWAYS asked. Word of advice...AVOID HAVING SURGERY ON THE WEEKEND IF YOU CAN! So We get out of hell and head straight to Starbucks. The BEST coffee ever. We go to my parent's house so we can see them and the kids. My kids wer scared to death. I looked like Sloth from Goonies. My face was SO swollen.
This pic does NOW show all of the swelling. Here it looks pretty good. But my ear was sticking straight out and perpendicular with my head.
You can see both incisions better in this pic. We call the new hole the little birdy. The original incision is bigger this time and that is a tiny oops at the end there.
I never could get it together and was always tired after January's surgery. I told Doc something was wrong but he wouldn't listen. So I came home on Saturday and went off all pain meds that night. I came home with Percocet and took one out of the bottle. I didn't do much this last week. And no...I didn't make soap two days after I got home. :( I've done nothing long enough that I had my freak out day on day 4 instead of day 3. Everything was fine until Wednesday when my incision began to ooze. I did was I was supposed to and contacted the nurse. I had to go in on Thursday and see the doc. My dad went with me this time. Doc was concerned and said he wanted me to stay a day or two for observation. It made no sense to go home only to return if my incision were to burst. SO..... After some emotional conversation with my dad and even more-so with Melissa we went to lunch. And, as Melissa promised, when I went into admitting a room was waiting for me. I had the same lady who admitted me last Friday and she SO made me laugh. SO much so it hurt. She was GREAT! She took me to my room and got me all cozy. Had my dad almost in tears with laughter. THE best medicine. The ORIGINAL nurse and I clashed. She called me a liar to my face about the order for NO IV or blood draw. It took me about 4 hours to convince them it was JUST OBSERVATION. Once we got past that I found out most of the ladies who were there in January were on then. I was SO excited. That made it great. THEN the guy who did my shunt tap in April came to "see his patient"....YES! If ANYONE should be doing anything to my brain it should be him. He was SO gentle. He promised, as long as it wasn't when he wasn't on duty, if anything had to be done HE would do it. YEAH ME! My dad just laughed. He did get concerned about the swelling on my right side but was comforted with the fact that it was this way from the beginning and it WAS getting better. Once the original nurse left and Dr Son came in to tell me NO NEEDLES OR BLOOD I was set. Dr shunt tap said no food after midnight just in case I needed a procedure. Made it with no procedures. Doc said that the drainage was from the clamped off catheter. It had leftover fluid that wanted to get out so it took the path of least resistance which was through the incision. I got a gnarly does of antibiotics to come home with. You know what bothers me the most about this whole deal? I have had REALLY SO little drama with my shunt in my life. I've NEVER been a poor me...why did this have to happen to me... kinda girl. It's just a part of who I am and I have learned to REALLY be OK with it. What bothers me is seeing all these kids who CAN'T do what they want to do and who CAN'T do for themselves. It breaks my heart and makes me so angry. Life can be SO unfair. I will willfully admit that I was in denial and scared before I had the surgery in January. I didn't want to deal with the fact that I was broken and needed fixing. I have two kids and I don't have time for this. HOWEVER...I'm not one for the poor me aspect of things. Each and every time I go into the Children's Hospital and look at all of those children who have NO clue how bad things REALLY are it humbles me even more than before. I see them laughing and struggling to get around. They don't know they are struggling because it is all they know. I realize just how different my life could have been had I NOT had that Neurosurgeon take on my case back in 1975 and do his best work in order to give me a chance. When people were telling my WAAAAY too young parent's to either say good-bye or be prepared to raise a vegetable this guy saw the fight in me and gave me the chance I needed to take on the world and show all those who had NO faith in me that I would NOT be a vegetable and I would have a "normal" life. I often wish I could have been a fly on the wall to watch that magnificent man do his magic on me. But then....Maybe not. Maybe I'm not supposed to know about that and just be thankful. Maybe I should go back to the Children's hospital in Florida and see if the guy who extended the drain tube when I was 7 is still around. Thank him for allowing me the thousands of chances to walk ON the cracks of a sidewalk or down the seam of a procelin tiled hallway or along the parking spot doo-dads with my kids and WIN because "I" did it the longest without falling off. I wish I could give that to all of those little angels I see each time I go to see my Neurosurgeon because I need to be adjusted, or have another shunt tap to see if there is pressure. Maybe I should just tell Melissa how much I love and respect her for making me feel like her MOST important patient. THAT is something I CAN do. This woman has been with me ALL year and has been my rock when I felt no one else knew how. Maybe I am like the 15 yr-old brain tumor patient she just lost and don't want my family to carry the fears I have along with their own. That's more like it. When I think that my family has had too much I can ALWAYS count on her to give it to me straight. And she does VERY WELL. She's the best. And what do we get out of all of these words on my screen.....Me setting here typing away instead of making soap because I just don't want to be given a hard time by someone who means well BUT should know better than to try and tell me I CAN'T do something. And it has also brought me to a head filled with ideas of my new ink. Several people have come to acknowledge me as "indestructible". I'm working on ink to represent that and it will go from my ankle and on to my foot. I've heard this is one of if not the most painful part of the body to have inked. I say BRING IT!
To my mommy...I love you. If you can put up with all of my bitching and STILL come back for more...you might need YOUR head examined.
To my daddy....T'anks for ALWAYS making me laugh...But if you don't stop whispering 6025 in my ear I am going to have to punch you. We need to go catch a movie and grab a coffee soon.
To John....T'anks for being my bestest doctor ever. I think I'll keep you.
To Camryn and Katie....I guess you should keep on pissing me off with your whining and cranky behavior. That way I know you are kewl with what's going on and you know I'll be fine.
To EVERYONE else....family is sacred. I would not have made it without all of you. Blood or not...you know who you are and I cherish you.
Now I have had enough of this sappy shit and I need some new ink. So if you don't mind. I need to get on with designing it. AND I might make some soap....just to make my mom needessly worry about me because she can. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
May 1 I get my HOPE tattoo. This was number 12
It is the Celtic knot for Hope. It's on my right forearm and I got it on my Pa's birthday. It hurt but not near as bad as the one I got on my birthday. In between these two my mom got the kewlest hummingbird. It looks like it is sucking nectar from the rose on her ankle. It's beautiful. I love the vibrant colors in it.
Birthday ink
This one I got on my birthday. The Hope knot was just about healed and didn't hurt so it was time. This is the biggest one I have and was by far the most painful.
That was about it for the fun though. Since my surgery in January I have had vision issues and headaches off and on. The reprogramming in April caused a significant amount of vision loss for about 3 weeks. It was kinda freaky. Watching my vision going down the toilet and knowing something is wrong but everyone is telling me it is adjusting to the reprogramming that was supposed to take two days tops. It ends up taking almost a month and never was quite right. I had an eye exam on my birthday that showed pressure on my optic nerve. Doc said I needed to contact my Neuro and have a visit with him. I contacted his nurse who said I should be in there first thing on the following Tuesday (26th).
Tuesday's tests consisted of a hellacious eye exam that sent me spinning. A shunt tap with dye insertion to make sure the shunt was working properly and a few CTs. Apparently I wasn't going to find out what was going on until Neuro called the next morning. Hind site...He KNEW what had happened. He called me at 7:45 Wednesday morning and told me the only option was to go explore what might be wrong. Ugh.....I don't have an option do I? So we leave at 5:45 in the AM on Friday (5/29) to go for "exploratory" surgery. Things went well in admitting. I had this WONDERFUL and beautiful woman who did nothing but keep me and John in stitches. I went to preop with the words of my wonderful Melissa echoing in my ear. "Tell them to give you whatever it takes to numb the IV area because those veins won't work with them". GOT IT! I told everyone I could find. Then she entered the room. Margaret aka nurse who knows EVERYTHING! Ugh. I told her that I needed something for my veins because they roll and, at the time, were NO where to be found. To which she said "NONE of my patients need that. I can get ANY vein the first stick". Let's just say I got a little ugly. I pointed my finger right square in her face and told her to look at my veins, which she refused to do at first and reluctantly did after I raised my voice, and see they are hiding. She rolled her eyes at me and gave in ONLY after I told her to either numb me or get the hell away from me AND one of the other Neuro's told her to go away so we could talk. He scanned my veins and realized that YES I do have a clue. I got 4 shots in my right hand and HE got THE ONLY vein available THE FIRST TIME. THAT man got a hug form me. Margaret ate some crow and left me alone after that. John came in and was very persistant about the NO Codine and Morphine thing. He's SUCH a good man. They gave me a sedative to relax and THIS TIME I remember going into the OR and getting on the table. I remember the gas. Now the fun begins.
My original catheter which was NOT replaced during January's surgery was blocked. drops of fluid were able to get through. Not good. The drain tube was kinked, AND the shunt was faulty. UGH! They could not remove the original catheter because my brain is VERY much attached to it. SO...they clip it off and drill a hole for the new one. OUCH!
The doc that attempted to put me off in January was the one to visit me in pre-op and recovery. He told me what they did and did NOT go speak with John OR my parents. They were PISSED! I spent 6 hours in recovery because they did not have the staff to cover the rooms for the guys coming out of recovery. I was SO sick. John came in and I couldn't look at him. My eyes were so sensitive to light I had to have a towel over them. He was AWESOME! He took turns with my parents. My mom was next. Right before she got there they were giving me ice chips. BAD! I threw up RIGHT as she walked in the room. NOT a good thing for a mom to see right after her kid has surgery. She started crying. My dad came in and did his thing. He's so funny. I know he was worried about me but that man would rather torment me than eat. When I FINALLY got in the room......the guy who brought me in smacked me in the head with his elbow. SERIOUSLY! Right smack in the middle of my head. I freaked. My parents had to leave. I believe my mother would have been thrown in jail had she stayed. I had no choice to to wake up at that point. It took me about an hour to fully come back from that one. Ice chips are NOT my friend at this point. Remember no Morphine or Codine so it's percocet time again. John tells the guy I need an antinausea with it. Dude keeps feeding me ice chips which my body is SO not ready for. They found out what I was telling them when it went all over the bed and all over the floor. WHAT A night. Things calmed down around midnight and I was able to FINALLY keep crackers and water down. I was SO hungry. It had been about 36 hours since my last meal. I SLEPT through the night. And then the fun began. The nurse that was on staff has no compassion. She came in once in a 5 hour period. The Neuro that came in at 6 AM to check on me asked me if I was supposed to go home. UMMM....YOU tell me if I CAN!!! So he said "if you're talking to me I guess you can". He checked about HALF of what he was supposed to and NEVER checked if I could get up and walk to the bathroom on my own. He ASSUMED I could. Of course I had to because my nurse never bothered to help me (like she is supposed to do after one has brain surgery). UGH! The weekend crew is the WORST! I WALKED out on my own. No offer of a wheelchair AT ALL. I didn't need one but I am ALWAYS asked. Word of advice...AVOID HAVING SURGERY ON THE WEEKEND IF YOU CAN! So We get out of hell and head straight to Starbucks. The BEST coffee ever. We go to my parent's house so we can see them and the kids. My kids wer scared to death. I looked like Sloth from Goonies. My face was SO swollen.
This pic does NOW show all of the swelling. Here it looks pretty good. But my ear was sticking straight out and perpendicular with my head.
You can see both incisions better in this pic. We call the new hole the little birdy. The original incision is bigger this time and that is a tiny oops at the end there.
I never could get it together and was always tired after January's surgery. I told Doc something was wrong but he wouldn't listen. So I came home on Saturday and went off all pain meds that night. I came home with Percocet and took one out of the bottle. I didn't do much this last week. And no...I didn't make soap two days after I got home. :( I've done nothing long enough that I had my freak out day on day 4 instead of day 3. Everything was fine until Wednesday when my incision began to ooze. I did was I was supposed to and contacted the nurse. I had to go in on Thursday and see the doc. My dad went with me this time. Doc was concerned and said he wanted me to stay a day or two for observation. It made no sense to go home only to return if my incision were to burst. SO..... After some emotional conversation with my dad and even more-so with Melissa we went to lunch. And, as Melissa promised, when I went into admitting a room was waiting for me. I had the same lady who admitted me last Friday and she SO made me laugh. SO much so it hurt. She was GREAT! She took me to my room and got me all cozy. Had my dad almost in tears with laughter. THE best medicine. The ORIGINAL nurse and I clashed. She called me a liar to my face about the order for NO IV or blood draw. It took me about 4 hours to convince them it was JUST OBSERVATION. Once we got past that I found out most of the ladies who were there in January were on then. I was SO excited. That made it great. THEN the guy who did my shunt tap in April came to "see his patient"....YES! If ANYONE should be doing anything to my brain it should be him. He was SO gentle. He promised, as long as it wasn't when he wasn't on duty, if anything had to be done HE would do it. YEAH ME! My dad just laughed. He did get concerned about the swelling on my right side but was comforted with the fact that it was this way from the beginning and it WAS getting better. Once the original nurse left and Dr Son came in to tell me NO NEEDLES OR BLOOD I was set. Dr shunt tap said no food after midnight just in case I needed a procedure. Made it with no procedures. Doc said that the drainage was from the clamped off catheter. It had leftover fluid that wanted to get out so it took the path of least resistance which was through the incision. I got a gnarly does of antibiotics to come home with. You know what bothers me the most about this whole deal? I have had REALLY SO little drama with my shunt in my life. I've NEVER been a poor me...why did this have to happen to me... kinda girl. It's just a part of who I am and I have learned to REALLY be OK with it. What bothers me is seeing all these kids who CAN'T do what they want to do and who CAN'T do for themselves. It breaks my heart and makes me so angry. Life can be SO unfair. I will willfully admit that I was in denial and scared before I had the surgery in January. I didn't want to deal with the fact that I was broken and needed fixing. I have two kids and I don't have time for this. HOWEVER...I'm not one for the poor me aspect of things. Each and every time I go into the Children's Hospital and look at all of those children who have NO clue how bad things REALLY are it humbles me even more than before. I see them laughing and struggling to get around. They don't know they are struggling because it is all they know. I realize just how different my life could have been had I NOT had that Neurosurgeon take on my case back in 1975 and do his best work in order to give me a chance. When people were telling my WAAAAY too young parent's to either say good-bye or be prepared to raise a vegetable this guy saw the fight in me and gave me the chance I needed to take on the world and show all those who had NO faith in me that I would NOT be a vegetable and I would have a "normal" life. I often wish I could have been a fly on the wall to watch that magnificent man do his magic on me. But then....Maybe not. Maybe I'm not supposed to know about that and just be thankful. Maybe I should go back to the Children's hospital in Florida and see if the guy who extended the drain tube when I was 7 is still around. Thank him for allowing me the thousands of chances to walk ON the cracks of a sidewalk or down the seam of a procelin tiled hallway or along the parking spot doo-dads with my kids and WIN because "I" did it the longest without falling off. I wish I could give that to all of those little angels I see each time I go to see my Neurosurgeon because I need to be adjusted, or have another shunt tap to see if there is pressure. Maybe I should just tell Melissa how much I love and respect her for making me feel like her MOST important patient. THAT is something I CAN do. This woman has been with me ALL year and has been my rock when I felt no one else knew how. Maybe I am like the 15 yr-old brain tumor patient she just lost and don't want my family to carry the fears I have along with their own. That's more like it. When I think that my family has had too much I can ALWAYS count on her to give it to me straight. And she does VERY WELL. She's the best. And what do we get out of all of these words on my screen.....Me setting here typing away instead of making soap because I just don't want to be given a hard time by someone who means well BUT should know better than to try and tell me I CAN'T do something. And it has also brought me to a head filled with ideas of my new ink. Several people have come to acknowledge me as "indestructible". I'm working on ink to represent that and it will go from my ankle and on to my foot. I've heard this is one of if not the most painful part of the body to have inked. I say BRING IT!
To my mommy...I love you. If you can put up with all of my bitching and STILL come back for more...you might need YOUR head examined.
To my daddy....T'anks for ALWAYS making me laugh...But if you don't stop whispering 6025 in my ear I am going to have to punch you. We need to go catch a movie and grab a coffee soon.
To John....T'anks for being my bestest doctor ever. I think I'll keep you.
To Camryn and Katie....I guess you should keep on pissing me off with your whining and cranky behavior. That way I know you are kewl with what's going on and you know I'll be fine.
To EVERYONE else....family is sacred. I would not have made it without all of you. Blood or not...you know who you are and I cherish you.
Now I have had enough of this sappy shit and I need some new ink. So if you don't mind. I need to get on with designing it. AND I might make some soap....just to make my mom needessly worry about me because she can. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Anhoki is playing again
I had an alchemy request for a perfume come in when I was part of the bnb Storque article a while back.
Well DUH....I'd love to do it.
The one thing I DON'T like is making people wait. I don't have patience and don't really fancy people having to wait on me. BUT...
This person was VERY kewl and extremely patient. I attempted to make the perfume with all EOs and absolutes. I did it. I think it smells great. Earthy and "wholesome". I'm going to send her a sample or three and see how she likes it and I told her she needed to help me name it. This perfume will NOT be cheap. I'm looking at roughly $25 to $30 an oz due to the ingredients used.
Now here is where all of you come into the mix. I need MORE testers. I have over 30 vials of this stuff. I need people who know how to be honest. This is not a "let's see what we can get for free" kinda thing. This is actually something I love doing. You know how you have conversations with your buddies about dreaming what you love??? Blending is a love of mine. If you ARE interested in sampling my new perfume and WILL answer my questions then send me an email. an ho ki 1 (at) yahoo....I will need $1 for shipping the vial to you and will need it via Paypal. I will send you a questionnaire via email and expect you to answer it honestly. Please do not contact me unless you are willing to do it all.
Ciao.
Well DUH....I'd love to do it.
The one thing I DON'T like is making people wait. I don't have patience and don't really fancy people having to wait on me. BUT...
This person was VERY kewl and extremely patient. I attempted to make the perfume with all EOs and absolutes. I did it. I think it smells great. Earthy and "wholesome". I'm going to send her a sample or three and see how she likes it and I told her she needed to help me name it. This perfume will NOT be cheap. I'm looking at roughly $25 to $30 an oz due to the ingredients used.
Now here is where all of you come into the mix. I need MORE testers. I have over 30 vials of this stuff. I need people who know how to be honest. This is not a "let's see what we can get for free" kinda thing. This is actually something I love doing. You know how you have conversations with your buddies about dreaming what you love??? Blending is a love of mine. If you ARE interested in sampling my new perfume and WILL answer my questions then send me an email. an ho ki 1 (at) yahoo....I will need $1 for shipping the vial to you and will need it via Paypal. I will send you a questionnaire via email and expect you to answer it honestly. Please do not contact me unless you are willing to do it all.
Ciao.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Another lip balm blog post
You know....I like sets...combo packs...a variety. What says you? Do you like having an option of buying lip balm pairings or do you prefer to mix and match yourself? Or are singles what you prefer most? Decisions, decisions.......
Take the new poll too....
XO
Take the new poll too....
XO
Monday, April 27, 2009
Lip balm questions and answers
It's no secret....we all need moisture. The question is
HOW MUCH?
How much is just right?
How much is too much?
I've been thinking. OMG...Anhoki has been thinking again.
No seriously. A time ago I have a lip balm in a much larger tube. I loved it. I am forever misplacing my lip balms.
Could this be because they are too small or because I'm a goober?
Wait...
Don't answer that.
But answer this... Answer my poll question, leave a comment WITH an email addy and you could win one of my new lip balms.
I also have new flavors in the works. Tell me what you think....
Orange Vanilla
Limeade
Plum
Pomegranate
Orange Strawberry Banana
HOW MUCH?
How much is just right?
How much is too much?
I've been thinking. OMG...Anhoki has been thinking again.
No seriously. A time ago I have a lip balm in a much larger tube. I loved it. I am forever misplacing my lip balms.
Could this be because they are too small or because I'm a goober?
Wait...
Don't answer that.
But answer this... Answer my poll question, leave a comment WITH an email addy and you could win one of my new lip balms.
I also have new flavors in the works. Tell me what you think....
Orange Vanilla
Limeade
Plum
Pomegranate
Orange Strawberry Banana
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Stamps ala John
So if you're like me you make soap. Well...if you're "like" me you make LOTS of things...soap being one of the MANY things. :) AND...If you're "like" me you like toys. Lots of shiny and fun toys. hehe....I am forever shopping for new and useful toys to be creative with.
Let's see this is 2009 now....so.... it's been more than 5 years since I asked my dad to make my first soap mold. I had purchased many a mold before I asked him to make one. It was a log. My dad made about 15 molds for me in between the molds he made for customers and friends.
Then John took over. hehehehe....SUCKER! Depending on how one looks at it I suppose. John took over making the soap molds in early '08 and hasn't stopped. It's quite impressive to watch him work. I keep throwing him curve balls and he is right there throwing the product back in my face. Just last night, as we were getting covered in splinters from the plywood sheets we were ripping down, I saw a leftover piece and it clicked in my wee pea brain....DING! I have this awesome, little log that he made for me a couple of months ago. It's kewl. A pain in the arse to line but so fun to use. This "extra" piece of plywood would double the size of said mold and make it MUCH easier to line and work with. YEAH me....When time permits I shall have a new double row log. 8o))) Last night we also cut down a 10 ft PVC pipe for some round molds. I have a new batch of shaving soap curing now. 8o)))))
So why am I chatting about soap molds if the topic is stamps??? Well....erm...'cause I can! That's why. Geeez....can't a girl get off track once in a while!?
So John is a creative sort of guy and is always thinking of new ideas. A few years ago he thought of a product that required the use of a cnc machine. Well....anyone who knows anything about them knows they are NOT cheap (even the CHEAP ones aren't cheap). John did his thing and bought one. It's adorable.... in a geeky sort of way. He got really kewl software and played with it. Made mockups of the product he wanted to make and then started looking at soap stamps. Hehehehehehehehe......SCORE! He knew I wasn't happy with the stamps I had purchased and wanted to make me smile. Not to mention make some money to pay for the new shop we loaded our basement with. We have spent, literally, HUNDREDS if not thousands of hours working on stamp ideas and concepts. I really don't feel bad for asking him to make a stamp because........I love to see the twinkle in his eye when he has come up with an easier way to produce something magical. It's fun to watch him get frustrated with the software. To see him get irritated and then run the program and have the stamp come out better than expected is really kewl. I'll be browsing, chatting, making soap or whatever and hear his big ol' feet come up the stairs and he'll have this little plate in his hand and say "wanna see"!? Well DUH! We learned, not soon enough, to have a batch of soap just for him. Of course it looks like it has some sort of disease or something with being rebatched and all. It REALLY is ugly. I'll watch him go through the motions of stamping and then see the image on the bar and a smile fills the room. It's so fun. Of course I better have the camera close by because he loves loves loves to get pics of his art. I have hundreds of pics of stamped soap. I made a folder on flickr just for his stamps. When time permits we WILL be adding new stamps to Etsy. But....custom stamps always come first and those take up a lot of our "free" time....what little there is.
Folks always ask me about using our stamps and the best way to go about it. This is when I type....there is no set in stone method for stamping soap. Some use presses in order to get consistant pressure all around the stamp for the ideal impression. I say......NOT! To me..the whole idea is to stamp it old school style with a mallet and have complete control of it all. I have a few choice tools in my "bag o' tricks" that I absolutely can not live without.
Here is a small sampling of my "necessities". We have
a "fresh" cup o' joe with a touch too much creamer
a mallet (can be found at your local Lowes or Home Depot)
a wood block (I'm not kewl enough to have my stamps mounted on finishd oak blocks so I use these instead)
a brush of sorts....
Again you see the important things. My stamps are not blocked. Well the wurly curly is but that's all. Tooth picks help to get the stuck soap from around the smaller crevices of the stamps. The block is used on top of the stamp for stamping. The brush....I use it to coat the stamps with cooking spray. You would NOT believe how much easier it is to stamp with a lubed stamp. DON'T LAUGH...TRY IT!
Check it.....A can of OFF BRAND cooking spray, tooth picks, a brush (this is a highlights brush from Sallys ONLY because we had it on hand), you can use ANY type of brush. My "not playing around" mallet, COFFEE (always have coffee) and a selection of stamps. The basket is used to house my stamps, brush, toothpicks and block. And I have had to permanently mark the block with the word MINE on all sides. When folks stamp soaps these block go missing. Grrrrr.....
The Smiley was originally made to go wirh the beer soap I make. Then we got into beer with a backward R. I LOVE this stamp. It's definitely one of my favorite stamps. I use this one a lot.
My anhoki stamp is simple but I love it.
This kissing hand is another of my favorite stamps. Have you ever read the book The Kissing Hand? My Camryn's kindergarten teacher read it to the class on the first day and it was so very sweet. I had been wanting to make a kissing hand stamp for a while and never got around to it. As luck would have it I had a person come to me with a custom stamp request. One of the stamps she wanted had a kissing hand as part of the image. YEAH! That got the ball rolling for the idea of this stamp and the rest as they say........
The I love U stamp is an original by me. I made it because I thought it would be kewl for wedding soap, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, whatever. Simple and to the point.
No matter how many times a person tells you that you CAN NOT stamp salt bars....I am here to prove them WRONG! You CAN stamp salt bars and I do it all the time. You have to do it pretty soon after cutting them and they DO still need to be on the softer side. HOWEVER... you CAN do it too SOON. It comes with practice and you have to know your recipe too.
This DSM stamp is another fave. I love the Georgia font and how "phosisticated" it makes soap look. "Phosisticated is a vocabulary word that can be found under sophisticated in the dictionary. 8O) I cut this batch and let it set for about 6 hours and then stamped. This is a HARD batch so it worked out pretty well.
My NIG Kahuna salt bar stamped with the whurly curly. Gotta be quick with salt bars or they will crumble and crack.
What man doesn't think he is a "stud"? EXACTLY. Between this and beer....what oculd be better?!
This stamp was made for a challenge I did not long ago. Being a military brat we traveled a lot. We lived in Italy from '83 to '86. AWESOME!!!! I designed this stamp to reflect one of my favorite countried.
Well since you've seen the CORRECT ways to stamp soap let's now look at WRONG ways to stamp soap. This can happen to ANYONE at any time. Don't go thinking you are immune to mis-stamping. NO one is immune to a mis-stamp. You waited too long and the bar got too hard. You stamped too soon and the soft soap came out when the stamp did......Anything is possible. Get used to the idea that it can and will happen to you. This can ALSO happen if your stamp is too detailed and delicate.
This soap was too soft. It was only about a day after if was cut....this is a cpop batch with a 40% water discount.
Same exact thing with this one. Although I have since learned that this particular batch just doesn't like to be stamped. Period. It is a beer batch with a Sandalwood fragrance oil blend. This unfortunate mishap has happened twice. I won't be stamping this soap.
Hahahaha...OK....This is a double layer batch. Hard as a rock too. I ended up stamping this batch two days after it came out of the oven. It was good and hard and the problem was with the STAMPER and not the stamp or the soap. I tried to go back and stamp once it had set for a bit and misaligned it. NOT pretty.
TRICKS we have learned to make the stamping process go smoothly are.....
1) ALWAYS have a clean stamp. If you have soap crumbs on your stamp take a scrub brush and scrub them off or lightly wash the stamp. When I say LIGHT I mean LIGHT.
-Turn the water to a drizzle and barely get it wet.
-Use a scrub brush to lightly remove the soap from the stamp.
-IF you can't get the soap from the crevisses then you grab a tooth pick and pick it out.
-Don't get aggressive with your stamp because it could get aggressive with you and break. We don't want that.
Once it is clean take a towel and pat dry....yes..all the way.
2) Now you want to take that lovely brush of yours and spray a tiny bit of spray on both sides. THIS is what you use to get the oil on the stamp. You do NOT want to spray directly on the stamp. Brush the spray on evenly. Spraying directly on the stamp will result in a buildup of grossness and make the stamp too slippery to acutally stamp the soap. It could also damage the block.
3) Place the stamp in the desired location and grab your mallet.
4) Tap lightly and see what you've done. If you need to stamp more you can. You can't remove the impression once it's done but you can always restamp. It's like measure twice and cut once.....kinda.
5) I always have a toothpick close by. If you have impressed the soap and you have soap "boogers" left behind you can use the toothpick to remove them. This is also good for the more delicate stamps. You can carefully make the impression larger. IF you are brave enough.
6) Once my soap impression is to my liking I always take a paper towel and brush across the top to get whatever might be floating around off of it.
Now stamp away.
These are steps we have found that work for us. These steps won't work for everyone. And we have found the more delicate a stamp is in its design the more likely you are to have soap pullout. One thing I had to remember is while it looks good on paper or on a rubber stamp it may not and probably won't look good as a soap stamp. Delicate design and soap stamps do not go hand in hand. I've found that out the hard way. Soap stamps are very much like tattoos.... in my experiece...the bigger the better. Simple really is best. Take a look at John's "portfolio" of soap stamps if you'd like to challenge that theory.
Stamps Ala John
Folks ask me if these stamps are really "that" hard to make. I wouldn't say they are hard to make but they ARE time consuming. When someone sends us artwork it's not just "OK...let's make this into a stamp and have it ready tomorrow". SO doesn't work like that. When we get the artwork we have to make sure it is BIG enough to work with. We need artwork that is roughly 5 to 8 times larger than the end result will be. This way John can do what he needs to do to make the stamped impression LOOK like the original image provided. This often means hours in Photoshop...
A) Filling in pixelated artwork
B) Making lines thicker so you can ACTUALLY see them in the impression
C) Redesigning the concept because it just won't work in the space provided.
D) Spacing words or lines apart a bit more so the bit will actually go through the lines of the image.
This is a funny one. I am learning how to spot images that will work AT FIRST GLANCE. When I get one that doesn't work I have to contain myself because I also thought EVERY image could be made into a soap stamp not too long ago.
E) You name it and we have attempted it in order to make a design work. But there are also designs that just flat out won't work. After getting repeat migraines and going cross-eyed we can spot them from the start.
This is why we ask that you do not request we design your stamp.
You KNOW what it is that you want.
You KNOW what you want the font to look like and you know what the overall concept should look like.
If you could either draw it out on paper and then scan it into a JPEG, PNG, BMP or related file extention and email it to us it would make things go much much smoother.
Telling us what word you want in a specific font is the same thing as asking us to design the stamp. That WILL add an additional $15 to the cost of your stamp simply because we prefer the customer to provide us with the artwork and we work from it.
Also...We do not have Microsoft Word. We use Open Office. Not really compatible which is why we like to work with JPG or similar file extensions.
We would like to have an image we can view without having to download. With all the viruses spreading like wildfire one can't be too careful.
Here is the blurb we have on our website and in the policies section of our Etsy page.
STAMPS STAMPS STAMPS!!!
PLEASE email me HERE for more information. I can not give pricing until the image has been sent and we see how much work is required. Thanks!<<<
Let's talk about stamps. Shall we?! So you heard we make custom and "standard offering" stamps and want one of your own. GOOD for you. Here's how you do it.
Standard stamps are anywhere from $13.95 to $19.95 depending on the size and detailing involved. Standard offerings can currently be found only on our Etsy . They are limited due to a huge amount of CUSTOM orders but will be expanded when time allows. 8o)
CUSTOM stamps are so so fun. We will GLADLY do a custom stamp for you. However...we do NOT design the stamp for you. That is your job. 8o) They start at $29.95 but may be more depending on the amount of work we have to do to it. The price of your stamp will go up if after you have approved your artwork and it is milled you decide changes need to be made. The first remill is an additional $10 and each additional milling will be in increments of $15. PLEASE communicate fully with us and understand the stamp design process before we mill it for you. This will save time, supplies and your funds.
We need quite a few things from You >>BEFORE<<>
1) Length and Width of your soap bar
2) H-U-G-E JPEG, GIF, PNG, PDF, BMP, TIF file of your image. We prefer a size of 5X7 or larger to avoid pixelation. Please be sure to not take a very small image and BLOW it up at this does not prevent pixelation but enhance it. We will resize it to the stamp size as we go. We also request that you, the buyer, design your own stamp before asking us to make one.
3) Tell us what the EXACT name of the font is and where we can find it for FREE IF we might need it to rework your image for any reason.
4) Give us an idea of how much space you wish your stamp to cover. Often times images are not well represented in a smaller stamp but an idea of what you have in mind is most helpful.
Larger is better. SERIOUSLY..SIZE DOES MATTER! The larger your stamp image the better it will look on your soap bar. However, we don't want to have it so large that is buldges out the sides of the soap bar so please be reasonable.
5) Be reasonable with the image you want for your stamp. The more detailed images may look great in a rubber stamp but not so great in a soap stamp. If you have an image that is highly detailed and requires a lot of impressing it will not work. For instance....if you wish to have a stamp of a daisy it is often better to do an outline and then color the inside with mica or soap paints. The fewer lines and impressions you have the better the outcome.
6) One thing everyone must remember is my DH does have an 8 to 5 job where he is not working on stamps or soap molds. This is what we call "paying the mortgage and providing food for the chillen's". He makes the molds, stamps, cutters and whatever else is requested in his off hours so it is possible he might be backed up from time to time. Please understand and appreciate this when placing an order with us. We will do our very best to be up front and honest with you regarding the turn-around of your item but life does happen and sometimes things are delayed a bit.
7) PLEASE have patience with us. Patience and communication are two key ingredients to your receiving a perfect for you soap stamp.
After all of that....my fingers are done. I hope this was informative, helpful and ammusing.
I will be taking pictures of John making a stamp from scratch on the cnc machine and will post those when time permits.
Ciao.
Let's see this is 2009 now....so.... it's been more than 5 years since I asked my dad to make my first soap mold. I had purchased many a mold before I asked him to make one. It was a log. My dad made about 15 molds for me in between the molds he made for customers and friends.
Then John took over. hehehehe....SUCKER! Depending on how one looks at it I suppose. John took over making the soap molds in early '08 and hasn't stopped. It's quite impressive to watch him work. I keep throwing him curve balls and he is right there throwing the product back in my face. Just last night, as we were getting covered in splinters from the plywood sheets we were ripping down, I saw a leftover piece and it clicked in my wee pea brain....DING! I have this awesome, little log that he made for me a couple of months ago. It's kewl. A pain in the arse to line but so fun to use. This "extra" piece of plywood would double the size of said mold and make it MUCH easier to line and work with. YEAH me....When time permits I shall have a new double row log. 8o))) Last night we also cut down a 10 ft PVC pipe for some round molds. I have a new batch of shaving soap curing now. 8o)))))
So why am I chatting about soap molds if the topic is stamps??? Well....erm...'cause I can! That's why. Geeez....can't a girl get off track once in a while!?
So John is a creative sort of guy and is always thinking of new ideas. A few years ago he thought of a product that required the use of a cnc machine. Well....anyone who knows anything about them knows they are NOT cheap (even the CHEAP ones aren't cheap). John did his thing and bought one. It's adorable.... in a geeky sort of way. He got really kewl software and played with it. Made mockups of the product he wanted to make and then started looking at soap stamps. Hehehehehehehehe......SCORE! He knew I wasn't happy with the stamps I had purchased and wanted to make me smile. Not to mention make some money to pay for the new shop we loaded our basement with. We have spent, literally, HUNDREDS if not thousands of hours working on stamp ideas and concepts. I really don't feel bad for asking him to make a stamp because........I love to see the twinkle in his eye when he has come up with an easier way to produce something magical. It's fun to watch him get frustrated with the software. To see him get irritated and then run the program and have the stamp come out better than expected is really kewl. I'll be browsing, chatting, making soap or whatever and hear his big ol' feet come up the stairs and he'll have this little plate in his hand and say "wanna see"!? Well DUH! We learned, not soon enough, to have a batch of soap just for him. Of course it looks like it has some sort of disease or something with being rebatched and all. It REALLY is ugly. I'll watch him go through the motions of stamping and then see the image on the bar and a smile fills the room. It's so fun. Of course I better have the camera close by because he loves loves loves to get pics of his art. I have hundreds of pics of stamped soap. I made a folder on flickr just for his stamps. When time permits we WILL be adding new stamps to Etsy. But....custom stamps always come first and those take up a lot of our "free" time....what little there is.
Folks always ask me about using our stamps and the best way to go about it. This is when I type....there is no set in stone method for stamping soap. Some use presses in order to get consistant pressure all around the stamp for the ideal impression. I say......NOT! To me..the whole idea is to stamp it old school style with a mallet and have complete control of it all. I have a few choice tools in my "bag o' tricks" that I absolutely can not live without.
Here is a small sampling of my "necessities". We have
a "fresh" cup o' joe with a touch too much creamer
a mallet (can be found at your local Lowes or Home Depot)
a wood block (I'm not kewl enough to have my stamps mounted on finishd oak blocks so I use these instead)
a brush of sorts....
Again you see the important things. My stamps are not blocked. Well the wurly curly is but that's all. Tooth picks help to get the stuck soap from around the smaller crevices of the stamps. The block is used on top of the stamp for stamping. The brush....I use it to coat the stamps with cooking spray. You would NOT believe how much easier it is to stamp with a lubed stamp. DON'T LAUGH...TRY IT!
Check it.....A can of OFF BRAND cooking spray, tooth picks, a brush (this is a highlights brush from Sallys ONLY because we had it on hand), you can use ANY type of brush. My "not playing around" mallet, COFFEE (always have coffee) and a selection of stamps. The basket is used to house my stamps, brush, toothpicks and block. And I have had to permanently mark the block with the word MINE on all sides. When folks stamp soaps these block go missing. Grrrrr.....
The Smiley was originally made to go wirh the beer soap I make. Then we got into beer with a backward R. I LOVE this stamp. It's definitely one of my favorite stamps. I use this one a lot.
My anhoki stamp is simple but I love it.
This kissing hand is another of my favorite stamps. Have you ever read the book The Kissing Hand? My Camryn's kindergarten teacher read it to the class on the first day and it was so very sweet. I had been wanting to make a kissing hand stamp for a while and never got around to it. As luck would have it I had a person come to me with a custom stamp request. One of the stamps she wanted had a kissing hand as part of the image. YEAH! That got the ball rolling for the idea of this stamp and the rest as they say........
The I love U stamp is an original by me. I made it because I thought it would be kewl for wedding soap, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, whatever. Simple and to the point.
No matter how many times a person tells you that you CAN NOT stamp salt bars....I am here to prove them WRONG! You CAN stamp salt bars and I do it all the time. You have to do it pretty soon after cutting them and they DO still need to be on the softer side. HOWEVER... you CAN do it too SOON. It comes with practice and you have to know your recipe too.
This DSM stamp is another fave. I love the Georgia font and how "phosisticated" it makes soap look. "Phosisticated is a vocabulary word that can be found under sophisticated in the dictionary. 8O) I cut this batch and let it set for about 6 hours and then stamped. This is a HARD batch so it worked out pretty well.
My NIG Kahuna salt bar stamped with the whurly curly. Gotta be quick with salt bars or they will crumble and crack.
What man doesn't think he is a "stud"? EXACTLY. Between this and beer....what oculd be better?!
This stamp was made for a challenge I did not long ago. Being a military brat we traveled a lot. We lived in Italy from '83 to '86. AWESOME!!!! I designed this stamp to reflect one of my favorite countried.
Well since you've seen the CORRECT ways to stamp soap let's now look at WRONG ways to stamp soap. This can happen to ANYONE at any time. Don't go thinking you are immune to mis-stamping. NO one is immune to a mis-stamp. You waited too long and the bar got too hard. You stamped too soon and the soft soap came out when the stamp did......Anything is possible. Get used to the idea that it can and will happen to you. This can ALSO happen if your stamp is too detailed and delicate.
This soap was too soft. It was only about a day after if was cut....this is a cpop batch with a 40% water discount.
Same exact thing with this one. Although I have since learned that this particular batch just doesn't like to be stamped. Period. It is a beer batch with a Sandalwood fragrance oil blend. This unfortunate mishap has happened twice. I won't be stamping this soap.
Hahahaha...OK....This is a double layer batch. Hard as a rock too. I ended up stamping this batch two days after it came out of the oven. It was good and hard and the problem was with the STAMPER and not the stamp or the soap. I tried to go back and stamp once it had set for a bit and misaligned it. NOT pretty.
TRICKS we have learned to make the stamping process go smoothly are.....
1) ALWAYS have a clean stamp. If you have soap crumbs on your stamp take a scrub brush and scrub them off or lightly wash the stamp. When I say LIGHT I mean LIGHT.
-Turn the water to a drizzle and barely get it wet.
-Use a scrub brush to lightly remove the soap from the stamp.
-IF you can't get the soap from the crevisses then you grab a tooth pick and pick it out.
-Don't get aggressive with your stamp because it could get aggressive with you and break. We don't want that.
Once it is clean take a towel and pat dry....yes..all the way.
2) Now you want to take that lovely brush of yours and spray a tiny bit of spray on both sides. THIS is what you use to get the oil on the stamp. You do NOT want to spray directly on the stamp. Brush the spray on evenly. Spraying directly on the stamp will result in a buildup of grossness and make the stamp too slippery to acutally stamp the soap. It could also damage the block.
3) Place the stamp in the desired location and grab your mallet.
4) Tap lightly and see what you've done. If you need to stamp more you can. You can't remove the impression once it's done but you can always restamp. It's like measure twice and cut once.....kinda.
5) I always have a toothpick close by. If you have impressed the soap and you have soap "boogers" left behind you can use the toothpick to remove them. This is also good for the more delicate stamps. You can carefully make the impression larger. IF you are brave enough.
6) Once my soap impression is to my liking I always take a paper towel and brush across the top to get whatever might be floating around off of it.
Now stamp away.
These are steps we have found that work for us. These steps won't work for everyone. And we have found the more delicate a stamp is in its design the more likely you are to have soap pullout. One thing I had to remember is while it looks good on paper or on a rubber stamp it may not and probably won't look good as a soap stamp. Delicate design and soap stamps do not go hand in hand. I've found that out the hard way. Soap stamps are very much like tattoos.... in my experiece...the bigger the better. Simple really is best. Take a look at John's "portfolio" of soap stamps if you'd like to challenge that theory.
Stamps Ala John
Folks ask me if these stamps are really "that" hard to make. I wouldn't say they are hard to make but they ARE time consuming. When someone sends us artwork it's not just "OK...let's make this into a stamp and have it ready tomorrow". SO doesn't work like that. When we get the artwork we have to make sure it is BIG enough to work with. We need artwork that is roughly 5 to 8 times larger than the end result will be. This way John can do what he needs to do to make the stamped impression LOOK like the original image provided. This often means hours in Photoshop...
A) Filling in pixelated artwork
B) Making lines thicker so you can ACTUALLY see them in the impression
C) Redesigning the concept because it just won't work in the space provided.
D) Spacing words or lines apart a bit more so the bit will actually go through the lines of the image.
This is a funny one. I am learning how to spot images that will work AT FIRST GLANCE. When I get one that doesn't work I have to contain myself because I also thought EVERY image could be made into a soap stamp not too long ago.
E) You name it and we have attempted it in order to make a design work. But there are also designs that just flat out won't work. After getting repeat migraines and going cross-eyed we can spot them from the start.
This is why we ask that you do not request we design your stamp.
You KNOW what it is that you want.
You KNOW what you want the font to look like and you know what the overall concept should look like.
If you could either draw it out on paper and then scan it into a JPEG, PNG, BMP or related file extention and email it to us it would make things go much much smoother.
Telling us what word you want in a specific font is the same thing as asking us to design the stamp. That WILL add an additional $15 to the cost of your stamp simply because we prefer the customer to provide us with the artwork and we work from it.
Also...We do not have Microsoft Word. We use Open Office. Not really compatible which is why we like to work with JPG or similar file extensions.
We would like to have an image we can view without having to download. With all the viruses spreading like wildfire one can't be too careful.
Here is the blurb we have on our website and in the policies section of our Etsy page.
STAMPS STAMPS STAMPS!!!
PLEASE email me HERE for more information. I can not give pricing until the image has been sent and we see how much work is required. Thanks!<<<
Let's talk about stamps. Shall we?! So you heard we make custom and "standard offering" stamps and want one of your own. GOOD for you. Here's how you do it.
Standard stamps are anywhere from $13.95 to $19.95 depending on the size and detailing involved. Standard offerings can currently be found only on our Etsy . They are limited due to a huge amount of CUSTOM orders but will be expanded when time allows. 8o)
CUSTOM stamps are so so fun. We will GLADLY do a custom stamp for you. However...we do NOT design the stamp for you. That is your job. 8o) They start at $29.95 but may be more depending on the amount of work we have to do to it. The price of your stamp will go up if after you have approved your artwork and it is milled you decide changes need to be made. The first remill is an additional $10 and each additional milling will be in increments of $15. PLEASE communicate fully with us and understand the stamp design process before we mill it for you. This will save time, supplies and your funds.
We need quite a few things from You >>BEFORE<<>
1) Length and Width of your soap bar
2) H-U-G-E JPEG, GIF, PNG, PDF, BMP, TIF file of your image. We prefer a size of 5X7 or larger to avoid pixelation. Please be sure to not take a very small image and BLOW it up at this does not prevent pixelation but enhance it. We will resize it to the stamp size as we go. We also request that you, the buyer, design your own stamp before asking us to make one.
3) Tell us what the EXACT name of the font is and where we can find it for FREE IF we might need it to rework your image for any reason.
4) Give us an idea of how much space you wish your stamp to cover. Often times images are not well represented in a smaller stamp but an idea of what you have in mind is most helpful.
Larger is better. SERIOUSLY..SIZE DOES MATTER! The larger your stamp image the better it will look on your soap bar. However, we don't want to have it so large that is buldges out the sides of the soap bar so please be reasonable.
5) Be reasonable with the image you want for your stamp. The more detailed images may look great in a rubber stamp but not so great in a soap stamp. If you have an image that is highly detailed and requires a lot of impressing it will not work. For instance....if you wish to have a stamp of a daisy it is often better to do an outline and then color the inside with mica or soap paints. The fewer lines and impressions you have the better the outcome.
6) One thing everyone must remember is my DH does have an 8 to 5 job where he is not working on stamps or soap molds. This is what we call "paying the mortgage and providing food for the chillen's". He makes the molds, stamps, cutters and whatever else is requested in his off hours so it is possible he might be backed up from time to time. Please understand and appreciate this when placing an order with us. We will do our very best to be up front and honest with you regarding the turn-around of your item but life does happen and sometimes things are delayed a bit.
7) PLEASE have patience with us. Patience and communication are two key ingredients to your receiving a perfect for you soap stamp.
After all of that....my fingers are done. I hope this was informative, helpful and ammusing.
I will be taking pictures of John making a stamp from scratch on the cnc machine and will post those when time permits.
Ciao.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
