"craft it forward" :)

About a week ago while I was wandering around on Twitter, a tweet from @dudecraft caught my eyes. It was like this, "Crafters, please participate and RT: http://tinyurl.com/d6r4oo". I clicked on the link and then became intrigued by this secret Santa in March project. For one thing, I love keeping my hands busy: drawing, paper cutting, sewing, cutting, gluing... For another, it always feels nice to pass along warmth to others with the thing I made. After one day of consideration, I wrote my application to Paul.

Then on March 7 I received this email with the information of my "makee"--a Vancouver guy who loves bicycling and am about to be a dad. Not sure what to make, I saw the two pieces of brand-new eraser sitting on my desk--"I can try to carve a eraser stamp!" Things didn't go well at first; I didn't have the transfer paper with me, and I didn't own a proper knife for carving either. Then I said to myself, "Come on! I am a left-handed. I can draw reversed images!" and I just went for it.

The drafting turned out to be quite OK. How about the carving? Well, the two stamps were a bit rough looking; I didn't do a very good job with curves and dots. Anyways, at least the images were intelligible. (I was soooo happy when I tried out the new-carved stamps and saw the clear images!)

In addition to the rubber stamps, I also made the box to put those stamps in. Making the box was another challenge; I spent quite a long time working with it. The gift box turned out to be very satisfying--my boyfriend: "I love the box!!!!!!" and he didn't say anything about the stamps. :P

Tonight I packed the whole thing together, along with a supposed-to-be-short note--it was, uh....kind of long. Seeing how this craft it forward project was formed from the very beginning--two small erasers, a plain cutter, a pair of scissors, and some pieces of paper--to the wrapped-up package waiting to be sent tomorrow, I feel really content. Yeah, it is always nice to work with my hands, put some care and good will into the object, and give it to someone. :)