We’ve been having so much fun around here. Half the roof had to be replaced. A rain storm happened in the middle of the roof replacement. The tarp didn’t work in one spot.
The water mess is mostly cleaned up now — mostly — but it has meant even less time in the studio. No studio time and lots of loud noise and lack of sleep makes for a grumpy Chipmunk.
I needed to get less grumpy. It was time for simple, mindless paper crafting and a small amount of studio decorating.
There’s one patch of unused wall above a drafting table. It’s too high and inaccessible for a shelf. I’d thought I might hang something decorative there, but had never gotten around to it.
If you scan something quite small, such as a postage stamp, at a high resolution you can turn it into something considerably larger with no loss of image quality. These stamps were scanned at their usual size at 3200 dpi, then resized to roughly 12 x 18″ at 300 dpi — perfect for printing on a 13″ wide printer.
I have a lot of stamps.
I love that a grumpy Chipmunk is a constructive Chipmunk – with such stunning results. A grumpy me is much (much) more likely to be destructive…
And I really hope that the roofing drama is now over. Completely.
Truth be told, the constructive bit was the polite part… ;-)
Alas, we will be having Roofing Pt 2 soon. The studio has had small leaks… alas. The thought of the kind of gushing intrusion of water we had during the roofing job happening also in the studio… makes me feel like a despondent Chipmunk.
They left a couple of ladders here (they’ll be back). I was in the house and suddenly heard someone climbing the ladder up the side of the house. The roofing crew was not here. I freaked. Then suddenly realized what was going on… I ran outside, “DOMINIC! KITTY KITTY!” Sure enough, who should appear way up at the top of the roof, screaming? He just wanted dinner. He climbed down. He likes ladders.
Of course Dominic likes ladders.
And good luck on Roofing Part 2.
Thanks. Sigh….
I’m so sorry to hear about your roof :( ican imagine the mess.
Those stamps are fabulous! They look amazing so big :)
Thanks, Birdie.
The stamps really are detailed–it’s like looking at them with a magnifying glass.
What a cool thing to do with cool stamps! Say, if you ever want to divest yourself of any stamps, I’m your gal!
I’ve been missing you. I won’t be at NorBAG this month, either (wasn’t there last month). Sorry about your roof problems, hope all is fixed soon!
Hope you’re well (as well as you can be) otherwise.
Hugs and xo
Thanks Connie. Are you looking for any kind of stamps in particular? I miss you too!
Oh, so sorry to learn about all the roof drama. But…but…I am finding it hard to get past that ‘shroom stamp. Russian.yes? I love it!
Geiger and Dom would be a dangerous twosome. When Peter was in the loft space I had to shinny up the ladder and stop her from going in there.(because she would have stayed there)
Isn’t that a glorious ‘shroom? Bulgarian, actually.
Dom would absolutely go into an attic loft if he had access. He’s going to be heartbroken when they take the ladders away. Just this morning I looked up from my coffee to see him nonchalantly walking back down the ladder. Unfortunately, he’ll be needing some serious dental work next week. It turns out he broke two canines in front. The vet thinks he hit his face against something. I almost wouldn’t be surprised if it was from coming down from a high place. Alas. I hope the girls are doing well.
Oh, no! What a PITA. Sorry you’ve been a grumpy Chipmunk. But what fab decor!! Not surprising that you came up with something clever…
You’re kind, Cranky. Thanks. Work is set to begin on the studio roof next week. I can hardly wait (she says, lowering her leaking eyes into her trembling palms). I found a picture of a Titanic stamp online. I could only print that one out to 8-1/2 x 11″, but it seemed so… appropriate, somehow.
The stamps look great! Surprising and just great. What a wonderful idea to have at such a distressing time. – Water! Ack! I would be freaking. Glad to hear at least the cats are enjoying it.
And what a surprise to see such a well organized wall in your studio, last time I caught a glimpse I had a different impression ;-) (http://paperchipmunk.com/?p=98)
Thanks Hilke. Water, ack!, indeed. Fortunately, it looked more alarming than it turned out to be. But it was, shall we say, a nuisance.
As for the studio, my, you have a long memory! You might notice that you are only seeing the wall and not the table in front of it. There’s a reason for that…
PS I just came across an old Canadian stamp celebrating the making of paper. I wish I had more wall space!
I understand the love of paper. New here, and sorry to hear of the water damage. A little creativity is needed, yes, to get back in the right frame of mind…
Greetings from Minneapolis,
Pearl
Thanks Pearl. It’s always a pleasure to hear from someone new. I appreciate the comment.
I see from your blog that our lives are both dominated by cats. My real purpose is actually not to be an artist, but to be a can opener.
Wow – I love the stamps – absolutely fabulous! Bummer about the roof and the water and the tarp – hope that things settle and you can get back into the making.
Thanks Fiona. The roof damage has been cleaned up (mostly). But we might be on to new adventures…now there might be a leaky pipe in a wall. SIGH. At any rate, thanks for stopping by!
Wow–you can scan a tiny postage stamp and print it large and hang it on the wall??? Who knew?? And what a fabulous idea. Thanks for sharing that.
Just make sure you do it at a very high resolution before resizing. I use 3rd-party scanner software that has a setting for this. I’m not sure how much control other programs let you have.
I confess, I do usually also clean them up a bit in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Some stamps tend to come out with a color shift. The blue ranges, especially, tend to come out more like purple, and Lightroom is excellent for correcting this. But, generally, yes, you can blow up a postage stamp without it becoming fuzzy if the resolution is high enough.
If you do decide to make some décor with stamps, I’d love to see ’em!