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The Old Island Stamp Company

May 8, 2003

	STAMP DRAW WINNER: We are pleased to announce the latest winner in our stamp draw is Thea Phillips of Richmond, British Columbia. As many of you know I throw a dart at the list of entrants to pick a winner for the stamp draw. It was a very random effective way to do it. However, I have to tell you I have finally retired the dart. I went out to pick the winner for this contest and I must have thrown 30 times and I still did not have a conclusive winner! I was generally hitting the target, but the hits were always between names. So, I went into the help files on my computer to figure out how to have the computer generate a random pick. When I had it figured out, I just push a key and bingo number 28, Thea Phillips was the winner. It was so civilized and high tech! No more standing in the cold and drizzle trying to hit the target. The new draw is ready to go. The prize is a couple of Jodene Kilner's new mariner images, the Compass 486-C and the Anchor 488-C. Good luck in our new and improved high tech stamp draw!
	AROUND THE STUDIO: For those who have not been to our studio before, we have a bit of a nature walk from the road into the studio. It is probably about a couple of hundred feet long (60.96 meters). Well, the daffodils along the path are pretty much gone already, but there are about six different wild flowers blooming. The most prevalent are beautiful purple patches of Springbank Clover. As I look at Mother Nature's display of all these colourful spring flowers, our heartfelt sympathies :) go out to all our stamping friends in Alberta this May. I suppose the silver lining is that being snowbound anytime of year gives you lots of time for stamping! I imagine that a lot of you probably already have this year's Christmas cards done! Well, the Saturday Market on Salt Spring has begun for another season. So far we have had four miserable Saturdays, weatherwise, but business has been very good. Also, it has been nice to get out of the woods and mix with some of my fellow human beings again. For those of you who have never experienced the Saturday Market, it is a real Gestalt experience; much greater than the mere sum of its parts. There is a great feeling of energy in the Market. There is the unbelievable creative energy of about 150 Island artisans. (I know I have become biased, but it is hard to believe there is anywhere on earth where there are more talented creative people per capita than on Salt Spring Island.) Then you mix in the energy of hundreds and on many Saturdays thousands of visitors, who are in a lay-back holiday mode...relaxed and open to having good time. Then there is the music, colour, the sunshine....well, you get the idea. I love it! For six years we have been 'day vendors' at the Saturday Market. This means that we were assigned a space in which to set our booth each week on the basis of seniority. I know lots of people missed us through the years, because they could not find where we were set-up. Well, all that has changed this year. We finally made it to the top of the seniority list and have been given a permanent space in which to set-up. It is a wonderful spot right in the middle of the Market. The market is "L" shaped, and we are right where the two long rows come together to form the "L". It is very easy to find, and our stamps are shaded by a beautiful spreading oak tree. Our little business must be getting established, because we experienced another milestone since the last newsletter: We have now registered more than 50,000 hits on our website! We set it up in March of 1998. I know it took us five years to get to 50,000, but we are very very pleased with the results. We would like to reward those who by ordering stamps from us over the Internet helped us get this far . Because of those orders we were encouraged to continue to build the site and put energy into it. I thought about a special discount for anyone who has ordered from us in the past, but that is more like an inducement to buy more stamps. I want it to be a real thank you gift, but I obviously cannot do that for everyone. So, we decided on a special draw for a $50 gift certificate for the people who have ordered from us in the past. We have all of those people in our computer going back to the beginning about 8 years ago. If you have ordered from us before, either with a mail-order form or by e-mail over the Internet, just send us a quick e-mail and asked to be put into the special draw......Oh, let's do both; We will also give an additional 10% discount over and above our usual volume discounts to all previous Internet/mail-order customers. Thank you! (Last medical up-date: I returned the crutches to the hospital! I am walking. Life is good...but no more tennis! I am going to try to act my age from now on!)
	MARGARET'S MUSINGS: If you have had an opportunity to see our display at anytime over the past few years, you would have seen sample cards by our friend Margaret Appleton. Margaret is always trying something new, and comes up with some great effects with our stamps. She has agreed to write a short piece for each newsletter on stamping in general and on techniques slightly beyond the basics. Here I am again to talk about the shadow stamp--- that multi purpose stamping tool. It can be used as a reverse image stamp (see last newsletter) but can also be used as a most wonderful background---single or multi colour, single or multi layer, plain, textured or patterned. Here are some ideas for achieving the above results with your shadow stamp. Each of these backgrounds would then have an image of choice stamped on top of it (using either a deep rich colour for emphasis or a soft colour for a subtle look) and perhaps a frame of colour placed around it. Multi colour- Ink part of surface with one colour and then apply other colours to other parts of the surface. It looks great when you use a second darker colour to touch around the edges or apply stripes of sunset colours. It is also interesting when you apply colour in a random fashion. Multi layer- Ink large surface with one colour and stamp. Ink smaller surface with same or new colour and stamp on first stamped shadow. Stamp to one side of the image or stamp so that part is off the first stamping. Try turning the second stamp- slightly or enough that it will make a diamond shape on the first. You can continue to do this for as many layers as you want. Textured or Patterned- Ink surface. a) Pat lightly with scrunched up Saran Wrap to remove some ink and leave a texture. OR b) Touch inked surface to a piece of corrugated cardboard. This will remove some ink so that the stamping will have stripes. OR c) Use a different coloured pad to "draw" designs on inked surface before you stamp with it. OR d) Use a clean, uninked stamp and stamp on the inked surface. That will remove some ink and make an interesting image when stamped. Once you start to play with the shadow stamp there will be no stopping you. Happy Stamping.

STEVE'S PICK OF THE MONTH: I have decided to feature one of our "Old Island Classics" as a 'stamp of the month' each month. The stamp will be available to you at half price with a minimum order between Stamp Draw dates. This month's Old island Classic Stamp of the Month is the Three Butterflies 215-B.

THE WEBSITE: I have added seven new stamps to the Latest Images page. There are four new Emily Hull images, including the winning Cow from the two which were on the Drawing Board, and Jodene Kilner has three new mariner images.

Stars and hearts are our most popular images, so I tried to use both to form concentric hearts out of tiny stars. I am not convinced, but see what you think. It is on the Drawing Board.

I have also up-dated the Discontinued Stamp page to reflect what we still have in stock. Please, check it before you order.

We have also updated our printed catalogue, which you can download from the website. The new catalogue is "leaner and meaner". We have taken out the 50 discontinued stamps and added about 30 new ones which will be introduced on the website over the next couple of months. (So, if you just cannot wait to see the new ones, you can print them off now.) We have also consolidated the images more on each page. As a result, our new catalogue is a mere 34 pages of images! The catalogue is of course FREE! Please, note there is one catalogue for printing and one catalogue for viewing on-line. The printing catalogue is no good for viewing (way, way too slow), and the viewing catalogue is no good for printing (the images will not print in their actual size or clarity). So, make sure you use the right one for your purposes.

Just a reminder that we have discontinued fifty more stamps from our line. I have re-opened the Discontinued section of the On-line Catalogue, and moved all of these newly discontinued stamps there. We offer the discontinued stamps at half price with a minimum order for as long as they last (This means you cannot order just discontinued stamps). They are 50% off, however the volume discount will not apply to discontinued items. Also, please note that all of the discontinued stamps will be available at our studio, and that the unmounteds will sell there for $1 each!!

Happy Stamping!

Steve Mueller