Hand Ink Stamp Pencil and Note Holders

I ran across a box of old wooden handled hand stamps at the antique store here in town a year or two ago and they were so cheap I had to buy the whole lot. The actual stamp parts on most of them where gone, so it was a smooth surface, which gave me the idea of mod podging something onto the faces of them, and sitting them upright like a little piece of art for a shelf.

On some of them I applied pieces of old maps from an outdated atlas along with illustrations cut from old encyclopedias. I then applied phrases with bright letters cut from unused beer labels,
I found them on ebay and now have about 2000 of the things.


On others I attached some vintage fabric dye labels, another ebay score. They have everything on them from birds, pictured, to one that shows an Indian woman being mauled by a Tiger.
I supose that's what sold fabric dye in the 1800's.


This was a really simple and quick project but when I got done with them I was a little bothered by the fact that they really didn't have a purpose, they didn't seem to BE anything. So, I took them out to the garage. I drilled holes in some and made pencil / pen holders, and then I used looped wire on others to make business card / note holders. I like them much better now that each of them has a purpose, and they look pretty dang cool to boot.

Welcome to my world

What is Upcycling? ~ To put it simply, upcycling is taking something old and unusable and transforming it into something usable.

I have 4 recycled tote bins in my office closet filled with old paper. Seriously. My wife can't stand it. What's in there? Well, two nearly complete sets of encyclopedias from the 1920's to start. A 4 inch thick pile of printer plates from a book on wild flowers, at least 4 atlases, french poetry books from the late 1800's, lots of cuttings from different books and magazines, it's pretty crazy in there. And that's just the paper of course. Out in the garage I have about 40 11"x11" wood trays that were pulled from a handmade mechanic's tool locker. I've been turning them into valet trays, candle trays, etc.. And then you have the box of skeleton keys that are destined to become wind chimes, the door knobs that are now curtain hold backs, the old book leather that I like to use on lots of things, cigar boxes, old metal boxes, it's all pretty exhausting really.


But, each piece was bought with one purpose in mind. To make it into something else, something beautiful and/or usable. The books are all falling apart or stained so I have no issues with ripping pages out of them and reusing the covers for notebooks or journals. And everything else is just waiting to become part of something new. My wife's weaknesses are ironstone and mercury glass, but mine will always be paper, or ephemera as it's called in the collecting world.

As a way of purging some of my materials I am starting THE UPCYCLER. It will be an online reference site for others wishing to upcycle items and I will also sell items that I have re-purposed, and will throw in some vintage one-off items to boot. Paint by number Jesus anyone?

The main website will be www.theupcycler.com while the blog attached to it will be here. Please follow my blog, I will be adding pictures of newly upcycled items as often as my business, www.logodesign-webdesign.com, my wife, www.vintagejunky.blogspot.com, and my boy allow.

More soon ~ The Upcycler