owl papercraft (and wee giveaway!)

**I wrote this post (including the disclaimer just below) over a month ago. It's _so_last_season_ now, but I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway, and the Reuben's-birthday-from-afar giveaway is still good, too, even a month late. One week for entries; drawing on the 14th!)**

(Nathan cleaned up our computer last week to help it run faster and accidentally deleted something that makes my photo editing software work. Photos when I figure that out or switch to something else--Picasa?. Decision and work pending; I need my beauty sleep.*) *kind of a joke but we're having family photos tomorrow and I look old just now.

Last week was full of Fall Festival; this week is full of Halloween and another one of those Philadelphia trips (regular follow-up visits for my medical kids). I realized yesterday that my October buffer was OVER and a week from tomorrow is baby boy's second birthday.

We're so excited he made it this far (cancer, begone!). So delighted to have him with us (love child!). His toddler-ness is exhausting me, but I'm living out the cliche and fully panicked that he's growing up and leaving that behind. I'm currently on a mad search for a plain green hoodie, so dropping in on lots of baby boy clothing zones and those infant sleepers and soft little knits are pulling at my heart strings.

We're having a celebratory birthday open house, owl-themed, and today was the papercrafting day. I pretend not to like all the expensive scrapbook-related paper gadgets, but went crazy with Becci's cuttlebug for most of the day

First, owlish invitations: I have a giant roll of brown kraft paper, and trimmed sheets to run through my printer and then crank through the cuttlebug. It was good fun for both Reuben and I.I succumbed to the temptation of the embossing power and made a fat pile of little gift tags for Christmas. They are lovely and it was fun and it took a lot of time. Sorry, birthday party. Sorry, laundry.I was also very excited to carve a little owl stamp. With Marian's guidance, I worked on owl sketches while we waited in various doctor offices on Monday (a Philadelphia follow-up day), and chose the most cheerful one. I've carved a few stamps before (here, and more recently), and while it's not a major talent of mine, it's a satisfying and versatile little project that I recommend. A very pretty tutorial here.

sketches
transferring the design (place a pencil drawing face down on the eraser block surface and pencil-rub the back)
carve, then...
sample stamping!
mounted on disk (the reverse, stamped size is SO CUTE, but unphotographed. Too bad for you). These little owl thank you notes will be in 3x4" bags, ready to hold our party craft: acorn owls, of course!. I wrote a little "thank you!" inside in brown ink to match the owl, with a block R in his favorite green on the back. I designed them so they work as thanks-for-coming notes from us, but can still later be re-used/personalized/passed on by the recipient.Happy birthday to Reuben! As a celebratory gesture, I'd like to give away a wee owl set:
* 6 wee owl thank you notes
* 2 wee wooden disks, stamped in brown ink with my cheery owl
* 1 acorn owl

It's kind of awesome.

Comment below with a why-Reuben-is-amazing sort of sentence or two and I'll randomly choose a winner. If I don't already have it, leave me an e-mail address so I can contact the winner.