stinkerpants design

Random story: At my bridal shower, we played a really fun version of 20 Questions, during which we watched Y reveal the 20 Answers on a videotape.  I proved that I am a very good listener by answering most of the questions correctly.  One of the ones I got wrong, though, had to do with Y’s childhood pastimes.  I was asked what Y’s first collection was.  The answer (I thought) was very clearly “baseball cards,” as we’d discussed his baseball card collection numerous times and I’d even seen them.  The correct answer, however, was “stamps.”

Stamps?! I had never heard Y so much as mention a stamp, let alone reveal that he had collected them.

I (obviously) got that question wrong, but to this day maintain that he never told me he collected stamps.  Thus, not my fault.

One day, I was looking through the loads of crap we have in our storage area (I am forever trying to clean that place out) when I ran across a box of–you guessed it–stamps.  I showed Y and asked him what he planned to do with them.  He said they weren’t worth anything, so I should throw them out.

The man knows me well.  I don’t like keeping useless crap around, and I will almost always make a good case for deeming items (including my own items) “useless” or “crap,” or sometimes a combination of the two.  He knew I’d be happy to get rid of something else.

However.

I am not going to force my darling husband to get rid of his first real collection!  It obviously must have some sort of sentimental value!  I can’t be an advocate for getting rid of something meaningful!  Not only is that cruel, but it’s a recipe for future resentment.  I try to steer clear of those types of recipes (well, recipes in general, who am I kidding?).  So I decided to turn his childhood stamp collection into something he’d be able to admire every day: a piece of art.

And thus began the massive project that became his 32nd birthday gift.

The first step was Sorting.  The sorting process took hours, but I was able to do it in front of the TV during Periods of Work Avoidance, over the course of a couple of months.  Not too painful.   I sorted the stamps by color and got to see what I was working with.  There were a lot of very colorful, awesome stamps.  Unfortunately, the majority of them were still stuck to envelopes.  I already had a plan for my project, and the stamps couldn’t be attached to envelopes.  Drat.

…which leads us to the second step: Detaching.  I gathered several bowls and dishes in our kitchen and filled them up with hot water.  Color by color, I submerged the stamps and let the hot water dissolve the adhesive.  The stamps then came off the paper relatively easily.

From there, I let the stamps dry on cookie sheets (or sometimes the granite countertop) and recycled the envelopes.  This process took FOREVER, and there were stamps EVERYWHERE.  I was beginning to see that I’d gotten myself into a project FAR bigger than I’d anticipated.

I developed a new routine, during which I became very thankful that I work from home.  I worked for a few hours, then took a half-hour break to peel dried stamps off the countertops and submerge a new batch.

Once I had all of the stamps sorted and detached from the envelopes, it was time for the actual project, which by comparison took about 10 minutes.  In reality it took almost an entire day, but what’s that compared with months of preparation?  At any point during this project I might have had the wherewithal to quit.  However, I really thought Y would appreciate this, so I labored on (slight dramatization, for effect).  I will also admit that it’s hard to give up when you’ve already dedicated hours to something and don’t have a final product to make it all worth it.

Anyway, so I had all of my dry and detached stamps sorted in plastic baggies according to color, and I was ready to start gluing.  I bought a nice frame at Michael’s (they were 50% off, as usual) and got to work.

Genius as I am, I forgot to take a picture of the work-in-progress.  I’m sure you can imagine what it looked like, though.  There was glue.  And a lot of stamps spread out all over our dining table.

This is the finished product, drying.  As you can see, I arranged the stamps according to color, then glued them down.  When you view it from far away, it just sort of looks like a bunch of color.  But close up, you can check out some really cool artwork (and by “really cool artwork,” I mean the artwork on the stamps, of course).

How beautiful are these?!  Seriously, these put the Forever Stamp to shame.  I really wish the post office would stop pushing those–or at least come out with more than one ugly liberty bell design! Looking through this collection, which included stamps from Hong Kong, Pakistan, the UK and more, I really gained an appreciation for stamps.  They’re pretty awesome, actually.

And the finished, framed project.  Unfortunately, I only used about a quarter of his stamp collection.  I cannot bring myself to throw the rest of them away, though!  It took me hours to sort and detach all of them…I guess I should have thought about how many I would realistically use.  I can see at least a few more really awesome projects coming out of them.  But really, how many art pieces made from stamps does one couple need?  We’re not even into stamps.

Y was really impressed with it, which was very gratifying.  After all of the sweat (there were no tears or blood, I’m happy to say), I can honestly say I’m glad I did it.   That’s love, right?  And dedication.

Or maybe just insanity?