Last month, I received a package of YNS stamps from Karen. I had no idea what was in the package. I vaguely remembered a message in the design team forum about signing up for stamps for an upcoming release, but I was a$$ deep in alligators at that moment with finals, the holidays, etc., so I blew it off. After all, I figured, I’m not full-time on the design team. With YNS, I am the stamping equivalent of permanent guest star on a television show; I write my monthly CCC posts, and do a little designing here and there, as time permits. It’s an awfully sweet gig, I’ve gotta say.

So, anyway, I get this package of stamps, and of course, it’s full of wonderful purple rubber and dies. Manna from heaven! Upon closer inspection, though, I spy an image for which I have gone on record MULTIPLE times regarding my ambivalence. Yes, my friends, I see an… elephant. Karen had sent me the Special Delivery set from Jenny Suchin’s new line of stamps.

Now, ordinarily, I’m thrilled with any new YNS stamps I receive because – let’s face it – they’re all adorable. And it’s not that Special Delivery isn’t cute. It’s just that in the U.S., elephants are a symbol of the Republican party, and I am a Democrat with a capital “D.” Seriously. My children are named Truman and Carter (after the 33rd and 39th Presidents, both Democrats), and my husband is the minority leader (and thus a Democrat) of the Oklahoma State Senate. In other words, we are more political than your average bears, and thus, I generally eschew anything with an elephant motif.

That doesn’t mean I avoid having anything to do with Republicans, mind you. After all, I live in the reddest of red states. Oklahoma is the only state in the union in which the majority of people in every single county voted for John McCain, the Republican candidate, in the the 2008 Presidential election. If I refused to be friends with people based on their political views, I’d be a pretty lonely gal. Really and truly, some of my best friends are Republicans. Bless their hearts… 😉

I realize most stampers are able to overlook the whole elephant/donkey thing. (Donkeys are the symbol of the Democratic party, by the way. I could tell you the whole story behind the animal symbolism of the U.S. political party system, but frankly, it’s not that interesting; here’s a link that explains it, if you really want to know.) Then again, most stampers haven’t had to knock on strangers’ doors in 100+ degree heat and beg them to vote for their husbands. To get into my head on this issue, look at it this way: think of where you went to high school or college. Now, think about your alma mater‘s main rival. Would you ever wear a tee-shirt emblazoned with your rival’s mascot? Of course not. The only way an Oklahoma Sooner would be caught dead wearing the orange and black logo of Oklahoma State University is if he or she lost a bet.

Being a Canadian, I’m sure Karen didn’t have a clue about my elephant idiosyncrasy until the moment she read this post. I actually considered mailing the stamp set back to her and explaining why it wasn’t for me, but that seemed a bit silly, and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to support the launch of Jenny’s line. So last week, when I sat down to stamp something for the YNS/Jenny Suchin blog hop, I had a dilemma on my hands. Should I just make a baby card and ignore the political implications I imbued the stamp with, or should I stamp it like I saw it? Well, you know me: if there’s an elephant in the room, I have to acknowledge it…

I figure I will send this card to one of my favorite Republicans, our longtime babysitter, Larami, who just went back to college after taking a semester off to recover from back surgery. She is absolutely dear to my family, and we think of her as one of our own. Even though she’s a political science major and a proud member of the University of Arkansas College Republicans. Larami will love this card, precisely because she will know how conflicted I must have felt making it. I will definitely recommend she frame it. I know all handmade cards are one-of-a-kind, but this one really is. I can guarantee the likes of it will never be seen again.

You Republicans in the audience don’t have it as bad as us Democrats. For whatever reason, elephant images are everywhere, and have some how become associated with babies. Elephant stamps are inexplicably ubiquitous. Donkey stamps, on the other hand, are as rare as hen’s teeth. Fortunately, though, Karen and YNS happen to have a donkey in their catalog, so I was able to give equal time to the Ds:
I used the So Sorry Donkey image to create this Yankee Doodle Dandy, and colored him in with Copic markers. I created the donkey logo background paper by copy-and-pasting the logo into a Word document, reducing it, and then copy and pasting the reduced size over and over again. I printed the document out with a color printer onto white card stock – easy peasy!

Here’s a close-up of Mr. Donkey, so you can see the coloring a little better:
You can see where I added some strokes with a gray colored pencil to give his fur a bristle-y look, and to give him a spiky forelock. Isn’t he a cutie?

What about you? Are there any images you stay away from? What’s your reason? We all have our biases, and I’d like to feel like I’m not the only weirdo around here. Leave me a comment and let me know, and you just might be able to do a little bi-partisan stamping of your own for FREE! Everyone (regardless of political affiliation 😉 ) who comments on this post by 12:00 a.m. EST of January 25th will be entered into a random drawing to win the Special Delivery and So Sorry Donkey sets!

You know one of the things I love about stamping? It transcends politics. Get two stampers in a room together, and the last thing they’re going to talk about is an election. THANK GOODNESS!

See you next month on the 18th!

xo – Carole