It’s hard to believe that it has been a whole year since we lost our founder, Emily Block. Our Emilybella. Da Bella. ForeverBella. Time is such a strange thing. It feels like such a long time, and also like no time at all.
I hope she would be proud of us all for keeping Stamping Bella going over the past year, and for continuing the Sistahood she loved so much. I think she would be. It hasn’t been easy, there have been lots of tears, and a steep learning curve for me personally taking on many of the tasks Emily performed, especially without Emily there to help, or to receive and return ranty messages in ALL CAPS. I spend a lot of time sending her ranty messages in my head. It helps.
I miss her immensely, as I know that so many do. For me at least, Stamping Bella gives me a sense of connection to her. I hope it does that for others too. She remains very much at the heart of everything we do. When our illustrator and I work on creating images to become stamps my first thought is always “What would Emily say about this?” Sometimes the responding thought makes me laugh out loud. Thankfully we both worked on images with Emily for so long that we have a good idea how she would feel about them. She would love the stamps we have released this past year, and she would be so excited about those we have coming in future releases.
Emily LOVED rubber, or rubbah as she would say. She loved inking up our beautiful blue rubbah with a juicy (joosy) ink pad and feeling the impression of the stamp on the paper. She wanted to share the joy that sparked with the world, and she did just that.
Thank you so very much to all of you for continuing to support Stamping Bella, and for continuing to create and share wonderful things featuring our stamps, keeping that joy alive. It always meant a lot to Emily, and it still means a lot to the whole team, and to her family and friends.
MWAH!
Elaineabella