| March 2023 | Issue #9 |
 seeingstars.site 
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shipwreck.neocities.org 
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☘ Countdown to Valentines - All Petz adopted! Did you get a chance to snag one?
☘ WW Love Letter Exchange - Go check out all the Valentines Cards! 
Looking for stamps? Let me help!
☘ Oasis, Cyborg, DTRH, Medusa, Lemonade, and Filthy Hippie have monthly stamps. ☘ Stancy McKatt makes a stamp for every single one of her petz! ☘ Rebecca & Lyric have Stamps sales on WW. ☘ Check out Insanity Ranch for some Milestone Badge stamps to collect! |
For the Love of all Things Stamps | by Rebecca
Stamps! If you've been in the Petz Community for a hot minute, you've most certainly seen them! But what are they?  Stamps were first created and shared by Lu @ Beatnik on June 15th, 2016. They're small, mostly square graphics, coming in at just 99x95 pixels. As evidenced by the name, stamps look like postage stamps with a white border and rugged edges. The idea behind stamps, per Lu's post, was to make something in the PC other than petz to collect. This has been done before, with trading cards for example, though stamps are much smaller in size with less descriptive text. Yet, stamps have taken off the most. Even years later, you certainly can't avoid stamps in the PC. They're everywhere, as so so many people make and collect them. But what is it that makes stamps so popular; why do people love these little graphics so much? I personally find them to be addicting to collect, and enjoyable to make. They're small and simple after all! You can put whatever you want on them and it lets you contribute to the PC without increasing your petz count - a sentiment echoed by Megan@Xoops. "I love that they are something that I don't have to adopt," says Megan. "I love adopting petz too of course, but I do try to be picky and selective in my adoptions, but stamps, I can just go wild!" I wanted to get lots of community members' opinions on the matter overall, so I've asked several members, "Why do you love making/collecting stamps?" and received lots of great insights on the PC's love of stamps! Lu's original advertisement for stamps listed many ideas that stamps could be used for, and that has certainly come to fruition! I have seen freebie stamps, stamps sold on WW/PUGS, and I've seen them pop up in so many other places - As event prizes, competition prizes, website find-its, gifts, Valentine's cards, in advents, etc. The sheer variety of places you can find stamps, and the sheer flexibility regarding what one can make stamps for, definitely seems to be part of the charm! As Emmer put it, "it's an amazing way to draw people in and help them become more involved." I think Penny said it best when remarking that "they're so versatile!" When asking community members why they love stamps, a very popular answer was about, well, the community itself! As Asiyd put it, "Because it helps strengthen the bonds of the community. The community is the only reason PF Magic games are still alive, and stamps are a small thing people can create even if they have no hexing skills... Plus it allows us to be creative in ways that hexing doesn't allow." (continued on next page...) |
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 (Submitted by Bunni @ Funfetti) |
Stamp collecting would not be possible without the strong sense of community the PC has. I believe stamps have only strengthened the PC's bond, and as Megan said, stamps are "another thing that bring us together and gives us another way to participate in the community." Just as you couldn't trade real life Pokemon cards on your own, you need others to make stamp collecting fun! A variety of members make stamps in order for others to collect, and this cycle continues. The amount of stamps being created and shared is ginormous, as for why, it seems people enjoy making and sharing them, plain and simple. As Lyric puts it, "It makes me happy to spread something that gives such joy to others!" with Wapiti also saying, "To keep it simple, I like making stamps because it makes people happy, and they like collecting them." In a similar vein, many members enjoy collecting and making stamps in order to make little souvenirs and memories, regarding their time in the PC. Some people even only collect stamps tied to memories. Stamps from events are memories of having participated in a unique experience. Stamps with silly inside jokes on them remind people of their friends. "Collecting petz stamps is like collecting different pieces of the PC and bringing them together in a showcase," as put by Nyro. When interviewing members, Bird and Buck respectively said, "I enjoy collecting stamps that are either pretty or connected to a memory! That's also why I enjoy making special stamps for special occasions," and "I love making stamps because it gives me the choice to commemorate something. I often take inspiration from silly conversations with friends in the PC, or a big event that we're excited about... it's tons of fun to go back through them all and remember some really good times." One thing that must be said about stamps is that each and every single one is unique. Some people make stamps with colorful borders, others make gif stamps, and others use shapes other than square stamps! Several members have created stamp templates in the same style as the original, but in different shapes (e.g., rectangles, triangles, etc). People display their stamps uniquely as well. While many people display stamps next to each other, as they form a nice grid pattern, Amanda has uploaded stamp binder pages, so it can look as though you're displaying your stamps in a real binder! What makes stamps the most unique though, is each persons' graphic style, to the point that you can often tell who has made a stamp just by the color, frame, or font choices! |
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As Lyric and Wapiti say respectively, "Each one is unique and special, even similar themes or petz or color choices still have the stamp maker's unique spin on it," and "Everyone that makes stamps in the PC has their own style, which makes collecting them nice for the variety!" Each and every stamp is so unique that it's truly its own little piece of artwork. Megan sums it up nicely by sharing, "It's fun seeing everyone's stamp 'styles' and that everyone has their own preferences around creating, sharing, and collecting them, whether you're exclusive and only collect the ones you absolutely love, or a hoarder and have to collect as many as you possibly can." When discussing why she loves stamps, Penny wrote, "Just like the PC as a whole, stamps encourage creativity, customization, and curated collections of our favorite tiny pixels... Stamp makers create tiny and wonderful art pieces, and stamp collectors are patrons of tiny and wonderful art."  Megan finds stamps a wonderful creative medium when she doesn't have the energy to hex but needs to, "get out that need for creating." I was also surprised to learn that many people love collecting stamps as they remind them of their real life collecting! Stancymckatt likened them to real life stamps saying, "I used to collect real stamps years ago. I'm an artist, so I also love to make things. So collecting these fun little pieces of art in the shape of stamps, and making them as well, felt like a natural progression," with Emmer writing, "I love collecting and trading stamps because I actually enjoy collecting several different items in real life." Victorian Cyborg likened stamps to other online collectibles, "They remind me of when I was a kid decorating my pages and forum signatures with blinkies, dollz and cliques." All in all, "they're tiny pieces of art!" writes Lyric. |
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I could go on and on about the reasons people told me they love making and collecting stamps. But one final major reason was that stamps allow you to spotlight and showcase individual petz. Some people make stamps for every single pet, as Stancymckatt does on her crew pages. ParanoiaPaige does something similar, making a stamp for each of her show petz that reaches SGCh, writing "I particularly love making stamps of my SGCh petz to commemorate their show journey and to show them off all over the web!...I think it's a unique way to show off all our special petz so they can get the recognition they deserve!"  As for spotlighting petz, some members spotlight a monthly pet on their website via posting a monthly stamp. Says Nyro, "I also love all the adorable petz often seen on stamps." It certainly seems people love these little collectibles with their beloved petz on them, as Wapiti writes, "The best stamps, I think, are the ones where other users allow me to use their petz pix for it. The user themselves may not be a stamp maker, or be able to afford one in a shop, so to get a stamp with a pet special to them on it? It's a nice thing to be able to do."
When interviewing people about why they love stamps, I couldn't help but ask Shade about other Petzy graphic collectibles. On Nightshade's, Shade has a page called, "Petzaphernalia" archiving all the different collectible graphics the PC has had like trading cards, quilt patches, Petzies, and more. But why is it that stamps have seemed to gain the most traction? Shade had a very thoughtful answer, about how stamps can be made by anyone of any skill level, with their small size and the ability to make them complex or simple. Plus they aren't too large to display hundreds of them on one page. As for why we see more stamps than Petzies or petz trading cards (PTCs), "I think Stamps do so much better than the other two because PTCs are harder to display," as PTCs are larger and, "Petzies aren't as hard to make but most people want them as a personal or unique pet. Not a collection. So while there are freebies around, they don't get collected. People want the petzie that is a representation of their special pet not someone else's pet. And they aren't always collectible because sometimes people want to keep that special pet petzie unique to them alone." Shade also writes that they believe stamps specifically took off as many other graphics didn't have templates, and I can certainly see how stamps having a template makes them easier to get into! 
So go out and make your own stamps or save some you found on your favorite petz website! The love of stamps comes from many things: a sense of community, the love of collectibles, the ability to spotlight your favorite petz and memories, and so on. Take it from Arie as she writes, "From the petz themselves to things like trading cards and cliques, the PC thrives on creativity and collect-ability. Stamps are wonderfully low-threshold in both aspects. All it takes to collect them is saving the images... I really like being able to take something as small as a random picture or phrase, and being able to turn it into a quick, small keepsake people will enjoy." As a thank you for reading this article, why don't you take some stamps to go? The following webpage consists of the full-length quotes from all the lovely members quoted in the article. Some of them even donated stamps for you to collect! | |
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 check out some new sites - new downloads - adoptions - and more! If you would like your new content featured here, e-mail xoops@fantazzled.com |
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☘ Mar 11, 2021 - Hazy's Birthday, owned by Kathleen@Alohomora
☘ Mar 12, 1999 - Ralph's Birthday, owned by ECRose@Mythic Silence