PenPatterns for the Holidays

Here's a fun card for this weeks Stampendous theme, PenPattern Seasons. Over on their blog they'll be sharing these adorable designs by Fran Seiford. Check back on there every day for new inspiration from the design team.

It's moose time! LOL Love this guy trying to balance all those gifts! It certainly looks like how I feel about the last few items on my shopping list. I was just informed I had more days until Christmas than I thought. Whew! It helps when you flip over the calendar to December.

So here's this quick card for today.

Supplies:

From Stampendous:
PenPattern Moose
Holiday Words Perfectly Clear Stamps
Memento™ Tuxedo Black Ink by Tsukineko®

Plus:
Santa Express Paper Pad by Doodlebug Designs®
White Cardstock by Neenah®
Green and Kraft Paper Studio®
Alcohol Markers by Copic® (E15, E37, E44, E47, R20, R24, R29, B21, BV01, G14, YG23, YG25, Y11, Y18, V93)
Zip-Dry Paper Glue by Beacon Adhesives®

Instructions:

1. Stamp PenPattern Moose onto white cardstock with Tuxedo Black ink and color (See supplies for Copic markers colors used).
2. Mat with green cardstock.
3. Make a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch card base. (A tent card is shown, but you can change to a right side opening card.)
4. Cut a pattern paper from the Doodlebug Designs pad to fit inside the front of the card base.
5. Glue matted PenPattern Moose onto card base.

Add your holiday paper projects to the Stampendous Monthly Challenge. If you have posted a holiday theme project anywhere online you can link it up to this challenge. No purchase required and even though we like to see Stampendous used it's not necessary to enter. Official Rules here, Add your projects right now!

Details:
Stamps: PenPattern Moose, Holiday Words (Stampendous)
Paper: Santa Express (Doodlebug), Kraft and green cardstock (Hobby Lobby), White cardstock (Neenah)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko), Alcohol markers (Copic)
Accessories: NA

Flappings in the Night

Hello crafters and passersby! It's time I finally get a post up on my blog, right? {insert smiley face}. There have been loads of things going on in my house and I'm not talking about my laundry. So many wonderful and fun things, but they have kept me from my creative time nonetheless.

Anyway, I'm glad to be here today sharing a card for the Stampendous "Gone Batty!" Theme Week. Stampendous has a few bat stamps in the July Catalog and they are coming out of the cave for a fly by on a few designers blogs this week. Two of those nocturnal mammals have stopped here.

To see more Gone Batty! projects from the design team head on over to the Stampendous Blog today.

Supplies:

from Stampendous:
N259 PenPattern Bat Cling Stamp
SCC1207 Halloween Diamonds Perfectly Clear Stamps
H309 Halloween Wish
CP811 Creative Palette Monoprinting Plate
Onyx Black Versafine Ink Pad by Tsukineko®
Versamark Watermark Ink Pad by Tsukineko®

Plus:
White Sulphite Paper by Pacon®
Green and Gray Cardstock by Bazill Basics® Paper
Opaque White by Copic®
Zip-Dry by Beacon Adhesives®
Acrylic Paints by DecoArt®
Slo-Dri Medium by Liquitex®
Brayer by Speedball®

Instructions:

1. Create background paper by spreading acrylic paints on the Creative Palette Monoprinting Plate. (Add a few drops of Slo-Dri Medium if the paint seems to dry quickly.) Set aside to dry.
2. Stamp PenPattern Bat onto gray cardstock with Versamark Watermark ink and sprinkle Midnight Black Embossing Powder over it. Tap off excess and heat set the powder.
3. Cut out the PenPattern Bat and set aside.
4. Stamp the small bat from Halloween Diamonds onto the cut background paper in one of the corners, stamp off two or three times in a random pattern before dabbing with new ink.
5. Stamp Halloween Wish with Onyx Black ink in the opposite corner.
6. Glue to card base.
7. Glue on the PenPattern Bat with Zip-Dry glue.

Playing with my Kiddos

It's a great day when I get to just play with my kiddos. A couple of days ago we sat at the kitchen table and played with SargentArt Terracotta clay. They made whatever they wanted as long as I got to tell them all the different ways you could cut, smoosh, dent, texture, roll and pinch the clay. I'd say that's a win-win.

Well, today I'm sharing another Kiddo I loved playing with from Stampendous. It's Kiddo Sandcastle. A very sweet little girl that hasn't quite been on the beach long enough to acquire that red glow. Amazing she already has a castle built with a moat!

The image, Kiddo Sandcastle, is all colored with Copic Markers using blending, stippling and "erasing" with a colorless blender. There are lots of fun ways to use the Copic Markers for texture.

Did I mention yet there is another Copic Marker Class at Inspiration Boutique? It's the first Saturday of July, the 6th. Come and figure out what Copic Markers are all about and then you can use the store set any time with a reservation.

Details:
Stamps: Kiddo Sandcastle (Stampendous), Party Invite (Stampendous) 
Paper: white and kraft cardstock, Cantalope (Bazzill), Confetti (American Crafts)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko)
Accessories: May Arts ribbon, corner chomper (We R Memory Makers)

STAEDTLER and Stampendous Blog Hop

 It's the grande finale hop today. I've so enjoyed using STAEDTLER fine art supplies to color my Stampendous images. Thank you to our coordinators April and Laura for creating such a wonderful week of great inspiration.

It's so great that there are prizes! Oh yeah. Feel free to check out the details below so I can get right to my sample share.

My project today is a quick one. I stamped the Jumbo Calla Lily stamps on mixed media paper and then stared at it for bit. I grabbed two chalks and created the foundation colors. Then I lightened up the petals some more with a lighter color. I switched to the Ergosoft watercolor pencils and added greens to the stems and blues to the background. I did add some scarlet to the centers of the flowers. Now then, I had in my package a few graphite pencils and pigment liners to use so I just started doodling around the flowers. This is too big for a card, but I think it will be a great little framed piece I'll keep in my studio to brighten my day. :)

The Stampendous prize package will include one prize package per day (total of 5 packages) from those folks commenting on our bloggers that day. Our package will include SSC1171 Hot Air Scapes Perfectly Clear Stamps and our SSC1170 Soaring Sentiments Perfectly Clear Stamps plus a Jumbo acrylic handle for use with them.

STAEDTLER prize package will be awarded at the end of the week, one for each of their bloggers from all commenters on that blog that week – package includes: 1 Set of 6 Triplus fineliners, pastel assortment 4 blocks of FIMO soft oven-bake clay in vanilla, peach, lilac and mint 1 Mars plastic eraser 1 Double hole metal pencil sharpener 1 Mars Lumograph sketch pencil 1 Pigment liner sketch pen 2 Creative idea brochures

And here is the hop list so you know where you've been, you came from Jamie's blog and will leave here to go to Jennifer Dove's amazing projects.

Stampendous Impressions

Cyndi Bundy

Jamie Martin

You are here! Janelle Stollfus

Jennifer Dove

Krissy Fossmeyer

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel

Rhea Weigand

Tobi Crawford

Lisa Somerville

April Derrick

Details:
Stamps: Jumbo Cling Calla Lily (Stampendous)
Paper: mixed media (Strathmore), Orange peel (Bazzill)
Ink: Jet Black Ranger Archival, chalks and watercolor pencils, graphite pencil and pigment liners (STAEDTLER), 

Accessories: none

Fabulous Florals on a Box

Stampendous Challenge in May is underway and I'm sharing a project I made last fall used for prayer requests with our women's group at church.

This is a monthly challenge with prize winner at the end! We challenge you to use those Fabulous Florals. Use Stampendous flowers and be counted twice! If your entry is randomly picked you win a Stampendous PRIZE!  Click on Stampendous May Challenge for more details OR use the linky tool with your JUST CREATED floral fantastical project!

Now for my box of fabulous florals. All the flowers were stamped on white tissue paper with Memento Tuxedo Black and glued on with Mod Podge. The scriptures were made in a word program and then printed out onto tissue paper that was taped around a piece of copy paper. The box was found in my garage and I created the lid with my own ingenuity... twice because the first one had less ingenuity put into it. All side were gesso'd and then layers of acrylic paints were painted and rubbed and smeared on then the flowers were added and then I either used watered down acrylics or colored pencils or some type of color medium to bring them to life. I used some bubble wrap to stamp in places and a dry brush to distress in other places. It's really a master of methods piece.

This panel of the box has The Jumbo Cling Tulip, filigree from Jumbo Cling Peony, and the lid has the scroll border from Jumbo Cling Zinnia. Some old butterfly stamps were used on the backgrounds around the box. You can get different Stampendous Butterfly sets on the Stampendous website here, here and here. You can also find them in your local scrapbook and stamping store or online store.

Here I used the Jumbo Cling Zinnia (a smaller Zinnia is available too!)

with the filigree from the Jumbo Cling Rose set.

Jumbo Cling Dogwood and filigree are on this side.

Zinnia again and filigree.

Jumbo Dogwood with scroll from that set and Jumbo Zinnia scroll border again.

So do you have some fabulous florals to add to the gallery? If you do, create and add them to the Stampendous gallery below!

Details:
Stamps: Jumbo Cling Dogwood, Jumbo Cling Zinnia, Jumbo Cling Peony, Jumbo Cling Tulip, Jumbo Cling Rose, Butterfly stamps  here, here and here (Stampendous)

Paper: White Tissue Paper
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko), Timber Brown (Staz-on, Tsukineko)
Accessories: Decoupage glue (Mod Podge), acrylic paints

Glistening Grapes with a challenge

Good morning! It's good to be back here for a quick post. I'm still helping my family come back to health from last week, so it's nice to say I had some time to play with a few glistening products.

I decided to pull out some new Stampendous micro glitter and have some fun with this month's challenge.

I've got some step photos to see how I applied the glitter to the grape image.

Supplies listed below.

Use Sakura Quickie Glue Pen to create glistening highlights.

Add glitter one at a time and dry in between layers.

Another glitter...

Another glitter...

Some clear glitter around the edges of the grapes.

Three glue dots.

And some more glitter... just a little bit more.

That's all from me today. You can play along in the challenge, too! Here are the challenge details or you can add your own by clicking on the kitty button!





Details:
Stamps: Grape Label (Stampendous), Wine Label (Stampendous)
Paper: Kraft (Bazzill), Lilac (unknown)
Ink: Jet Black (Archival, Ranger), Versamark Watermark (Tsukineko), watercolors (Cotman Traveler Kit), Gelatos (Faber•Castell)
Accessories: Lavender, Lime, Teal, Crystal Micro Glitter (Stampendous), Aged Wine Embossing Enamel (Stampendous), metallic lace (May Arts), distressing tool (Tonic and pair of scissors), dk brown and sienna brown acrylics (Daley-Rowney), 1/8" corner rounder (WRMK), Quickie Glue Pen (Sakura)

Sweet colors and a Sweet Challenge or Two

Happy New Year everyone! It's time to return to this routine of posting some of my favorite things to do. I'm getting a bit of fun in with coloring these days. I've started teaching some basic classes in the Valley and well, I need to brush the dust off my markers and get back into the swing of things.

I made this card and decided to use it for the Paper Craft Planet Sketch challenge today, so I hope you'll pop on over there, say hi and grab the sketch. It's a sweet little sketch if I do say so myself. Tee-hee.

I'm posting for Stampendous today with a Kiddo Hop card. I really enjoyed getting back into the skin tones and I realized I haven't tested out those other fabulous combinations in a while, so that's where I'll be headed dusting off my markers. The Kiddos is the new challenge for January. Please join us every month and play along as much as you want using Stampendous products (bonus points for using them) and link up to join in the gallery fun.

I've made it even easier to link up your Kiddo! Just click the Felinius button and add your details!

I'm popping back in post publish to add my marker selection for the curious minded (click to enlarge).

Details:
Stamps: Kiddo Hop (Stampendous), Daisy Stem (Stampendous)
Paper: Core'dinations (yellow and red), Chap Scot (American Crafts)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko), Onyx Black (Versafine, Tsukineko)
Accessories: Over the Rainbow Glitter and Flock Kit (Stampendous), Cloud shape scissors (Fiskars), Swiss Dots Embossing Folder (ProvoCraft), brads (American Crafts)

CAS Christmas and a sketch

Hello, {echo - hello},

I have been missing in action for a while on my blog, I haven't been slacking off behind the scenes one bit though. I was working feverishly before the US Thanksgiving holiday on Stampendous catalog work, which you are going to FLIP when you see their new stamps and Essentials. I also decided to jump in on a holiday bazaar fundraiser for my son's school and ended up doing quite a bit of advertising work for it. I meant to drop in with some of the things I made, but I just didn't have the time to photograph and post about it. I'll see if I can give you some peeks this week. I'll be working on more items because I have the itch for another bazaar fundraiser, which my friend just so happens to know of one in a few weeks. Lucky me!

So I apologize for not sharing my creativity here on my blog. I hope I can get some photos up for you all to see. Some very cute, fun and non-paper projects. In the meantime, I'll share a CAS card I swirled together at my abandoned-no-more work table.

The month of December seems to be a mad rush of events, package shipping, decorating and then all the sudden I'm sitting around on December 26th with NO cards to send to my family and friends. When I came back to the work table to create a card with the Stampendous Challenge for December, I saw an email from Paper Craft Planet's Friday sketch. It was such a great match I'm combining them in this post.

All this month Stampendous and designers will be working up CAS Christmas cards for the challenge. You can find all the details in this post.

The sketch is from Super Nova, Deb Felts with a wow and surprising card sketch on Friday's blog post here. It's a skinny card that still fills up an A2 envelope (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches). I simply did a tent fold with a regular 4 1/4 x 11 piece of cardstock and trimmed off an inch. Easy-peasy. Now I hope you'll join both of these fun challenges that will help you get through those last minute card making nights.

It feels good to be back into the papercrafting world again. See you back here real soon!

Details:
Stamps: Merriest Wish (Stampendous)
Paper: Handmade Holiday (Simple Stories), Kraft (Wausau), tracing paper, green and red scraps
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko)
Accessories: Cloud Shape Scissors (Fiskar), red adhesive back rhinestone (KaiserCraft)

Essential Sensation Challenge Month

 

New month and new challenge! We would love for you to join us this month as we pull out our Stampendous Essentials to bling, glitz and add dimension to our projects. 

I've created this card with a few layers of Essentials to frame the Jumbo Butterfly Trio set that just released from Stampendous. You'll be tickled to know that one way I used the Essentials is a mask. Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel over a portion of the stamped Decorative Grate image on the Ivory cardstock gives the look of a partial stamped image. I love that I was able create a subtractive look by the addition of same color Essentials.

A combination of Jade PEARLustre, Hematite PEARLustre, Chunky White, Tarnished Mica Fragments and Royal Purple Glass Glitter are framing the butterfly. The key is lightly sprinkling the powder, not to close to the paper, and only just a smidgen at a time, then heating from the back side of the paper. You'll end up with some papers warping, but there's nothing like a strong adhesive to do the trick in keeping it where you want it on your project. You can't see very much of it from the picture because in real life you are compelled to turn the card from side to side to see where and why it glimmers and sparkles.

Tip: I used Beacon's Fast Finish on the butterfly and it did two things. It made the coloring vibrant and the paper more pliable. If you bend paper on the grain you can quickly get a crease so using this Fast Finish helps the paper keep it's shape and is very smooth.

I've given you an idea to try out layering your Stampendous Essentials. Give it a go and I think you'll like adding it on more of your projects! If you decide to play along in the challenge, be sure to link up with everyone else on the inLinkz tool below. There will be a winner drawn at the end of the month. Use Stampendous products and it counts double in the drawing! Have fun and keep creating!





Details:
Stamps: Jumbo Butterfly Trio, Decorative Grate, Charm Collection, Carousel Circus, and Birthday Assortment (Stampendous Impressions)
Paper: Cream (Wausau), Saltillo (Bazzill Basics)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko), Jet Black (StazOn, Tsukineko), Tea Stain (Ranger), Copic Markers
Accessories: Aged Ivory, Jade PEARLustre, Hematite PEARLustre, and Chunky White Powders (Stampendous Impressions), Tarnished Mica Fragments and Royal Purple Glass Glitter (Stampendous Impressions), Office Date Stamp, Round Spiral edge punch (EK Success), 1/4" masking tape, metallic gold and slate blue craft paint, cardboard corrugate scrap, Fast Finish (Beacon Adhesives)

Holiday Gift Giving

Good morning to many and to those on the east coast I pray your home, family and friends are prepared for what nature is throwing your way. I'll be thinking specially of my design teammates that have mentioned all the preparations and the uncertainty the comes from hurricane weather.

I'm bringing my last Fabulous Floral challenge project to you today. There are only a few more days to play along before the new challenge is introduced on Saturday over at the Stampendous blog.

For the July catalog, I attempted to make a holiday decorated bag. The result was beautiful in real life, but when you go to take pictures of items that are larger than your light box and mostly black against white, the result is a little less spectacular. I wanted to show off the Jumbo Poinsettia in a non-traditional color so here it is. The whole bag. :)

The poinsettia is embossed with Midnight Black Embossing Powder and then colored with a darker shade of marker than the paper. After that, I sprinkled Aged Gold Embossing Enamel over the center of the flower. The last step is a few drops of Zip Dry glue in the center and cover it with Fun Flock from the Over the Rainbow kit.

During the holidays, you can never be without gift tags, so I cut out a few with a die cut (sorry I don't know the source for this one since it was gifted to me) and repeated all the steps. Lots of fun contrast and glimmer. A few thin strips of May Arts ribbon and button thread finish off these great little tags. Make extra for friends. They might use one on your holiday giftie!

Link up to the Fabulous Floral Party with your flower creation. Using Stampendous only doubles your chances of the challenge prize (but not required).

Note: At the time of each post I check the online store for their products. If it is not available in the store (it's a popular item!), then I'll direct you to a place where you can find a store in your area. This means you should be able to find these products at most local crafting stores or online.
Details:
Stamps: Jumbo Poinsettia Set (Stampendous)
Paper: Teal Textured cardstock (Bazzill), black gift bag
Ink: Versamark Watermark Stamp Pad (Tsukineko), Copic Markers
Accessories: Aged Teal Embossing Enamel (Stampendous), Midnight Black Embossing Powder (Stampendous), Over the Rainbow kit (Stampendous), ribbon (May Arts)