Fun with STAEDTLER – Over A Rainbow of Options

Over the Rainbow by Debi Hammons

We’re celebrating the new Hot Air Balloons in our April Release this week, along with our blog Collaboration with STAEDTLER. Our in-house sample artist, Debi Hammons, colored this gorgeous new image with our trusty Karat Aquarelle pencils. We use them for everything here. Not only are they great for coloring, and watercoloring, just look at the cool effect of highlights you can achieve by just slightly changing pressure on the pencil! Stampendous Owner and Chief Artistic Officer Fran Seiford made a terrific video demonstrating colored pencil techniques with her favorite Aquarelles. It’s been one of our most popular videos ever!

We hope you’re tagging along with us for a whole week of fun with STAEDTLER! Since 1835 this company has catered to artists worldwide to provide the best in art products! They can trace their family making of pencils back to 1662! Wow! Now that’s the kind of history you don’t find everywhere!  Our artists and crafters love using STAEDTLER products and you’ll see why! Be sure to visit all the blogs and leave a comment on EVERY one! That will increase your chances of winning one of the two prize packages from Stampendous and STAEDTLER.

Here’s who is on your hopping path today:

Cyndi Bundy

Suzanne Czosek

Tenia Nelson

Kim Stewart

Kelli Mowat

By the way, so you don’t have to ask, we use VersaFine™ Onyx Black Instant Dry Pigment Ink from Imagine Crafts/Tsukinkeo® on Mohawk Color Copy 98 Bright White Cover for all of our samples.

Stampendous & STAEDTLER – Color Your World

Hot Air Trio by Kristine Reynolds

We want to welcome you to a colorful week of blog collaboration with the folks at STAEDTLER, the place where fine German craftsmanship meets gorgeous artistry. You’re familiar already with tons of STAEDTLER products, their Mars Eraser is legendary, and Fimo Clay is classic. We have been huge fans of their products for years, and their Karat Aquarelle pencils are Fran’s absolute favorite colored pencil.

This week we’re teaming up with their Design Team to create some gorgeously colored projects featuring Stampendous products as well. And we’re continuing our April Release features, focusing this week on our new Hot Air Balloon stamps! A product combination made in heaven! PLUS there are prizes, of course!

Each day we’ll post the list of all participating Design Team Members. You’ll want to leave a comment EVERY DAY on EVERY BLOG because at the end of the week the STAEDTLERDesigners will each give away one package to someone who commented on their blog this week. Their prize package consists of:

Staedtler Prize Package

Oh yeah!! But wait there’s more! Each day the Stampendous Design Team Members will pool their daily comments and choose one random winner for our prize package – our new Hot Air Scapes and Soaring Sentiments Perfectly Clear Stamps plus a Jumbo Handle to use with them:

Stampendous Prize Package

So get ready for some gorgeously colorful projects! Be sure to leave insightful comments that show you really looked at the projects (which means more than just “that’s cute” or “cool”) and PLEASE share on your Facebook Timeline, Twitter Feed, etc… Tag us in your share with a @Stampendous or #Stampendous and there will be an extra big prize package at the end of the week for one lucky hopper!  Come back every day for a new list of linked artists.

Kristine Reynolds

Tobi Crawford

Lisa Somerville

April Derrick

Kelli Mowat

Teatime Reflections – Layout by Asia King

To bring our fantastic sojourn at Tea Time to a close, we have a terrific tutorial from BlogStar Asia King. She’s here to dwell on her obsession with tea time and it’s accessories, plus she’s got a gorgeous project for you to make!

Hello Stampendous friends! Asia here and today I am inviting you for tea . When I first saw these awesome teapot stamps I squealed with joy, because I immediately knew what I would create with them. I have this thing you see, I just love vintage teapots and tea cups. I have a small collection at home which I am really proud of . So I made a scrapbook page to ‘celebrate’ my little teatime obsession…

As I also happen to have a set of beautiful teatime themed serviettes, I was able to include some napkin art in my layout. Can life get any better than this? lol .

Let’s begin.

Step 1:

- prepare your pattern papers, napkins and photos you’d like to scrap

- arrange your papers in layers and distress the edges

Step 2:

- adhere the papers to the base cardstock with re-positional adhesive. I find it difficult to work on a page when the elements don’t stay in place. With re-positional glue dots I can always rearrange the items if necessary

- cut out elements from your napkins and adhere to the page with Beacon’s Fast Finish medium

Step 3:

- for the banneer choose paper with a subtle background

- stamp cling Royal Teapot and cling Queen Teapot with brown ink

- colour the images

- cut out the teapot flags for the banner

- finish off with ribbons and pearls

Step 4:

- add a sprinkle of Shabby White Embossing Enamel and Vintage Lilac Embossing Powder over the main background paper

- heat from underneath to melt (if the layers are too thick, this is when re-positional glue stuff comes handy!)

Step 5:

- emboss a selection of chipboard shapes with Shabby White, Vintage Lilac and Aged Wine Embossing Enamel

Step 6:

- heat emboss ornate corner embellishments with Shabby White enamel

- make sure to wait until they cool down – it will take a bit longer that you might expect…

Step 7:

- to create a ‘secret’ journaling card you will need: old postcard, Tim Holtz Tag & Bookplates die, Rusty Hinge distress ink and blending tool, Coffee Archival ink, cling King Teapot and Luggage Labels

- die cut the tag from an old postcard

- ink the reverse side with Rusty Hinge ink

- spritz the background with coffee (I know, I know…but coffee works better than tea for this!). The ink will react with water and create a mottled effect

- stamp the King Teapot with Rusty Hinge

- stamp a chosen label from the Luggage Labels set with Coffee Archival

- add a sentiment. I found this sentiment long time ago and I’ve always loved it. Not sure who the author is, sorry. If you don’t have a favourite quote, make sure to check out our collection of the Digital Downloads - lots of WordArt inspiration there!

Step 9:

- stamp the cling Kettle On onto a patterned journaling card with Coffee Archival

- add bling to your photo and the rest of the page. I used Beacon’s Gem Tac to fix the gems in place

Step 10:

- adhere all the elements. Mount the photo onto 3d foam pads allowing sufficient room underneath for the secret journaling tag

- add final embellishments and flowers. For a shabby chic look alter the blooms by swiping Boss Gloss over the flowers and heat embossing them with Frantage enamels

To finish I also added a Ruffled Bloom. The flower centre was embellished with Champagne and Lavender glass glitter and little pearls.

That’s all for now! Thank you for popping in today and I hope you’ve enjoyed this little Tea Party . If you’d like to see more of the close up pictures, please visit my blog .

Big crafty hugs

Asia

Would you like a spot of Tea?

Our Royal Tea Time stamps are so fun to color, fill with glitter, emboss, etc. They just add an elegant, Fran•táge touch to your party invitations, cards for Mum, and general friendship greetings. When combined with our Digital Downloads Royal Tea Time 1 and Royal Tea Time 2 you can make stunning invites and clever greetings with these great images. Best of all, with FREE Shipping on U.S. retail orders over $50 you can get the whole set and sip in style!

Keep Calm by Cyndi Bundy

Tea Time by Stephanie Lee

Our clever Design Team is at it again with more fantastic examples of this terrific bunch of images!

Janelle Stollfus

Lea Kimmel

Kristine Reynolds

Fixed the Links

Sorry about the faulty links in Tobi Crawford’s Tea Time post. They’re fixed now so you can see Jamie’s great samples!

They’re at

Jamie Martin (older post)

Jamie Martin (newest post)

Chalkboard Teapots with Tobi Crawford

This week’s focus on new stamps from our April Release is our fun Teapot series! Fran has just outdone herself designing regal, elaborate, fun, Fran•táge images fit for inviting the Queen to tea!  Plus, we’ve created Digital Downloads of fantastic phrases, invitations, and all time favorite, classic Stampendous images so you can have tea parties all summer long!  Royal Tea Time 1  and   Royal Tea Time 2  Here, BlogStar Tobi Crawford demonstrates a fun technique to get that trendy chalkboard look with our new teapots. At the bottom you’ll see links to other Teapot images our Design Team have posted on their blogs! Take a look:

Hi there! It’s Blogstar Tobi Crawford here with a quick tutorial on the ever-so-popular

“Chalkboard Technique!”

It’s inspired by the beautiful chalkboard art we now see all over the media, print, and of course Pinterest. What you may not know is that you don’t need stamps that are specifically made for the chalkboard look, and you may not know that it’s super easy!!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Supplies: black cardstock, VersaMark pad, Detail White Embossing Powder, white pigment or hybrid ink, and a stamp. Today I’m using Cling King Teapot and Cling Kettle On. (Not shown: white Sharpie)

1. Step one – stamp teapot with VersaMark and cover with embossing powder. Heat until shiny. Once the embossing powder has cooled doodle a white frame around the teapot with a white Sharpie.

2. Using your finger, smudge some white ink around the image to give the black cardstock that “chalky” look.

3. Cut out the chalkboard you’ve created.

4. Find some fabulous coordinating papers and create a card!

That was easy, right? I just LOVE this chalkboard trend and every time I play around with a new image I wonder if it would look good done with this technique – and this teapot (and sentiment) look fab!  Now check out what other Design Team members have done with these Teapots:

Jamie Martin

(an earlier sneak peek post)

Jamie Martin (new post)

Kristine Reynolds

Elements Images are Elemental!

We know the new Elements images were last week’s focus, but time just got away from us and we didn’t get to post all the links to our great Design Team’s projects for these fantastic stamps! These images make great backgrounds, super focal points, and can be cut apart and layered for super easy, super spectacular cards! When you combine them with our Digital Download phrases - Sew Crafty 1 and Sew Crafty 2 – you’ll have all you need for fabulous cards for Mom, Dad, Celebrating Art, and witty puns that are just our type! Check them out!!

Artist Elements by Stephanie Lee

Sewing Elements by Stephanie Lee

Typing Elements by Cyndi Bundy

Now go see the other great samples they’ve posted on their blogs:

Tobi Crawford

Jamie Martin

Tenia Nelson

Cyndi Bundy