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

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We’re Celebrating Flowers this Week!

Our April Catalog is just bursting with new blossoms of so many varieties for your Mother’s Day, Birthday, Get Well, Sympathy, and All Occasion stamping! Get ready to scrapbook your Spring Garden, or just enjoy a bouquet of gorgeous blooms. Our Design Team LOVES to stamp and color flowers, so you’ll see lots of terrific samples on their blogs this week! You can get yourself a whole garden full with our FREE Shipping offer! Add some of our new Digital Downloads, too! There’s a terrific set of sentiments perfect for all our new floral stamps – Flowery Phrases Digital Download

Among our new flowers are three brand new Jumbo Cling Flowers. We’re very excited to be able to continue to offer these with the FREE templates so that you can mask off the flower or it’s surroundings for all sorts of terrific effects. Here our own National Sales Manager  (and Decorative Painting guru) Tammie Wilson has created a fantastic wooden frame featuring the new Jumbo Bird of Paradise!

Jumbo Bird of Paradise Frame by Tammie Wilson

Jumbo Calla Lily Pail by Janelle Stollfuss

Jumbo Cling Rubber Peruvian Lily Scrapbook Page by Suzanne Czosek

BlogStar Tobi Crawford has created a fantastic tutorial today demonstrating a great use of the free template in each Jumbo Cling Rubber Flower set.  Check it out here:

Tobi Crawford

Then take a gander at these other great floral projects using new flowers from our April Catalog Release (be sure to leave some sweet comments on their blogs!)

Arty Carty 1

Arty Carty 2

Jennifer Dove

Kristine Reynolds

A bit of Housekeeping -

Did we mention FREE shipping? Enjoy FREE shipping on our website at www.stampendous.com on retail orders over $50 shipping to U.S. addresses until July 31! We can’t wait to see what you make with our products!! (be sure to share on our Facebook Page, Flickr Group, or email us at submissions@stampendous.com)

Winners – we’re still waiting for some winners of the Project Life event to contact us with mailing info. Hint: if you don’t want your prize, we know Barb Macaskill wants it!  Email your mailing info to submissions@stampendous.com so we can get your prizes on their way!

Remember tonight is the deadline to link to your Micro Glitter projects for our April Challenge. May’s Challenge is Fabulous Florals and starts Friday!

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

We’re wrapping up our week in Oz with yet more fantastic samples from our talented design team. Remember to come back next week and check out the new in our April Catalog Release!

We want to leave you with some amazing samples of our other Oz stamps

The Road to Oz by Cyndi Bundy

Floating By by Kristine Reynolds

Big Adventures by Stephanie Lee

And a few more posts from our  other talented designers!!

Tobi Crawford

Cyndi Bundy

Lea Kimmel

Becky Higgins Project Life – Stampendous Style

Ready to HOP??  Until Sunday night you can comment on the blogs of our participating Design Team Members and our blog here. Each comment counts as one entry to win our Project Life/Stampendous prize package! Prize includes 12 assorted Project Life Page Protectors, and BRAND NEW (so new you can’t buy it on our website until Monday) Stampendous Vintage Alphabet Upper Case and Lower Case Perfectly Clear Stamp Sets. This prize is a $50 retail value! And we’ll give 3 of them!! Uh Huh!! So get hopping and commenting!

Stampendous NEW Vintage Alphabet Perfectly Clear™Stamps

If you’re still messing about with stickers for Journaling Titles… well, you’ve got to have this alphabet. A stamped alphabet means never running out of a letter again! You saw them yesterday on Kristine’s layout. Here they are on a layout prepared for us by BlogStar Rhea Weigand:

Squirrel!

This layout also features Stampendous Smashing Notes Perfectly Clear Stamp set.

Now leave a comment below then HOP on over to these other blogs and leave a comment there as well. We’ll be back Monday with the names of the winners!

Janelle Stollfus

Kristine Fossmeyer

Leadonna Kimmel

Kristine Reynolds

Cyndi Bundy

Tobi Crawford

Jamie Martin

Finally – Remember that our April Challenge is still going strong!! Use Micro Glitter on one of your creations and link it to the F.E. Linus link  button in our right side bar! You’ll be entered to win some of our newest Micro Glitter colors! You can read all the details by clicking on the Challenge link at the very, tippy top of the page or HERE!

We’d also love to see what you can do with Project Life (or similar page protectors) and Stampendous Stamps and Essentials! Send your links to submissions@stampendous.com and we’ll do a follow up post linking to everyone who participated!

Mixed Media – NEW Stamps – Tobi Crawford

OK!! Here is something you are going to LOVE – along with a sneak peek at one of our NEWEST Jumbo Flowers, a mixed media canvas treat from the talented BlogStar Tobi Crawford !

Hello Stampendous! fans! It’s Tobi Crawford here with a mixed media project using some new stamps available at your favourite retailer very soon!!

1. I covered the 8.5×11 canvas with vintage dictionary paper and added some yellow orange paint on top. The blue paint splatters were done with a metallic paint by Lumiere (and the splatters are actually a stencil. Random but not!). Once the paint dried I stamped the images (Jumbo Calla Lilly) with Black Archival Ink.

2.   Paint in the image with watered-down acrylic paints. FYI, I watered down the paints so I could still see the stamped lines.

3.   Once the paint has dried, draw over the stamped lines with a black pen.

4.   Cover the images with the masks. (Templates are included FREE with the newest Jumbo Cling stamps!)

5.   Using a sponge dauber, go around the outside of the mask. This will add a shadow to the images.

Done! Doesn’t that look great with the shading??

My mind is reeling with ideas with the other jumbo stamps and I’ve got some fresh canvases ready and waiting! Thanks for joining me today!

[Just a quick Stampendous Note: You could also use the outside of the template and paint your flowers first. then stamp your flowers over the dry paint, and then mask them with the inside template before applying the background. This would save you having to trace the lines]

“Mist Media” Card with Tobi Crawford

Hello everyone! It’s Tobi Crawford here and I’m sharing a quick, quasi mixed media card with you today.

I started my foray into the mixed media world with various brands of glimmer mists and ink mists. I’m an organic crafter, and I NEVER know how my project is going to end up. I like to “go with it”, and I think that’s the most important lesson I can teach when dealing with mixed media… Why? Because when you’re dealing with paints and sprays and liquids you can’t predict or control how they are going to interact with each other – and that’s what makes it fun!

Today’s card is CAS (clean and simple) and I was able to do that with die cuts… You’ll see.

Step 1: Gather your mists and a mister with just water:

Step 2: Mist and drip (I unscrew the mist mechanism from the bottle and shake) colours onto white cardstock.

Step 3: Mist with water. This will help colours mix and mingle.

Step 4: Dry with heat tool (or let it air dry… I’m impatient)

Step 5: This is a luxury step. I have an old hair flat-iron and I use it to smooth out my papers after I mist them. The warping really bugs me.

Step 6: Cut out desired shape from the cardstock with a die cut:

Step 7: Assemble card:

What’s great about using just a *little* bit of the sprayed cardstock is it’s colourful and bright without being overpowering! I love the Faith Character Stamp and it paired perfectly with this design. You can pick up this stamp at Jo~Ann Fabric and Craft Stores along with lots of mists and all the supplies you’ll need!

Ombre is the New Black – by Tobi Crawford

Ombre is the new black.

It is.

It’s everywhere: fashion, hair, home decor, and of course: crafts!It’s Blogstar Tobi Crawford here showing you how I’ve interpreted this latest trend.

First off, I have to admit to always being a fan of ombre. I have always organized my supplies in ROY G BIV order AND light-to-dark so I guess you could say that I’m ahead of the trend. hahaha.. But really, this is a trend I feel like I can do!

First off, I decided on a colour (in this case, orange), and I gathered my cardstock and found tones that worked with each other and obviously went light-to-dark.

To “jazz up” the layers a little bit I cut a fringe into the papers AND I added some Aged Gold Embossing Enamel to just the ends. How did I do it? It was easy, I just dragged the Boss Gloss dabber over the fringe and dunked it into the embossing enamel. Heat. Done. And so pretty, right?

The cardstock looked a little plain to me, so I stamped a background pattern onto the layers with VersaMark and the Cling Dream Text background stamp. I’m not usually a just cardstock person, so this helped me let that go a little..

And here is the completed card! I added a little sentiment from Agapanthus Thank You Perfectly Clear Set and tied a pretty gold bow and that was it. I think a pretty ombre background like this doesn’t need much else!   By the way, all these products are available at Michaels Stores! You could be embossing ombre by tonight!

By the way, my inspiration for this card was  Here on Julia Stainton’s Blog!

Copic Coloring Cowlik – Tobi Crawford

Hi there! It’s Blogstar Tobi Crawford here with a Copic marker colouring project with a few step-out photos to help show my process. A lot of people who colour with Copics use the standard light-to-dark method, but I go against the grain! I like to colour dark-to-light for a few reasons:

1. I am only using each marker ONCE. I don’t have to go back and colour over everything with light markers and this helps to keep the ink in the marker and not in the paper.
2. By colouring the “shadows” first I can plan out the light-source and make sure I have all of the shadows placed appropriately.
3. I have found this method to be easiest for me! I enjoy using various methods of blending techniques when colouring, but my go-to method is dark-to-light.

There are a lot of different ways to add colour to your stamped images and I am just one of those crazy people who loves her Copic markers!! Now onto to the demo:

For each coloured area, choose 3 markers (a dark, medium and light). (note – see the numbers – make your markers 2-3 numbers apart or so for best blending)

As you can see, I pooled the darkest colour (E18) where I felt the shadows would occur. Next I added E15 and pulled the colour a little higher, and finally E13. Start each new color a bit overlapping the previous color to blend the edges.

For each colour group I repeat this process. Here’s the next colour:

Even though the colours I used were quite pale, I still went dark-to-light! The last frame shows the completed image including some shading with a black pastel-chalk pencil.

And here she is in all her cow-glory! Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you enjoyed my tutorial!

Stamp used:

Cling Cowlick-Butterfly (Available at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores and Stampendous!)

Tobi Crawford – Happy Couple

Hi there. It’s Tobi Crawford here again with a Blogstar post starring these fab products available at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores and here:

• Happy Couple
• Sending Wishes

To make the focal image really stand out I pulled out my Copic airbrush system and a circle die cut and added a special touch..

First, die cut the image. Keep the die on the image and grab your airbrushing tool. (If you don’t have an airbrush, or don’t want to use it, use distress inks and a foam applicator. I do that all the time and it works just as well!) Use a light color and concentrate on the outer edge of the shape.

Remove the die cut and you have a beautiful rim around the edge. It’s kind of like matting your image, but easier!

One last tip. If you have a smaller area for your sentiment than you anticipated, why not snip (carefully) the stamp apart?

Initially I was going to stamp the sentiment as shown above, but it was just a bit too wide. So now I have all of these other options with this ONE sentiment stamp!

(Stampendous Note: Tobi’s stamp was one of our Cling Mounted stamps, so she didn’t have any trouble snipping it. Jo Ann Fabric and Crafts carries this stamp in the Wood Mounted version. If you’d like the Cling Version visit our website HERE