Lil Joker by Barb Turpin

At Stampendous we’re really excited about our Vintage Circus images. Our sweet Lil Joker obviously has a secret… and it could be just about anything. Here BlogStar Barb Turpin hazards a guess as to what that might be.  (P.S. Barb, we think that pattern is Harlequin…but we’re with you whatever you want to call it!)

Hi there, Barb here, playing Stampendous BlogStar again…so many fun new products to play with!  Is this just the cutest ‘Lil Joker’?  I started this tag with the embossed jacquard pattern of the Core’dinations cardstock because it reminded me of the little french clown. Then I started thinking, is that what that diamond pattern is called?  Oh well, it’s late and I have to work in the morning…so let’s just go with that!

Stampendous Product:

Lil Joker

Charm Collection

Friendly Phrases

Fran•táge Essentials

Shrink Plastic Poinsettias

Well, we just couldn’t get all the Christmas cards in before Christmas, but Poinsettias are good for the whole month of December, right? BlogStar Annette Witherspoon made and submitted this fantastic card/ornament to us a while back, and we just had to share it with you. Maybe it’s time to get started stamping for next year? You can find our Cling Jumbo Poinsettia stamp and Shrink Plastic at your local Michaels Stores!

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Hello everyone. This is Annette with another Christmas card. Tis the season, right? This card features the Jumbo Cling Poinsettia, except it’s not so jumbo any more. How did that happen? The answer: Shrink plastic!

I stamped the Poinsettia onto the shrink plastic using Stazon ink. Then lightly colored the image with Prismacolor Pencils. When coloring on shrink paper, keep in mind, the image shrinks to 1/3 the original size, and the color gets more intense, so you don’t want to color too heavily.

I traced a circle around the image, traced a smaller circle at the top, cut it out and shrunk it using my heat gun. Yep, my heat gun. Using a clothespin, I held the paper with one hand while heating it with the other. It shrinks nicely and much more quickly than the oven. When working with shrink paper, I always keep a spatula on hand to flatten it before it cools. I’ve recently read you can use an acrylic block to flatten it, too.

Once the image cooled, I added Crushed Glass Glitter around the edges and in the flower’s center, then sealed it with Fast Finish. I tied it to the cardstock with crinkle ribbon. I stamped JOY onto the cardstock using the Small Typewriter Alphabet Perfectly Clear set, and heat embossed it with Sterling Silver Embossing Powder. Oh, here’s a nice afterthought. This poinsettia can also be used as an ornament. I did not plan it, but I realized it after I created it.

Christmas Mini Cards/Tags

So we’re getting down to the wire here! Do you have all your cards and tags done? Why not create a bunch of these easy “mini” cards that can act as a greeting or a tag?! You can sure involve the kids in coloring these adorable Snowy Short Stacks! They’ll have a blast combining the different, easy to match heads and bodies for the cutest creatures imaginable! What a terrific thing to keep them busy while you wrap the last few gifts! With a little help with the cutting, you’ll have darling tags for every gift under your tree in no time!

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Hi everyone! BlogStar Yana Smakula here! Today I’d like to share a set of quick and easy Christmas mini cards with you. I also have a little trick to show you how you can combine alphabet stamps with sentiment stamps to create unique one of a kind sentiments for your projects.

Here’s a peek at one of the cards:

To create these cards I used lovely characters from the Snowy Short Stacks stamp set. I stamped them with Memento ink and quickly coloured with copic markers:

Stamped Gift Wrap!! Simple Elegance!

Hi everyone! Blogstar Yana Smakula here!

As I was wrapping Christmas presents earlier this week I realized I had zero holiday tags to attach to the gifts to indicate who they are for (and there I though I was all ready for Christmas lol!). So I decided to quickly make a few.

I die cut a few tags out of white cardstock and stamped some holiday images in pink. For some reason I’m absolutely obsessed with pink for Christmas this year.

I also stamped “to” and “from” in black ink, tied a bit of pink twine and attached a tiny pink clothes pin on top:

To take my holiday gift wrapping a step further I decided to make my own wrapping paper. For that I used plain white printer paper and randomly stamped large than small snowflakes in pink (I first stamped large snowflakes and than filled the gaps with smaller ones):

Here’s a look at a wrapped gift – I love how the tag and wrapping paper compliment each other due to the same colour of ink used to stamp the images:

Supplies used to create the tag:

• Santa image from CRSS04 stamp set and Altered Type Alphabet to stamp “to” and “from”;
• Ink – Tsukineko;
• Cardstock, twine and tiny pin – Dovecraft;
• Distress marker from Ranger (spun sugar) to colour Santa.

Supplies used to create custom wrapping paper:

• Snowflakes from Kiddo Snow Globe stamp set;
• Ink – Tsukineko;
• Paper – plain printer paper;
• Washi tape – American Crafts.

Stamping Patterned Paper

Hope you don’t mind two posts in one day! We’ve just got too much Christmas goodness to share with you for it to all fit! BlogStar Yana Smakula has created this gorgeous tutorial for stamping patterned paper. She used hers on Christmas cards, but you could do it on boxes or rolls of plain paper to make amazing wrappings or scrapbooking backgrounds as well. Get the kids involved and just be thrilled with whatever they make! Handmade is really the spirit of the season!

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Hi everyone! Blogstar Yana Smakula here! Today I’d like to share one of my favourite techniques with you – using stamps to create your own patterned paper.

Here’s a card a made using this technique:

The background was done using just one snowflake stamp. Here are some step by step photos:

First I drew a grid on my cardstock, I did that so that I knew exactly where to stamp the images and to make sure everything is straight:

I started stamping the the middle:

I than added two more stamped images above and below. Notice how I used the dots on the ends of the snowflakes to connect them:

Than I started adding snowflakes to the sides connecting them with dots:

Finally I had a background like this:

I than decided I wanted to add another layer of snowflakes to this paper so I stamped the same pattern with clear ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder:

To make the second layer of snowflakes stand out I inked the entire piece of paper with blue ink. Now I have a fun three-colour background – dark blue (first layer of snowflakes), white (embossed layer of snowflakes that resisted the light blue ink) and light blue (inked with blue ink):

I matted this piece on some Coredinations cardstock and ran it through my sewing machine:

To finish the card I added a stamped sentiment along with a large snowflake and a few gems:

Here are a few close-ups:

Supplies used:

• Kiddo Snow Globe (snowflake), Snowy Short Stacks (sentiment) and Altered Type Alphabet stamp sets;
• Clear embossing powder;
• Ink – Tsukineko Memento Dew Drop (dark blue), Distress (light blue), StazOn (dove grey);
• Cardstock – Dovecraft (white), Coredinations (blue);
• Gems – Dovecraft;
• Twine – My Minds Eye.

More Ribbon Fun with Stampendous and May Arts

We’re back for Day 2 of our week long romp through the spools of ribbon with the folks at May Arts! Today we’re bringing you some Design Team Inspiration from:

Stampendous Impressions Blog (you are here)

Janelle Stollfus

Jennifer Dove

Stephanie Lee

Taylor Usry

Suzanne Czosek

May Arts Blog

And here on the home front we’re sharing with you just how a gorgeous piece of wide, silk ribbon can spice up an easy gift idea! Painting this inexpensive wooden “basket” from Michaels Stores with acrylic paint then embossing on it with our Cling Jumbo Pinecone Boughs, Aged Green Embossing Enamel and Carnelian PEARLustre Embossing Powder was simple. Adding the bright red ribbon just finished it off and made it so completely festive! A fast easy way to a gift container that will be used over and over for gift giving or to hold pencils, brushes, silk plants or any number of things. Wow!

Pinecone Bough Box by Kristine Reynolds

Wanna win some ribbon and stamps? Visit all the blogs above and leave insightful comments (the kind that let us know you really looked at the project). We’ll choose a random blogger each day to pick a random winner! Congratulations to Monday’s winner from Wendy Jordan’s Blog:

Jengd

Email us at submissions@stampendous.com, Jen, to claim your prize of some exciting Stampendous stamps and May Arts ribbons!!

Embossed Tag Christmas by Tobi Crawford

We’ve got BlogStar Tobi Crawford with a great project today! Remember that this month’s Embossing Technique has only until October 4 to link your project to our linky tool in the right side bar. Be sure to make something cool for a chance to win one of three embossing powder prize packages!

Hi there! Stampendous BlogStar Tobi Crawford here with a watercoloured Christmas tag. I love making tags for Christmas because I normally package all of my gifts in little bags – and tags are the perfect accessory!

Here’s is today’s project:

I used the amazing Cling Poinsettia Background stamp for the large focal point. Here’s a step-by-step of the process:

1. Stamp background with VersaMark™ ink on watercolour paper.
2. Sprinkle Fran•táge Shabby White Embossing Enamel on the design and tap off the excess.
3. Heat FROM UNDERNEATH with a heat tool. (Heating from underneath will prevent any powder blowing away)
4. Colour with watercolour markers (I use Tim Holtz Distress Markers) and spray with water when your colouring is completed.

This is how it looks up close:

Spraying the design with water gives it that lovely blended, imperfect look. Every design comes out looking different and absolutely perfect!

Thanks for joining me today!

Handmade Gifts Blog Hop

Our Designers are on board today with Handmade Gifts Galore! You’ll be all ready to start sorting through your craft stuff tomorrow and start on some amazing projects!

Please visit all the blogs and comment…we’ll be choosing random bloggers to choose random comments for the prizes…so the more comments the better your chance!

Our home base project today is another one from our own Tammie Wilson. Can you believe how gorgeous this Jumbo Pinecone Bough set looks on this painted box! What a treasure for anyone… Complete instructions for this project are HERE.

Pinecone Box by Tammie Wilson

There’s lots more inspiration awaiting you below…. Please visit:

Cyndi Bundy

Janelle Stollfus

Krissy Fossmeyer

Kristine Reynolds

Melinda Gleissner

Pam Hornschu

Tenia Nelson

Wendy Jordan

Wendy Price

Jennifer Ingle (Jingle)

Lea Kimmel

AND don’t forget our Saturday Challenge continues – We’re sharing embossing techniques all month! Here’s what we’ve been working on (most recent inspiration first):

Melinda Gleissner	Kristine Reynolds	Melinda Gleissner	Kristine Reynolds
Rhea Weigand	Jan Garber	Kristine Reynolds	Taylor Usry
Cyndi Bundy	Lea Kimmel	Taylor Usry	Tenia Nelson
Melinda Gleissner	Asia King

InLinkz.com

You can link your creations here until Thursday, October 4th -

Handmade Gifts Week – Day 5

Finally Friday here on Handmade Gifts week. It’s flown by waaaay too fast! Don’t you feel inspired to start some handmade Christmas gifts this weekend? Well, don’t forget Saturday morning we’ll be featuring an entire team full of gift ideas here. Be sure to visit ALL the blogs and leave a comment for the chance to win the stamps used on this week’s gifts.

Today we want to feature a fantastic project for a beginning stamper! A featured project on Michaels Stores’ Stamptember  celebration this year, this darling picture frame was created by our in-house Sample Artist Debi Hammons. All the products used are available at Michaels.

Carte Postale Frame by Debi Hammons

This adorable frame is so easy. It features our Carte Postale stamp. Debi has even used it to impress into a medallion she created with several layers of gold embossing powder.

These inexpensive wood frames make fantastic gifts for the traveler in your life. Or just frame your children’s school pictures for grandparents and others!

Today one of our Design Team members has some inspiration for you.

Please visit Tenia Nelson’s blog and leave some comments to win some of the great stamps shown in this week’s projects.

(and be sure to keep your eye on our blog for winner announcements!) (In fact you might want to go back over some old posts and see if you won anything…we still have a few unclaimed prizes from recent events.)  We also thought we’d remind you of some other gift ideas that our team members have posted earlier this year like:

Jan Garber’s Notecard Gift Sets

or her Christmas Cardinals Decorator Plate

And what about

Suzanne Czosek’s Angel Bear Christmas Triptych

or her Jumbo Iris Decorator Plate

or even her AMAZING Clear Scraps Album

How about

Wendy Price’s Inspirational Plaque with Easel

Our team is always working on out-of-the-box 3D items. You can find even more fantastic projects with supply lists and directions on our website HERE.

Handmade Holiday Gifts – Part 3

This week we’re getting you excited about making your own gifts for the upcoming holidays. If you’ve never tried this, I hope you’ll consider it. People are so surprised and pleased that you made something just for them. There’s  no satisfaction like knowing you’ve created a beautiful gift specially meant for someone you love.
Today we’re showcasing a gorgeous box that super talented Design Team Member Jennifer Dove created for our July 2012 catalog. This beautiful project could be a gift wrap for that special gift, or it could be a delightful gift in itself holding trinkets or remembrances of a special trip or friendship. You could also use her gorgeous technique on a small frame for a stunning piece of home decor! The project features our Snow Bird stamp (available in Woodmounted or Cling Rubber mounted) and the beautiful Encrusted Jewel Technique which uses melting Embossing Enamel to hold on other embellishments such as Mica Fragments. Project instructions for Jennifer’s gorgeous box can be found HERE.

Snow Bird Box by Jennifer Dove

Also creating handmade gift projects for your inspiration today are Design Team Members

Wendy Price

Krissy Fossmeyer

Be sure to visit their blogs and leave some comments!! Commenting on all the blogs increases your chances to win some of our fantastic stamps used in this week’s projects!  Then come back tomorrow, and every day this week to see more and more inspiration. Plus Saturday we’ll pull out all the stops and give you tons of ideas (and a chance at tons of prizes!).

By the way – some of you asked for directions for Tammie Wilson’s beautiful Jumbo Cardinal Lantern we showcased on Monday. This terrific project was created using the same techniques as the gorgeous ornament she created for Paint Works Magazine this month. You’ll want to pick up a copy of their magazine for all the details. You can get one HERE.  The lantern itself can be purchased HERE.