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

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

Artist Elements by Rhea Weigand

Quick Stampendous Note: If you’re going to put “everything but the kitchen sink” on a gorgeous canvas like BlogStar Rhea Weigand has done in this post, you should do it while our website is offering FREE Shipping on retail orders $50 or more shipped to a U.S. Mailing Address!!

Hello, this is Rhea sharing one of my favorite new releases from Stampendous.  I chose to design Artist Elements  on a 5×5 canvas.  This little canvas has everything on it but the kitchen sink.   Layers of tinted Fast Finish, Layers of card stock and bunches of aged embossing powders as well as, Fran•táge elements!!!

Yes, it includes one of my favorite things, tinting Fast Finish Decoupage.  Fast Finish is a thin and fast drying decoupage by Beacon.  Tinting it is easy.  In a small container pour a little Fast Finish.  Put a few drops of dye in.  The more ink the darker the decoupage.

For this project we are going to use.  Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint, Fired Brick and Faded Jeans.

Apply clear Fast Finish to the canvas and the back side of the paper to apply to canvas.

Only use the tinted Fast Finish on the top of the paper.  Tear paper and do a quilted sections covering the canvas.

Stamp the image with Memento Ink

Dry brush color on the image with these Distress colors.  I like to use chalking applicators from JoAnn’s 

Before we start embossing.  Need to cut apart the Make Art from the rest of the image.  Both this sentiment and brushes will need to be layered with matching card stock and attached to the canvas as shown.

Because we are working on a canvas using Boss Gloss and applying with a brush will work best.  Start by doing the edges with Aged Gold

With Aged Marine, Wine, Scarlet, Ochre, Hunter emboss little puddles leading up to and on the tips of the brushes.

Finally add all of the wonderful elements.  Apply Aleene’s Paper Glaze and spread with finger or tip of bottle.  Sprinkle  white mica first.  Here are the elements used:

• Canary color fragments
• Purple color fragments
• Hunter color fragments
• Marine blue color fragments
• Royal blue crushed glass
• Green crushed glass glitter
• White mica fragments

New Elements and Project Life by Asia King

BlogStar Asia King is back again to introduce this week’s focus – the new Elements stamps in our April Catalog. These 5 images focus on a collage of several elements on a particular theme, the ones she’s chosen to use are the Typing Elements and Phone Elements. These are big stamps, meant to be the focus of most of a card.

W093 Typing Elements

W094 Phone Elements

Since Asia is in the UK, it takes a little longer to get our goodies over to her. So she’s also bringing the Elements into our Project Life event we did a couple weeks ago.  Suzanne Czosek also did a Project Life page that didn’t get included in the original event, so we’d love you to go look at it as well.

Hello Stampendous Friends! It’s time for another inspiration with Asia King . Today I am playing with Becky Higgins’ Project Life. My super talented DT Sisters have recently provided lots of inspirational eye candy for you with their Project Life pages – in case you missed it, be sure to check it out here. Project Life is all about celebrating your every day stuff so I decided to scrap about the thing that ‘happens’ to me every day….(except the weekends! lol) – my job. One of the things I love about crafting is that it’s a way of recharging my batteries after a challenging day. Crafting helps me to ‘leave’ my work behind. So you might say that scrapping about my work would defeat the object lol .

That’s why in my page I wanted to focus on the ‘little’ things I enjoy about my work place, like beautiful aubretias trailing down the wall nearby, sipping coffee from my ‘Best Wife in the World’ mug (given to me by my hubby, just to clarify!) or shopping in the new Polish deli shop at lunch time. But most importantly – all the lovely people I work with whose optimism and sense of humour really brighten my days .

Let’s start with the supply list:

Stamps: Cling Typing Elements, Cling Phone Elements, Cling Blossom Spray, Perfectly Clear Smashing Notes, Perfectly Clear Big Top Type, Perfectly Clear Vintage Lowercase, Perfectly Clear Vintage Uppercase.

Essentials: Aged Wine Embossing Enamel, Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel, Stamp N Bond powder, Sunflower Micro Glitter, White Detail Embossing Powder.

Other: Project Life page protector – Design A, coffee spritzed papers, alcohol ink markers, clear embossing ink, Sepia or Coffee Archival ink, Black Memento ink, ColorBox chalk inks, selection of photos.

1. Spritz some coffee over white card and allow to dry.

2. Cut two panels from the coffee card to the size of your journaling pockets.

3. Stamp the Typing Elements and the Phone Elements onto your journaling cards with brown ink.

4. Stamp Blossom Spray along the edges and in corners with black Memento ink.

5. Stamp the word ‘office’  in Google colours onto scrap coffee papers with a selection of alpha stamps and using ColorBox inks. Add to your photo some additional journaling and a ‘Google maps’ pin.

6. Colour the flowers with the alcohol ink markers.

7. Stamp an accent letter from the Vintage Uppercase set with clear embossing ink and sprinkle the image with Stamp N Bond powder. Warm the heat gun for a few seconds then heat the powder just until it melts.

8. Quickly sprinkle the image with the Sunflower Micro Glitter. Press the glitter with your fingers to aid bonding.

9. Fix the letter to your card with small staples.

10. Sprinkle your cards sparingly with Aged Wine and Aged Ivory embossing enamels. Heat the powders from underneath.

11. Stamp various expressions from the Smashing Notes set directly onto your photos using clear embossing ink. Heat emboss with White Detail embossing powder.

As you can see, these Elements stamps are just perfect for everyday life scrapbooking, especially documenting your office/working endeavours. Their vintage look adds a really quirky contrast against their modern ‘equivalents’ .

Thank you for popping in here today and I hope you enjoyed reading about this project. As always, I’d love to know what  you think!

Happy crafting!

Big hugs

Asia

Can you say FREE SHIPPING??!!

We’re so excited to announce FREE SHIPPING on retail orders over $50 on our website through July 31!  (U.S. orders only)

Your orders will still be filled by local retailers or our warehouse, same as always, but now you can go crazy, because shipping will be FREE!

April 2013 Catalog

Make your shopping list from our newest April Catalog images,

Stampendous Micro Glitter

our January Catalog Essentials,

Surfer Kiddo by Kristine Reynolds

collect all the Kiddos you’ve been wanting,

Jumbo Bird of Paradise by Cyndi Bundy

or snag our limited edition Jumbo Cling Rubber Flowers while they’re still in stock!

Stuftainers™ Thick

Looking for an amazing storage solution? Check out our Stuftainers™ and save big on these items that normally have higher shipping charges!

You don’t need a promo code, your free shipping will be credited as soon as your retail, U.S. order hits $50!

Visit www.stampendous.com today and start your shopping list! You can use our Wish List at the top of the home page to keep track of things you’d like to have! Items can be added to your cart from your wish list or moved to your wish list from the cart!

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

Project Life Winners!

We’ve got the winners from our Project Life blog hop! Thanks so much, everyone for your terrific comments on everyone’s posts! We’re excited to announce the winners chosen by our bloggers for our great prizes!

From Krissy Fossmeyer’s Blog - 

Denise Bryant

From Lea Kimmel’s Blog

Jengd

From Kristine Reynolds Blog

Fun Stamping

From Cyndi Bundy’s Blog

Heather Krupinski

From Jamie Martin’s Blog

Karen Ladd

From Tobi Crawford’s Blog

Carol B

So you winners give us an email at submissions@stampendous.com and we’ll get your prize package right out to you! We’re glad you enjoyed our blog hop and hope you’ll be checking out our new April products and projects here this week. We’re off to Oz!!

Up, Up and Away! – Ballooning to Oz!

One of the most fantastic bits of the new movie “Oz The Great and Powerful” was the amazing Hot Air Balloon trip that Oscar Diggs takes to arrive in Oz. Combined with the cool, steampunk themes in the movie, well, we’ve been so inspired that we just had to have lots of our own!

Dorothy looks out from under a parasol in a very steampunk outfit in our fantastic Overlooking Oz stamp! And Design Team Member Cyndi Bundy did it just soooo cool in almost sepia with a pale blonde Dorothy! Good thing she brought her own shade on her journey!

Overlooking Oz by Cyndi Bundy

Love the way she used the travel themed embossing folder on the brown panel and our Wander Lost stamp on the top! She even used our Blue Encrusted Jewel Technique kit on the bottom corner of the panel! Wow!

Design Team Member Janelle Stollfus gives us a Dorothy with raven tresses and a fantastic Classifieds background.

Overlooking Oz by Janelle Stollfus

But if you really want to swoon… Just take a look at what BlogStar Rhea Weigand did with this terrific image!

Overlooking Oz Sepia Box by Rhea Weigand

Ok, WOW! Just wow! Rhea had better be planning on just sending that on over to Anaheim for little ol’ me! She’s got a whole tutorial for this one over on her blog today! Joining some serious hardware, Rhea used the No Place stamp!

Rhea Weigand

Jennifer Dove

Janelle Stollfuss

Cyndi Bundy

Join us tomorrow for some loveable favorite characters with Lisa Hindsley flair as our Deisgn Team takes on the Scarecrow, Tinman, and Cowardly Lion !

Journey to OZ!

Weeeeeee’re off to see the Wizard!!! Yes, we are! Our new Oz inspired stamps are just so much fun we couldn’t resist focusing on them first from our April 2013 catalog! Plus our very own Lisa Hindsley drew some of the most darling characters, so it gives us a chance to brag on her. AND it highlights our Digital Downloads since they’re new as well and include two sets of phrases just for our Oz images! So join us as we ease on down that Yellow Brick Road this week…

Walking on the Yellow Brick Road by Lisa Hindsley

Ok, you HAVE to love this stamp! Amazing Shoes! Wow…amazing legs! Depending how you color it, she can either have bobby sox and bare legs, or cuffed pants and bare ankles, or…. wow… you have to try this! Here Lisa used the new Amazing Shoes stamp with the No Place Sentiment and some Yellow Mica Fragments to be the Yellow Brick Road. So Clever!! We think there’s no place like a pair of Amazing Jeans! Lookie here:

Amazing Jeans by Lisa Hindsley

Of course our Design Team member Jennifer Dove had to drop a house on us before we saw this:

Amazing Shoes by Jennifer Dove

And, of course, without her and her hysterical sense of humor and a few extra lines from her Copic Markers, we NEVER would have had this:

Amazing Boots! by Jennifer Dove

Definitely more the sort of thing I’d expect to see a hip and trendy witch wearing under a house!! I’m not sure even Lisa envisioned this level of versatility, but if you don’t have to have this stamp now then we probably need to check your pulse!!  Here’s Jennifer’s POST about this terrific card and she promises “a tutorial of sorts” on how to make the card base.

Also go check out these other Design Team Members who have Adventures in the Land of Oz to post today! And come back tomorrow as we take a few more steps towards the Emerald City!

Arty Carty