One Last Minute Addition – Stampendous And STAEDTLER

We missed Tobi Crawford’s post today! Please go check it out and leave her some love!

Tobi Crawford

Stampendous and STAEDTLER – A love that will last!

We’ve had waaaayyy too much fun this week playing with our friends over at STAEDTLER! They were so generous to our Design Team, and we’ve loved every second of showing you what we can do with their beautiful products. REMEMBER – Next week we’ll be playing with our friends at the Craft Resin Blog! Ooooh… You know that one is always popular, and we’ve got more prizes for that one – Tues – Friday next week!

But we’ve been busy, too!

So, for the Stampendous blog this weekend, we’ll start your Summer off right with some gorgeous new Summer images just loaded to our website. These “beachy keen” images are available at your favorite local retailer, or you can order them right on our website and your local retailer will ship them right out to you! (REMEMBER there’s FREE shipping on U.S. retail orders $50+)

Our in-house Sample Artist Debi Hammons has been using our STAEDTLER Karat Aquarelle pencils to color some terrific beach scenes we’ll be bringing to you all weekend.

Portland Head Lighthouse by Debi Hammons

Our Design Team is still playing with Balloons, or other terrific images and STAEDTLER, and You have until the end of the day on Monday to do ALL your commenting on ALL the blogs for the week so you can win, win, win the terrific prizes from STAEDTLER and Stampendous. Be sure to visit every one of the terrific blogs below this weekend and leave them a ton of love! They’ve all worked very hard to inspire you to pick up some great stamps and make some beautiful art!

Cyndi Bundy

Jamie Martin

Janelle Stollfus

Jennifer Dove

Krissy Fossmeyer

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel

Rhea Weigand

April Derrick

Kelli Mowat

Lisa Somerville

Stampendous Gets Carried Away with STAEDTLER

For this blog hop the generous folks at STAEDTLER sent our Design Team a terrific package of products. The team has had so much fun creating beautiful projects with these terrific tools.  Legendary for quality and durability, STAEDTLER products have a long been our choice here at Stampendous. We tried to get a little “out of the box” this week to use some of the terrific things they supplied to us. Our own Fran Seiford created a page for a Mixed Media Journal using her favorite Karat Aquarelle Pencils, our Jumbo Cling Butterfly Trio stamp and our Bicycle Works Background stamp as well as our Teal Encrusted Jewel Kit and our Frantage Embossing Kit. What a fun way to fly a kite!

Butterfly Bicycle Journal Page by Fran Seiford

Playing along today are several members of the STAEDTLER Design Team along with lots of our gals! Be sure to visit each of the blogs and leave a terrific comment for each one! We’ve got some great prizes, you can see them on Monday’s post. Here’s who is playing today:

Suzanne Czosek

Kelli Mowat

Krissy Fossmeyer

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel

Rhea Weigand

Quick Reminder – Monthly Challenge

Just a quick reminder, folks, about our Monthly Challenge. For May it’s Fabulous Florals (with extra entry points going to those that use a Stampendous flower stamp)

You can find the Challenge details and lots of inspiration HERE.

You can enter your projects by clicking on the linky tool (F.E. Linus in his cool button) at the bottom of that page or in our right sidebar —->.

You can VIEW all the entries for the month by clicking on the linky tool as well. PLEASE enjoy and visit the folks who entered their projects, and comment on their terrific work. Building blog audiences is what all this is about! You might find someone whose work you love and you’ll get to see lots and lots more of it by following them!

Vase Bouquet by Suzanne Czosek

Stampendous + Staedtler = WOW!

COLORING -  It’s such a basic joy! I remember so fondly sitting down with my mom at the dining room table and coloring in a coloring book. Her page was always so neat and beautiful, and I loved learning from her how to shade and make those flat pictures of cartoon characters come to life.  Her’s are still better than mine, but I still love coloring. And Fran Seiford, Stampendous Owner and Chief Artistic Officer, is always so careful when designing stamps to make sure that we’re creating beautiful images for people who love to color.

One such group of images is our new Hot Air Balloon Trio, this stamp provides you with so many opportunities to create magically colored cards and scrapbook pages. Here’s a terrific page by Design Team Member Stephanie Lee

Hot Air Balloons by Stephanie Lee

Lots of our Design Team Members and those on the STAEDTLER Design Team have some terrific inspiration for you today! Be sure to visit each one and leave an insightful comment to have a chance to win one of the many prize packages from Stampendous and STAEDTLER being offered this week!

Jamie Martin

Janelle Stollfus

Jennifer Dove

Kellie Mowat

Kim Stewart

April Derrick

FOR THOSE THAT ASKED:

Here’s a link to Monday’s blog post in case you missed the Prize Packages.  Stampendous & STAEDTLER – Color Your World

Here’s a link to STAEDTLER on Facebook - STAEDTLER North America  There seems to be a lot of creativity on their page!

I didn’t find a blog for them – but here’s a link to their website and their North American Design Team

Their products are available in every major retailer of craft supplies (and most minor retailers).

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

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

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

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