Take a Ride on the Reading Railroad

Blog Star, Jennifer J Ingle, make this creative bookmark with one of our new stamp sets. What a great idea for a Birthday or Father’s Day gift, paired with a great book, for your bookworm.

Stampendous has so many new stamps for guy cards, gifts and scrap pages.

by Jennifer J Ingle

"Masculine Bookmarker" by Jennifer J Ingle

1. Stamp the map from the Railway Perfectly Clear Set onto kraft paper with distress ink and then cut out the image.
   
2. Mount it on black card stock.
3. Add a bit of mica from the Fran•táge Mica Kit.
4. Stamp tickets in different color inks on white card stock and cut out.
5. Distress the edges a bit to give them some age and texture without adding a lot of dark ink!
   
6. Adhere them to the front of the  bookmark with glue.
7. Now I can tuck this into a good book and give as a gift to a friend!  Have a happy day! – Jennifer Ingle
   

Father’s Day Sketch Challenge #39 by Kristine Reynolds

Blog Star Kristine Reynolds is hostessing Sketch Challenge #39.
She’s challenging you to get those Father’s Day cards made early.

Kristine writes:
“Father’s Day will be here before you know it, so it’s time to get started on cards for all those great dad’s in your life. I love this Changito image and he works perfectly for a Father’s Day card! I liked the way this card turned out, so I decided to share the sketch with you in the form of a challenge! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!”

Father’s Day Sketch sample card by Kristine Reynolds

If you’d like to be a part of this challenge, create a card following the Blog Star’s sketch above. Post your card. Comment on our blog and leave a link to your card. (NOTE: We can’t mail prizes to addresses outside of the United States and its Territories. International fans are welcome to play, but you can only win if you have a US, territorial or APO mailing address. Also, our comments are moderated, so don’t worry if your post doesn’t show up right away.)

Title: Hang On
Stampendous Products: Cling Changito Knee Hugger Stamp, Cling Hang on to You Stamp, Detail White Embossing Powder
Paper: All cardstock & Patterned Paper is Recollections
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink, Versamark™ by Tsukineko
Other: American Crafts brads, Prisma color pencils
Directions: Back striped paper panel with a teal panel and adhere to a top folding white card. Back a blue paper panel with a slightly larger teal panel and adhere to card. Stamp sentiment on the bottom of the blue panel with Versamark™ Ink and emboss with Detail White Embossing Powder. Stamp image in black ink on a white panel and color with prisma color pencils. Back image panel with a slightly larger teal panel and adhere to card as shown.  Install 5 brads vertically.

Sketch Challenge #38 WINNER is Michelle Peterson!

Congratulations Michelle! Stampendous Art Director, Lisa Hindsley, has picked Michelle Peterson as the winner and explained why she chose this particular card.

“I chose Michelle as the winner, because the sketch challenge inspired her to come up with yet another ‘never seen before’ use of a stamp set that has been around for a while. It’s always fun to see something really new done with something you have made several cards with. I loved the way she used the patterned paper on the ties, and made a pattern with the paint brushes- and especially loved that ruler on the edge of the card! Very edgy!”

Celebrate Fathers by Michelle Peterson

A big thanks to all participants. You make our Sketch Challenges a success!

More Father’s Day Gift Wrapping Ideas!

For those of you who’ve already bought your Father’s Day gifts and those of you who haven’t and need some ideas (that pretty much includes everyone), here are a couple super cool handmade gift wrapping ideas:

For My Dad Gift Bag

Stampendous Products Used:

• SSC091 Masculine Monikers Perfectly Clear™ Stamps

Celebrate Dad Pail

Stampendous Products Used:

• SSC135 For Him Perfectly Clear™ Stamps

We also want to let you in on a little secret! If you head over to Twitter.com and follow us at www.twitter.com/stampendous you’ll be able to see that we are doing a very fun contest with our Twitter friends! But you have to read our tweets to find out what it is and how to play!

Father’s Day Ties

Our Art Director, Lisa Hindsley, was on the hunt to find a cool and unique way to wrap up the silk ties she bought for her dad for Father’s Day. A decorated box with tissue paper just wasn’t cutting it. Then she realized that her answer was right under her nose. Our mini and short pails were masculine enough for her dad when she decorated them using a few of our Father’s Day clear stamps and our new Rich and Rugged Embossing Powder kit. They were also perfect size to hold neck ties and keep them coiled so they wouldn’t wrinkle!

The Short Pail Directions:
She cut out a 2 7/8″ diameter circle in white card stock and stamped messages from SSC1052 Hugs for All on top and embossed with EP210 Chinese Red, adhered that to a 3 1/8″ diameter circle of orange card stock and then adhered the combined circles to the pail lid using double-sided stick tape. She made the strip around the pail by cutting out a 1″ by 9 1/2″ strip of orange card stock and a 1 1/4″ by 9 1/2″ strip of white cardstock. She stamped the whole watermark pad on the paper in different angles and embossed it with EP502 Paprika and EP504 Nutmeg. Then she used the SSC192 Thanks Dad pattern stamps to emboss with EP505 Clear Bark. She glued the embossed strip to the white strip, cut holes where the pail handles would be and adhered the strips around the outside of the can using double-sided stick tape.

The Mini Pail Directions:
She cut out a 2″ diameter circle in white card stock and stamped “Dad” from SSC1091 Masculine Monikers on top and embossed with EP210 Chinese Red, adhered that to a 1 3/4″ diameter circle of orange card stock and then adhered the combined circles to the pail lid using double-sided stick tape. The collar was made from a 3 3/4″ by 3/4″ strip of white cardstock. She cut a right triangle out of the middle and then taped those two pieces to the front of the little pail. Then she stamped the tie using the SSC192 Thanks Dad clear stamp set, embossed it with various colors from the Rich and Rugged Embossing Powder kit, cute the tie out and taped it to the front of the pail.

Lastly she coiled two ties and placed them into the pails! And the best part is, both pails together only took about 35 minutes to make!

Father’s Day Card Ideas

Father’s Day is coming soon, and we have some cool Daddy Robots to share! Why not get your Robots (SSC1032 Spotz Botz) doing “Dad” things? Our Robots can play soccer, baseball, basketball, football and golf with our (SSC135 For Him) Perfectly Clear™ Set. They can also wear a tie, go fishing, paint the fence or just celebrate their special day with a balloon bouquet. Daddy Robot could also be a musician (like lots of Daddy’s we know) and play the guitar from our (SSC679 Rock Out) Perfectly Clear™ Set. So get your Botz off the couch and get stampin’!!! Your Daddy will be proud.

Dad’s appreciate Painting with Powder, too. And wine…so make your Dad a grape vineyard card for Father’s Day and tie it to a nice bottle of wine. This card uses M236 Grape Scene Stamp, EK06 Merlot Embossing Powder Kit and R113 Floral Dream Stamp.

Stamp a Changito image inside a line-up of ties to personalize your Father’s Day card for your Monkey-lovin’ Dad. Just stamp the tie image from the SSC192 Thanks Dad Perfectly Clear Stamp Set on a piece of post-it note paper and cut the inside shape of the tie out. Then cover your stamped tie image with the mask, and then stamp V175 Changito Piggyback (or CRV175 Cling Rubber) over the area where you want the image to show up. It’s a designer tie! Just what your Dad wants for Father’s Day- one that he doesn’t have to wear.

Flock & Father’s Day

As we prepare to honor our fathers this weekend, we’ve been on the look out for some fun Father’s Day projects on our favorite blogs. Kimberly Crawford has posted some fabulous gifts for our favorite guy on her blog, we know you’ll love these. But upon surfing Kimberly’s blog we discovered that she’s done a tutorial for one of our favorite products, too! We love using our Fuzzy Flock™ with a glue pen, our Class A’Peel™ stickers, or more recently on Thermo Web’s Peel ‘N Stick, but Kimberly has managed to make a success of it with Tsukineko’s Glue Pad. A feat we’ve yet to master. Be sure and check out her tutorial for instructions.

To check out the recipe and instructions for this go to Kimberly C.’s blog at http://kimberly-crawford.blogspot.com/.

To check out the recipe and instructions for this go to Kimberly C.’s blog at http://kimberly-crawford.blogspot.com/.

To check out the tutorial at Kimberly C.’s blog at http://kimberly-crawford.blogspot.com/.

Finally, here’s one of our flocked creations for Dad.  Look for more great Father’s Day ideas on Thursday. To get the recipe and instructions for this card go to www.stampendous.com

Speaking of Fuzzy Flock, if you’d like a hands on experience with this terrific product and you’re in the Florida area this summer, you might want to find yourself at the Craft and Hobby Association’s first ever Craft SuperShow for consumers. Stampendous will be offering a class for consumers at this show on Friday, July 31. We’d love to see you there! You can get lots more detail about the events at this show here: http://www.craftsupershow.com/eweb/dynamicPage.aspx?WebCode=EdEvents

…when I’m down, you pick me up!!

We know that many stampers have the problem of not enough storage. So we’ve created Cling Rubber™ stamps as a way to store more stamps by simply making it cling instead of woodmounted. And it’s green friendly, because it saves trees, too!

Today’s card is made with our Perfectly Clear™ stamps and our new Cling™ Rubber stamps and is a great card for a dad, an uncle, a grandpa, a mentor, or a teacher to let them know that we appreciate them!

Recipe for this card:

Stamps:

• CRE246 Cling Pick Me Up
• CRV172 Cling Changito Driver
• CRV175 Cling Changito Piggyback
• SSC192 Thanks Dad Perfectly Clear™ Stamps

Ink:

• STF082 Onyx Black Versafine™ Ink

Plus:

• Black card stock (11″ x 4 1/4″ and 2 7/8″ x 2 7/8″ and 1 3/8″ x 1 3/8″)
• White card stock (5 1/4″ x 4″ and 2 5/8″ x 2 5/8″ and 1 1/4″ x 1 1/4″)
• Scissors
• Watercolor paints/brush
• Glue Pen

Cling Rubber™ stamps are the same premium quality, precision trimmed rubber stamps as our traditional woodmounted versions. We’ve simply removed the wood and added a piece of cling vinyl to the adhesive side of the foam mount. This allows your rubber image to be used with an acrylic handle mount just like our Perfectly Clear™ Stamps. We’ve carefully indexed the cling vinyl with an actual-size image of the stamp for ease in positioning. The image is sandwiched between the vinyl and the foam so that it cannot be washed, rubbed or worn off. You can use Cling Rubber stamps with any kind of ink you’d normally use with your wood- mounted stamps. They clean the same way, too. But storage is a breeze. Simply use their adhesive quality to pop them into a Storage Solutions™ Thin container and store them in a typical magazine holder or hang them on a peg board wall. For packing purposes, a thin layer of acetate is added to the cling vinyl in the bag. We’ve offset it to make it easier to see. Simply remove the acetate layer, leaving the round cornered cling vinyl attached to the foam, and discard the acetate. Press it to an acrylic handle (sold separately), and your Cling Rubber is ready to stamp!