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!

April Flowers bring….

Our April catalog is just chock full of gorgeous florals for spring, and our Design Team just loves to color flowers! But then we’ve always said, get yourself some good flowers and some great greetings, and you can make cards for any occasion.

First up today, then incomparable Suzanne Czosek made this fantastic card for our April Catalog using our Vase Bouquet, Seed Background, and Soaring Sentiments :

Bouquet Vase by Suzanne Czosek

This Vase with its spring bouquet proved to be one of the favorite items to color!  Here it is by Jennifer Dove:

Vase Bouquet by Jennifer Dove

and Kristine Reynolds made a fantastic project with it as well!

Vase Bouquet by Kristine Reynolds

You can see there are a lot of ways to go with this terrific stamp. Several of our Design Team will be  posting terrific florals all week this week. Fabulous Florals is also our May Challenge, so grab your flowers and wow us with your creations. Remember, if your flower images are Stampendous your entry will count twice. You can begin submitting your challenge projects on Friday.

Meanwhile, check out the additional, terrific flower creations on these team members’ blogs and leave them some love!

Suzanne Czosek

Jennifer Dove

Jamie Martin

Hello Dahlia! by Lea Kimmel

Red Dahlia by Lea Kimmel

This bold Dahlia by Lea Kimmel is so cheerful against the pretty plaid paper and diaphanous blue bow. It definitely speaks to us, and it says HELLO! in the grandest, prettiest way!

3D Hydrangea Card

“I Just love love love the new jumbo images by Stampendous! They are so fun to color and really pack some “wow” on every card! Just look at this interactive card. It is amazing and so easy for anyone to color.”  - Jennie Lin Eger Black

Hydrangea 3D Card by Jennie Lin Eger Black

Directions for Hydrangea Card.
Stampendous Stamp: Jumbo Hydrangea CRS5005
Black Card stock: 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ (folded)
Lilac Card stock: 5 1/4″ x 5 1/4″
Black Card stock Label die cut (Sizzix Big Shot Die)
Black Organdy Ribbon 6″ long
Scrap paper for tag with one black brad

Copic Markers used:
Flowers: Violet BV000, BV02, BV04, and a bit of Pink R81 and a tiny bit of B000
Leaves: YG01, YG03, YG63
Flower Centers: Y32, Y35

coloring tip: Start with your lightest color, then gradually add your darker colors using less of each color as you get darker. I chose to not over blend my colors on this image to have a more mottled look, if you prefer a smoother look – blend your colors together using your lighter marker.

Directions:
1. Stamp image twice.
2. Color the first image and cut out. (without leaves)
3. Pop dot the image onto your card stock as shown.
4. Color three flowers and leaves on second image, then cut out
5. Pop dot extra layer of flowers on top of image for dimensional look then tuck leaves under the main image.
6. Stamp greeting on scrap paper and clip corners, and add a bit of ribbon or scrap black paper for a tag handle. Tuck this behind the image for fun interactive action!

Try it with other color combinations!
Pinks: R81, R83, R85
Golden Yellows: Y32, Y35, Y38
Slate Blue: B000, B91, B93, B95
Blue Green: BG0000, BG01, BG02

or try your own combo!

Stamps available at your local scrapbook store or at www.stampendous.com. If they are not on the shelf ask for them.

please check my blog for more samples!
JennieBstampin.blogspot.com

Bright Red Poppies for a Friend

Stampendous Blog Star Geny Cassady, created this cheerful Poppy card. Flowers are the perfect way to tell a friend you care.

Geny writes,

“Today I have a simple card featuring the beautiful Poppy Stems Stamp, one of my favorites.  I colored it in with Prismacolor pencils and gamsol, adding a little “halo” around the edges of the flowers for a more water colored look.  Adding a tiny scalloped strip along the edge, a pretty sentiment and tiny buttons were the perfect touches to set off the poppies.  Thanks for visiting today, go make something pretty!!”

Poppy Card for a friend by Geny Cassady

Supplies:
Stampendous Stamps – CRM178-R Cling Poppy Stems, SSC109-R Happy Messages Perfectly Clear Stamps
Ink – Black (Memories), Antique Linen (Ranger)
Cardstock – Rustic White, New Leaf (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper – Stella & Rose Gertie (My Mind’s Eye)
Black Stickles (Ranger)
Prismacolor Pencils
Gamsol
Tiny Buttons (Wal-Mart)
Corner Rounder (EK Success)

Instructions:
1. Trim card base to 3 ½” x 10” and score at 5”.  Sponge ink around edges.

2.  Trim patterned paper and distress edges before adhering to card base.

3.  Trim Rustic White panel and stamp floral image.  Color with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. Add Black Stickles to centers of flowers.  Sponge ink around edges.

4. Using corner rounder with guard removed, punch scalloped edge on green piece, adhere under floral image panel.  Adhere to card using dimensional adhesive.

5.  Stamp sentiment along bottom in black ink and glue on tiny buttons.

Tag – You’re It!

Ideas from our Blog Star, Laura Davis, just keep pouring in. Look what she has done now! You can tag that gift with style!

Laura writes, “Tags are a special and fun way to spruce up any package. Here is a Stampendous Birthday Tag I made for a special “one” year old. For this tag I used the Stampendous SSC1090 Block Art Beautiflowers Perfectly Clear Stamp Set. I paper pieced this adorable stamp, pop dotted the center and leaves of the flower, then put a sparkly dot in the center. Creating with Stampendous stamps is so fun and easy.”

Birthday Gift Tag by Laura Davis

Here is the list of supplies I used to create my tag:
Stamps: Stampendous SSC1090 BlockArt Beautiflowers Perfectly Clear Stamp Set
Card stock: Bazzill Basics green and black
Patterned Paper: GCD Melody Ross Homespun Chic Collection, Cosmo Cricket “Now That’s A Good Thing”, Little Yellow Bicycle Clothesline Spring Mix,
Embellishments: Crystal Stickers glitter dome, pink
The Girls’ Paperie Jubilee fabric brads
Bazzill Basics Ribbon, black dashed

Friends are Forever

Our Blog Star, Laura Davis, just sent us this beautiful Friendship Card. Supplies for it are posted below.

Laura writes…

Every once in a while it is good thing to let your dear friends know how much you appreciate them. A homemade card can speak volumes. Here is a heartfelt homemade card that was totally inspired by the striking color of Stampendous TP114 Blue Tinsel Embossing Powder. I could sit and stare into this color all day, it is so bright, sparkly, and beautiful!

Here is what Laura used to make this endearing card.

Stampendous Supplies:
Stamps: M238 BlockArt Single Daisy
SSC1116 Friendship Assortment Perfectly Clear Stamp Set
TP114 Tinsel Blue Embossing Powder

Other Supplies:
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Light Blue, White, Water Weave Aqua
Embellishments: Basic Grey, die cut pieces
Little Yellow Bicycle, paper doilies
Scallop scissors
Celebrate It Basic, Basic, green grosgrain
My Minds Eye, Gertie “Friends Forever” Buttons
Copics: B000 Pale Porcelain Blue andBGT3 Mint Green

Recycled Beauty

Krissy Fossmeyer has her third BlogStar post today with a beautiful idea on recycling and reuse! This is such a fabulous look and so clever. Here’s what Krissy has to say about it:

My oldest son and I were talking about recycling one day and about all the things that we recycle in our house.  We take the papers to the library every week for their paper fundraiser, we reuse as much as possible and our recycling can has more in it every week than our garbage can.  I’d like to think we’re pretty good at recycling.  Then he asked me if I could recycle a card.  I said that since they are paper they could be recycled.  He corrected me and said “No, can you make a recycled card?”  That little stinker challenged me!  So, it was ON!

After a bit of brainstorming, I remembered that I had a small stash of paint chips that I had picked up at Menard’s some time ago.  I first trimmed them  to remove all the writing that appeared on the front – although I don’t think that was necessary, I just liked the narrower size better for my layout.  I chose Agapanthus Thank You for the stamped image because the long, graceful blooms were the perfect size for the paint chips.  Plus, I think this stamp looks great when it is embossed in white.

Agapanthus Wish by Krissy Fossmeyer

I had so much fun making the first card, that I decided to make a set using a variety of colors.  I think I need to go back to the home improvement store and get more paint chips!

Agapanthus Rainbow by Krissy Fossmeyer

Hope all is well in your corner of the world and that you take time today to get inky!

recipe:  stamps: Stampendous! SSC1111 Agapanthus Thank You Perfectly Clear Stamps, SSC1109 Dandelion Wish Perfectly Clear Stamps; Tuskineko Ink: VersaMark, Tuxedo Black; The Paper Co; Stampendous! Detail White Embossing Powder; Pittsburgh Paints Paint Chips

 

Stampendous BlogStars – Day 3

Before we get to meeting our two additional BlogStars, we wanted to bring you the second project by Kristine Reynolds.  Beautiful for Spring and the upcoming wedding season, this Orchid Greetings Set is one of our favorites here at Stampendous.

Birthday Orchid Card by Kristine Reynolds

Kristine Reynolds

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!!!
Today I have a quick and simple birthday card to share with you!  This orchid is really easy to color and goes perfectly with any type of sentiment for all of those last minute card needs!

BIRTHDAY ORCHID CARD

STAMPS: SSC1053 Orchid Greetings & SSC1115 Birthday Assortment Perfectly Clear Stamps by Stampendous
PAPER: Neenah White, Bazzil Prismatic Cardstock
INK: Memento Tuxedo Black Dye ink, Copic Markers (yg3, yg01, v01, bv00, e11, e13)
OTHER: Martha Stewart “Loop” Border Punch

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Stamp sentiment in black ink on the bottom of a 5 ½” white panel.
2. Stamp orchid image above the sentiment with black ink and color with Copic Markers
3. Trim the stamped panel leaving part of the left branch “out of the box” as shown.
4. Punch the side of a 5 ½” x 3 ¾” light purple panel and use it to back the stamped panel. Trim left side as needed.
5. Adhere the layered panels to a 5 ¼” x 4 ¼” top folded purple card.
6. Adhere three pearl colored dew drops vertically on the bottom left of card as shown.

I hope you enjoyed my card today and are feeling inspired to get your Stampendous stamps inky and make one of your own!

Saturday Sketch Challenge

And last week’s Sketch Challenge winners are….

Melinda! Stampendous owner and stamp artist, Fran Seiford, chose Melinda’s because she “loved the design use of circles and the bright cheery colors.” Melinda used the Love Robotz Perfectly Clear Stamp Set.

Outside of the card

Inside of the card

And Regla! Our customer representative, Ronnie, said she loved Regla’s card because it was “classy yet simple to make and had great contrast.” In her card, Regla used Footprint Friends Woodmounted Rubber Stamp and the Bee Buddies Woodmounted Rubber Stamp.

Since this is 4th of July weekend and we are celebrating America’s freedom, we are giving you the “freedom” to express your creativity. That means that this week there is no set sketch so anything goes! You can make anything that your little heart desires!

Ok, you know the drill. Get out your stash and make something beautiful with Stampendous products. Post your creation to your blog, website, or in any public forum like Paper Craft Planet.com, Splitcoast Stampers.com, Stamp Shack.com or others. Copy the link to your card and paste it into the comment section of this blog post. Don’t worry if you try and post a comment and it doesn’t show up immediately! We post them on Monday. Find out more information by clicking on the “Sketch Challenge Rules” link at the top of this blog. Here is an example of Stampendous Design Team member, Jen Dove’s card made for this week’s sketch challenge. Good luck everyone!