...SOAP...

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I welcome you to our very first SOAP event!!!! Hurrah!

You might be aware that recently we changed our schedule to move away from a monthly release of new stamps to a more leisurely bi-monthly release plan. This means that we will be releasing new stamps every other month and in between we have SOAP!!

SOAP is our new Stamp of Approval Parade - and it's what we will be doing in the 'in between' months. It's our chance to have another peep at what we just released this past month - and it's your chance to find new ideas and inspiration for things to do with your newest goodies, which, hopefully you now have at your fingertips.

We appreciate that many folks have only just received their new goodies right about the time when we are usually beginning to show what's coming out for the next release and we thought that it would be a good idea to slow things down a little so that we can all have time to appreciate our latest stamps and keep that lovely 'new goodies' feeling for a little while longer.

We aim to produce around the same amount of sets per year, but we think that spreading them out in this way will help us to get more out of our investments. We're hoping that you will be able to find inspiration that you can actually play along with, and to that end, we have a little competition coming up at the conclusion of our SOAP event - here's what the schedule looks like:

April SOAP event - 4 days

April 1-3 

• samples showcasing our March release. Begin here at the WMS blog and you can follow the links to see who else is parading!

April 4 

•  Final day of samples
•  Exciting announcement that you will not want to miss!!!
• You are invited to play along in our CASE competition - details on the day.

Sound ok so far? Good!


Now, leave a comment on this post telling me what you really think of this plan - we can handle it! Don't hold back!!! - I will draw one random comment to win a large set of stamps of your choice! I will make the draw on Monday evening.


Here's who is parading alongside me today:

• Anya Schrier
  
• Belinda Chang Langner
• Bonnie Sharp 

• Claire Brennan
• Jennifer Holmes
• Julia Aston

• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lynn Mercurio
• Mona Pendleton
• Sandie Dunne
• Sarah Martina Parker
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• And here is my project for today, I made a little pennant (- well, not so little actually,). It's big enough to pop up on the wall alone as a decor item. I didn't get a chance to use the banners during the release, I was knee deep in cowboy land back in March and so here is something I wanted to try.
  
  
  I love the clear embossing powders used over coloured inks - see the sheen on the little banner stamps.
  
  
  
  
  I started with one of the medium sized banner stamp designs from the Vintage banners set we just released. In the pic below - the mini pennant on the right was stamped in red ink and trimmed with a Spellbinders Nested Pennant die template from this set. The one on the left was stamped first in red ink and then I stamped another in blue. I trimmed both with the die template and then I used a craft knife to trim the top section off the blue one, following the line of the design. I adhered it over the red one to get a two colour pennant. I found this easy and so I made a little batch of them.
  
  
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• I laid them out in a pleasing arrangement and began to stitch them together, which was super easy because they are such simple shapes.
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  Once they were stitched together I trimmed a backing mat out of blue cardstock. I used one of those edge punches to give a fancy edge.
  
  
  
  
  
  I made a little sentiment panel using a lovely  new Spellbinders fancy tag die. I paired it with two semi circular banner designs from the Mini Banners set - these are super easy to trim out with a 2" circle die or punch.
  
  
  
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• Did you like my flower? - I am ever so slightly botanically challenged - I normally don't make or use flowers much, but I really wanted one for this pennant.
• I laid out my Spellbinders Blossom dies on the base plate of the Grand Calibur and cut all my petals in one go. I love that the base plate actually says 'base plate' as I am really good at getting the plates mixed up normally.
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•  I stamped the blossoms with a text stamp from the Text it set and then set to work with a little smooth headed tool - massaging the petals on a piece of foam until they started to curl up and take on some dimension.
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  Thought you might like to see my stamping foam - someone noticed it in a previous post and I thought you might like to see it all - my itty bitty girl illustrated it for me so's I could see us all in the middle of the night while I'm working  and they are sleeping!!!! lol!
  
  I use the stamping foam for every project I make, I stamp nothing, not even a tiny sentiment without a little foam under the cardstock - the difference it makes is very noticeable and I swear by it!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hope it tickles!! Don't forget to call back and tell me what you think!!!