The Big Cheese of the Week

Hi there!

It is time to pick our weekly Big Cheese winner, and boy, do I have some eye candy for you today! We have three holiday projects to share that are just full of inspiration.

Our Big Cheese winner for this week is Helen, who created a jaw-dropping amazing mixed media canvas using the cottage from A Cottage Christmas.

I'm at a loss for words. Just fantastic, from the cozy cottages decked for the holidays, down to the stitched felt snow drifts. A labor of love, to be sure, but what results! I imagine this looks outstanding displayed for the holidays, and it certainly is an inspiration to try something paper crafty outside of the 'card zone'. I've seen these craft canvases at my local store, and I would really love to give one a try now! Amazing, Helen!

Helen, your project will be added to the Big Cheese highlight album in the WMS Gallery. Please send me an email and I will provide you with a discount code for $10 off (the price of a small set!!) your next Waltzingmouse Stamps purchase.

Up next is the cutest little tag from Dana Gustafson.

Easy? Check. Festive? Check. Super cute? Check! What a great combination of elements, from the chenille candy cane to the music background. My favorite part? The glitter on the Labels 18 edge! What a great look. If not adorning a present under the tree, this baby would look right at home hanging on the tree as well.

Rounding things out for today is another great idea brought to us from Cyndie.

How sweet! This container started its first life as an ice cream tub, but Cyndie has transformed it into holiday packaging for some shortbread cookies. The embossed dotted background adds instant elegance and the paper pieced holly and berries from Sewing Box Christmas add major holiday cheer. And really, it is a great (and green!) idea to recycle such a useful container! Makes me want to think twice about what is in my recycling bin.

Ladies, you are ALL outstanding! Thank you so much for your hard work and contributions to the WMS Gallery! We're so glad you're a part of it!

Would you like the opportunity to be chosen for the Big Cheese? Add your direct links (please!) for your newly uploaded projects here in the WMS Forum, a new thread starts every Monday!

Anya

...Check out the challenge blog today

 

Fabulous inspiration such as this incredible creation from Jeanne Jachna await you here....

The Big Cheese of the Week

Good morning! I am here once again to bring you this week's Big Cheese winner. I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating: you ladies continue to do an outstanding job. Week after week we have numerous new uploads to the Waltzingmouse Stamps Gallery, just loading it with inspiration. I also want to recognize all of our new participants!

This week's winner has shared a beautiful holiday card. Check out this design from Laurie Jones:

I love the layout of this card and the sweet combination of pink and white. The extra touches Laurie added, including the embossed background, the cute little tag, and the glittered candy canes from Sewing Box - Christmas all come together to really make this a stand-out.

Laurie, your card will be added to the Big Cheese highlight album in the WMS Gallery. Please send me an email and I will provide you with a discount code for $10 off (the price of a small set!!) your next Waltzingmouse Stamps purchase.

Next up is a fantastic idea for holiday packaging, shared by Cammie Murphree.

Cute little burlap sacks are jazzed up for gifts using Seasonal Remedies. The jingle bells on the drawstrings are the perfect finishing touch! Handmade soap, or a pretty little votive candle would be perfect in these. They look easy peasy, too, which is always a plus around this busy time of year!

We all love to see unique and creative ways to use our stamps. Jen Treadway shares a great idea for a holiday card using Teeny Trees.

A reindeer! I just love this little guy! What a super creative idea, and a great card composition. His little red rhinestone nose is just the icing on the cake.

Thank you again for another outstanding week of this program. Your contributions are so appreciated!

Would you like the opportunity to be chosen for the Big Cheese? Add your direct links (please!) for your newly uploaded projects here in the WMS Forum, a new thread starts every Monday!

Have a wonderful Holiday!
Anya

...Can you smell it?

The peppermint that is???? lol, me neither, because this is a jar of Cherry rock. Not being in US it's kinda hard to find decent peppermint candy here, or at least I haven't managed to do so yet, but I live in hope.

Anyhow this cherry rock comes in rather uninspiring little baggies like this:

Now, surely, I thought to myself, I can do something with that. It's actually nice stuff (it's soft, which is a bonus for us folks approaching the delicate dental years) and it will make a dinky little prezzie for somebody that I'd like to acknowledge this Christmas, such as a classroom helper.

I decanted my cherry rock into a brand new Kilner Jar, being careful not to touch it on the way in. I know candy keeps for ages but I didn't want to run the risk of spoiling it and so I boiled out my jar first and then wore some of those wee clear sandwich making gloves to be sure it was all tickety boo. If you have ever had a child come home from Home-Economincs class with a 'team effort' fruit salad you'll be completely on my wavelength.

Kilner jars are perfectly suitable for customising thanks to the separate seal under the lid - you can see how I added a little card inset to the top of my jar in the pics below.

I stamped my main label in Riding hood Red ink (SU) onto some white card and then used a Spellbinders 2011 Heirloom Ornament die to trim it out. The main label comes from the Santa's coming to Town set that we released in October. No need for embossing or such, I just kept it plain and simple.

 For the lid insert I stamped the sentiment, also from the Santa's coming to Town set in Riding hood red. I wanted a purty frame and I chose a little spotty frame from the Vintage Circles Small stamp set and stamped it in a pale pink (Pink Pirouette - SU). I trimmed the circle out with a punch to be slightly larger than the opening in the screw on lid, so that it would stay in place when I tightened the lid.

I used two shades of green ribbon, pink and red flowers and a wee bit of fancy snowflake trim (Marks and Spencer Christmas ribbon) to finish it off, Hope it tickles!!!

Store News

I have decided not to have a release in December this year. I know we were scheduled to do one but between me and you, it gets a little busy this time of year and I rather thought it would be nice to have a relaxed build up to Christmas for us all. I hope to pop on the blog regularly and share packaging ideas etc and run a few good competitions.

Our next release will be in January, hopefully when we are all ready for a change of pace and a little freshening up, sound ok?

Competition

There are two main competitions I want to run between now and Christmas, and one involves making tags, they're quick, they're small and we're all going to need them, so look out for details on that in the next couple of days, I think you can safely assume that the theme will be Christmas...

The other competition I will be running is the Nice list comp - I LOVED this last year, and I'm itching to do it again this year, I'm thinking I will begin this on 1st December so watch out for that post also.

Right, back to packing for me, what are you up to this eveing?

...And the winner is....

We had a little giveaway as we recently got 1000 thumbs up on Facebook and wooohoo Nicoleqmullen, you have been randomly selected as our winner!!! pop me a note (claire.brennan1@ntlworld.com) with your addy and I'll get your set right out to you!!!

nicoleqmullen said... 17 Love this set!I love sentiments and would love to see more sets like this one but with some sentimental sentiment/phrases maybe??

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

You could almost hear the Christmas music playing – and maybe you were listening to some festive tunes while you Waltzed along with those who participated recently in the Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz this past Thursday.  There was certainly no shortage of inspiration from images of tasty treats to frosty white snowflakes.  The fans of Waltzingmouse Stamps shared their creativity and we want to share a few of the projects that really WOW’d us. 

        

Kary really rocked this Christmas card using the Twas The Night Before Christmas as she created a beautiful scene using the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", also known as "The Night Before Christmas" written by Clement Clarke Moore, as well as many of the other traditional images contained in this set.  She created a welcoming invitation to really “Believe” and created lovely vintage appeal from this set with her tri-fold card, complete with an open window revealing that Jolly ole Elf.  Fabulous job, Kary.

         

Rudlis fashioned some lovely wintery-white gift tags using line art from three sets; 2011 Holiday Ornaments, Dainty Doilies 2 Small and Festive Foliage.  Simple, yet festive enough to grace any holiday gift.  The line art from these sets looks striking against the white background and how nice that she created in these heart shapes. 

     

And newcomer, Kim Heggins, created this fun holiday card using Sewing Box Christmas.  Those adorable mitten are sure to warm the heart with their built-in stitching and with the addition of the twine and snowflake brads, Kim embellished her card with lots of Christmas traditions. 

All the projects were awesome, and as promised, we selected one random winner from all those who participated in the Waltz.  That lucky winner is: Renee.  Congratulations Renee and thanks so much for taking part in the November Waltz!  Please e-mail Claire at  claire.brennan1@ntlworld.com letting her know your set of choice and she will make sure that it will be on its way to you soon.

In case you didn’t get a chance to follow along the Waltz, you can get all the links to the projects right here and see for yourself why we think Waltzingmouse Stamps’ customers are truly a creative bunch.  We’re sure you will be inspired.
Just a note that there will not be a Waltz next month, as we are taking a wee break so that we can all see to those last minute details surrounding Christmas. We promise to have some details coming your way soon about the new activities beginning in 2012.
And a BIG thank you to everyone who participated and commented.  YOU are what makes these Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz events so much fun and so inspiring.
Have a great day!

...It's beginning to look a lot like......

Christmas!!!!! I can't wait!!!! Well actually I can, I'm not ready, in the history of Brennan family Christmasses, I have never been ready, so quite why I think it might happen is a mystery....anyhow, it's fun trying! - This is the Tree in the Victoria Centre in Belfast this week, lights are going on all over.....

Ok in honour of the fact that we reached 1000 thumbs up on Facebook I'm having a giveaway! up for grabs is this set - Seasonal Remedies

What you need to do is leave a comment here telling me what you would like to see next from WMS - I'm all ears, we have a few things up our sleeves, bt I like to hear what you guys think too!

I will pick a random commenter from the ole blog here on Sunday night - ooh and if you win and  already have this set, you can pick another!!!

Hope it tickles!

November Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz

Greetings and welcome to the November Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz.  If you are new to the Blog Waltz, or have never even heard of it, you can get most all the general details right here.
This month our theme is Winter/Christmas! I bet you have already been busy with your holiday card making, so let’s see what you have been creating and show us your card designs and scrapbook pages.

Although we call this a "blog waltz," we have some players who use an online gallery for their linked entry, so even if you don't have a blog, you can still participate. For a complete list of the players participating in this month’s Waltz, just click here and you will be directed to the forum. What? You aren’t registered on the WMS forum? Well, that’s easily remedied, and it only takes a moment. Check it out here.
Playing along in the Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz is not only fun, but could earn you a free WMS stamp set.  Come visit us and see what all the excitement is about. 

The Big Cheese of the Week

Hi there, thank you for joining us for this week's Big Cheese winner.

Let's just jump right in, shall we?

This week's Big Cheese winner, with this stunner of a card, is Katie Gehring!

What an inspired, elegant anniversary card! Making perfect use of the empty frames in the patterned paper, Katie created a beautiful 'wall' of cameo images. Topped off with a lovely crocheted lace flower, this striking card is sure to garner gasps (it did from me)!

Katie, your card will be added to the Big Cheese highlight album in the WMS Gallery. Please send me an email and I will provide you with a discount code for $10 off (the price of a small set!!) your next Waltzingmouse Stamps purchase.

Next up we have a set of clean and simple Christmas cards from Jen Treadway.

I think these cards are seriously cute! Isn't this the perfect combination of an image you wouldn't even associate with a holiday (the sound bars from Free Spirit Boy) with a clever sentiment to create a truly unique Christmas card? They are super, Jen!

And finally, Cathy Wallington has shared a fabulous vintage tag.

A glittered up ornament from 2011 Holiday Ornaments is the showpiece of this creation. The holidays are the perfect time to create some tags, and Cathy demonstrates a perfect balance of rich colors and beautiful complimentary patterns on hers. Great inspiration - I see some tag creation in my future.. how about you?

Thank you again for another outstanding week of this program. Your contributions are so appreciated!

Would you like the opportunity to be chosen for the Big Cheese? Add your direct links (please!) for your newly uploaded projects here in the WMS Forum, a new thread starts every Monday!

Have a great day!
Anya

....ooh look!

Delia used her Candy Jar fillers in a really novel way - I had to share it here - Cheers Delia!!

 

She made a phone cover on the Gelaskins site!!! This is so cool!!

...Happy Saturday!

Quick Holiday Gift/stocking filler? Clear kitchen storage jar, a few ounces of sweets and a custom tag? Any takers? Super simple and super quick, because there is literally no time at Christmas....

I stamped the jar from Candy jar Christmas fillers, then I stamped the filler sweets and the lid, I used two colours of copic marker to match my candies, and then brushed the paler stripes on the wee balls with glue, literally threw on some gliter and let it set.

Oh I had already fussy cut this tag using a fancy die (Spellbinders Labels 20) and a ruler and craft knife - you know, when you cut a rectangle of card and slide it up through a label die, so that only part of the card is under a cutting edge of the die when you pass it through the machine.

I stamped the mini jar label on a separate piece of card, coloured it and cut it out - added some glitter and realised that I had used the wrong glitter... I should have used the clear glitter and not the white, but hey-ho, these things happen and I think it looks ok, I popped it up on foam stickies for a little dimension. Dash of ribbon, done. Whole thing - 20 mins.

So, how is your Saturday going? If you have an hour to spare, you might like to pop over to our Challenge blog, we have a fresh sketch today, and plenty of inspiration right here. Including this Beauty from Edna. Pop on over to the Challenge blog to see more.

hope it tickles!

November CASE Competition Winner Announced

Hi everyone.  If you remember, back on November 4th, we invited you to participate in a  CASE (Copy and Share Everything) Competition. We asked that you choose a project from any of the 4 days of the Stamp of Approval Parade (SOAP) held November 1-4th, and CASE a project from one of the Design Team members’ projects.  We are happy to announce that we have a winner. Today we are highlighting these two great tags created by: Charmaine Stack

Charmaine got her inspiration from Tosha Leyendekker's  Day 3 SOAP project.  You can view Tosha's project here.

The enduring link between Tosha’s and Charmaine's projects are the lovely snowflake, each peeking out from the side of the tag.  Charmaine added lots of sparkle and shine; using glitter and lovely crystals on both of her tags.  Moving from the bright hues of turquoise to the earthy muted colors of the second tag, she shows how easy it is to elicit different feelings with just a change of color.

We all want to express a very special thank you to everyone who participated in the competition.  Your projects were amazingly creative and inventive. You can see ALL the competitors right here.

...Christmas challenge, November

A quick note to let folks know that the November Christmas challenge is up - anyone who doesn't know about this Challenge hosted on our Forum by Lynn, should check out the details here.

There are a couple of weeks left and at the end of the event there will be a Grand Prize - but only folks who have completed all of the challenges will be eligible. Don't panic, there is still time. If you would like to take part, you can, So long as the projects for all twelve months are uploaded to their appropriate gallery prior to the end of December. Novembers Challenge is a simple one, a trio of CAS cards, here's are Lynn's fabby examples to inspire you.

...Back in stock

We have some sets of the followng back in stock:

Nordic Winter

2011 Ornaments

Seasons of love Tags

Compliments of the Season

Around Christmastime

Sewing Box Christmas 

Say it Loud - Winter.

The Big Cheese of the Week

Good morning, thank you for joining us for this week's Big Cheese winner.

Again, I want to say how thrilled I am to see so many new players and acknowledge those 'regulars' that share their uploads consistently. Thank you!

This week's Big Cheese winner is Cammie Murphree with this gorgeous holiday creation using Nordic Winter.

You guys have really been making wonderful things with this set - I have loved everything I've seen! Cammie's card features one of my favorite holiday color combinations. The design looks great topped off with that bold ribbon and sparkly snowflake!

Cammie, your card will be added to the Big Cheese highlight album in the WMS Gallery. Please send me an email and I will provide you with a discount code for $10 off (the price of a small set!!) your next Waltzingmouse Stamps purchase.

Our first honorable mention for this week is Karen Haman.

This is a classic and versatile card design, and Karen has used it to really make that cupcake (from Frame It) stand out. Seriously, it is colored so beautifully I feel like I could reach out and take a taste of that sparkly icing. Raspberry, I think! ;)

We also have another beautiful creation from Lana to highlight this week.

Ooh! The rose looks so great with text-patterned petals! Fantastic paper piecing on this card and a great reminder that things don't always need to be their 'normal' colors. These images from Roses in Bloom look just as fantastic in these monochrome creams as they would in red!

Thank you again for another outstanding week of this program. Your contributions are so appreciated!

Would you like the opportunity to be chosen for the Big Cheese? Add your direct links (please!) for your newly uploaded projects here in the WMS Forum, a new thread starts every Monday!

Have a great day!
Anya

...Nordic Winter

ED - Joyce - M&S - lots of lovely colours..... it was a week or two ago, hope they still have some!


Katie...
A sad day today - Katie Renz lost her battle today and my heart is aching for her boys, her husband and her family - If you knew of Katie, you might like to know that the Swimming for Katie fundraising is still open, I know some folks are still contributing. See the link in the sidebar to the right. Be at peace Katie.

 

 I made something!

I made this in a flash, had to, I am on short time this week again. A very close relative is in hospital and I very much need to be there for her. Orders are going out as normal thanks to my assistant and even shipping notes are getting out, but personal correspondence is slow, my apologies. We are scanning the emails for order related enquiries and if you have a general enquiry, may we direct you to our FAQ page where you may find the answer to your question, do scroll, it's a long page.

This is one of my favourite sets ever....I love it. Nordic Winter. I love the combination of borders that can be made by combining the single motifs with the ready made borders. I love it especially in red and white.

I happen to be in need of about a million little gifts for teachers, coaches, folks like that. I spotted these tea light holders in a local store, they were about £3 each and I bought a few. I filled mine with some chocolate balls covered in gold paper. It was so easy to dress them up with a simple belly band stamped with a border made up of the tree, the small heart and the skinny border.

The card was super simple too, just stamp a few borders together and trim out a card front. Mount it on a card blank and pop on a sentiment. I used a circular sentiment from Candy Jar Christmas. I punched it out and popped it up on a mat that was covered in the gold paper from a 'spare' sweetie. This way it matches the gift.

Just one colour of ink - Cherry Cobbler, white card, could it be any simpler?

Hope it tickles!

... Katie

Folks if you didn't know already, Katie Renz has passed. My heart goes out to Kevin and the boys. If you didn't know Katie, you missed an angel.

Folks who feel so inclined may still donate to the swimming for Katie cause, you can see it in the sidebar on the right.

Day 4 and a CASE Competition!

Welcome to day 4 of our November SOAP event.  Today the ladies are showcasing the Waltzingmouse Stamps’ Christmas – Holiday stamp sets, as they have been for the past three days. 
Today we invite you to participate in a CASE (Copy and Share Everything) competition.  Here’s how it works:  Find a card or project from any of the projects posted over the past few days by the WMS Design Team, CASE that project using Waltzingmouse Stamp images, and link it using the Inlinkz below this post.   At the end of the competition, one project will be randomly selected to be highlighted with a Parade of its own on several of the Design Team blogs.
We hope you will enjoy this competition and that it will inspire your creativity. You have one week to complete and link your project as the competition will close on November 10th at 8:00 AM which is 3 AM Eastern, 2 AM Central and Midnight, Pacific time. The winner will be announced on right here on November 11th.
If you are looking for more inspiration and plenty of ideas to CASE, just check out the projects that the rest of the Design Team has to share with you today.  Their projects this week have been amazing.
Anya Schrier
Becca Feeken
Clare Buswell
Julia Aston
Jennifer Holmes
Kate Whelan
Kelly Schirmer
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynn Mercurio
Mona Pendleton
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker

...November - Day 3

Good morning, and welcome to the third day of the November 2011 SOAP (Stamp of Approval Parade).

The Design Team is really doing a bang up job providing lots of holiday inspiration, don’t you think? I hope you are ready for even more Christmas cheer as you stop by their blogs today. You’re sure to walk away with lots of ideas and plenty of creative ways to use Waltzingmouse Stamps!


Anya Schrier
Becca Feeken
Clare Buswell
Julia Aston
Jennifer Holmes
Kate Whelan
Kelly Schirmer
Lynn Mercurio
Mona Pendleton
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker

The Big Cheese of the Week

Hi there!

I hope you have been enjoying the November SOAP so far. Are you maybe starting to feel just a little Christmasey??

I'm here to share this week's Big Cheese winners. We had a ton of new players this week, and I want to welcome each and every one of you! It was so good to have you join us, and I hope you will continue to do so!

It is so exciting to look at all of your creations each week, and I feel like I can tell when you guys have had a happy visit from Royal mail! This week there were lots of cards using the sets released in October. Aren't they fabulous?

This week's winner, Geraldine McCormick, created a clean, simple card that just really struck a chord with me.

I love the non-traditional Christmas color scheme, but still feel all warm and fuzzy from this one. There has been lots of chit chat as to how on trend this Nordic Winter set is right now, and Geraldine has put together a great combination of images. The simple design would be great for holiday cards: easily reproducible (and realistic - my grand ideas always seem to get out of hand, kwim?), totally customizable, you could skip the gems for easy mailing, and totally adorable! What could be better than that?

Geraldine, your card will be added to the Big Cheese highlight album in the WMS Gallery. Please send me an email and I will provide you with a discount code for $10 off (the price of a small set!!) your next Waltzingmouse Stamps purchase.

Raise your hand if you love shaped cards. Yep, me too! They are so fun. Check out this cutie from Cathy Weber.

Um, hand stamped plaid patterned paper on a sailboat? Love it! Cathy combined Off Beat Backgrounds and Pic-Nic Patterns to create this first birthday card. Great one, Cathy!

Finishing us off today is a card from Pauline Pollington that has a simple design, but tons of dimension!

The flowers are from Sewing Box - Hugs and were stamped on different patterned papers, cut out, and layered. Wouldn't a Christmas version using Big Blooms - Poinsettia be really pretty, too? I just really like the impact the colors have on the white background, and the fancy edge to the card. Another beautiful creation, Pauline!

You ladies are just amazing! Thank you so much for your hard work and contributions to the WMS Gallery! We're so glad you're a part of it!

Would you like the opportunity to be chosen for the Big Cheese? Add your direct links (please!) for your newly uploaded projects here in the WMS Forum, a new thread starts every Monday!

Have a great day!
Anya