...sugar coated gingies

Good Friday afternoon to you! My head is somewhat below the parapets yet as I wrestle with stock organization in the wake of the August release.....

On that front, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I hope to have good news soon for folks who are still interested in seed packets and the like!

Today though I cheered myself up by finishing off a card I started the other night. Those Gingerbread guys never fail to make me smile! I made up some cut files for them that you can get for free here, and while I was footering about with those, I ran out this quad of gingies for the front of my card. It's easy to do this on the Cameo, by copying the Gingerbread boy cut file 3 times, arranging them in a square and then, merging them, but if anyone would like the panel, pre-made, just leave a comment here and I'll see what I can do.

I stamped the gingerdudes from Oven Fresh, in Rich Cocoa memento ink and then coloured them with a copic, I wasn't too fussy with shading because I knew I was going to cover them with that crazy glazy crackle stuff...Ranger make it, Crackle glaze I believe it is called. Had to walk away and leave the guys overnight to dry, I have no patience so I very nearly scraped it off again, but I'm glad I didn't, I love that the crackle effect makes it look like clear sugar frosting.

I added a few wee red coloured pebbles for buttons and used a white gel pen, which had to be revived to life with a kettle of boiling water, to pick out the icing. I left my gingerbread mens eyes alone as we traditionally use currants for eyes in our house.

I also have a little TIP for you- when using a gel pen over clear crackle glaze, get out your heat tool. Heat the area you want to draw on with the heat tool, add your gel markings and instantly heat it again. If you don't do this, there is every chance that your gel ink will run down into the cracks in the glaze and seep into the image underneath. Heating the glaze before you draw on it helps the ink to set faster so that as you are laying on the ink, it is practically setting as it hits the surface. Heating the gel ink immediately after drawing just helps it to dry faster and eliminates the possibility of pools of ink seeping away.

The background for this card is a piece of cream card that I 'letterpressed' with a snowflake Impressabilities plate (Spellbinders) - I inked up the plate and ran it through the Grand Calibur in the embossing sandwich. The first press was lovely and strong, but I ran it through again on a sheet of fresh cardstock and got this lovely subtle muted tone background which I preferred for this card!

Hope it tickles!

...Freebie Gingerbread cut files

OK, hand's up who remembers these guys? Our first release...ever? The Gingerbread Joy sets...ah....the smell of memories....

Well I have just thrown together a pair of cut files for the Gingerbread guys, you can snag it here. Options for Boy/Girl, large border, small border included in DXF and SVG files for your Seasonal amusement!

Get them here.

I am itching to make up a sample, maybe I'll get an hour today to do that! Chat later!

Recap of the September WMS Blog Party - and the winner is...

We had a wonderful turnout for the September Blog Party.  There were plenty of gorgeous colors and iconic autumnal imagery to inspire us . We were pleased with the variety of projects and we are truly grateful that you took time to participate.  We know that there are many on-line activities that are available for your participation, and we are happy that you deemed the WMS Blog Party worthy of your time and creative talent.  If you haven’t had a chance to see all the fantastic projects, it’s not too late, they can all be found here.

Everyone did a fabulous job, and there is something unique and creative in every project. The following three projects really caught my eye.

Michelle Collins created a beautiful background paper using images from the Victorian Frippery set. Her lovely flowers peek out from the opening, allowing you to open the card to reveal the blooms on the interior of the card as well. She added warm texture with her felt flower centers.

 

Cathy Weber created this darling piece of home decor using a painter's tray and lots of images from the Heirloom patterns, Teeny Trees,  Dainty Doilies Large, and Bountiful Basket Additions sets. Her mix of patterns, colors and dimension make this a lovely seasonal piece to hang and enjoy year after year.

 

Marybeth achieved some wonderful color results with her die cut leaf.  She highlighted this lovely image using a sentiment from the Say It Loud set. Her variegated colors captures the changing seasons so well. This simple, yet elegant card packs a big WOW factor.

 

Pretty incredible creations, yes? Thanks to everyone who participated. There is so much creativity among WMS customers, and everyone is a winner because they have shared their work and have inspired us, but only one participate can win the free set that WMS is giving away to a lucky winner today.  We used Random.org to select our winner this month.  Congratulations goes to:

Pauline P

Congratulations Pauline.  Please e-mail Claire at Claire.brennan1@ntlworld.com with your stamp set selection and mailing address details. Please use BLOG PARTY WINNER in your subject line.  We appreciate EVERYONE’S participation and support of the “Blog Party”.  We hope you had as much fun blog creating as we did seeing your beautiful projects.

Be sure to check back on October 1st, when we will announce the theme for the October 17th “party”.

...ceramic magic

I owe you cards, I owe you many, many cards, and I will get there...

In the meantime, I wanted to show you this! Imagine my surprise about a year after I began WMS, when I walked into a craft fair on the North Coast and found this! Talk about tickled!! I think it was really the first time that I had ever seen anyone, as opposed to a coerced relative, actually using my stamps! I felt like I was famous!

What happened next was that I smiled so widely that air began to seep up into my brain, inflating my sense of achievement to the point where I found my mouth, independently, and rather immodestly introducing myself to the creator of this cracking little ceramic tag, as the 'drawer-upper' of the stamp! (it's from Wanda's Pantry)

Turns out she's a Lisburn lady too! She makes fabulous things from ceramic, I can especially vouch for the gorgeous Christmas trinkets. You can see some of her beautiful things here, and in the unlikely event that she might stumble across this post, I'll end by saying Happy Birthday Keri! More power to your elbow!

Waltzingmouse Stamps September Blog Party–I’m “Falling” for You!

Hello and welcome to the September 2012 Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party! We are thrilled to have you join us for this fun and inspirational event. Are you ready?  Good, let’s get to it! 

Our theme for September is:  “FALL”

In the western hemisphere the leaves are changing color and the autumn blooms are everywhere, so we thought that with all the warm, earth tone colors that are so plentiful, it would be a wonderful theme for our Blog Party. 

Use your imagination and show us some ingenuity. Create a card, a 3D project, or even a scrapbook page, using images from Waltzingmouse Stamps  and share fall inspired projects. Whether you use fall colors, or if you are inspired by leaves and pumpkins - we know that you will create some wonderful eye candy for us to enjoy.
We encourage you to upload your entries to your blog or on-line gallery and then link up your creation using the inlinkz tool at the end of this post. We will leave the links open for 24 hours so that everyone will have a chance to play along!  Once you link your project, you can check out all the other inspiring projects by just clicking on their link. Be sure to include the Blog Party Logo (seen at the top of this post) on your blog to easily identify your participation. How fun and easy!
A random selection of time zones are given below, so you can see how this works:

UK - 6:30 p.m. 17th September- 6:30 p.m. 18th September

USA (New York) 1:30 p.m. 17th September- 1:30 p.m. 18th September

Australia (Queensland) - 4:30 a.m. 18th September- 4:30 a.m. 19th September

Canada (Alberta) - 11:30 a.m. 17th September- 11:30 a.m. 18th September

Malaysia - 2:30 a.m. 18th September- 2:30 a.m. 19th September

Norway - 7:30 p.m. 17th September- 7:30 p.m. 18th September

You have 24 hours to link up your creation!  We all look forward to see your wonderfully creative projects.  Be sure to check back on the 20th of the month when we will highlight a few of the amazing entries right here on the blog! We will be on the lookout for projects that showcases extra special effort! We will also randomly select a winner for a coupon code good for a free set.

Let the fun begin and use your direct link to start the party.

...hubble bubble...and a free cut file

 

Good evening! I snatched a little me time this evening to scare up a wee tag and a card! For the tag above I made a little cut file for Winnie - and you can snag your free file here. Winnie was the first witch from our Halloween Party set and I know there must be folks out there who would love to have a cut file for this lady, especially fro those mass produced Halloween goodies! The file is available in .svg and .dxf formats and I have given options for both wide and thin border. The tag above shows Winnie cut out with a wide border. this gives ample room for my 'ready brek' glow sponging....Uk folks might just know what I'm talking about, always supposing your are long enough in the tooth...

Also used were the gothic background stamp from Text it, the Hocus Pocus sentiment from...Hocus Pocus...lol! That's a May Arts green velvet ribbon and some random orange ric rac.

While I was on a roll, I took moments, literally moments and made up this little Halloween Party invite! I trimmed out a large label shape with our WMS Custom Dies - Opera Tags....love these! I used black card with a subtle ribbed pattern, it came from Papermill. I just sponged the edges in white ink and added a sentiment (Halloween Party) in white ink also, have to say the PTI Fresh snow is the best white ink I have found.

I whipped up a little orange banner from a few scraps of orange ribbons and stuck it up top. Job done. Simple pimple to recreate enmasse....

How's your Halloween shaping up?
Hope they tickle!

...psst

Just a quick reminder, since it's getting near that time again..... we have a secret set on the store...have you seen it?

...Freebie...cut files

ED - shoot me an email Katie, just to let me know what isn't working, cheers.

Phew, at last I have the cut files for Bright Season for you. The bundle includes the large label tag, both a solid and a window option, the holly leaves and berries, the card panel from the card at the top and the fancy scroll border that will go with just about anything! Huge apologies to anyone waiting on these!

The files are provided in .svg and .dxf format and you can snag your FREE cut files from here.

Update on stock

Well I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel, but we are still very short on some sets, notably Wanda's Pantry. All delayed sets are in production, but due to the recent circumstances our normal lead time of around a fortnight has expanded considerably. I will be emailing waiting folks over the next couple of days, but I am spending an inordinate amount of time organising production so that when we do get up to date that we will remain up to date.

I have temporarily disabled the backorder facility at the store so that folks do not order out of stock items inadvertently.

Also we have added a new 'Notify me' button, think I mentioned this already, but we are doing everything we can to limit the nuisance caused by the glitch in supply.

In the meantime, please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any queries, but do note that it is taking me longer than normal to respond due to sheer volume of work behind the scenes!

chat soon!

Good afternoon! The old blog has been a little bare this week and I thought I'd take 5 to pop up this card I made about a fortnight ago. I'm setting up an additional supplier and the store is busy so Herself and I are working double time to both, get orders out, and to ensure that the backorder stamps get to something like a normal supply in the next couple of weeks. Orders are a little slow this week, something like a 48-72 hour delay, but we expect to be back on track by early next week.

Back to my card, well I must admit, I've been having a little giggle to myself (nope, I don't get out half as much as a person my age ought to...) - We released the Opera Tags stamps in the ill fated August release and it contained a special stamp. It's the sort of a stamp that you might understand instantly, or not at all.

I call it my 'Theatre curtain' stamp and you can see it in the card above stamped in blue. It is designed for use with our Opera Tags Die templates. When I was drawing up this stamp I was thinking of how a set of dramatic curtains would make a nice frame stamp for announcements, such as new baby, wedding etc.

By covering only a part of the stamp it dresses up the label shape nicely, and allows you to add whatever you like underneath, in this case I've added a Santa Silhouette (Santa's coming to town) and a Merry Christmas Sentiment (Say it with Style).

The corresponding label/tag shape is quite large, which makes it ideal as a focal point on your cards, or as a feature label, such as the jar label below.

I stamped the Theatre curtains in green and added some label information "Partially decomposed Fingers' etc, from a stamp from the Wanda's Pantry set. I put sellotape over the corner flourishes on that stamp before inking up, then removed them so that the only thing that would leave an impression would be the text detail of the stamp.

It makes a good sized label for one of those large mason jars, lots of potential for dressing the Halloween table.

If you are interested in a little how to, read on, otherwise I will catch up with you tomorrow!

 

Usually I stamp first, then position the die over the image with tape. I use Tsukineko inks, I find the Versacolour cannot be beaten for even coverage on large solid stamps. For today's projects, I heat set the ink before adding a little dimensional shading with two copic markers, warm Greys 1 and 3.

 I also sponge heavily...Antique linen...yes...again...

To make the snowflake background, I took one of those Spellbinder Impressabilities - Snowflakes, and inked it up, with the same Sky Blue Versacolour ink. I carefully placed it onto the Grand Calibur Base plate, ink side up, and then very carefully laid a piece of cream cardstock over the top, then the tan embossing mat, then the pink embossing plate. Fed the whole lot through my big raspberry buddy and out came what looks like a lovely letterpress snowflake background.

Recently I've seen folks do this with those nice Spellbinders M-Bossabilities folders also, it's a neat technique.

Hope it tickles!

September Blog Party Details

 

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

The kids are back in school and our routines are slowing making their way back to normalcy. As the days grow shorter and the temperatures begin to cool, our minds turn toward the exit of summer and the entrance of autumn with its full glory of colors and textures. The leaves turn their glorious shades of brown, orange, yellow and red display a whole new array of visual delights burst forth for us to enjoy.  Thus our theme for the September will be FALL either in colors, texture or theme.

We hope you will join us and set your imaginations free to show us your creativity with regards to Fall and how you are creatively inspired to share this colorful time of year.  Create a card, a 3D project, or even a scrapbook page, using images from Waltzingmouse Stamps and join the FALL festivities.

On August 17th, we will begin our “party”.  Below is the schedule of beginning and end times in which you can enter your direct link to your project.  Your post on your blog, or on-line gallery, can go live anytime you wish on the 17th, but you will need to post your direct link here on the WMS blog using the Inlinkz widget that will be available during the time frame (outlined below) .

The festivities begin right here, according to your location, as indicated below:

UK - 6:30 p.m. 17th September- 6:30 p.m. 18th September

USA (New York) 1:30 p.m. 17th September- 1:30 p.m. 18th September

Australia (Queensland) - 4:30 a.m. 18th September- 4:30 a.m. 19th September

Canada (Alberta) - 11:30 a.m. 17th September- 11:30 a.m. 18th September

Malaysia - 2:30 a.m. 18th September- 2:30 a.m. 19th September

Norway - 7:30 p.m. 17th September- 7:30 p.m. 18th September

The linking option will be closed after that time.  From there you can just click on any of the projects linked and be directed to any of the participants’ blogs to get a closer look at their creativity.

Although we call this a "blog party", it is perfectly fine to use an on-line gallery for your project, if you don't have a blog.  It doesn't even have to be the Waltzingmouse Stamps gallery either (although you are most welcome to upload as many WMS projects as you like there).  On-line galleries such as Flickr or Picasa or other galleries are also fine.

You only need to do three things:

1.  You will need to be able to link your project here, using a direct link URL

2.  Your project needs to contain something directly related to the theme – color or other inspiration should be noted in your description

3.  You must use Waltzingmouse Stamps images

We encourage and welcome you to grab this "party mouse" blog button (at the top of this post for your blog sidebar, and to use it at the top of your post on "party day".

On the 20th of the month – we will highlight a few of the entries that really catch our eye and you'll be able to see those here on the WMS blog.  We will also select and announce our winner of the FREE stamp set of choice, using a random generator from those participating in the Blog Party.

You have the what, where and when – now let’s see “what” you’ve got! We hope to see you the 17th!