...Pajama Party

ED - you will have noticed no doubt that i made a monumental hames of the linky times - my apologies, happily the party ran on rather than being cut short, but I promise to get a responsible adult to help me with the timing for the next party! We will announce winners this evening after the links close on challenges 1-4 and the sketch winner will be announced on Sept 6th.

Good evening and welcome to our August Waltzingmouse stamps Pajama Party! We hope you are comfy and ready to share some time together. We hold these events once a month to gather some inspiration, use some new AND old WMS sets and maybe win a prize.

We're going to keep the reading material short and sweet with the emphasis on inspiration, but if you would like to read more background to our Pajama Party idea, click here. If you would like to chat with other WMS fans about tonight’s pajama party, we have opened a forum thread here to share ideas, and chat it up with some fun party people. 

Winners of Challenges 1,2, 3 & 4 will be announced on Sunday and the Sketch winner will be announced on the September 6th.

Here are tonight's challenges!

Challenge 1 - Tie a knot in it

Above is my card for the Tie a knot in it challenge - I replicated the heart knot stamp from the Tying the knot set with real rope. If you missed the brief, here it is:

Make a card/project featuring Knots or Ropes. You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along, but for this challenge, if your project uses the new Tying the knot stamps you will be eligible to double the prize if your project wins the random drawing.

What will happen next? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used Tying the Knot stamps in the winning project the winner will double their prize and receive £20 store credit.

This link will remain open for 24 hours. If you have a card/project ready for this challenge - Link it up here:

Challenge 2 - Get Nauty

I'm still working on my little beach hut - I so wanted to make a 3D project for this challenge - and I the thing that tickles me most about this little beach hut is that it folds flat for putting in an envelope! Hope to have details on this in the next couple of days, but i didn't want to clog up this post!

The brief in case you missed it was: Make a project using a nautical theme. You might even want to consider a 3D project! You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along, but for this challenge, if your project uses any of the new nautical theme stamps from the August release, you will be eligible to double the prize if your project wins the random drawing.

What will happen next ? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used stamps from any of the following sets: Tying the Knot,  Ocean Bound, Safe Harbour sentiments, or the Pinstripe or Zig Zag backgrounds from our August release stamps in the winning project, the prize will double and will receive a £20 store credit. A bonus £10 will be added to this prize if the project created is a 3D project!

This link will remain open for 24 hours. If you have a card/project ready for this challenge - Link it up here:

Challenge 3 - Colour inspiration 

I have a mini candy packet for my colour challenge and I just scraped in with this one - the little piece of spotty grey paper carries both shades of grey, phew! These are the closest colours I have - did you do any better?

 

The brief was to make a project using colours inspired by our picture. You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along with this challenge. What will happen next? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit!

This link will remain open for 24 hours. If you have a card/project ready for this challenge - Link it up here:

Challenge 4 - Golden Oldies

  Make a project using the oldest stamp you have! If you are lucky enough to still have the first stamp you ever purchased, dig it out and show it some love! If you can manage to find your first ever WMS stamp, even better! You do not need to use Waltzingmouse stamps to enter this competition.  

What will happen next? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used their oldest WMS stamp in the winning project, they will double their prize and receive £20 store credit. 

 We have a trio of DT creations to get you started:

Julia Aston

Renee Lynch

Lynn Mercurio

This link will remain open for 24 hours. If you have a card/project ready for this challenge - Link it up here:

Bedtime Story Sketch Challenge

Our Pajama Party ends with the Bedtime story sketch – Create a card or other project using this sketch. You will have one week to link up your challenge cards. This link will remain open for one week - To get you motivated, here are some samples from our team:

 Claire

Edna Morrisedie 

Jeanne Jachna

Julia Aston

Jen Cuthbertson

Renee Lynch

Lynn Mercurio

Iwona Palamountain

Teresa Kline

This link will remain open for one week! We hope you will join us for this challenge! You may link up your card/project here.

...pssst Pajama party tomorrow!

ED - I  will have the post go live at 11.55pm my time on the 30th Kathryn, cheers for asking, I can see how awkward midnight is depending on where you are!

Just a quick reminder! Check the challenges here - get your cards ready, the links go up at midnight tonight!

...Old Salt

Did you see Cathy Weber's wonderful masculine project on Friday? It was superb, the colours, the design everything, scroll down if you didn't see it.

Today I have another simple card for you -  I wanted to show you another way to use your Pinstripe Backgrounder - so simple, but what do you get when you stamp it twice, once longways, once crossways?? MINI GINGHAM!!!!! Love mini gingham.... Can't wait to try this with the Pinstripe Mini - even mini-er gingham....

I chose to cover my card base in pinstripe top to bottom, and then I inked up the pinstripe backgrounder again and stamped the pinstripe crossways over the centre of the card, so as to get a little striped border top and bottom.

I added a simple focal pint using the Rope border, sentiment and yacht all from Ocean Bound. Couple of sparkles that I coloured to match with copics, done!

A neat thing about the rope border was - I trimmed it out with a 1/8 of an inch border all the way around and then when I used my corner punch on each corner, it was perfectly spaced so that the border was the same with even at the rounded corners! I have one of those wee green EK success corner rounder punches and it seems to be the perfect fit.

Well it's all very glum here today, wee folks trying on school uniform, and me turning up trousers and putting names on bags and shoes etc, the summer is coming to an end for my wee folks and School is looming early this week. I feel a little sorry for them, and for me - I will miss the lazy mornings! Hope your Sunday is treating you well!

August Friendly Feature–Welcome Cathy Weber

Hello friends. Waltzingmouse Stamps is so fortunate to have many wonderful enthusiasts who support WMS and always inspire us with their creativity. We are happy to bring you another good friend of Waltzingmouse Stamps; Cathy Weber. Cathy's blog is filled with loads of amazing projects so be sure to stop by her blog and take a long look around. Let’s see what she has to share with us today.

My husband and I were recently on vacation in a little, tiny town in Montana, driving to the one and only store in town.  Thank goodness my husband is a police officer and is used to quick-response driving, because my rather loud shout of surprise as I read the email from Lynn and Claire asking me to be the next Waltzingmouse Friendly Feature very nearly caused him to run off the road.  What an exciting day for me and I could hardly wait to get home to start working on a few projects to share with my crafty friends who love Waltzingmouse Stamps as much as I do.

Fortunately, I had a few weeks to think about it and was able to narrow down my stamp choices to just two sets, one old and one fairly new. 

I always seem to struggle when it comes to making masculine cards, and since there are at least 10 male members of my immediate family, I always find myself in need of something masculine.  I was so excited when Waltzingmouse released My Kind of Guy.  Talk about cute images...I absolutely love that little gentleman stamp with the monocle, hat and mustache.  I decided to make a card and matching tag to go along with a thank you gift for my brother whose hobby is collecting whiskey decanters.  He has quite the collection and although he would never consider breaking the seal, loves to display the decanters in his “Man Cave”.

Using kraft cardstock, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the large border image from My Kind Of Guy using one of Claire’s matching cut files.  It is so easy to have a perfectly cut image using her files, and I find myself using them all the time.  There is very little “fussy-cutting” for me anymore.  I stamped and clear embossed the image and pinked the top edge.  I layered it onto a banner stamped with the gentleman image, sentiment and long border strip from My Kind of Guy.   I used an embossing folder to add some texture to the card base and added a bit of twine and a manly-looking brass charm. 

When I was done, I thought the whiskey decanter looked a bit bare, so I decided to make a matching tag to go along with it.  I made it almost identical to the card except I was thrilled when I realized that the pinked circle image in My Kind of Guy was the perfect size to fancy up the hole in the tag.  I embossed it with clear embossing powder and wow, what a shine!  Here’s a close-up of the great detail in that stamp.

Since I was on a roll with masculine thank you cards, I combined My Kind of Guy and Back in the Saddle for one more thank you card.  When My Kind of Guy was first released, the large border image reminded me of a western bandana.  Once again, I used Claire’s cut files to cut out the border image and this time stamped it in red and clear embossed it.  Don’t you think it looks like a western bandana?  I layered it over the rectangular frame from My Kind of Guy and pinked the edges.  The sentiment is one of my favorites from Back in the Saddle.  This time my card base is also kraft, but I layered a star background cut file from the Silhouette store onto the base giving the illusion of a star embossing folder.   I tied a bit of rope twine around the bandana border and used a brass brad to secure it.  I felt my card needed a little more red, so I added a punched red star and one more brass brad to the corner.  I love how this card turned out and will probably hold onto it for quite a while until I have an occasion to thank someone very special.

I would like to thank Lynn and Claire for inviting me to share a little bit about myself and also for the opportunity to show off a few things I have made with my favorite Waltzingmouse Stamps.  What a great experience! 

Its always fun to get to know a little more in-depth information about our Friendly Feature guest blogger, so Cathy answered a few questions about her background and stamping process.

When did you get into this hobby?
Four years ago I decided to make a wedding memory album for my future daughter-in-law.  While I was making the album, I discovered stamping and realized I was much better at making cards than scrapbooking.  I still cringe when I look back at my first attempts at crafting, but will forever be grateful that I have found this hobby that I love so much.  Now that my last child is just about ready to move out on her own, I know I will always have something fun to do to fill my “empty nest”, which is also the title of my blog, The Empty Nest Crafter.

What is your favorite card stock to use?
I use Papertrey Ink cardstock and AC Cardstock when I cut with my cameo.  (Thanks, Claire for that great tip!)

Favorite Waltzingmouse Stamp set you reach for over and over?
I live in Norco, CA and our town’s nickname is “Horsetown USA”.  Even though I no longer have a horse, I do find that I like to use the western sets Back in the Saddle and Way Out West quite often.  I also use Sewing Box Hugs  all the time.  It was my first Waltzingmouse Stamp set and I love that cute little bird and have paper pieced it on cards more times than I can count.

Do you have a favorite technique?
My cards are pretty CAS, but I love using die cuts and my Silhouette Cameo to add dimension to my stamped images.

Do you own a die cutter?
I am on my second Cuttlebug; I absolutely wore out my first one and I recently got a Silhouette Cameo and took some online classes to learn how to use it. 

What is your favorite color combination?
I seem to go through an awful lot of kraft card stock, so I would say most of my cards have kraft as the base and accent colors using red, navy, or scarlet jewel. 

If money wasn’t an issue, what crafty stuff would you buy?
Of course, I could never have enough stamps, but I would love to own a Genesis Paper Cutter one day.  I have heard nothing but good things about it and would consider it a major indulgence.

Who is your most admired crafter or the person who inspires and challenges you?
Since we are talking about Waltzingmouse stamps today, I am going to say my sweet friends and Mischief Makers, Renee Lynch and Jeanne Jachna who constantly inspire me with their beautiful cards.  Renee is how I discovered Waltzingmouse stamps and Jeanne is my biggest cheerleader, always sending me the latest magazine publication calls and encouraging me to submit my cards.  I consider myself very lucky to have met so many wonderful friends through crafting. Crafty people really are the best!

Thank you, Cathy, for sharing your wonderful projects and process with us. We hope that you have enjoyed learning more about Cathy as much as we have.

...with Gratitude

A quick card - a very quick card, 10 mins at the most, but then I let the Cameo do all the hard work and cut out the flower shapes before stamping them in tones of Grey ink.

I stamped two sizes of flower image in tones of grey and black on each cut-out to create a custom bloom, I love the graphic style of these flowers, simple enough to be elegant or bold depending on what sort of card you are making. The flowers and leaves are all from our newly released Funky Flower set.

A little background embossing with a Tim Holtz embossing folder and popped up the flowers and leaves on different thicknesses of foam tape.

Trimmed out a yellow panel and stamped a sentiment from Big Day Today - pretty much done! Oh and popped a pearl in the centre of the largest flower and some blobs of shiny gloopy stuff - stickles, not sure, the name has worn off, in the middle of the smaller flowers.

Hope it tickles!

...Sail out to Sea

Good afternoon! I'm catching up with admin and other boring behind the scenes stuff - Last week's release was a goodie - we are already sold out of Ocean Bound, although more had beem quickly ordered when we saw how fast they were going!

I have a wee sample today for you, one that I should have had up before the release, and it's a really simple card, it's a one layer if you don't count the card base....

I am particularly in love with the knot based set - Tying the knot and one of the things a I drew for that set was a corner knot - in the card above I have stamped it 4 times to create a square frame, how cool is that going to look on a gingerbread card this Christmas! Can't wait!

Anyhow, this card is all sponge and stamping, nothing too strenuous here, and I have a  couple of little how-to pics:

After stamping the frame in red ink SU - Cherry Cobbler, I sponged with a little Antique linen ink. Now a lot of SU inks will bleed when you sponge over them and I picked Cherry Cobbler for that purpose. The Red and Antique linen mix well together to give a nice sort of glow.

Next I stamped the sentiment, from Safe Harbour sentiments, in black. Versamark Fine is my black of choice for detail.

Next thing was to trim out a fancy square shape from scratch paper with a Spellbinders Labels 15 die. I set the fancy square shape over the sentiment area on my card, held it down really tightly, and really went to town with the cherry cobbler and a sponge.

When I take it off I have a nice glowing panel that softly tones with the deep red of the frame. Mounted it on a Black card base and that was that....

hope it tickles....oh, btw, are you planning to play along with our Next Pajama Party? We'd love to see you!

...We're Moxie Fab!

Good morning! On the very off chance that you don't follow Cath Edvalson's Moxie Fab blog - you really ought to pop over there this morning - Cath has selected a number of stamp sets, including our  recently released Fine Feathers set as her Stamp of Approval bundle this morning.

Go see - you could win the entire bundle!

...Win your Cart winner drawn

Just a quick note to say that our Win-Your-Cart winner has been drawn and notified! In the interests of privacy I cannot name the shopper, but we're hoping that the haul of six free stamp sets to a stamper somewhere in the Netherlands is good news to them! If you are in the Netherlands, you might want to check your emails!! :)

Release Blog Hop Winner Announced!

Our most recent release received amazing response and we thank you for all the lovely comments AND your orders. The Design Team wowed and amazed us with creating incredible samples using the new sets, release on August 10th: Ocean Bound, Tying the Knot, Pinstripe Backgrounder, Zig Zag Backgrounder, Safe Harbour Sentiments, Two-Step Floral Sprig, Funky Flowers, Simple Sprig, Big Day - Today, and a Mini Pinstripe Background set, in addition to several coordinating cut files for these images.
Thank you for taking part in the Design Team Release Day Blog Hop and leaving so many encouraging comments on the DT blogs. We all appreciate the time you took to visit and comment.
As promised, we have selected a winner of a free Waltzingmouse Stamps set of choice for the lucky person whose name was randomly drawn from ALL the comments on ALL of the DT blog posts from the Hop.  Each member of the Design Team selected one comment from their group of comments, and from those, we have selected a lucky winner from the blog of Iwona Palamountain.
CONGRATULATIONS GOES TO:  Crafty Math Chick
To claim your prize, please e-mail me (Lynn) at lynn@waltzingmousestamps.com and kindly note in the subject line of your e-mail  August BLOG HOP WINNER. I will provide you with a special code to claim your prize.
 
We are most thankful for the time you took to visit the DT blogs during this release.

Invitation to the WMS Pajama Party on the 30th August!

ED  A few folks have asked about making one card for two or more challenges and the answer is - Yes you can, BUT  please note, if your entry is picked as a winner in one of the challenges it will then become ineligible to win any of the other categories, hope that makes sense folks!

Grab the Pajama party badge above, by either right clicking (PC),  or dragging it to your desktop (Mac) and keep it for your pajama party posts.
Although the Pajama party links will open at midnight on the 30th, we know that not everyone will be able to link up at midnight, and so we hope to give everyone a chance to play by keeping links open for a 24 hour period, so please don't be put off by the start time if it's awkward where you live, it's pretty impossible to pick a start time that is easy for everyone and we hope the 24 hour window will allow everyone to play along. The sketch challenges will remain open for a full week.

Hi! Did you all have a good time at the first Waltzingmouse Stamps Pajama Party? I know we all did. In fact we had so much fun, we are planning another Pajama Party for August 30th.
Here are some of the details that you may want to know:
Challenge 1 - Tie a knot in it
Make a card/project featuring Knots or Ropes. You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along, but for this challenge, if your project uses the new Tying the knot stamps you will be eligible to double the prize if your project wins the random drawing.
If you don't have any stamps on a rope or knot theme, you may use twine, cord, rope, canvas trim, anything that looks remotely ropey.
When to make: Make your project now so that you can be ready to post it to your blog/gallery on the night of the party.
How do I link it up?: On the night of the party, post your project to your blog/gallery and post a direct link to it into the inlinkz tool that will be available on the blog post here on the WMS blog. Grab the Pajama party badge now from the beginning of this post to add to your challenge blog posts when you are ready, this will kelp us to find you in the event of a wobbly link. Links for this challenge will remain open for 24 hours.
What will happen? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used Tying the Knot stamps in the winning project the winner will double their prize and receive £20 store credit.
Challenge 2 - Get Nauty
Make a project using a nautical theme. You might even want to consider a 3D project! You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along, but for this challenge, if your project uses any of the new nautical theme stamps from the August release, you will be eligible to double the prize if your project wins the random drawing.
When to make: Make your project now so that you can be ready to post it to your blog/gallery on the night of the party.
How do I link it up?: On the night of the party, post your project to your blog/gallery and post a direct link to it into the inlinkz tool that will be available on the blog post here on the WMS blog. Grab the Pajama party badge now from the beginning of this post to add to your challenge blog posts when you are ready, this will kelp us to find you in the event of a wobbly link. Links for this challenge will remain open for 24 hours.
What will happen? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used stamps from any of the following sets: Tying the Knot,  Ocean Bound, Safe Harbour sentiments, or the Pinstripe or Zig Zag backgrounds from our August release stamps in the winning project, the prize will double and will receive a £20 store credit. A bonus £10 will be added to this prize if the project created is a 3D project!

Challenge 3 - Colour inspiration 

Make a project using colours inspired by our picture. You do not have to use Waltzingmouse Stamps products to play along with this challenge.
When to make: Make your project now so that you can be ready to post it to your blog/gallery on the night of the party.
How do I link it up?: On the night of the party, post your project to your blog/gallery and post a direct link to it into the inlinkz tool on the blog post that will be available here on the WMS blog. Grab the Pajama party badge now from the beginning of this post to add to your challenge blog posts when you are ready, this will kelp us to find you in the event of a wobbly link. Links for this challenge will remain open for 24 hours.
What will happen? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit!
Challenge 4 - Golden Oldies
Make a project using the oldest stamp you have! If you are lucky enough to still have the first stamp you ever purchased, dig it out and show it some love! If you can manage to find your first ever WMS stamp, even better! You do not need to use Waltzingmouse stamps to enter this competition. A random prize winner will be selected from among all of the entries, but if you are using your first ever WMS stamp, and your project wins the random selection, we will double your winnings!
When to make: Make your project now so that you can be ready to post it to your blog/gallery on the night of the party.
How do I link it up?: On the night of the party, post your project to your blog/gallery and post a direct link to it into the inlinkz tool that will be available on the blog post here on the WMS blog. Grab the Pajama party badge now from the beginning of this post to add to your challenge blog posts when you are ready, this will kelp us to find you in the event of a wobbly link. Links for this challenge will remain open for 24 hours.
What will happen? : After the links close we will choose a random project to win a spot prize of £10 store credit! If the randomly chosen winner has used their oldest WMS stamp in the winning project, they will double their prize and receive £20 store credit.

Bedtime Story

Our Pajama Party will end with the Bedtime story sketch - this will be a sketch challenge that we will present to you on the night of the pajama party. You will see the sketch and some inspiration samples on the Pajama Party blog post and you will have one week to link up your challenge cards.
We'll be opening a chat thread on the Waltzingmouse Forum during the party on the 30th and we would love to chat with you then.
We hope you can join us! And do invite your friends!

...New Stamps for August

Hello and welcome to August at Waltzingmouse Stamps. We have 10 new sets of clear photopolymer stamps, and some co-ordinating cut files (two of which are free!) releasing today! Right about now the ladies are holding the traditional release day blog hop and I invite you to pop over and see them now, remember comments might equal prizes :)

Tosha
Kelly
Lynn
Jennifer
Sandie
Julia
Laurie
Anya
Iwona
Edna

Jeanne
Jen
Jean
Karin
Kim
Renee
 Teresa

A little info and then scroll on down to see what's new!

Calling all Customers, Past and Present and New

Folks if you have shopped with us in the past or recently, and if you think you may be interested in receiving exclusive offers and info from our store, then please pop back to read this important message at some point. We don't want you to miss out on any discounts or offers that we decide to issue to our existing customers!

If you a new to us today, we strongly encourage you to click the box as you go through checkout which will enable us to add you to our store mailing list. The pic below shows what to look out for.

Freebie

For this release we have a little bonus freebie - the first 50 orders over £60GBP will receive this little mini set absolutely free of charge, as well as Free shipping! It's a dinky little Pinstripe mini, perfect for adding a little graphic texture here and there!

Win your Cart

Also running for this release is our fun Win-Your-Cart promotion, Folks shopping with us from right now, until Tuesday night (11.59pm my time on the 13th August) will all be eligible for our draw.
We are going to randomly draw one lucky winner to receive their entire order for free! The random winner will be selected using order numbers and the random number generator. You don't have to order new release items to qualify, ANY orders placed between now and Tuesday night will be eligible. And yes, if you forget something and find yourself making two orders, we will take that into account if you are our winner!

Free Shipping

ALL orders over £60GBP will still qualify for free shipping no matter where in the world you are!

USA Shipping

We are delighted to add to our large number of sets now available directly from USA with today's release. When ordering a set which is available from USA, you will now have the choice to select your set from either UK or USA stock. 

USA residents whose orders contain sets which are all in stock and available from USA, will receive their goodies much faster and will be able to select the USA flat rate shipping option instead of international shipping!

All sets currently available from USA can be found by clicking here. For future ref there's a Handy Link in our sidebar on the store called 'Stamps we can ship from USA' - clicking on that will take you to the most current selection.

Publication Incentive

In case you have not seen this - we now have a small publication scheme running! check it out here.

What's new for August 

Ocean Bound Stamp Set

6x8 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Ocean Bound Cut Files

Tying the Knot Stamp Set

6x4 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Freebie - Tying the Knot Cut files

Safe Harbour Sentiments Stamp Set

6x4 inches

Clear Photopolymer

 

Pinstripe Backgrounder Stamp

4.5 x 5.75 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Pinstripe Mini Backgrounder Stamp

4.5 x 5.75 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Free with the first 50 orders over £60GBP, the Pinstripe Mini is also available for sale.

Zig Zag Backgrounder Stamp

4.5 x 5.75 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Two Step Floral Sprig Stamp Set

6 x 4 inches

Clear Photopolymer

 Freebie - Two Step Floral Sprig Cut Files

 This cut file also works for the Sprig in Simple Sprig.

Funky Flowers Stamp Set

6 x 4 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Funky Flowers Cut Files

Simple Sprig Stamp Set

4 x 3 inches

Clear Photopolymer

Big Day - Today  Stamp Set

6 x 4 inches

Clear Photopolymer

 

A note about Backordering

Out of stock sets are available to order as our store allows backordering, but please be aware, if you are ordering an item that is currently out of stock, your order will be held until all the items requested are in stock and ready to ship. We offered partial shipping for a few months while we were low on stock after moving supplier but we cannot operate this on a permanent basis and it has now come to an end.

Psst!

Just while I have your attention, may I be forgiven for giving a shout out to two lovely ladies who are hoping to bring more crafty fun your way? Tara and Deborah are setting up a new Challenge blog! Maybe you can pop by and bookmark it if you like to play in challenges - you can find the blog here, and the fb page here. :)

Hope it tickles!