...New goodies for February

Good evening and welcome to the first Product Release of 2015 at Waltzingmouse Stamps! A great big Welcome to all of our friends and to the new folks joining us for the first time - Hello, we hope you find something unique here! We have three new clear photopolymer (that's the good stuff) stamp sets and a bunch of new thin steel, USA made dies for you!

This release is a little different from our normal format - the products are going live right now, but we have another 3 days (after today) of fabby eye candy for you, showcasing what you can do with these new goodies - a couple of my samples are speckled through this post, I will be posting samples and how-to's over the next 3 days since there is too much for this one post. DT ladies showing samples with me today are:

Becca Feeken

Sandie Dunne
Laurie Schmidlin
Anya Schrier
Jeanne Jachna
Tosha Leyendekker
Lynn Mercurio
Julia Aston

There are just a few things I want to be sure that you know before we begin:

 We offer Free shipping on orders over £60GBP to anywhere. Yep, anywhere.

Our hugely popular Loyalty Scheme enables folks to gather points each time they order, points turn into discounts so it's worth joining if you have not already, for full details click here. Even if you have not shopped with us in a while, you may already have some points gathered up - we were able to backdate the scheme as far as 1 November 2012!

Folks we have a fabby little die giveaway this evening on the first 40 orders over £60GBP. It's a mini 'hello die, perfect for tags and other dainty projects. The promotion begins at 7:15pm UK time when the store re-opens. You don't have to purchase the new release items to qualify, all orders over £60GBP are in with a chance, but you will need to be quick, this offer is limited to the first 40 orders over £60GBP placed after 7:15pm this evening.

Also - don't forget you can still scoop some of the few remaining retiring sets at 40% off - click here to see retiring sets.

We are running a Pin it Competition for this release - we want you to Pin your favourite samples created by the WMS Design Team or myself for this release to your own Pinterest boards. You can pin samples from any of today's samples or from the next 3 days of samples from either this blog or the DT blogs. Use this hashtag - #waltzingmouse, then come back and leave us a link to the pin in the comments on this release blog post. For each project you Pin just leave a separate comment.

One random Pinner will be chosen just before midnight (GMT) on the 7th March. The winner will receive a lovely £30GBP store code!

For those of you who don't have Pinterest, just leave a little comment here on this post telling us what your favourites are. A random commenter from this post will also be chosen and will receive a free set of Kaboom Stamps

New goodies for Feb/March

and here they are!

Kaboom clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4
£9.95GBP 
Below is a card made with the Kaboom stamp set - I will have a full set of samples and tips for you on the blog over the next couple of days, there is just not enough room in this post!

Kaboom die £4.39GBP.
This die produces a die cut of the Kaboom word. It produces a two piece die cut - you can either use the word on it's own or with the outline shape to create comic style focal points and sentiments for your cards/Layouts.
This die produces a cut 3 inches wide by 1.25 inches high at the widest points. A great fun die - this tag below uses it - more tips to follow in the sample posts over the next few days!

Halftone Basics Backgrounds clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x8
£15.95GBP
Super useful set based on halftone printing techniques, great for comic styles, contemporary styles, mixed media, a truly versatile set.
Here it is on a 'Vintage Comic' tag - see what I did there? I merged two opposite styles...and I think it looks good!

Special Lady clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4
£9.95GBP
A vintage set featuring original Victorian art etchings and pretty sentiments.
I used my Special Lady set, together with the Pretty circle die on this project below - since today's post is a little image heavy, I'll pop up more pics of this and some 'how-to's' on the blog tomorrow.
Isn't she pretty?

Scripted 'Mother' die £6.90GBP
This die produces a beautiful scripted sentiment that I've been using with card, foils, watercolour papers. This is quite a detailed die and, as with all of my detailed dies I get great results by using a metal shim with this die. If you are familiar with die cutting you will know what I'm talking about.
This die is a good size and produces a cut 3.75 by 1.75 inches at the widest points.

I used this die with gold foil card on the project below - again I'll show projects in full here on the blog tomorrow.

Pretty Circles die £9.99GBP.
Another die from the pretty range, this die uses the same principle as the self matting dies to give two results from the one die. Each time you use this die you will achieve both a pretty circular scalloped label shape and a pretty scalloped aperture. The photo below show's you what the cut looks like - at the top you can just see the thin surplus ring that I have removed with my pokey tool. Your panel and aperture nest beautifully and you could use them together or separately.

The circle created is approx 2.5 inches in diameter and the aperture it creates is just over 2.5 inches wide in the opening.

Scripted 'Easter' die £4.39GBP.
A beautiful scripty word die. Suitable for so many styles of project. This die produces a cut 3.25 by just under 1.24 inches at the widest points.

Don't forget the freebie offer

Mini 'hello' die This release we have a mini hello die giveaway. The first 40 folks to order over £60GBP will receive one of these dies in their parcel. This mini die will be available for sale later in the month if you miss out now.

...Release day schedule

Folks, tonight's the night - the start of our 2015 releases! I have 3 new stamp sets and 4 new dies to show you at 7:00pm tonight here on the blog - we're having our release back to front this time around - everything will be live in the store tonight at 7:15pm and over the next 4 days including today, we will be showing you what you can do with the new goodies, so pop back often!

7:00PM tonight (28th Feb) my time is approximately:

Canada - Ontario: 2:00PM Sat 28th Feb
Australia - Queensland: 5:00AM Sun 1 March
Hong Kong: 3:00AM Sun 1 March
Russia - Moscow City: 10:00PM Sat 28th Feb
Germany: 8:00PM Sat 28th Feb
Malaysia: 3:00AM Sun 1 March

The store will close at around 6:00PM to allow me to finish loading the goodies and then we will re-open at about 7:15PM.

All of the new goodies will be revealed here on the blog at 7:00PM

Scroll down to see yesterday's blog hop post - I'm taking part in the Coffee lovers blog hop and the entries look amazing so far - you really need to do the hop, lots of the folks taking part have blog candy (we do too!) as well as the sponsored prizes. - Go scroll down to read all about it!

...Coffee Lover's blog hop!

Good afternoon! - if you are here to check out our new release sneak peeks for tomorrow's new release please scroll down - if not then you might be here for the Spring Coffee Lovers Bloghop! I'm taking part today and bear with me if I make any mistooks, it's my first time at this hop!

There are a ton of fabby companies sponsoring this hop - of which we here at Waltzingmouse Stamps are delighted to be one! There are prizes galore and to be in with a chance of winning one of the sponsor prizes, you will need to enter a post on the InLinkz List found on The Coffee Lovers Blog here. 

I hear that you can find all sorts of blog candy and other goodies just by hopping through the entire list so I would strongly advise that you take a peek at all the posts (cough...also see bottom of this post...cough)

The hop will start on Friday, February 27th and run until Friday, March 6th at 11:55 pm pacific. We would love for you to do one link per post, so if you have multiple cards please post them separately.  You must link up a newly created Spring-y project in order to be eligible for any of the Sponsored prizes. You must link your projects to the Inlinkz on the Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Post.

Well since Tea is my liquid of choice I chose to make my card with our Afternoon Tea stamp set. Since I'm literally prepping tomorrows new release, I chose to stamp my main label image in Versamark onto watercolour paper, I then sprinkled on clear embossing powder and heat set it. I used watercolour paints to fill in the negative parts of the label image. It's a bit of a cheat really as the clear embossing resists the paint and it makes it look almost as though I just painted that dinky label by hand! I trimmed out the label and mounted it onto a tag (Waltzingmouse Stamps - Stitched tag dies, see here).

I had embossed the tag with a lovely Tim Holtz embossing folder, the name of which escapes me, and the back panel is embossed with a chevron embossing folder from Spellbinders. A couple of miniature dried rose buds and I was done! I hope you like it!

Blog Candy!

Now for those of you who made it all the way down the page this far, I have blog candy - All I need you to do is leave a comment on this blog post right here. Comments will close on Friday, March 6th at 11:55 pm pacific (which is Saturday March 7th at around 8:00am here in UK) and a winner will be announced later that day! One lucky commenter will win a WMS goodie bag made up of a large set of stamps, a medium set of stamps and a die of their choice from in-stock items!

Hope it tickles! Thanks for playing along!

...last peek at Feb - goodies go live tomorrow!

Such fun. No matter what age.

...second peek at Feb!

OOOOh, aaaahhhh! Love this....

...First peek at Feb goodies!

Good evening folks!!!! Helen L - cheers for the info - that is definitely an option!!

Gosh it's been a rough start to the year what with all the VAT stuff! I'm finally ready to release some of the goodies that we have planned for this year - are you ready?

We have a bunch of new stamp sets and dies to release and here's how we are going 

to do it this month:

Our new goodies will be available from the 28th - just like we planned, BUT our Design Team will only begin showing their samples on the 28th and the samples will run for another 3 days AFTER the goodies go live in the store.

Reason for this? Well I've had a ton of back stage admin to grapple with due to the complete overhaul in the way online business is changing in Europe. The geniuses in charge of the new scheme were not really on-the-ball about communicating it to all of us small business people (every time I say that I picture a foot high version of myself in a pinstripe suit) and so we found out only two weeks before Christmas that things were changing right from the 1st January 2014! 

Right away we have had to remove all our saleable digitals from the store and until we figure out how to make them available without breaking any laws. We will figure it out in time, but just as we were hitting our stride with a static release date (every 28th) we realised that we were not going to be able to make the January release happen. Everything got pushed right back, including stamp production, and so here we are - February release is upon us - it feels good to be stamping and not computing!!!

Pop back tomorrow for another peek - goodies go live on Saturday night and I am sooooo looking forward to what you make of this release, it's an interesting mix!

Today's peek is a set that first came to mind 6 years ago when I began WMS, it took that long to make it out of the sketchbook! LOL!

...no really, I am working....

So since I can't show you what I'm making...here's a peek at what's on my desk. We are gearing up for our February release - full details soon - we have 3 stamp sets and a bunch of new dies coming...all will be available on the 28th February, but I thought I'd post this, just in case you all got to thinking that I'm just sitting here drinking tea and eating chocolate... :)

... How to art....?

If you remember, please let me know, I have forgotten. I need a Valentines card. I really, nearly, I mean it was in my hand, bought a card for DH last week at the grocery shop. January has been a helluva month - EU law compliance, tax month, the WMS sale, school visits, (my middle chick is moving to big school this year) but I baulked at the idea of paying an actual 5 pound note for a mass produced card, I mean I have every craft tool under the sun, I have cardstock by the acre, what the hell was I thinking? (btw for your information, NO handmade Christmas cards escaped Casa Brennan this year, not one.)

I don't know if it was embarrassment that kicked in, I can't claim that it was artistic pride, but I couldn't do it. I have to make DH a card.

Thing is, I sometimes forget how to art. Six years ago I'd a stamped myself a bit of patterned paper, cut out a label shape, slid a bit of ribbon across the centre, popped a sentiment on the label and stuck it right smack dab in the centre. Job done.

Card making has evolved a little since then and there's a move towards what I like to call 'Art cards' folks all over the planet are watercolouring, zentanglng, hand lettering, foiling - it looks fabulous and I'll be right out to join you, soon as I finish my homework. In the meantime, here's a little number it only took me 3 days to put together....  in between Tax returns and other glamorous admin tasks..... bet you envy me...

So for my 6.5 by 4.5 inch card, I used the Zig Zag Bacgrounder - I swiped a teal coloured ink pad rather randomly across it and then spritzed with green inky water, I smoothed some watercolour paper down on that and peeled it off to reveal a suitably arty background. I used the My Heart dies to cut the heart shapes and coloured two of them with watercolours. The smaller heart at the top was also stamped with a knitted texture from Faux Fun and the middle heart was clear embossed with a stamp from My Heart Stamp set before being watercoloured. I added some vellum into the bottom heart, and mounted all over some sequins that I just glued on randomly. The wooden word was from a pack of wooden words I found at a 'The Works' store last week. Their budget crafting items are quite good sometimes. The wee shiny gold heart at the top was die cut from a larger sequin using the heart grommet die from Folding tags die set.