...tossback tuesday? and a freebie with the next 30 orders

LO, I'm rifling through the store back end this evening, sorting out various issues and  I was fixing some stuff on the North Shore product page, I adored this stamp when it came out - I love it still.

I love the mood this stamp creates and since I'm in dire need of some summer sun (it's actually snowing here as I type) I'm going to do a little giveaway -  the next 30 people placing orders at the WMS store will receive one of these North shore stamp sets in with their order for FREE! Offer begins now - 11:00pm my time and will end with the 30th order from now or at 11:00pm tomorrow night (1st April), whichever comes first. Offer is valid on orders with full price items orders only - offer will not combine with any other discounts.

One of my favourite techniques, clear embossing and then wiping white ink over, and burnishing it off the shiny bits.

...music to have your teeth drilled by...

Today I can't even....anything. 

It started bad, small boy announced this morning that today was evacuee day at school and he needed a costume. That was grand except it was 8:30 am and we were on the way out the door to school. Full scale scattering match as we tried to round up a waistcoat and some brown paper. We totally nailed it, in a failingly crappy type of way. The idea was to dress up as a World War Two evacuee child. I'm not so sure they wore chinos and tweed waistcoats, but hey...

Dentist followed. Dentist for me. I've been having a course of 'treatment' lately - I knew my ostrich approach to dentistry would eventually land me in trouble and it all came home to roost about a month ago. Couple of broken teeth, niggling pains, yep it was time to book myself in. Some fears are so deep rooted that they just cannot be overcome, but pain is a super motivating factor. Problem was my favourite oral bio-mechanical structural engineer had up and done a moonlit flit to Armagh, without telling me and I was left high and dry.

Normally I get on well with all peoples, but the receptionists at the usual place were a bit sneery, I mean, what's a lapse of a handful of years in the grand scheme of things? "What's that? Kevin's left now? He's got married and moved away? He has three kids now? Really? when did that all happen?"

Anyhow I decided to shift camp and asked around. So glad I did, my new dentist is lovely. So lovely. Such a nice lady, and the added bonus, as my small daughter says, is her fingers are waaayyyyy smaller that the last dude's, it doesn't feel like you have a whole hand of bananas in there at all.

In a hypothetical kind of way, and on behalf of a friend, I asked her if she had any good ideas for folks who could be described as just the teensiest wee bit terrified, you know, just in case I ever needed to advise anybody. She told me to bring my ipod and some earphones. Life changing moment. There I lie blasting ELO though my brains at max. Mr Bumpy can't compete with Mr Blue sky. I win!

The after freeze face-ache is a killer tho....

...Easter Blessings

A real quickie today, I'm working on a load of stuff but it's all admin based and so not very pretty! I rustled up this card in between making 120 lunches for one of the badminton events that my kids attended over the weekend. Longest weekend of my life so far, and coming hot on the heels of our family's bid to sustain the most cold and flu viruses in one household over a calendar year period, I was not exactly full of the joys of Spring...

I die cut the Easter word from a plain white panel the same size as the card front. On the actual card front, I had painted on some ink colours, a little orange, some yellow, just to give a strong background colour to show up through the letterforms. I die cut a flower shape in the panel from the Good Egg dies also. On the actual card front, I clear embossed the corresponding flower stamp (from the A Good Egg stamp set) and then flooded that area with a vibrant pink ink. When I overlaid the white panel on top, all the right areas popped with colour. A little black to accent it and I was done!

...Simple Easter tags and Basic Partial die cutting

Evening folks - are you ready for a little Easter Prep? - If you are the type that has all the stuff made already, right down to all the bows tied, well, I'm impressed. I'm a last minute gal, which is kinda annoying, but that's a whole other adventure into psychology and I'm not qualified to lecture on that so let's just say I'd love to be more like you!

'Simple' and 'Easy' are both friends of mine and the older I get, the friendlier we become. The three of us knocked up these tags quite quickly the other night using the new Easter word die and I was very happy with how they turned out. I love how the 'Easter' word sits up a little from the coloured background tag and casts a shadow - you can encourage that by mounting with little foam adhesive pads.

I also used elements from the A Good Egg stamp set and

 Good Egg die set to dress up my tags.

Seriously it does not get much easier. I did a little partial die cutting, been itching to do this with a suitable word die and here it is - the Easter word die.

Basic Partial Die Cutting

I wanted to cut the word out, but leave a little at the bottom attached to the card stock that it was cut from. Here's how I did it:

I taped the die to some cardstock (I'm using yellow card in this example) and lined the bottom of the word die and card right up to and slightly over the cutting plate on my Cuttlebug. You have to sort of eyeball this from both sides. Once I had it in place I taped it to my cutting plate - the pic above shows what this looks like when I have run it through the bug. You can see the words are cut out all around except for a little area at the bottom of the 'E' and the flourish of the 'r'.

Below is what it looks like when you take off the cutting plate.

Once you take off the tape and flip it right side up, it looks like the example blow (I'm using a white card example here)

Next thing to do is take a ruler and a craft knife (- I'm using a clear quilting ruler and a scalpel) and line it up between the two uncut areas of the diecut. This word makes it very easy because most of the middle letters are higher than the 'E' and the 'r'. All you do is cut a straight line between those two letters.

Once you have done that. the word becomes free of the base section and you can use it on your project. In the yellow example below you can see how I'm lining up a stitched tag die over the word to make a further cut.

This is exactly how I made the words for each of these these tags. Have a go! This 'Easter' die is a lovely die for this technique, such a pretty font and I love how the 'E' and the 'r' are just that little bit lower, allowing the middle letters to be cut out fully. Ok, I'm off to go tackle some admin now...have fun!

...oldies but goodies

ED- Beth - I think it's an old PTI stamp! thanks for the kind comments!

Hands up who remember these? If you do, you have been with us for a staggering 6 years! Pat on the back to you and a Very Happy St Patrick's Day to you and yours!

These were made with some of our first ever sets, Irish Blessings and Celtic Heritage. It's a little late for stamping for St Pat's now, but if you still fancy having a go, we have a couple of Irish themed freebies at the store, sure, we are early for next year...

Freebie Vintage Postcard Image

Freebie Shamrock Digital stamp

Freebie St Patrick's Day Label digital stamp

...Vintiquing

Below, or somewhere very like it, is where I hope to be on Sunday. It'll be Mother's Day here in UK and I'm going to try and exercise my privilege and get out and do a little vintiquing. For once I actually have a reason to go shopping, I'm having a Vintage Tea party soon for a special little lady and I'm looking for props, mismatched vintage tea cups, that sort of thing. I managed to get this lovely trio above for just a few bob, but I'm going to have to pick up a few more if I want to really carry the theme off.

In reality I'll be hitting the charity shops, it's all very well having aspirations towards a Champagne lifestyle but when you are on a lemonade budget, you kinda have to cut your cloth accordingly... there will be lots of homemade party props... if I can remember to photograph them, I'll pop them up here -

 So, what are your plans for the weekend? Whatever you are doing, hope it's fabby.

...because it's good in gold...

Just popping another little sample up. I'm in clean-up mode at the moment, cleaning up the office after the release and the shipping. Tidying up scraps and shoving gold tissue paper into every available nook and cranny...no...don't ask....

Just remembered I hadn't posted this one yet and it's one of my faves. I used the Kaboom die - and cut one in white card and one in shiny gold....ooooh, look at that gleam, isn't that just lush. I layered the gold outline around the white word and ran a couple of pieces of tape across the back to hold them together.

I wanted something subtle for the bard base, so I stamped the large starburst image from the Halftone Backgrounds stamp set in Versamark and quickly poured on white embossing powder. After heat-setting, I rubbed a little gold ink around the starburst and then burnished the area with a clean piece of paper towel. This takes the gold ink off the starburst pattern and makes a very subtle background pattern. Insert smug smile here.... right, I'm off for a cuppa....chat later.

...Pin-It winner announced!

Ladies, thank you all for pinning our latest release creations! We hope you enjoyed the eye candy! Our randomly chosen Pin-it winner was

D.Ann who said...
"Pinned Sandie's fab Special Lady tag & card. Love that stamp.. in the same style as Beecca's silhouette, which outta be a stamp... hint hint : )https://www.pinterest.com/pin/294422894365453290/"

Huge Congratulations D Ann - pop us an email on claire@waltzingmousestamps.com and let me have your details - I will pop you a lovely £30GBP store code!

Our comment Prize 

We also chose a random non-pinning commenter to win a Kaboom stamp set, and the prize goes to:

Super Jen who said...
"Kaboom and the half tones are must haves for be. Eager for the hop but will have to wait until I am on my computer instead of my phone"

Jen - pop me a quick email on claire@waltzingmousestamps.com with your addy and I'll get your set right out!



Thank you to everyone who played along!

...Special Lady and FREE Box cut files

Folks I still have a couple of things to show you that I didn't get time to post during the release.

One of them was the complete set of samples for my Special Lady project. I'm a bit of a magpie when it comes to stamping, I like a load of different styles but one thing I keep coming back to is Vintage. I just cannot get enough of those fabulous Victorian style engravings. My mother was a huge vintage/antiques fan and so I think I will forever associate Vintage style with Mother's Day projects. This latest stamp sets, Special Lady was designed with her in mind. Even though she passed away a few years ago, I haven't yet managed to design a Mother themed set without thinking about my wee mum. I think she would have loved this set.

My card is pretty straight forward, I really wanted to show off this beautiful lady image, I created this image by working with a few original victorian engravings, reconstructing the damaged areas and combining a couple of images to get this finished image of a pretty lady in a fancy hat. I paired this with a pretty font which has an old world feel. I simply stamped her in dark brown ink onto a tag I had cut with our stitched tags dies. I added just a little more pink into her hat with a copic marker.

Making Rosettes with a Picot Panel die

Do you like that little rosette? I have never made one of these before now - gasp - I know, I'm a few years behind the times. Turns out that it is super simple to make these and we already have the perfect tool! - the Picot Panel die. Here's how to make one using this die:

Line up your picot panel die face down on your patterned paper, I'm using a piece of 12 inch long designer paper. stick the die to the paper with a little masking tape. Run the paper through the die cutter, but NOT ALL THE WAY - stop short before you reach the end of the die and rewind back to get the paper and die out. 

Resposition the die, further down the paper, towards the end of this first cut - it is really easy to line up the die using the holes, you can see in the image below that I had marked a little arrowhead in pencil, along the right hand side of my paper to tell me where the end of the die was. I cut this in my Cuttle bug as the clear plates allow me to see where I am with the die cut in relation to the rollers.

If you keep going, you will eventually end up with a strip of paper like this. You can either slice this down the centre to get two small rosettes or use it whole for a larger rosette.

In order to make folding the rosette easier, I scored the strip of paper with the back of the blade in my scalpel. I scored in between each of the scallops. I trimmed off a strip about three quarters of an inch wide from one side as I did not want the rosette to be too big. Then I just concertina folded all the way along. I joined the ends together with some double sided tape, and gathered one side of the folded edges together and secured them with some hot glue from a hot glue gun. you can just see the glue in the smaller, unfinished rosette in the top left of the photo below. 

This pic also shows some little embellishments I made with some air drying clay. I just pressed some of the Cameo creations  stamps and the Cameo to go stamps into a piece of clay and let them air dry, then I coloured them pink with copics to match my project.

I used the small three quarter inch strip to make this mini rosette for my box tag.

 I used the other piece of my strip to make the slightly larger rosette for the card.

And I created another strip using the Picot Panel die and used it full size to create an even larger rosette for this box lid. I made a plainer pink stripe rosette also and layered it with the Snowflake 3 die cut - this is a surprisingly versatile die also, it's not too 'snowy-flakey' that you couldn't use it on everyday projects such as this one.

What's nice about the Picot Panel die is that it matches the pretty circles die, which I used on the inside of the card, to stamp my sentiment on.

Picot Panel

Pretty Circles

Do you like these little boxes? I made up a quick template for these and for one of the samples I cut out an aperture on the lid using the pretty circles die.

I love how the pretty circles die gives two results with one cut, like our other self matting dies. A label and an aperture in one cut.

I twas simple just to tape the die in place before running the box lid through the die cutter.

The Box cutting file is available as a .svg file for free in our freebies section at the store - just click here if you would like to have it! It's around 3 inches square, perfect for little gifts of all sorts, - it would also make a great cupcake box!

Sure hope it tickles!

...Coffee Lovers Blog Candy Winner!

Folks we have a winner - the following comment on our Spring Coffee Lovers blog hop post was randomly chosen by the random.org number picker:

Huge Congratulations to:

Jean Bullock who said... Gorgeous card. Love how you did the sentiment.

Jean, have a browse over at the store here, and then chose yourself a large set of stamps, and a medium set of stamps and a die of your choice from our in-stock items! Pop me an email on claire@waltzingmousestamps.com giving us your choices and your address and we will get your goodies right out to you!!

...Release wrap up!

Good evening - I'm shipping like a mad thing and I want to thank everyone who stopped by our release! I have another sample for you this evening. This wraps up the official 'Release days' but I have a few things still left to show so you can pop back over the next couple of days if you like.

 Heads up - we still running our:

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 this release's sample posts 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 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. 

The DT have a little blog hop for us today as they  wrap up their release samples - So I will send you off to Laurie next, followed by:
Anya
Jeanne
Tosha
Becca
Lynn
Julia
Sandie

 

So I've been itching to do an inlaid die cut card and I couldn't wait to get my hands on this swirly Mother word die.

You are all professionals at this I know, but just humour me, I took the how-to pics and so let me show them to you anyhow...lol.

 Get yourself a Background - I chose to paint a heart with watercolours - I used a heat tool to dry it since I've no patience.

 Then I positioned the die over the heart and taped it in place with some lo-tack masking tape. I must tell you that I was cutting into watercolour paper, which is kinda thick and so I used a metal shim plate in my die cutting machine - have you used these? - they are terrific for detailed dies - I use them on all my fancy Spellbinder shapes.

 When I got the die cut out of the machine, I very carefully flipped over the card leaving the die in place in the paper. This is the back of the image. I applied a little glue to each area of the die cut NEGATIVE area - that's right, the area around the word, and not on the actual die cut word itself.

Then I laid a piece of spare paper directly on top of the area I just glued. Let it dry for a while, or don't, if you are like me.

 Now flip it back right side up and you will find that it is easier to pick out the letters as the background stays in place as it is stuck to the backing paper.

I cut a plain white Mother shape out of some of the same watercolour paper and set it back into the die cut heart - a few dabs of glue was all it took. Once it was all well stuck down I rubbed over the whole surface gently with a little scrunched up kitchen paper to remove any little papery wisps and to further bed the die cut in place. Loved it! AND I have a lovely spare pinky watercoloured sentiment now to use on another project! Hope it tickles!