...Say hello to Nestie Friendly Easter Eggs!!

Kicking off the samples for the March 1st release are samples for one of the new sets releasing next Monday 1st March.

The new set is called Nestie Eggs - geddit, nest eggs??? lol, I can hear you groaning! lol

Anyhow, it's a very special Easter Egg set that has been designed to fit the new Spellbinders Easter eggs dies, a special, limited Edition die set that you can only get from Spellbinders for a short while!! So quick, snap em up.

I thought about doing a limited edition stamp set for this but the egg shapes are so simple to trim out that these will be a standard issue set just like all my others!!! For Nestie junkies like myself the dies will be a lovely compliment but they are not necessary to use this set.

This first card features the largest egg stamp in the set, I previewed a piece of the stamp this morning on my blog, scroll down to see. This large egg lends itself well to different styles, it looks sort of vintage shabby that you can see on this a card, but I can't wait to silver emboss it on rich dark blue and add some wee blingy diamonds to those little intersections between the squares, Faberge style!!!

I stamped the egg in clear versamark onto cream card and then heat embossed in clear embossing powder. Then I sponged the egg all over with Antique Linen Distress ink, then again with Tea Dye distress ink, and finally round the outside edges in Walnut Stain distress ink (all Tim Holtz) - love those inks!!

The clear embossing resists the ink and you get a beautifully detailed egg design standing out gorgeously in cream against the dark background, yum, chocolate egg!

I trimmed this egg out by hand a little way out from the edge of the stamped image, this is what it would look like if you cut it out with the corresponding die. I didn't use my die because it is currently in the cargo hold of an aeroplane speeding towards Ireland as we speak!! LOL, despite pre-ordering from two separate online stores a month ago, they still haven't arrived! lol, That'll teach me, next time I'm ordering direct from Spellbinders!!!

So now you're wondering how on earth I know that these will fit the Spellbinders dies, and I'll tell you. I have magical powers. LOL. No, actually, I managed to get the information I needed to enable me to draw up the stamps to fit. S'all I'm sayin...for now...



So, once the big egg was trimmed out and mounted onto the card front with dimensionals it was time to make that delicious wee label.

No prizes for guessing that's another Spellbinders shape, yep It's labels 3, such a pretty shape. I used stamps from another new set releasing Monday, Vintage Labels No.3. I used a dotty frame to stamp a border around the precut shape. I used to stamp and then cut out but Joan Bardee came up with what I think is an easier way. She cuts the shape first and then uses lo-tack tape to hold the shape to the work surface while stamping, because we're using clear stamps we can perfectly position the frame on the die cut shape.

This is an especially handy way to do it if you intend to heat emboss with powder as I did here.

Once the heat embossed dots were cool I went back and stamped again with another label stamp right on top of the dots. Because the dots are clear embossed, they resist the ink and the result was a pretty vintage style frame with cream accent dots. I sponged with all the shades of distress inks mentioned before.

The sentiment is one of two included in the new Nestie Eggs stamp set, A wee cream bow and some vintage style lace finished it off nicely. I love how this turned out!!


Today's other card features a wee speckled egg. Doesn't this just take you back to when you were tiny, finding those wee blue speckled eggs in the back yard!!

I inked up the egg with a pale ink such as pink or blue and then just ran a Memento Rich cocoa dew drop ink pad around the very edge of the inked stamp before stamping. I love the little soft outline this gives.

I stamped six eggs and just finished the card very simply with a little piercing and a teeny tiny bow!


Check back tomorrow, the DT girls and I will be showing more new release goodness!!

Hope it tickles!

And don't forget, if you haven't already seen them pop over to Julia's and Lisa's and Bonnie's today!!

...I wanted a purple bunny

ED - The store is temporarily offline as I try to upload the templates!!!!! I'll post here when it's back online!!!

So I coloured one! I used my little bunny from the L'il Buddies set. I masked him to stamp the wee heart circle border and then i coloured with copics! I thought it was quite sweet!

I stamped the bunny and sentiment in rich cocoa and accented the image with scallops cut from chocolate cardstock (Papermill shop uk) Tiny thin purple ribbon!

I stamped the background using the thin broderie anglaise border from Faux Fun in versamark

I made a happy discovery when i found that the weeny hearts from Sweethearts actually fitted a little heart punch from my kids craft box!! excellent, love that!



Hope it tickles!!

Now, check back later today I have a couple of things i need to tell you LOL!!

...Day 4 Egg Tree Table Decoration

Ed - don't forget to pop over to see Bonnie and Jennifer today!!

Welcome to Day 4 of the samples before the big release tomorrow!!! I will be launching 4 NEW clear photopolmer stamp sets tomorrow! pop back to see what they look like! There will be a blog-hop organised by my lovely Design Team ladies!!!! I can't wait to see what they've made!

Today's project is a wee Easter egg tree I made with the wee egg stamps from Spring Baskets, I thought this would make a fab wee project to do with the kids but was enjoying it so much I made it all myself!!! I think it will make a nice centrepiece for the table, we always have a very casual Easter Sunday dinner but you could make this more formal by picking a rich colour scheme such as green and purple or co-ordinating it with your table linen.

I wanted to show you that included in the set are tiny wee stamps that are intended for you to use to decorate your eggs with - you can do dotty and spotty eggs, there are tiny wee stars, there are mini bees and a mini butterfly and you can use the plain egg stamp to make yourself a mask and stamp yourself some patterned eggs using background stamps - I made a little purple Victorian egg using the Victorian circle stamp from yesterday, see the bottom pic!





The base is made from the upturned lid of a cardboard tube, air dry modelling clay can be used to hold the twig in place once you have punched a hole through the centre of the lid, pinking shears make a quick grass border and a wee touch of ribbon finishes it off.

Hope it tickles!!

I will be back tomorrow with the release post at around 7pm my time, there might be a sample before then but I am spending this evening getting the store ready so it might be tomorrow morning, we'll see.

Hope to see you tomorrow, call back and bring a friend, there will be prizes and loads of inspiration from the blog hop!!!

...Day 3, second post, Little Basket, more circles...

I promised you a different version of the basket and here it is!! I made it to show off some of the circle stamps that are releasing Thursday!! (scroll down for today's earlier post!)

If you're new to my blog, you might want to bookmark me and call back on Thursday to see the 4 NEW photopolymer stamp sets that I'll be releasing. The fun will kick off on my blog on Thursday at around 7pm my time. I'm not so clever with the time zone thing but I think I'm around 6-8 hours ahead of folks in America, Australia, um... not sure...will try to find out.
I will be showing the complete sets on Thursday and my gorgeous Design Team ladies will be hosting a blog hop - with Prizes!!! Don't miss out!

Between now and then I will be continuing showing samples, scroll down to see the 3-4 previous posts with samples for this next release.

Back to my wee basket! One of the sets I'm releasing is called Spring Baskets and features images that you can use to make 2 different types of basket, I thought it would be rather fun to actually make some baskets. This is quite a nifty wee basket, the template has been designed so that you can make both of the baskets I've shown today from the same template!!

And yes, you know where I am going with this!! lol. Waltzingmouse Stamps will be offering occasional templates for purchase!!! Starting with this Spring Baskets template!!

If you know me at all you know I love making templates. I have a small stock of free templates that can be accessed at Splitcoaststampers and I am aiming to have them available in the store, they will still be free of course I just think it may be handier for some folks to get at them

Added to this I will have a selection of templates for sale. I will start with this basket available as a printable template grow from there hopefully. I am learning how to add this sort of functionality to my store at present and I hope to make the template available shortly after the release. It will of course be a downloadable pdf and I'm hoping that folks who like the Spring Baskets stamps will be able to download the Spring Baskets template before their stamps arrive!!

And nope! this is not the end of the free templates, I will still be making free templates, I have a slider box and a little gift box coming your way soon, both free, but larger and more involved templates that take a load of time to draw and develop will be offered for sale at a very reasonable cost, stay tuned for more on this.



There are two sets of circle stamps releasing on Thursday, Vintage Circles and Faux Fun Circles. Both sets have mainly been designed around the smaller of the Classic Circles sets by Spellbinders, with some of the smallest circles sized for use with a 1.5 inch circle punch, a size I find handy for making wee tags and accents.

I sized them in this way so that I could stamp a circle, cut it out with a die and then use a die from the Classic Circles Large size to make a mat for it. It is the worst kept secret of my life that I am addicted to Spellbinders and there will be stamps to match the larger size circles at some point.lol.


I couldn't resist using some of the circles to decorate my basket, these stamps are so versatile. Above, the panels on the outside of the basket were each stamped with a large, fairly solid circular image that has a blank panel in the centre for a sentiment, (if you scroll down to the end of this post I have used this image to make a card, it's from the Vintage circles-small set) I particularly love the antique victorian feel of this stamp! Within each blank space I stamped the Happy Easter sentiment from Spring Baskets. I made a separate liner for the basket, also contained within the template, and trimed the edge in a curve that sits proud of the edges of the basket. I used pinking shears this time. And there's that knitted texture again! lol!

On the back side of the curves I stamped a portion of another circular border stamp. You can just see it peeping over the rim in the pic above.

The tag also features a little vintage circle stamp from the Vintage circles-small set.

Below you can see how I stamped the solid victorian circle again, right in the centre of the liner, and then stamped Happy Easter again in the base. Each of the panels of the liner are stamped with a circle from the Faux Fun circles set, this image is a sort of negative version of the solid circle stamp from Vintage circles-small I tried so hard to decide between these two circles when I was designing the stamps but I just couldn't cut either of them!! I'm so glad I didn't! A little matching flower motif was stamped in the blank spaces.




Next up is the card I was born to make!! lol, I just LOVE this card!! It features the victorian circular solid stamp I talked about above. In the blank space in the centre I used the For You sentiment from little Box labels.

The victorian circle was inked up in versacolour Heliotrope and then I lightly touched the versacolour Boysenberry ink pad around the edges before stamping on white card. The image was lightly sponged with antique linen, distress ink, be careful to dab and not rub as the versacolour will smudge.

The circle image was mounted on the card, behind a frame of cream card. I cut the opening with a spellbinders die, and sponged with vintage linen. The I stamped a decorative corner from the Faux Fun set on two of the corners in heliotrope. A mini flower motif was stamped in boysenberry just to finish off the corners, a little stitching to finish and the whole lot mounted on a purple card base.



Phew! hope at least some of that tickles!

I will be back tomorrow for the last few samples before release! I will be posting later tomorrow, but go on ahead and pop over to the DT blogs in the morning, Bonnie and Jennifer will be sharing good stuff on Wednesday morning!!!

...Day 3 post 1 Faux Fun circles

Good morning and welcome to day 3 of the samples before the big release on Thursday!! Don't miss the festivities, call back here to the blog on Thursday, to see the stamp sets revealed and do the DT blog hop!! There will be prizes up for grabs!!

After you've had a peep at this little project you might like to pop over to see what Lisa and Lynn have made with the new stamps!! - ooh and pop over to Anya's, although she is not officially peeking today you might like to see her card, it's divine!!

Yesterday I showed you the new stamp set Spring Baskets, today I'm giving you a peep at Faux Fun circles. One of the TWO circle sets releasing on Thursday!!

Apologies for using the knitted circle again but I love it so much and as Anya says, the knitted texture just seems to fit in with any project!

Today I thought it would be fun to show you the stamps from Faux Fun used to dress up a basket! You can see on the tag above how I stamped the knitted circle and then used a slightly smaller circle (from the Spellbinders large Classic circles) to trim it out so that the stamped image 'bleeds' of the edge of the circle. I love how this can make the cream card circle appear to merge with the ginger coloured mat. I then stamped the little wreath image in green inside the knitted circle and used a copic marker just to dot the little berries in a shade of blue. Inside that I stamped an egg and coloured it to match my chocolate foil wrapped eggs.

I made a secondary tag cut with a Spellbinders tag die and stamped with a sentiment from L'il Buddies, (also releasing Thursday). I dressed it up with a tiny sprig which also comes as one of the little accessory stamps in the Faux Fun circles stamp set! There are 8 accessory stamps in the set as well as the 7 circle frame stamps! The circle stamps co-ordinate with the Spellbinders Classic circle dies. I sized them around the Small Classic circles set but of course they can be used with the larger circles dies too, it's just a matter of what size of border you prefer around the stamped image. Some of the smaller circle frames also co-ordinate with popular punch sizes!!

On the sides of the basket I used the co-ordinating branch element on the decorative cream panels, I like the slightly 'regency' look this gives to the basket.


This is obviously a tall basket, and I love the proportions of the long base with footed stand, however, like the stamp set, there is another version of this basket, call back later today to see it in my second post!!!


Inside the liner, you can see that I used an egg stamp to make a subtle pattern. A fancy fiskars border punch finishes the edge of the liner beautifully!


So, does it tickle?? and what do you think is coming next?? lol

...Day 2 Spring Baskets

Good morning, this is a long post! You may need coffee/tea!

On Thursday I will be releasing 4 new clear photopolymer stamp sets!!! and today I'd like to introduce you to Spring Baskets!

Yesterday Belinda and Laurie peeked some of the images from Spring Baskets and today Anya and Julia get in on the fun

My first card uses the basket image paired with the floral group that you might have spotted on Laurie's blog yesterday. A very simple bit of masking allows the leaves of the floral bouquet to overspill the basket at the front. At the end of this post I'll show you how I did that. All of the other 'basket filler' images in the set my be simply stamped into the basket and do not require any special masking. They're easy peasy.

I stamped my basket and flowers in Memento rich coffee ink and coloured with copics.

See that teeny butterfly?, that's a separate stamp so you can stamp him anywhere! I have him basking on a flower. He has two mini bumble bee buddies in the set! I just love being able to add a little life to a bouquet in this way. It's a left-over from when my father would have my mother add a little fox or pheasant to her oil paintings, he always said that all pictures should have a little life in them no matter how small! lol, I liked that.

I used a white gel pen to pop a few highlights onto the leaves etc.

Below you can see how I sliced around the bottom edge of the overhanging leaves with my scalpel and sort of curled them up a little, I think it helps add a little depth, along with the bow, I just stamped the basket handle again and cut out the bow, raising the loops a little when I stuck it onto the coloured basket.

I cut the image out with a classic circle Spellbinders die. I used a slightly larger circle die to emboss a frame into the card base. then I masked the embossing and stamped some polka dots from the Off Beat Backgrounds set in versamark. A strip of green ribbon and the card was done! I left off a sentiment as I quite often need a card in a hurry and I can put whatever sentiment I need on the inside at a later date.


A neat trick that you can do with the basket image from this set is to make it into a tall, fancy basket by adding the little urn image to the bottom of the basket. Again, I will show you how to do this at the end of this post, it's a super easy thing to do and gives you two completely different styles of basket, and you also have the little urn image that works well with the daffodil image and the floral group from the first card.

I used mine to make a card for my mum. The sentiment, also from Spring Baskets, would be good for Mother's Day or a birthday or just because.

I used Memento rich cocoa again and copics. This time I made a tall basket and filled it with daffodils, a true spring flower.

I coloured an large bow, a separate stamp, and cut it out to place on the front of the basket before simply stamping the sentiment underneath. As I was outlining my coloured image with a pale grey copic to help ground it, I decided to outline the word Mum just to give it a little more emphasis.


I really love how this image looks when it's all coloured up! The basket weave pattern on the basket and urn makes my simple colouring look like it took a long time. You could really work this up and add shadows and highlights but i simply applied a pale tan allover the basket and then went back in with a darker tan and filled in the negative shapes, it was done in a flash.

If you look at the bow that I cut out (see below) I coloured the edges with the yellow copic after I cut it out, it makes the cut image look so much neater, you don't get little white raw edges catching your eye!



My last basket card today features the tall version of the basket again but this time it holds some lovely decorative eggs! I just love this basket, I love complimentary colours together, the orange and blue have a real zing, and it's absolutely nothing to do with the spring coloured hole in my copic collection!!! lol, I'm itching to colour some baby pink and soft blue/green eggs but the LSS where I get my copics was all out of spring shades!! aarg!

I do like the orange and turquoise tho, I used a separate single egg stamp to make the background patterned paper, all three eggs featured in the basket come as separate whole-egg stamps too!


A fancy Spellbinders tag die cut holds the sentiment also from Spring Baskets.



The How-to-s

Basket of flowers with overhanging leaves.

Start by stamping the floral group onto your cardstock.


Stamp it again onto a post-it note. Trim out the image on the post it note. you can see that I only needed to trim closely around the bottom. I just cut close to the edge around the top but didn't worry about the ins and outs. Stick the post-it note image right on top of the stamped image on your cardstock. Take a second to make sure it's lined up as best you can.


Stamp the basket image over the floral group as shown above. When you remove the post-it note mask you will have a lovely basket full of flowers. See the first card, this was the exact image I used to make it.

To make the tall basket

First stamp the urn image.


Take a post it note and lay it across the urn so that there's only a little of the top of the rim peeping out. See the photo below.


Stamp the basket image over the post it note. I like to line it up so that the footer of the basket is completely on the post it note.This way the footer is eliminated from the final image and the lip of the urn makes a row of decorative weaving across the basket. Couldn't be easier.




Hope it tickles!!!

Don't forget to join me tomorrow for more samples and links to the DT ladies who will be joining me in introducing the new stamps for this release. And, bookmark Thursday you won't want to miss the blog hop and prizes!!

Thank you for stopping by and now that I 've used up your morning you are free to go!!!lol!!

...mmmm Chocolate Orange Easter Parade

Didn't realise that the Mojo Monday folks run a project parade!!!! thought I'd tune in this week and add a wee Easter project to the parade!! I apologise that I don't actually have any Verve stamps BUT hoping to rectify that soon!!! (what sets to buy??? some beauties to choose from).

Anyhow made up one of my baskets in Chocolate and Orange (if you fancy having a go, check the link in my sidebar for the Octagon Easter Basket, I put a template on SCS so's you can get it any time you need to.)

OOOOhh and isn't satin ribbon a marvellous way to find out how rough your dishwashing hands really are!!

Hope it tickles!!!

All supplies are PTI - stamps are from the With Sympathy set and Journalling lines. Vintage cream and melon berry inks.

...templates!!!

I spent my craft time yesterday making up the template for the baskets I made for my Precious Scraps samples. I am going to upload them to SCS as I usually do, hopefully you will be able to get them there very soon. The quickest way is to follow the link in my side bar under Templates and Tutorials. (Would somebody do the honours and let me know that you were able to download them ok? Ta.)

As usual READ the template before you print it - there might be an important tip that you don't want to miss!! Also, I printed the templates directly onto the patterned paper, I just cut it down to letter size and it went through fine.

The Octagon Basket template is for this basket:


To make one like this, you will need to print the template once onto your patterned paper (print it at 100%), then once again onto plain cardstock at 99% for the liner. Then if you fancy making a wee footer like this:


You will need to print the template again at 101% and cut it down as you fancy - I used a patterned fiskars border punch to get a sort of filigree look.

You will also need a scalloped square for the very bottom - I used a Nestabilities classic scalloped square, 4th from smallest in the Sml set.

The second template, The Mini Square basket is this one. Real easy.


Hope they tickle and I'd love to see what you do with them!!

...Octagonal mini basket for Mum!

Broke open the Grow Paper Kit (My Minds Eye) that Beverly of Precious Scraps sent me - yummy!! drop her an email if you would like some.

It's the ideal paper pack for a Mothers day treat, lots of floral die cuts etc - all the flowers you see in this post, except one, are pre cut in the kit. Finished the flowers with a couple of wee buttons, also from Bev. Paired it up with a little Ripe Avocado cardstock from PTI for a liner, footer and card base.

I couldn't resist another wee basket - this is my Octagonal one, a bit more involved than the simple one I posted a few days ago, this is the one you give to someone who will keep it, at least for a while!! Like your Mum.

Perfect wee basket for Easter, or Mothers day - you can get plenty of wee sweets in it.

Incidentally - it's Mothers Day here today! You folks in the States have a wee while longer, and since I love to draw templates...

Hope it tickles.

...Basket in a flash

I am finding that the My Minds Eye papers are a good enough weight to make 'things' with and since I love to make 'things' as well as cards, this is good. The whole basket, including pre die cut flowers and tag were made with papers from the Bloom paper kit.

I made up this wee basket as a quickie, I had already made a mini Easter basket which I loved but sometimes I just don't have time to do the whole stamping, lining thing. I wanted a template for a quick and easy basket that also looks pretty. The My Minds Eye double sided papers are ace for this 'cos I don't need to cut an extra liner!! I just fold over the flap and the pattern on the reverse peeps out!! (yep, she's pretty new to double sided papers...lol)

Of course the double thickness card of the other basket does lend a certain sturdiness but since this one is still quite small I think it's perfectly acceptable. And, I stuffed it full of solid choc eggs and, it didn't flinch!!

This would be the basket I would make to give away in quantities, especially to children, who, astoundingly, sometimes don't have the patience to appreciate every little stamped and folded corner detail...

I was pleased with how easy and quick it was to make but If you know you're gonna want something with more detail, check out my mini Easter basket OR keep your eyes open over the next couple of days for my next basket confection, made from the Grow line of papers that Beverly also sent me!!! If you fancy a packet of the papers I've been using all week, drop Beverly a line, she is operating via mail order on her blog till the online shop is up and running!! Or if you're handy to Dover Tennessee, go see her in her brand new shop!!

There will be news about the template later...

...templates info for mini basket

Thank you all so much for all of the lovely comments on my Mini Easter basket from yesterday - I have prepared a template which I will be uploading to SCS. I am putting a link in the sidebar in the templates section which will take you straight to the download - It's the only way I know how to do it. Hope it works for you. (Be real helpful if someone could leave a comment to tell me it's working!! Lol - cheers!)

There are a couple of things you should know before you use the template.

• There are two pages in the template. The basket and liner templates are on different pages - two each to the page. I supposed most folks would like the liner to be a different colour to the basket so it seemed pointless to put both basket and liner on the same page.

• There are lots of helpful hints on the templates themselves - save yourself some cardstock by opening the pdf and READING the template pages BEFORE you print!!

I have a couple of pics I took while making my basket which I will share with you here. It's not a full tutorial but I think it gets the idea across.

I would LOVE to see some baskets that you have made - come back and leave a link in the comments to this post if you like.


Above - the basket exterior printed out, cut out, stamped on the non printed side and assembled.


Above - the basket liner printed out, cut out and the centre of each exterior edge marked in pencil.


Above - use the centre mark to start off the scallop in the centre and work out towards each edge, I dislike unsymmetrical scalloping (Nerd Alert, as my best pal would put it...)



Above - folding the liner - Note the spots are stamped on the other side. Note the two pieces of double sided adhesive.


The handle is scored a half inch in from each edge as per the instructions on the template. (I also stamped mine) tuck the ends under the basket before sticking the wee scalloped base on.

Now, embellish at will!! And show me!!

Hope it tickles!!