...second peek at Feb!

OOOOh, aaaahhhh! Love this....

...welcome to May at WMS...

Welcome to Day 1 of the May Release samples - I'm kicking us off with a new set called Gingham & Co. If you're new here, we release new clear photopolymer stamps (that's the best ones) every other month. May is a release month and so we will be previewing our new goodies for the next couple of days while we count down to May 1st, when all of the new goodies will be available in our store! Be sure to check back with us for the eye candy if nothing else and stay tuned for the huge competition - there is a super prize, but you will be required to make something!!! :)

Before I tell you any more tho' - do please be sure to check in with our DT to see what the ladies have been up to!! I can't wait to see!

• Anya Schrier
• Belinda Chang Langner
• Bonnie Sharp
• Carly Robertson
• Claire Brennan
• Jennifer Holmes
• Julia Aston
• Kate Whelan
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lynn Mercurio
• Mona Pendleton
• Niki Estes 
• Sandie Dunne
• Sarah Martina Parker
• Tosha Leyendekker
• 
  

For today's project, I made up 3 little cupcake boxes - the template will be released on May 1st along with the new stamps!! I love cupcakes, who doesn't? but any templates I have seen to date have had flat sided cuppies, since any cuppies I bake are usually round, I wanted a round template. So I made this one up! You like?? Such a versatile little template it's doing double duty here as a little flower pot!

Gingham & Co. is a set featuring three background building gingham stamps in three different scales. I absolutely adore gingham and I can see this set in so many different settings, right away I'm thinking Baby stuff, but Christmas of course and also spring things like today's project!!!

There is a 4th stamp in the set - the "& Co." - It's a reverse polka dot stamp which will be incredibly useful for creating areas of coloured polka patterns in any colour you choose - you can see that I have inked it up in green here to get a lovely green and white polka dot pattern on the right hand leaf. If you look closer you can see that I used the same stamp to create the pink and white polka pattern on the second petal of the flower.

I used all three scales of gingham on my little project, as I love mixing them, I think the variation in scale adds so much interest!

Right away I'm going to tell you that these are LARGE stamps!! We always make our backgrounders extra long so that you have no trouble stamping the full length of a standard size 4.25 x 5.5 inch card.

The three gingham stamps are for creating backgrounds and will line up perfectly - the reverse polka is a huge stamp that will enable you to cover approx one half of a 4.25 x 5.5 inch card front. I made the stamp large on purpose, mainly because the polka dot pattern is not one that would be easy to line up and a large stamp means that I don't really need to do that, but also I envisaged cutting/punching shapes from the reverse polka impressions, such as the leaves here.

I'll be back later with details on this project, but I have to say it is very simply made, the hardest bit is waiting for the card to dry (much sponging with distress inks! ) so that I could stick it together!

The Competition

Just before I go I want to tell you a little about the competition - Waltzingmouse Stamps is turning two on the 21st May! And I want you all to join me in celebrating with a little tea party!! Here's what I want you to do - since I'm bringing the buns (cupcakes!!! - that's what we call them over here) - you can bring the tea!

I want you to use either the Free Tea bag baggie template - downloadable here - or the Tea cup template if you already own it - a purchase is NOT required to play, if you don't have the tea cup, get the free tea bag baggie. If you have the Piece of Cake template you may use that also (you don't need to make a cake - a slice is perfect!).

Make either the tea cup/tea bag baggie or slice of cake and decorate/stamp them for a party! I will open a post for them here on my blog after the release and we'll have an inlinkz feature where you can link them up for everyone to see.

You will have until 21st May to link your entries and we will only be accepting ONE entry per person! So give it your everything!!

The Prize
One random winner, to be chosen on the 21st May, will win £200 worth of WMS goodies (that's about $333USD, $316 CAD $305AUD). The winner may pick their choice from all the stamp sets/die templates/papers available at the store and will also have the option of picking from future releases!! So if you already have a good WMS collection, the next few releases could be yours for free!!

Anyone tickled?

...Welcome to the April Waltz

Ed - I've had a couple of emails regarding entry for the blog hop, and yep! you can still enter a card at any time up until tomorrow. The link list will not close but after tomorrow night the prizes will have been drawn so it might be best to pop in sooner rather than later! lol, thank you!!


Welcome to the April Blog Waltz with Waltzingmouse Stamps! Today we are waltzing with the theme of Mother, I know, I know, Mother's day is passed for all you UK folk, but it's an upcoming holiday in the US and it never hurts to remeber Mum, right?? LOL

As usual I made a hames of the time conversion and though I had a little longer to get ready so i'm just a wee bit late posting!! sorry!

So if you are new to Waltzingmouse Stamps, here's how to follow our Waltz - pop on over to the WMS Forum here and register if you haven't already, it takes just a sec and we don't ask any awkward questions, lol.

Go to the 'Play Room' and you will see the Blog Waltzes posts, if you are participating in the waltz, you will want to add a direct link to your blog post in the thread called April 17th Blog Waltz, Link list and if you just moseying through soaking up the inspiration, this is where you will find all of the links to see what we have all made, it is super easy to follow the waltz from here, don't miss the tips to make browsing quicker.

The participants prize!

I will pick, at random, one April waltz participant to win a stamp set of their choice and yes! if you win, you may also have the choice of some of the upcoming May releases!!!!!

The viewers prize!

As you waltz your way through the gorgeous cards on view, you will see that some of the DT ladies are participating. The DT ladies and I have hidden a little flower motif in some of our waltz pictures!

Check the DT photos (and mine) very carefully, and if you see any of the floral motif, note them down and count them all up. Post your flower tally in the chat thread that accompanies the hop list and I will pick a random winner from the correct answers to win a free Stamp set of your choice, I'll pick the winner on Sunday night, so there's plenty of time!!!

Here is the floral motif you are looking for:


look closely - we've been sneaky, the motif might be white and or partially transparent!!!

The Motif itself is actually a peep at a stampset due for the May release and is just a teeny tiny morsel of what may be one of my fave sets ever, ooh apart from the *** set, also due for May, sooo been wanting that one, but I'm waffling now!! lol



Anyhow, my card for the waltz is very simply done, no ribbons, no bling, nothing, just stamping...ok well a tiny bit of stitching! This is the sort of card I make when I am short of time, I get out the stamps and ink up. I do as much as I can with stamping and if it works out ok, I don't need to add anything else. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE embellishment of every kind, I just don't always have the time to throw it all together! LOL, I lack the skill required to just throw stuff together, I can spend hours just deciding what ribbon I want to use!

So I broke out the hibiscus stamp from one of our newest releases, Free Spirit Boy. I adore this image and love how versatile it is, here I used it to make a frame for my sentiment, Mother, from Roses in Bloom. I outlines the stamped and coloured frame with another copic pen in the same tone as the Antique Linen distress Ink.

I coloured in the flowers with copics and then cut out the centre panel with my craft knife. I left a nice wide border of card between the cutting and the stamping, the better to highlight the sentiment area.

Around the edges on the front of my card some eagle eyed folks will spot a stamp from the upcoming May release!!!!!!! I cannot wait to show you!!! A little stitching and rounded corners.

I just want to share a wee tip, some of you will probably be doing this already but I just discovered it.
On the sentiment panel, mounted behind the frame, I stamped the hibiscus in antique linen distress ink and then I brushed on some Victorian Velvet distress ink, that Tim Holtz, he knows what he's doing, doesn't he ladies? lol.


Normally I would have reached for the sponges, but I am always a little unhappy about my sponging, I get really uneven areas and I'm ALWAYS in a hurry, so I don't want to be spending ages trying to get smooth evenly blended coverage, usually I end up just calling it distressed!!! LOL.

Anyhow, I just discovered stencilling brushes (see pic above)!!! How fab!! even blending no matter how hard I lean!!! faster, smoother!!! Perfect!!! love it!

I repeated a lot of what I did on the inside panel, my sentiment from Roses in bloom, is a personal favourite. I used it here on my Mother card but it would also be great as a stand alone sentiment on the front of a card for a husband or partner.

I stamped a frame again, using Antique Linen Ink and then outlined it with a light lavender shade of copic pen, must look for the number...Again I used a May release stamp around the outside...and again I brushed with Victorian Velvet distress ink. A wee bit of stitching and we're done!!!



Hope it tickles!!!!!!

Roses in Bloom Roundup!

Aren't the new March sets amazing? Claire continues to delight us month after month. It makes me giddy to think what's coming next!

While Claire catches her breath after a frenzied release, packing up and shipping off orders (THANK YOU SO MUCH!), I thought I'd recap some of the amazing creations we saw during the previews and blog hop, starting with Roses in Bloom.

By Anya: Life is What You Make It

By Belinda: Blue Bella Paperie

By Bonnie: The Lucky Clucker

By Jak: Creating Beautiful Things

By Jennifer: Simple Flourishes

By Julia: Create With Me

By Laurie: Just Give Me Stamps

By Lisa: The Craft's Meow

By Lynn: Stamperosity

Is that a lot of pure loveliness, or what???? Betcha can't wait to get your hands on this stamp set! And we can't wait to see what you create!

Coming up tomorrow... a roundup of Very Vintage Labels No. 3!

Oh, and be sure to mark yours calendars for March 17th for our second Customer Blog Hop celebrating St. Patrick's Day! Details to follow!

Have a BLOOMING Day!

Lisa

...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!!