... Were you at the party, did you see the new stuff?

So did you go to the Stamp TV forums last night to see all the new sets at Gina K's? This was one of the cards I posted at the party - it got a little crazy and I was having trouble keeping up with all the posts, but it was so exciting to be a part of the release! Big news for me was that five former WMS sets re-released at Gina K's last night, have you seen them?

If you have not already seen the new releases, you can pop over here to Gina K Store and see all the new goodies in one go.

Also there are blog hops planned, so stay tuned, I have LOADS to show you from this release!

One of the sets revealed was Fill it with Flowers by Melanie Muenchinger, and I used it for this card - I literally filled the large cup image with a flower, lol. I love to try and find unexpected ways to use stamps and I cannot tell yo how good it feels to be creating again!

It was a simple job to make a reverse mask for the mug image but cutting the mug OUT of a sheet of paper and setting the hole over the stamped image. I just stamped the flower within - couple of how-to pics here.

You get the finished, decorated mug.

Next thing was to make a mask of the mug and taggy shapes, I use post it notes. Easy to cut and stick themselves down.

Then I did a little sponging because I never got around to buying air canisters for my copic airgun...

Et voilà - a nice background to highlight the white mug. All that was left was to punch a wee hole for the tea bag string and slit a tiny opening at the top of the mug and feed the string through. I scored the frame in a trellis using my scorpal. Hope it tickles!

...rainbow hello!

Evening all. It was a glorious evening here tonight, I hear we are due for rain tomorrow, but it was beautiful here this eve - didn't see a lot of it tho - busy, busy. Just time to pop up a card for you.

I don't think I have even shown you the Brogue dies yet so I'll begin with this card. Super simple.

This is one of the dies in the new Brogues dies set that we just released. The brogue dies were meant to compliment the masculine sets at WMS, such as My Kind of Guy, but they are hugely versatile, I can see lots of projects benefiting from a brogue border. 

For this evening's card, I used the plain border - it produces a brogue pattern on one side of the cut and a handy pinked edge on the other side. I made my card with a bunch of these borders.

I just cut five borders with the die and taped a piece of contrasting card along the back side of each cut. I arranged them in a pleasing layout and trimmed them to suit my card front size. I used a little foam tape on some of them to give abit of rise.

I die cut a hello sentiment (using this die) in white and then again in each of the 5 contrasting colours. I separated a letter from each colour and stuck those to the reverse of my white 'hello' - love how these cast a little rainbow shadow to match my colour pops. Quite like this wee card!

These brogue dies have lots and lots of little circles to cut and I like to use a stiff brush to help me just pop those all out. I get rid of most of them this way and only have to poke one or two stubborn circles out if I'm using thick card. Paper just seems to come away perfectly every time.

Also, can you see something interesting here?

What if I showed it to you in...gold?

These are the little negative shapes produced by the brogue dies - these make great confetti for shaker cards - I'm gathering a little bottle-full of gold ones!

Hope it tickles!

...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!

...Salty Snow Day

While cleaning out the office the other day I found my watercolour paints! Decided to try out this trend for watercolouring and loved it. I painted a sort of hill shape with the darkest blue and then added lighter blue and finally a touch of green at the top. I was going for a sort of northern-lights type of sky. I stamped a large tree (from the Fosty in the Pines set) in versacolour and then used white embossing powder. I heat set it. I wanted to add a little sparkle, so I used the heat gun to re-melt the embossing powder and sprinkled on some superfine glitter. Then I added a little snow swirl by dotting with my gel pen.

This was a fast card, I trimmed the panel slightly smaller than a card front and then used the paint brush to paint a little  border close to the edge of the card base. Once dry I attached the front panel. The sentiment is from Warm Fuzzies.

I used to love to paint with watercolours and one of my favourite things to help create texture was to sprinkle salt onto the wet paint, it sort of sucks the paint in and creates little areas of concentrated colour, sometimes you don't want the speckle effect, but I liked it for this snowy card. Since I was going to stamp over the paint, I waited till it was all dry and then rubbed all the salt off, leaving the surface smooth for stamping. You can leave the salt on if you like the texture. I would not recommend this technique for archival work tho, I'm not sure the salt would be a good long term partner to precious pictures etc.

Right, I'm off, I'm working on a big sale at the store, just waiting for a tech dude to write me a bit of code so I can add my wee sale stickers....chat soon!

...New for October - Flurries and a giveaway!

Good evening folks - how are you? We're getting the WMS October stamp release underway and tonight the Design Team and I are bringing you samples showing a new 6x4 stamp set called Flurries. Flurries will be available from the WMS store from 7:00pm on Tuesday 28th - our new static release date.

This set is packed with possibilities and all my samples this evening revolve around only one or two stamps from the set - it's the sort of set that encourages you to play with your inks.

Before I show you my samples, here are the ladies who are previewing with me today, can't wait to see what they have created! Don't forget you can see all the DT cards in one place here on the DT inspiration blog.

Becca Feeken
Jeanne Jachna
Julia Aston
Karin Akesdotter
Laurie Schmidlin
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker

Giveaway

If you like the look of this set why not enter our giveaway - simply help us spread the word by sharing this post on Facebook or pinning some of our new release samples to your Pinterest boards - leave a comment here to tell us what you have done to spread the news. It's not limited to Facebook and Pinterest, if you have another avenue to help us get the word out, simply use it and let us know what you did by commenting on this post. One random entry will win this set. The winner will be drawn from the comments here on Tuesday evening, just before the release opens - good luck!

One of the stamps in this 26 piece set is this row of trees, if you are thinking  that they look a little familiar that's because they are related to the snowflake one die and also to some of the snowflake stamps that give this set it's name - Flurries.

I included some tear drop shaped stamps in the set that can be used to add colour behind the tree branches, this is a shot of my little row of trees half coloured.

There are also single trees in the set - added flexibility.

I love this little row of stars - perfect for making little starry skies above the mini woodland. Here everything was clear embossed and then cream ink was wiped over.

It's kinda hard to stop stamping these trees once you get started, I love them in Autumnal shades.

Perfect for creating little Autumn forests like the one on this Thansgiving card.

 This is a particularly versatile winter set - and I have not even shown you the snowflakes yet!

Hope it tickles.

...Introducing Frosty in the Pines

Evening ladies! Did you like our Little Deer? hope so. We have his friend Frosty here today. Frosty is quite a substantial snowman and I have him here on a standard US size card (4.25 x 5.5 inches) so you can see he is a guy to fill a card.

I was definitely on a cute bent while I was drawing these, but  I wanted to make frosty a slightly more Vintage gentleman and I think it works terrifically well, he really suits the softer more pared down rustic treatment, I'm beginning to see why so many folks like cute stamps!

Design Team Previews

 Ok, before I spill the beans on this card, here are the DT ladies previewing with me today:

Anya Schrier
Becca Feeken
Jeanne Jachna
Julia Aston
Karin Akesdotter
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynn Mercurio
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker

As we mentioned yesterday we will also be posting the entire teams creations on our Inspiration blog one click right here will bring you everything previewed today!

Vintage Cute

If you are interested in creating a look like this, here are the details for this card. I'm calling it 'Vintage Cute', it probably exists elsewhere, but I just figured it out so I'll claim it till you tell me otherwise.

I stamped Frosty with memento Rich Cocoa ink, but I stamped him first on a piece of scrap paper and used the second impression on my piece of patterned paper. The paper is a Melissa Frances, think it's called Attic treasures and it already had a nice creamy tone to it.

I coloured Frosty with a mixture of distress markers from Tim Holtz and a few copics - I love the tones of the distress markers, but I did find that  the colour changed slightly in the actual marker as I used it. I'm ok with that as I don't like stuff to be too perfect. I have no idea if this happens as standard with these markers, I'm pretty new to these.

Once I had finished with Frosty I coloured around him with a couple of copics, I used pale colours as close to clear as I could, milky White 51 and then warm grey 1. I love that this created a sort of aura around Frosty, he's got that readybrek glow...  it helps to highlight his pale body.

I made some subtle hills in the background using a copic marker and apiece of scrap card. I cut the scarp card in a gentle hill shape and made upward strokes over it, moving straight up and allowing the pen mark to taper. the colour was so pale that it blended well into the background, this took moments.

I stamped a few tress in the BG. I practiced first on a piece of white paper. I used the Distress markers to ink up the pines. This is such a neat technique, you add the colour directly where you want it and then just huff on the stamp before using it to create your impression. I loved the effect. This was my trial tree. There are 3 sizes of tree in the set and I love the rustic style, I used the two smaller one son this card - there are also a few little log cabin silhouettes, cannot wait to get those inky!

I made a little sign for the sentiment, just a couple of wee scraps of kraft card. I sliced the edge a little with a craft knife and rounded the corners, before sponging with brown inks and then a little cream for a snowy top. The sentiment 'Believe' comes in the Frosty set. Thought this was a nice alternative to the sharper styling from yesterday.

Our last day of previews is tomorrow, can't believe it's Friday eve already! We will be back at 7pm tomorrow with more inspiration before the release on Sunday! Hope it's tickling so far!

...Introducing little deer and some Flaky characters...

 

Good evening folks, and welcome to the previews of the sets we will be releasing on Sunday the 28th! I'm very excited! it's a small release, but I think that small will be key for us as we settle into our new routine. If you have not heard already, we are going to hold our releases on the 28th of the month from now on (everyone keep your fingers crossed for me...)!

Little Deer - new stamps releasing 28th Sept

Today I'm showing you a couple of things - I have a couple of cute critters for you up first, these guys are from the Little Deer set. I drew these when I was going through my 'cute phase' - I think the wee folks put a spell on me, everything I drew for about a month a while back was turning out cute...which was nice for a change...we don't have a lot of cute at WMS so it's been an interesting change of pace and I have been enjoying these more than I would be happy to admit in public...lol!

My deer has a little cardinal friend, he is quite adaptable and can either sit, stand or perch depending on whether you decide to stamp some legs for him. There are a bunch of other useful stamps in the set, I clear embossed two birch trunks on white paper and then sponged in antique linen. I then clear embossed another trunk and sponged some more with darker inks, this gave me two pure white tree trunks and a lovely pale gold tree. A little torn paper for a snowy base. I popped the tree scene in behind a card front - I had cut an aperture with the gift card die, it's the perfect size for a little window like this. I stamped my critters onto cut file shapes that I had already cut out with the Cameo. I used Versafine black ink and clear embossed so it would not run with the copic markers.

I have decided to go down the cut file route with these sets, so matching cut files will be available also. I decided this because of the large amount of dies that would have been needed to match the 3 sets we are releasing. Ideally we would eventually have cut files and dies for all sets, but it's just not possible at the moment.

If you have no idea what a cut file is - read up on them here.

Design Team Previews

 I know the DT ladies are previewing today also, and here are the links:

Anya Schrier
Becca Feeken
Jeanne Jachna
Julia Aston
Karin Akesdotter
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynn Mercurio
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker

Going forward we will also be posting the entire teams creations on the Inspiration blog - ideal if you are on limited time - one click right here will bring you everything previewed on the day!

Snowflakes and die cutting

Do you like my poinsettia decoration? It's made out of snowflakes. One of the dies we are releasing on Sunday is this Snowflake One, inspirational name I know, but I was having trouble thinking up fancy names for snowflakes, because snowflakes never come in ones...there's usually a bunch of them...

The pic above shows the die, top right, with the scrap left after you cut the flake (top right - don't throw these out, they are quite useful, more later) The cream flake at the bottom is the actual die cut - lovely simple detailing, this is going to suit so many projects.

I'm going to be introducing 4 snowflakes over this release and right up front I am going to recommend that you consider your die cutting technique. All but one of the snowflake dies are quite detailed and, if you are like me, you will want to get the best results with minimum fuss. If you are a seasoned die user, you will know that detailed dies can be temperamental - it's a fact of life, the more detailed the die, the harder it can be to get a good clean cut - the solution that works for me is a metal shim. 

In my pic above you can see that, starting at the bottom - I lay out my cutting mat, my card, the die, then comes the metal shim - and I taped round the edges of mine as these look a little slicey - then I finish up with the base plate. I'm using a Grand Calibur and these metal shims are recommended for Cuttlebugs and Big Shot - they are expressly NOT recommended for the Calibur, but so far so good....

So anyway, I was finding it so easy to get lovely crisp flakes that I was thinking of how to use a whole bunch of them - this flake really reminds me of poinsettia for some reason and so I decided to just build myself a poinsetta embellishment. I cut out two green flakes and two red flakes for each flower and just layered them on top, I just rotated them slightly as I went - you can see the two green flakes layered above, I used two different shades of green and two shades of red.

The design of Snowflake One really lends itself to a poinsettia, it's so easy to pop some pearls onto the centre. I only ever use plain cream or white pearls and I colour them up with copics to suit whatever project I'm working on. I do the same with crystals (see the centre of the poinsettia in the first pic).

 Popped a nifty tag on - I cut it with the small die from the Stitched tags set and added My Cardinal and a sweet sentiment from Little Deer. I like to colour the faces of the cardinals in grey, I know they are probably meant to be black, but I can see his beady eye so much better if his face is grey.

I made up another cream and green embellishment with the snowflake ides and finished the centre with a natural button, I'm loving how versatile this one flake die is turning out to be. I cut the tag on this package with the bonus tag that comes in the Folding Tag set. I dotted the i's on the sentiment (Little Deer) with a couple of red coloured crystals... winter birthdays are just that little bit more...sparkly! lol!

Hope it tickles, back tomorrow with the next set of previews!