...something you have never seen me do before...

 PICTURE

REMOVED
FOR 

PUBLICATION

Evening folks, I have something a little different to show you, it is crafty tho so I think it qualifies for a blog post! Before I was a stamper I was a quilter and I quilted a lot. The year I was expecting my third child I made 10 quilts. Eight of them were full bed-sized quilts and the other two were smaller wall hangings.This smaller quilt was one of those and I found this pic of it as I was rummaging about the computer the other day waiting for the web folks to fix my internet connection.

The idea for this quilt was a simple picture of an Irish country cottage surrounded by lanes and fields and in real life it's a pretty nice quilt, even if I am blowing my own trumpet a bit. What you can't really see from the pic is that in between the fields I sewed little hedges and stone walls - these were made from strips of knitting, cut from old pullovers, and they sit up out of the quilt.

I never had energy like I did that year, I look back and wonder who that woman was, that lady who looked after two children, walked a mile and a half to school, four times a day, kept a house, and quilted like crazy. If I could get her back WMS would be on fire!

So I'm curious now, what else do you do besides stamping?

Hope it tickles!

...put a pop in it

These new Folding Tag dies are my current favourite (they sold out during the release, but they will be in again soon) - I have a raft of things to show you with these, but time has been scarce and I am only now getting time to make a few things!

I made this little pop-up tag this afternoon, I love how the little house comes forward as you open the tag, (pic below) such a neat idea. I cut the house out freehand with a scalpel, it is just a simple little naive style house. I wanted to see how a simple pop up would work in the tag, and it was great, I plan to make some of these now with pop up cakes in them for birthday tags.

I gussied up the front of the tag (see above) with a little Simple Sprig die cut that was already lying on the desk - and it was finished in a flash, sentiments are from the 'A Cottage Home' set. I pencilled in a really sketchy garden path just to ground the house and link it to the sentiment, couldn't be easier. It's the sort of tag I can quickly attach to a nice bunch of tea towels or other small gift for a new neighbour.

Hope it tickles! Feel free to pin this idea, I'm sure you can think up a ton of pop ups to put in these tags.

...a wee spin

 

If you ever happen to find yourself in Dalkey of an evening, you could do worse than pop in here - it's a bar/restaurant called 'The Club'.

Over Easter we had taken a little spin down to Dalkey, which is a little coastal village just outside Dublin and this was a great find - the food was good, and there was decent level of atmosphere. I did manage to take a couple of quick snaps before the place filled up and you can see they have a lovely panoramic painting of what looks like a sort of Italian riviera scene, all around the main bar area. Not sure if it's a real place or a fictional spot, but it was nicely done.

Dalkey abounds in oversized college lads. At first it can leave you feeling a little hobbitish, but it is actually a very good thing - we find them particularly handy for push starting the car. Three or four of these young oaks can coerce an unresponsive Renault Scenic into and out of a three point turn in under 2 minutes, we know this because we timed it. Once they have it facing the right way,  they barely have to break into a jog before the motor is running but what really endears them to one is the tremendous ancillary support you receive in the form of good humoured vocal encouragements as you exit the scene, struggling to keep pace while inserting 3 children, bodily, into a moving vehicle. "Ah get yer rump in there, ye gerrrl ye!"...might be a while before I show my face, or indeed my behind in Dalkey again...

...release roundup!

The last of the release orders has shipped, I have very nearly finished my shipping notes and tomorrow I will be catching up with emails and notes that folks have set - I was delighted to see how folks liked the new dies, especially the folding tags, they stormed out and we hope to re-stock those very soon along with some of the other items that sold out.

If you are waiting on a reply to an email or other query, please doe bear with us, it has been a hectic release and we will send you a reply! thank you for your patience.

I leave you with a pic of the very beautiful Powerscourt waterfall, which we happily stumbled over on a day trip over Easter, I had no idea this was here, hidden in the Wicklow hills and I am itching to pop down again for a longer visit to that region, I was especially charmed by the village of Enniskerry. Chat to you soon!

May Release Blog Hop Winner Announced

We had a wonderful release last Saturday. Your response was overwhelming and the Design Team did an amazing job creating incredible samples using the new Tag Collection One stamp set, along with our three new Cutting Edge Dies; Folding Tag Die Set, Simple Sprig Die Set and the Stitched Tags Die Set.

Thank you for taking part in the Hop and leaving so many wonderful encouraging comments on the DT blogs and on Facebook.

As promised, we have selected a winner of one lucky person whose name was randomly drawn from ALL the comments on ALL of the DT blog posts from the Hop.  Each member of the Design Team selected one comment from their group of comments, and from those, we have selected a lucky winner from the blog of  Jeanne Jachna.

CONGRATULATIONS GOES TO:  Norah McPhee

To claim your prize, please e-mail me (Lynn) at lynn@waltzingmousestamps.com and kindly note in the subject line of your e-mail – MAY BLOG HOP WINNER. I will provide you with a special code to claim your prize.

We are most grateful for the time you took to visit the DT blogs during this release and for your support of Waltzingmouse Stamps.

 

...New goodies for May!

Good evening and welcome to the May release, we have an itty-bitty release for you today but you just might spot something you have never seen before! We have one stamp set and 3 new die sets.

 As usual we have:

There is Free Shipping on all orders over £60GBP - and yes, that means free shipping to anywhere in the world.

Now that we have a loyalty scheme in operation - you are earning points every time you shop with WMS - you earn points on everything you buy, even digital products! Points gather and turn into discount! See here for more details.

 

We have a little freebie for you this evening also if you are shopping with us - the first 50 folks whose orders reach £60GBP or more will receive this fun Sheriff Badge set stamp tucked in free with their order. If you think your order might qualify and you already have the Sheriff badge stamp, just pop a note on your order to tell us! I'm sure we can find something else for you!

Just before I show you the goodies here are the DT ladies who are taking part in our Release day hop! Don't forget to comment - I believe there is a draw!

Lynn
Julia 

Sandie
Laurie
Anya

Edna
Jeanne
Jen
Karin
Renee 
Teresa

Tosha 

Kelly
Becca

And finally here are the new goodies!

 

Tag Collection 1 Stamp set - 6x4 inches

Folding Tag Die set

Simple Sprig Die set 

This die set matches the Simple Sprig stamp set and also works with the sprig in Two-step floral Sprig stamp set.

Stitched Tags die set.

...May Release winner!

The winner has been drawn - the Random number generator picked:

Claire who said...

Pinned! Loving this release! So many ideas so little time��. C x

  Congratulations Claire! pop us your addy and we will get your prize organised - send to:info@waltzingmousestamps.com





We'll be back in a little bit, just loading the goodies to the store!

...May previews Day 3, post 2 - and 'Win the release comp!'

ED - the competition is now closed! it's nearly release time!

Afternoon! I have a somewhat longer post for you now as I properly introduce the Folding tag concept. Also, don't forget to go all the way to the bottom of the post - there's a competition you might want to see....

These dies will release tomorrow along with some other goodies, and I just wanted to show you a few neat things about this die set before I get caught up in admin.

Below you can see what the die looks like, the die on the left is how the set looks when you get it - you need to remove the smaller die and grommets (reinforcers) from the folding tag - the die on the right is what it looks like after you have done this - I used a file to remove the last tiny bumps left by the connecting wires, I did this because that big empty area on the bottom of the die creates an embossed raised area if you run it through with an embossing pad.

 

This is what the cardstock looks like once you have run the die through, for this one I also ran it through with the embossing mat, you can just see the raised area in the bottom of the pic.

There is another line on the die which will leave an impression on the die cut and this is the folding line - this line will appear on the die cut wether you emboss it or not, so you ill always have the guide.

Simply fold up your tag and you will find that the end of the tag will slot snugly into the little half circle tab.

That is the basic folding tag and it is just the perfect size for adding to the front of a card, for putting on a scrap page as a journaling tag, or for attaching to a gift, endless possibilities! Simply add a grommet/reinforcer of your choice and go to town with your stamping!

If you want to get even fancier, I will show you something nifty about the relationship between the folding tag and the largest stitched tag (which we previewed yesterday) from the Stitched tags set - both are shown below, I chose not to emboss the folding tag for this project:

While I was drawing up these tags, I thought it might be useful to set them up so that they nested perfectly on top of each other - I love layers - and I thought this might provide further options for me to create unique tag designs - I made sure that when the folding tag was laid on top of the largest stitched tag, that the holes would line up perfectly - I love the look this creates and it's not something I have seen anywhere else...yet! lol!

 

I used this combination for today's sample - love it!

I stamped the Enjoy image from the new Tag Collection 1 set onto the front of the folded tag. I stamped the image again onto cream card and simply cut out the enjoy shape, I popped it up on foam tape and added a few flowers, much sponging was done first tho...

On the inside, by happy accident, I found that the message die from the Mini Mail die set was the perfect size to cut out the two cream panels - again much sponging.

I stamped my interior message with a stamp from Vintage Garden Seed Packet and the apple blossom stamp from Vintage Garden Flowers.

Finished off the back with a stamp from the Make Your Mark Set! Hope it tickles!

The competition

I have up for grabs tomorrow's entire release - a Simple Sprig die set, A set of Stitched Tag dies, a Folding Tag die set and the stamp set Tag Collection 1.

In order to be in with a chance of winning, I am going to ask you to share a couple of your favourite samples from the last couple of days - you can share pics from either this blog or any of the DT blogs - you can pin them to Pinterest, Facebook, or even your own blogs, just be sure to mention that they are from our release which is happening tomorrow!

Come back to this post and let me know that you have shared a little WMS love by leaving a comment on this post - A random winner will be drawn from the comments here - and you must leave a comment here, it won't matter where you shared if you don't pop back and leave a comment here so that we know!

I will close this competition tomorrow at 6:00pm and the winner will be announced at 6:30pm, just before the release goes live at 7:00PM

Good Luck!

If you missed this morning's post, here are the DT ladies sampling with me today!

Julia Aston

Kelly Schirmer 

Karin Akesdotter 

Laurie Schmidlin

Renee Lynch  

Sandie Dunne 

Jeanne Jachna  

Tosha Leyendekker

 Teresa Kline

Jen Cuthbertson 

Lynn Mercurio 

 Anya Schrier

Edna Morrisedie

...May previews day 3 - Folding Tag Die set

Good morning ladies, this is my first post today, I hope to be back this evening to show you how the main Folding Tag die works but for now I have a set of mini tags made with the little mini tag die that comes with the folding tag die set - this is really just a little bonus shape that I was able to fit in given the design of the Tag die and I thought it would make a dinky addition - it produces these little curved top tags, which are just over 2 inches long by 1.5 inches wide, perfectly sized for card fronts and mini gifts.

These items and others will release on Saturday (tomorrow) here on the blog, so pop back to see the full reveal!

A feature of this die set are the little shaped grommet options, a circle, a star, a square and a heart, I have highlighted them here by cutting them out in bright colours so they contrast with the black tags. I have used the Tag Collection 1 stamps for the dotted lines and the 'to:' and 'from:' I will add names with a white gel pen as I use the tags.

Patterns stamped on the fronts of the tags are from Pinstripe, Crackle, and Text it stamp sets.

The ladies are previewing with me today so pop on over and get a gander at the folding tags and I will see you back here later on! This evenings post will feature a big-ish competition also!

Julia Aston

Kelly Schirmer 

Karin Akesdotter 

Laurie Schmidlin

Renee Lynch  

Sandie Dunne 

Jeanne Jachna  

Tosha Leyendekker

 Teresa Kline

Jen Cuthbertson 

Lynn Mercurio 

 Anya Schrier

Edna Morrisedie 

...May Previews Day 2 - Stitched Tag dies

Good morning! Today we are showcasing the new Stitched Tag die set which will be available from Saturday. I've used the larger size here with a stamp from the Tag Collection 1 to create a little chalkboard style Christmas tag - I love the subtle stitched detailing around the edge of these tags.

The die set contains 3 handy sizes of tag and a little grommet die.

A little sponging around the edge of these tags will be sure to bring out that stitched look even further - I also love the separate grommet die, perfect for adding a pop of contrast to the tag - I've cut mine out in yellow card to really pop out of the black tag.

Now, off we pop to see what the ladies have made with their tags!

Julia Aston

Kelly Schirmer 

Karin Akesdotter 

Sandie Dunne 

Renee Lynch 

Edna Morrisedie 

Jeanne Jachna  

Tosha Leyendekker 

Teresa Kline  

Lynn Mercurio 

Laurie Schmidlin   

Jen Cuthbertson

Anya Schrier