...Release update

 Folks this is just a quick post to let you know that the release was really, really busy - Thank you for stopping by! I know that many folks who ordered during the special 24 hour period had added the Snowflake #2 to their carts and subsequently paid for them.

We intended Snowflake #2 as a gift to those folk who ordered during that time so we will be refunding the Snowflake #2 where appropriate - please bear with me it will take me a long time to get through all the refunds, but we will get to you! Some folks may not receive their refunds until next week as we are also prepping for a show this weekend! wish me luck!

...New stamps and dies for September

Good evening and welcome to the September 2014 New Product Release at Waltzingmouse Stamps! I happen to know that we have a few new folks joining us - Welcome!

I want to make sure that everyone knows all the important bits so here are a few points of interest:

We offer Free shipping on orders over £60GBP to anywhere. Yep, anywhere.

We now run a Loyalty scheme and folks can gather points each time they order, points turn into discounts so it's worth joining if you have not already, for full details click here. Even if you have not shopped with us in a while, you may already have some points gathered up - we were able to backdate the scheme as far as 1 November 2012!

We are running a lovely Freebie for this release - All physical new release orders placed after the store reopens at 7:15pm and before the deadline of 11;45pm tomorrow night (29th Sept) will receive a cute snowflake die - while stocks last! - It's Snowflake #2 from the new release items below.Please note you do NOT need to add this flake to your order unless you want a couple of them, we will keep adding them as long as stock holds out until 11.45pm tonight!

We are running a Pin it Competition for this release - we want you to Pin your favourite samples created by the WMS Design Team, myself or Aneta for this release to your own Pinterest boards. You can pin samples from any of the 3 preview days on any of the DT blogs or from today's blog hop. 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. For those of you who don't have Pinterest, just leave a little comment telling us what your favourites are. One random winner will be chosen just before midnight (GMT) on the 30th September. The winner will receive a lovely £60GBP store code!

We got a new toy for the store, it's an app that will let us run short discounts on bundled items! We are officially launching it today and to test it out I have set up 3 bundles on the store to run this week.  These bundles will end next Sunday.

This week you can save 10% on the following Bundles - please note you need to order all the items in a bundle to qualify for the 10% off:

Boo and friends, Peek a boo sentiments and matching dies.

Ocean Bound and matching dies

Opera tags Christmas and matching dies
 These bundles are very much a trial and we will review how they go - if we find that it is working well, we will use it often. Click on the product pages to use the bundle system. NB, if you have purchased any of these exact bundles of items within the last 32 days, please send us an email quoting your order number and I will honour your 10% discount with a store code. send emails to: info@waltzingmousestamps.com

Design Team Blog Hop

While we are waiting for the store to open you might like to visit our Design Team to see their creations for the traditional release day hop:

Sandie, Laurie, Anya, Jeanne, Karin , Tosha, Becca, Lynn, Julia

Joining us today as a very special Guest Designer is Aneta of Artisant Blog. I am showcasing her superb cards here on the wms blog today - aren't they stunning! Aneta makes the most beautiful vintage style creations, I really envy her talent for layering and combining elements. Aneta's WMS creations always catch my eye and we are thrilled to have her gorgeous samples for this release!
Be sure to pop over to Aneta's blog for all the creative details!

 

Aneta effortlessly combines the beautifully coloured deer with the cardinal which she has stamped and left uncoloured on pattern paper, I love the look! The delicate pink snowflakes mixed with the baby blue make me want to use that deer on baby cards!

 

I love the white embossed cabins in the background under that blue snowy sky and the peppermint candy stripe scarf makes this snowman pop!  I adore that braid around the card, that's a super idea we should all case!

 Aneta's fresh colour combination of peach and blue is wonderful, she demonstrates how to bring some warmth into those cool Christmas colour schemes. Every little detail is perfect right down to the little peachy dots around the edge and on the small tag grommet. That little pop of red just sets the whole thing off!

 

New goodies for September

and here they are!

Little Deer clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4

Little Deer Cut files digital download product for use with electronic cutter

Warm Fuzzies clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4

Warm Fuzzies Cut Files digital download product for use with electronic cutter

 Frosty in the Pines clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4

Frosty in the Pines Cut files digital download product for use with electronic cutter

 Snowflake One die set - one piece

Snowflake Two die set - one piece

This die is the cute little die we are giving away to the first lucky folks shopping this release with us, see details at the top.

 Snowflake three die set - one piece

 Folk Art Snowflake die set - one piece

Hope it tickles, don't forget to enter our Pin it competition - details at the top!

...Introducing Warm Fuzzies and a few more flakes...

Ladies I'm going to apologise right up front for what the name of this set might get you if you were to do a google search with no safety filter on - pop your safety on... there's a pal... This set is called 'Warm Fuzzies' and it is the final set in our trio of cute Christmas themed sets releasing tomorrow! it features a chap that my wee folks are calling Sassy Robin. I must admit, now that I look at him he does have a certain attitude... He has his little hot cocoa in hand, complete with peppermint candy cane and he is ready for winter. I think he might possibly be my fave of the 3 characters so far...beady eye factor....

Ok I have a couple of things to show you this eve and I really feel like I am just scratching the surface with these sets and snowflakes! - Before I begin, if you would like to see at the DT samples for today all in one place, click here. If you would like to visit the ladies individually, here they are:

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

The first card this evening features the larger of the robin characters, but there is also a smaller robin, perfect for smaller features, tags etc. You can see him on the card below, he also wears a winter hat. It's a sort of a woodsman's hat - he lives in the woods after all. One of the neat things about this set are the supporting motif, loads of trees and snowflakes, all the snowflake stamps on these two cards come in the Warm Fuzzies set. I have made these trees a two step image - you stamp the pines and then add the trunk, this opens up lots of colouring options...

You can see how easy this is to do here - I'm stamping my trees onto the pre-cut shapes that I made with the cut files. There are matching cut files for all 3 sets releasing on Sunday. if you have no idea what a cut file is, click here.

Folk Art Snowflake

Did you notice the embossed background in the second card? that was created with one of the snowflake dies we are releasing, I used the large Folk Art Snowflake die to cut out a flake and then ran the flake through my Calibur with a tan mat and a piece of white card to emboss the flake pattern onto the white card. I sponged a little to highlight, before using it as the background for my card.

This card was also made by embossing the snowflake, but this time I embossed the Folk art Snowflake die onto some white card. Since it is a huge die, it makes a great background texture for a medallion style card. I sponged, what else? and then i added a thin sentiment strip. I gold embossed the winter wishes and then trimmed another flake out of gold foil, the foil flake is Snowflake Three. The sentiment comes from Say it loud Winter Holiday.

Another easy thing to do with the Folk Art Snowflake is to cut out 3 of them and align them on top of each other - now be careful these dies are not symmetrical, so there is a right way to do this, if they are not lining up just give one a turn until you get it, easy.

Once you have them correctly aligned, run them through the sewing machine, just stitch one line down the centre of the longest points. trim off the excess thread and dab a bit of glue on the ends to stop it unravelling. Now gently fold the top flake forward on both sides of the stitched line and fold the back flake backwards, this is what you will get - a lovely 3D flake for your tree, so inexpensive to make a bunch of these. I think they are beautifully lacy on their own, but imagine them all glittered up!

Snowflake One

I'm not done with yesterdays snowflake yet either, this has to be one of the most versatile flakes I've seen. I cut three flakes from different shades of green and then snipped off the little 'tree' shapes - I used these to make a quick wreath on this simple card. Hard part was tying that tiny bow in velvet.

But I think my favourite use so far is to snip of the wee tree shapes and use them as trees, I am in love with this tag.

I paired up the 'trees' with one of the cabins from the Frosty in the Pines set (shown yesterday), to get the windows of the cabin 'lit' I simply stamped the cabin again, using the same brown ink, onto a piece of yellow card, then I cut the little window rectangles out and stuck them on to this tag. The snow flake stamps on this tag are from Frosty in the Pines and the sentiment is from today's set Warm Fuzzies, hope it tickles!

Tomorrow is our release day and so here is a quick run down of what will happen:

6:00pm my time the store will close to allow final adjustments
7:00pm my time - the release post will go live here on the blog showing all the new goodies and detailing our special offers - We have a couple of treats for you in tomorrow's release!
7:00pm the DT will hold their traditional release day blog hop.
7:15pm the store will re-open and the new goodies will be available.

And just in case you are visiting us from across the globe - here are some time comparisons:

7:00PM 28th Sept my time is roughly equivalent to:

Moscow, Russia - 10:00pm 28th Sept
Australia, Queensland - 4:00am 29th Sept
Brazil, Rio de Janeiro - 3:00pm 28th Sept
Canada, Ontario -  2:00pm 28th Sept
Finland - 9:00pm 28th Sept
Germany - 8:00pm 28th Sept
Hong kong - 2:00am 29th Sept

...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!

...did you win?

Did you get it, the correct answer was common robin or Erithacus rubecula - and wasn't that fun? didn't we feel all cultured and David Attenboroughesque? or maybe I still have a temperature...lol

Well, we drew a winner from the correct answers and the random lucky person is:

Maja who said...

My first guess was a penguin, but since you mentioned it's UK common bird I'd go for Erithacus rubecula. 

Maja -  Congratulations!! Pop me your address on the claire@waltzingmousestamps.com email and I will get your set away to you!!


Folks I cannot wait to show you the new goodies, the DT have been making some wonderful goodies and we begin previews tomorrow - all release countdown posts now go live at 7:00pm my time. So from tomorrow until Sunday you can see lots of inspiration here and on the DT blogs  - the WMS Inspiration blog will gather all of the samples together also if you need to see everything in just one spot!

Also, I have a fabby new gadget for the store and I'm itching to try it out - It's a facility for offering  'bundles' of items and I'm hoping to try it out during this release with a few tasty offers - and I have a fabby freebie for the first 50 orders over £60gbp this month, can't wait for Sunday, hope you can join us!!

....last peek at September

So how are you doing with that quiz I set you - if you have not entered yet, now is your chance, I'll be drawing a winner tonight (midnight, my time). If you have no clue what I'm talking about, click here. I hope you have enjoyed the peeks!

....and another peek at September release!

Evening folks! this is today's second peek at the upcoming September release (28th, this Sunday!), if you missed this morning's peek, scroll down to see it and enter our giveaway!

...Announcing our new release date - 28th of the month!

ED - forgot to say, the winner will be randomly chosen from the correct entries only - and the winner will win one copy of this set!

Morning folks! I was meant to bring you this post yesterday! We are gearing up to begin running our releases on the same date each month - from now on we will be releasing new goodies on the 28th of each month except December!

Going forward, we will hope to begin sneak peeks on the 22nd of the month, previews on the 25th and the releases on the 28th! This is big news for us and involves a lot of behind the scenes scrambling, so our monthly releases may be quite small to start with!

If you have known us for a while, you will know that we have always had a floating release date until now and I know that many folks had found this a little too random. We are hoping that by setting a date that we will make it easier for folks to check in with us and see what's new on a regular basis!

Since I'm late with this first peek - (should'a been up yesterday - but I have a rotten dose of something yuk and I completely failed to do anything useful yesterday!) I will be back later on this evening with the second peek!

Ok, I'm going to celebrate the news with a giveaway - please identify the character in the sneak above, I need to know the latin name for his species!! yep that's right the LATIN name, lol!!! Bear in mind I'm in the UK... so it'll be the common UK species...

I know, this is a real stinker isn't it, but I guess the flu medicine has gone to my head....lol you have until Wednesday night! (my time)

...Creative Blog hop

 Good morning folks! Happy Monday to you! I'm up early to squeeze in a blog post before today's sneak peek!

I was tagged by my lovely friend Julee Tilman last week in her Creative Blog Hop post ! Julee said such lovely things about me that I couldn't say no! :) The idea behind the creative blog hop is that you answer a few questions about yourself and then nominate 3 more folks to keep the hop going!

Ok so here goes:

What am I working on now?

Well I am right in the middle of prepping for the September release - I'm doing a lot of unexciting and uncreative stuff, like adding products to the store, struggling with SEO on the store website, always a challenge to me, and setting up a new app on the store to allow me to run promotions more efficiently! Creatively speaking I am supposed to me making samples also...and there has been some usage of texture paste, which is pretty new to me...

How does my work differ from others in my genre?

I like to think of myself as a neat and tidy stamper - I love to stamp crisp sharp images. I don't use a lot of embellishments in my work - in the beginning this was because I didn't have a budget for what I used to think of as add-ons. I fell in love with the clear photopoymer stamps that were only available in USA at the time and so I had to be pretty canny with my cash, shipping was expensive and I really had to stretch my pennies to get the goodies I wanted from USA. this frugal approach became a habit and I really have to push myself to use embellishemnts - I see oodles of beautiful things, but an embellishment really has to bite me for me to buy it. I did succumb to ribbon, I do love ribbon and I have a small cupboard just for that purpose, but cutting it up for use makes me wince... Julee once sent me some fabulous crushed seam binding, it is so gorgeous that it may never be used! In contrast I have only one small drawer containing a few embellishments, it's an area I need to work on...lol.

Why do I create what I do?

OOOh... that's an interesting question... I make cards because I have hands that really need to be making something and a brain that is always thinking about what I can make - Cardmaking attracted me because I can do it in a relatively short space of time. I used to quilt, but when baby number 3 came along home - life got a little too hectic and I was no longer able to carve out hours at a time for myself. Stamping cards offered a way to create something useful that I could do in much less time than quilting. Once I started I was hooked and soon began thinking up ideas for stamp designs, I could see endless possibilities.

How does my creative process work?

My card making process has changed over the years - I used to create with no pressure, I was using stamps I had bought and was free to do whatever I liked, and so I would have begun with the stamps and picked a colour to work with, then I would have made up a piece to use as a focal point and maybe stamped a background to use with it, I like mats and I picked up my sponging habit from Julee - can't seem to lose that, but it is such a satisfying thing to do....

Lately when I'm making a card I'll be using my own stamps and a lot of times I will know exactly what I want to do with the stamps from even before they are produced, so I will refer back to a notebook to ideas and sketches I jotted down while I was designing the stamps.

I have a sponge brain and literally anything can set me off so I have notebooks everywhere. Designs for stamps can come from anywhere, something my kid said, something from my own childhood - like The witch in Halloween party, she is like a combination of ideas from all the witch stories I ever heard as a child. I have a pretty graphic imagination and my brain seems to translate ideas into shapes, a particular curve, a certain texture. Sometimes it's fairly instant but there are plenty of things in my notebooks that have taken a couple of years to emerge as stamps.

Well I'm about done waffling about myself and it's time for me to nominate 3 folks to carry on the hop:

My nominations are also LIVE as Julee's were because I just did not get around to asking folks in time either!! (thanks to Mr Verve for the idea!) I have had the best design teams ever, all the current and past ladies are folks that i admire so much, but I already know a little about them, so I'm going to nominate 2 ladies that I'm only just getting to know, and one lady who is a longstanding hero to me - I admire their style and I think it'll be fun to read about their processes

First up I'm going to nominate:

Next I'm going to nominate: Aneta Matuszewska of Artisant  Aneta, just stuns me every time I stop by her blog, fascinating creations, beautifully made and  photographed.

For my last nomination today Kimberly Crawford of For the love of paper - Kim was one of the first stampers that I happened upon and she is still one of my stamping heroes!

...winner announced and our Big News!

LOL, that was a bit of fun and I loved reading your answers ladies, cheers for playing along. The winner was drawn at random from all the completely correct answers and was this comment:

shirley-bee said... I think it's a PayPal chip and pin machine for taking payment at shows and other out-and-about events. Come round to my house and I'll test it out for you ;) 

Shirley, pop me a note at claire@waltzingmousestamps.com with your choice of set and I will get it right out to you!

Shirley-bee was absolutely correct, it's a Paypal card reader - and we need it because Waltzingmouse Stamps is going to a craft show!

A while back I was contacted by one of the organisers of the Happy Stampers Festivals. It was the loveliest invite to anything that I ever received in my life! I absolutely could not say no, even though I have turned down many craft fairs in the past! Normally there is simply not enough hours in the day for me to even consider taking time out to prep for and attend a show - but somehow I forgot all about that and said I'd go!!

So on the Saturday 4th October, Waltzingmouse Stamps will be in attendance at the Happy Stampers Northwest Stamping Festival in Port Sunlight, Wirral, Liverpool!

I can't really believe it yet myself! lol.

Are any of you going? You can get more details from their website here. It's a ticket only event and I hear the tickets are already nearly sold out!

We've only ever done one fair venue before and I must admit to a little nervous excitement! I'd love to hear if you have any craft fair stories or tips to share, since we are really newbies at this!