...Slight delay to shipping

Folks, just a head's up to anyone ordering UK stock from the WMS store - our UK shipping will be delayed over the next two days due to an unexpected problem. Our vehicle was damaged when it was hit by another car. We were parked at the time and were not injured, the car is just going to be off the road for a while being repaired. I will have something in place by Thursday for deliveries, but tomorrow will be pretty lost while I try to get repairs organised. My apologies for anyone who experiences a delay at this time.

...Coffee Lovers Fall blog hop

Good morning, good morning! Welcome to the blog! I'm taking part in the Fall Coffee Lovers blog hop today! I love these - they are great fun and what a fabby subject matter! Coffee! Though I must admit I feel like a bit of a cheat as I'm a confirmed tea drinker, but I'm trying really hard to drink more coffee! 

 To see the other entries in the Fall Coffee Lovers hop check out the

 Official Coffee Loving CM blog here.

The hop runs from today (the 25th Sep) until Friday October 2nd - get in!!

My card is pretty simple - I used the WMS Coffee Set stamp set and plenty of masking to create a big steamy cloud of coffee aroma for my coffee pot. I used circle punches to create masks, it was super simple. I did try it first in autumnal shades, but my oranges were getting a bit muddy, so I went for pinks and blues in the end. I suppose it's not overtly autumnal, but I do associate hot drinks with cooler weather, so maybe you will give me the benefit of the doubt on this one... I liked how the retirement sentiment fitted the shapes of the stamping, but this card would work with pretty much any sentiment. Hope it tickles!

Sneaky Blog Candy, right here!

As well as the usual massive haul of prizes that will be officially given away by sponsors (yep!! we're sponsoring too!) on the Coffee Lover blog - you really do need to pop over and check that out - I am giving away one of the two new Christmas sets that we just released on Monday - it's called Rustic Christmas quick piccie below. 

All you need to do is leave a comment here on the blog telling me what your favourite type of coffee is - I'd love to have your suggestions for what sort of coffee to sample - what should I be drinking, coffee-wise, that would convert me from a tea person to a coffee person?

Ok - I'm off - thanks for stopping by - can't wait to see you along the hop!

...September release now open

Good evening - I have two new sets for you this evening. We are making a start on Christmas here at WMS - it's never too early....

Please note our release information:

The new goodies are in stock now in our UK base and all orders containing these items will ship from here in UK. We plan to stock these items in USA soon.

If you live in USA, and your order is under £60GBP use THIS CODE to have your shipping cost reduced from international to the flat rate USA shipping cost:

Discount code:

LOVEFROMUSA

Just before we get into the goodies - don't forget we have:

 We offer FREE SHIPPING on orders over £60GBP to anywhere. Yep, anywhere.

Important note for this release - ALL new release items will ship from our UK location 

 - these two new sets are not in stock in our USA base yet.

Our hugely popular Loyalty Scheme enables folks to 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!

Keep in touch with us through your favourite channel (or even all of them) so that you don't miss anything - Here we are on:

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New goodies for September

Rustic Christmas - 6x8 set £15.95

Scandi Doodle Christmas - 6x8 set £15.95

The pink card shown above is a large card - 7x4 inches - I stamped the partridge in a pear tree image multiple times and added a touch of colour.

...Introducing Rustic Christmas

Good evening folks. I have a preview of one of the sets we are releasing tomorrow night - it's called Rustic Christmas. The new sets will be available from 7:00pm (UK time) at the WMS store.

I know - you're thinking "what happened to Halloween?" and since you ask, I'll tell you what happened to Halloween. I had two complimentary sets designed and I realised that I just was not 100% happy with them and so I am not releasing them. Simple. Now I know that's not what is meant to happen, but I have this thing where I won't produce a set unless I'm completely happy with it - it's happened a few times before - I take a design so far and then decide, meh, I'm not loving it, and so it doesn't make it to polymer. It's a shame but it's just one of those things...

Anywho, back to this set. It's a large set with 7 large stamps and two small ones. You can see 4 of the large stamps in this blog post. The stamps are big, solid stamps, with text sentiments reversed out of them. The solid background of the stamps contains something called 'noise' which is just graphic design speak for the appearance of dust and scratches in an image. The noise here is an integral part of the design. I'm going for a very rustic, woodsy feel for these stamps, and I like the aged look the noise gives to these images.

For my sample today I have made a bunch of simple tags - I used the Stitched Rectangle dies to cut various rectangles and simply stamped the images in a combination of Versacolour Burgundy and Cardinal red - this ink is super easy to blend on the stamp. I popped an eyelet in the corner of each tag and strung with some of the Brown Button twine trim.

Each stamp features a different Festive phrase.

 I cut the rectangle for the stocking tag by shortening a rectangle panel using the same die I cut it with, super simple and a great way to get more shapes from these dies.

I sure hope these tickle! Pop back tomorrow, we will have the full set reveals and maybe some more samples!

...NBUS Blog Candy Winner

Folks, what a great response to Darnell's challenge there were over 500 entries! A wonderful 85 folks took time to leave a comment on my entry and I have pulled a winner for my blog candy from those.

My blog candy winner is:

The Crafty Den9 who said:

"Your card is so beautiful Claire and very elegant. I love the unusual colour scheme. I have just placed my very first order with WMS (can't believe I haven't found you before). The stamp set that I would love to have is 'frame it' as it will be so useful. Thanks for the chance to win x x" 

Crafty Den9 - please email me on claire@waltzingmousestamps.com  putting NBUS winner in the subject line - Let me have your choice of in-stock set and your address and I will get your set out to you!



To see the full list of challenge winners pop over to Darnell's blog post here - she posted the winners today!

...another peek

Two completely different styles of stamps his month. It was great fun to draw these - and they will be available in the store from Monday evening at 7:00pm my time along with the set from yesterday's peek.

...Sneak peek at September

I have a sneak peek for you today - I have two new sets that I can release and this is one of them - I love the variety of images in this set - sure hope you will too!

I will be peeking a bit more tomorrow and Sunday and the sets will be available in the store from Monday evening - I look forward to showing you some ideas on how to use these sets!

...10% OFF all instock Halloween...

Folks I'm running a little Halloween promo - you can get 10% off in-stock Halloween items (while stocks last) from now until 20th September, just use the code BOO at checkout.

PLEASE remember to choose your stock from one location only as baskets containing stock chosen from both our shipping locations will be subject to delay and possible changes if we can't fill from one location. Thanks for understanding!

...Never Before Used Stuff - Challenge and Blog Candy opportunity!

Good morning! I actually have a card for you today! I'm taking part in a challenge today.

Isn't this such a wonderful Idea? Darnell Knauss runs this challenge twice a year encouraging folks to use their 'Never Before Used Stuff'. Genius!

Now this challenge is really a little tricky for me since there is nothing in the WMS armory that I have not used... except this tree stamp set - and that's because it has not released yet - it's part of my Christmas lineup which should start trickling in to the store next week. The tree is from a set is called Scandi Doodle Christmas but more on that in another post. The sentiment is from a set called Nutcracker Sweet. I used red, off-white and grey tones on this card and I clear embossed the image and then sponged around it with grey ink before touching up a little with a red coloring pencil. If you'd like to see the rest of the Scandi set, pop back and see me over the next week when I should be able to post more info on that set. It's a great one for folks who like to colour.

If you'd like to join the NBUS challenge, here's what to do:

Pop over to Darnell's blog here. (BUT Come back here - I have blog candy!) Darnell has all the info on her blog post and also details of the prizes - I must mention that up for grabs on Darnell's blog is a £20GBP gift voucher for the WMS store (that's about $30USD)

The theme is 'Anything Goes' - I can almost hear you sighing with relief - this is such a great challenge - you can basically do whatever you like so long as you are using something you have never used before. It doesn't matter if it's new or old, just so long as you have not used it before.

Also - Blog Candy

I'm also going to give out some Blog Candy to one lucky commentator on MY blog post here. I want you to leave your comment on this post - tell me the name of a set that you like, but don't have,  from the Waltzingmouse Stamps store. I will pick a random winner at midnight my time on the 19th September, when the challenge ends. My winner will receive the set of their choice (so long as it's in stock - if it's not I will offer you an alternative) from the WMS store! I'll announce the winner on the 20th.

Hope it tickles and thank you for visiting!

Halloween Witch Freebie digital stamp

So have you ever looked at our Halloween Party stamp set and wonder what the witch actually looked like? 

Well, just for fun, I have prepped the drawing of her - from before she became a silhouette - as a freebie digital stamp.

Sometimes I draw stuff and then completely change direction - and that's what happened with Winnie here, she started as a picture and morphed into a silhouette - the poor dear has been languishing in a back drawer of the computer for quite a while, and I thought I'd let her out - she makes a nice freebie - n'est ce pas?

If you would like to download her - simply click on the image (or here) to go to the freebie page at the store :) - I'd love you to show me what you make with her - you can tag us on facebook or instagram!