...Shenanigans FREEBIE digi bundle

Evening folks, it's been quite a while since I did a freebie and I do love doing these for St Patrick's Day! So here's one for you - The link will take you to my Dropbox where you should be able to chose what elements you want to get, or get them all!

Click this link to go to the bundle.

The bundle contains & digital stamps and 6 patterned papers and those should co-ordinate with your Gina K inks and cardstocks of the colours mentioned in the graphic.

The files are .png as I did a straw poll and that's what most folks were asking for, hopefully folks will be able to use these. There is a PDF printable file of the stamps that you can just print out right away!

I hope you enjoy these and if you use them, be sure to let me know! - Tag me on Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook - or leave a comment here!

Please note these items are for personal use only, for further details check out the Terms of Use in the bundle.

...oldies but goodies

ED- Beth - I think it's an old PTI stamp! thanks for the kind comments!

Hands up who remember these? If you do, you have been with us for a staggering 6 years! Pat on the back to you and a Very Happy St Patrick's Day to you and yours!

These were made with some of our first ever sets, Irish Blessings and Celtic Heritage. It's a little late for stamping for St Pat's now, but if you still fancy having a go, we have a couple of Irish themed freebies at the store, sure, we are early for next year...

Freebie Vintage Postcard Image

Freebie Shamrock Digital stamp

Freebie St Patrick's Day Label digital stamp

...Waltzingmouse Stamps March 2012 Blog Party

ED - My apologies folks, I messed up the time zone thingy and so the link did not open on time, I have fixed it now and I will try to extend the link for an hour to compensate. I am so sorry to folks for whom this was an inconvenience!!

It’s the 17th! Welcome you to the March 2012 Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party!

Our theme is “St Patrick/Irish”. We'd like to see you use your  Waltzingmouse Stamps images to create an Irish themes, or St Patrick's Day card.

To Help you out, we have freebies available on the store with an Irish Theme. There's a free shamrock digital stamp here. Or a St Patrick's Day label stamp here.

We encourage you to upload your entries to your blogs or galleries and then link up your creations using the inlinkz tool at the end of this post. We will leave the links open for 24 hours so that everyone can have a chance to play along!

A random selection of time zones are given below, so you can see how this works:

NB Please note the new ending times - I have amended these to take account of Daylight savings...which I had completely forgotten about, so in essence we have an extra hour at the end!!

UK - 6:30 p.m. 17th Mar - 7:30 p.m. 18th Mar 

USA (New York) 1:30 p.m. 17th Mar - 3:30 p.m. 18th Mar

Australia (Queensland) - 4:30 a.m. 18th Mar - 5:30 a.m. 19th Mar

Canada (Alberta) - 11:30 a.m. 17th Mar - 1:30 p.m. 18th Mar

Malaysia - 2:30 a.m. 18th Mar - 3:30 a.m. 19th Mar

Norway - 7:30 p.m. 17th Mar - 8:30 p.m. 18th Mar

So, off you pop and get your green on!! you have 24 hours to link up your creation!

On the 20th of the month – we will highlight a few of the amazing entries right here on the blog! We will be on the lookout for projects that showcases extra special effort! We will also randomly select a winner for a coupon code good for a free set.

...Mojo Monday

Good morning/Afternoon ladies, we interrupt our regular schedule to bring a surprise to one Ms Julee Tilman!! Hugs to you missy!

If you are looking for our blog party round up, please scroll down to the post before this one, or you might like to stay and wish Julee well!

If you are following the Mojo Monday trail you will have arrived here from Taylor Van Bruggen's blog. If you have just dropped in at random, and very welcome you are, you might like to start here at Julee's blog  or here at Teresa's Blog so's you can catch up and see all of the Mojo Monday inspiration cards.

 I'm sure you already know that Julee is the owner of Verve stamps (one of my absolute fave places to shop, because Julee is one of my absolute favourite folks) and Teresa has hi-jacked the Mojo Monday Sketch challenge to invite us all to send warm wishes and hearty congratulations to Julee and her DH Mark who are expecting a rather special delivery!

Any moment now twins are expected in the Verve household and I think that's pretty much the best reason in the world to celebrate, so let's raise our tea cups, coffee mugs, soda glasses, and champagne flutes if you have them to say a huge Congratulations to Julee and Mark may all our very best wishes be with you both as you await the wee folk!

So Julee, Teresa assured me that it would be ok if I offered you the benefit of my considerable advice, being the perfect mother and all...and if I could remember any of it, I would, but since the arrival of my firstborn just over 12 years ago the one abiding piece of wisdom that still echoes in my empty, sleep deprived brain is this - When folks utter those golden words "Is there anything I can do?..." you say YES! Let's practice...Say it with me....Y...Ye...YES!!!

Yep, everyone will want to hold the babies and do all the cute stuff, and tie the wee bibs on and feed them with those cute wee dinky bottles, but no. You need the dishes washed, the laundry folded and the dinner made, and don't be afraid to say so. "Yes Aunt Marjorie, be a dear and scrub those filthy potatoes for me and if you could just peel those carrots ooh and the stock cubes are in the drawer and 220 degrees ought to do it ...and I'll be upstairs having a doze..."

Oh how different life will be Julee....but take the good of it - snuggle up beside them when they snooze, forget about the house, it'll still be standing 18 years from now when you are waving them off to college. Take all the help you can so that you can enjoy every second of their tiny lives. I hear that, with the right training, even men can be drafted in to handle such tasks as diaper application. I didn't get to see it in my time, but we've come a long way since then and new studies have suggested that the male of the species has finally evolved enough...

So, a simple formula to sum it up: Julee and Mark = Babies, Everyone Else = Everything else.

Simple.

And since 9 to 12 months will go by in a flash, the formula for toddlerhood is as follows: Small boys = smiling dirt and Disney dvds are not evil.

Congratulations guys and Yes, Everything IS going to be OK!!

 

For my card today I pulled out an Irish Blessing from the Blessings stamp set that felt appropriate and mixed it with some purty paper that had dinky wee pears on it..geddit? pears? pairs...twins? lol. I liked it anyhow. And since ginger goes so well with pears (well it does in my house, ginger and pear crumble..no?) I used some ginger coloured card and toning inks in browns and distress tea stain. Alittle stitching and some nice ginger velvet ribbon to finish, a fabby sketch from Mary Fish.

I believe I am the last stop on the trail today and so I will send you back to Julee's blog after I show you the Mojo Monday Sketch.

Have fun playing along and don't forget to stop by and wish Julee and Mark all the very best!!!

...late St Pat's and some Mini Banners tips

Yep - I know, it was nearly a week ago - but like everything else in my life, it was running a little behind...lol - anyhow here's what I did with our free digital image for St Pat's day - a card's a card, right???

I printed the image in something like 40-50% black - so that it looked grey...you follow? good. Then I sponged, really lightly (cos the printer ink wasn't liking it) with crushed olive distress ink.

coloured a few bits in with copics and printed out another label so's I could trim out the sentiment and pop it up on foam bits.

See that wee bit of shapely velum peeping out above and below the label? Well that's a label from the new Spellbinders labels 3 die template set - see it here. I cut it out and embossed it - I used my Grand Calibur, it cuts vellum like butter, no cracked edges!!

I sliced the label in half and adhered it behind the label. Went with a grey background that was stamped with a text background from Text-It. Stitched a little, and mounted all that on a cream card base that was sponged with the same green ink! 

Bitty Banners Stamping Tip

Just when I had the ink and camera out - I thought I'd show you a little something about Bitty Banners - the small set we released at the beginning of the month.

As you might be aware we released a large Vintage Banners set too - and it was designed to fit in with the new Spellbinders Nested Pennants die templates - we'll have these on the store later this month.

The smaller Bitty Banners set can also be used with some of the smaller die templates from that set - here's how:

I cut out my little banner/pennant shapes with my Spellbinders dies as shown - in the picture the dies are shown cutting side down with the card still in them - the exposed areas are the area that I normally design stamps to suit.

In this case, the little shapes are very small and for these tiny shapes I wanted something a little different.

So, in this case I have designed the stamps to fit just inside the cut line of the die, and not the emboss line as I usually do.

Normally the designs fit inside the embossed edge, but the Bitty Banners stamps fit just inside the cut edge, so you need to remove the die cut card pieces from the dies and then stamp.

Below you can see my piece of orange stamping foam. On top of that is the piece of die cut card. On top of that is the banner stamp - you're looking at it through the clear acrylic block

Below - this is what the card banner piece looks like when you have stamped - you can see that there is a much slimmer border of clear card all around the edge. I tend not to emboss these wee pieces when I am stamping in this way as it can result in a less than perfect image. 

Here are the three little stamp shapes that work with the tiniest of the Nested Pennant dies - you can see the fine borders all around!! So go - on try it!!! Just remember with the Bitty Banners to die cut the shapes and THEN stamp and you'll have lots of little bits to make wee banners and bunting for your cards!!!

Hope it tickles!

...St Patrick's Day blog waltz!

 Good evening and a very happy St Patrick's Day to you wherever you are!!! It's nearly over here in Ireland an besides my St Pat's Day Blog waltz card, I have a few images of the day for you.

We were home late and the pic of my card is awful - I'll try to take a better one tomorrow with deets of the card, but it's pretty simple - the large label design from Vintage Labels 18 and the shamrock from Celtic Heritage feature.

We went to watch the parade in Downpatrick - which as you may guess from the name has a special link to the Saint Himself for it is believed to be his final resting place - the 5th pic down shows the marker stone of where the Saint is believed to be buried.

The parade started with St Pat himself... bare feet and all...and let me tell you, it may be spring in your heart but the streets of Downpatrick were cold today!!!

 

A few of the participants.

 This is the site where St Patrick is believed to be resting is in the church yard at Down Cathedral.

 

Down Cathedral - here's a link to a site about the cathedral.

Sunset in Ireland this evening, St Patrick's Day, March 17th 2011. View from Minerstown road towards the Mourne mountains. About 8 miles from Downpatrick.

Nighty night - I'm looking forward to getting round the waltz tomorrow! If you played along - Thank you!!! If you didn't, there's always next month!!!

...St Pat's freebie!

I have a freebie for you!!

Our monthly waltz this month features a St Patrick's day theme and for those of you who don't have anything suitable to 'wear' for our waltz, we have this freebie!

It's a label design - and it will fit with a Spellbinders labels 5 die template - or at least it should if you print it out at 100% size....best to check that before you colour it in etc...

You can get it from the store Right Here in our freebies section!

Also - we are still offering our shamrocks for free!! see here.

Our waltz is on the 17th - hurry, only a few days left to get ready - If you haven't participated before, click on the logo to read more.


Hope it tickles!

...Leprechaun Round-up!

Was that an awesome St. Pat's Day Blog Hop or what? Three cheers for all who participated!!! The Waltzingmouse House forum proved to be a winner... everything went off without a hitch...even when Claire decided to start the ball rolling early! We like to live on the edge around here, don't you know! (*grin*)

We plan to have all of our monthly Blog Waltzes in the forum. Yep, we took a vote and think "Blog Waltz" is the perfect name for what we've been calling Customer Blog Hops. Don't you agree? Stay tuned for details on the April Blog Waltz, which will be held April 17th. We think the 17th is a lucky day for Waltzingmouse Stamps. (*wink*)

We had a bit of a competition going for those who waltzed with us this month. The game was to count the leprechauns found in the photos of the cards/projects created by the Waltzingmouse Stamps Design Team (and Claire) and post the number in the March Blog Hop Chat thread in the forum.

Just to recap, here are the photos of the DT cards/projects, in all their glory!

Anya Schrier: Life Is What You Make It

Belinda Chang Langner: Bleu Bella Designs

Bonnie Sharp: The Lucky Clucker

Claire Brennan Herself!

Jennifer Holmes: Simple Flourishes

Julia Aston: Create With Me

Laurie Schmidlin: Just Give Me Stamps

Lisa Hjulberg: The Craft's Meow

Lynn Mercurio: Stamperosity

Some of the leprechauns are easy to see, but others are very hard to find. How many do you count? Well, if the number is 19 then you are correct!

We put the names of all those who guessed correctly in a hat, and the winners of a free stamp set were LaurieM and Sofia 73 Congratulations!!! Sofia73, please email Claire (claire.brennan1@ntlworld.com) to redeem your prize.

We are all tugging at Claire's sleeve, begging for more digi images. We think we've got her worn down, but feel free to add your pleas! {LOL}

Thank you all so much for waltzing with us this month. Stay tuned for sneak peeks of the April stamp sets starting March 28th!!

Lisa.

...St Patick's Day Blog hop!!!

So I made a plan to open the blog hop this evening and now that St Pat's Day is here I can't wait!! LOL. apologies to all you sticklers for schedules!! The more I think about it, the more I do feel that I should have planned it to start this morning instead!!! I have such a hard time getting my head around time differences etc that I think I maybe made what's known as a faux pas...huge apologies!lol.
Anyhow, without further waffle let me welcome you to our St Patrick's Day blog hop!!!

Here's how to follow the hop - 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 March blog hop posts, one is a list of participants and the other is a thread for chat and the Leprechaun hunt!!!

The Leprechaun Hunt!

As you work your way through the hop you will see that the DT ladies are participating, BUT as I'm springing the hop open early they might be posting later on, you might need to check back!!

Check the DT photos (and mine) very carefully, if you see any leprechauns, note them down and count them all up. Post your Leprechaun 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 Saturday night!!!

look closely - I've been very, very sneaky!!!



I used one of the free digi stamps from the pack I put together here. Grab one now by clicking here if you don't have it, they're free. Check out this post for how to use.

I coloured my bunch of Shamrocks with copics and mounted it simply on one of the Celtic Lunettes digital paper from my store. The sentiment comes from Celtic Heritage.

The card below I made with some eggs from the Nestie Eggs set!! (currently sold out, more due in a week or so)

I deliberately off-set the centre panel so that my shamrock leaf could overhang the card without overhanging the card, like it Joan?? lol, I was amazed how many folks don't like bits that hang off the sides of cards! I guess it does make posting a nuisance but I think this is a nice compromise for folks like me who like a bit of overspill now and again! lol!!

I used the Victoriana papers that co-ordinate with the victorian egg! love matchy, matchy!

sentiment is from Irish Blessings.




I die cut 6 egg shapes using the Spellbinders Egg dies that co-ordinate with this product and I then stamped them with the little victorian egg.


I layered them together in pairs, right sides together and trimmed off a portion as shown below, when you open them out they make fab shamrock leaves!! lol. I stuck them together in their matching pairs and used them to make an oversized shamrock for my card!

I love how it gives a little border all around the outside edge of each leaf, almost like they had been cut with a special leaf die!! so simple!

Go, try it! I'm going to try some flower shapes this way with the eggs next!!


Now, happy hopping, remember the master blog list is in the forum here.

...Get your shamrocks here!!!

Good morning!!!

You may already know that WMS is hosting a blog hop over on our Forum on St Patrick's Day March 17!! We're hoping you'll get out your WMS stamps and show us a little green!! Don't worry if you are a little under-represented in the WMS stamp department! I have created this digital stamp pack so that you can take part.

The stamps may be downloaded by clicking here. You'll be taken to a Google docs page where you can download the digi pack, it's called WMS St Pat's Freebies.zip

The stamp pack contains THREE different digital stamps, once I started making these it was hard to stop! lol.

The stamp pack contains the following:

• 1 clean and simple type image with sentiment included
• 1 hand drawn illustration for folks who like to colour
• 1 separate sentiment

Each of the stamps are supplied in two formats, JPEG files - these are for straightforward printing! And PNG files for folks who like to footer! see below. lol.

My one request is that you have a peep at the Terms of use, I do ask that you do not share these files, even tho they are free. You'll be doing your bit for WMS if you send folks my way to download their own copies! Much appreciated thank you!

PNG files will be useful for anyone who is using any of the Photoshop programs. I believe it can be used with other programs as well. The file is saved in this way so that you can re-colour it to suit your needs!

Here's what to do with PNG files if you fancy having a go.

• Open the any of the PNG files in your Photoshop program.
• Go to the menus across the top and click on the 'Image' menu, select Mode and then RGB.
  
• Go to the menus across the top and click on the 'Layer' menu
• From the drop-down menu go down to 'Layer style'. Another drop down menu will appear.
  
• Select 'Colour overlay' and use the pop up info box to determine the colour you would like to change the stamp to. As an alternative you could also use the 'Gradient overlay' choice - it's just below Colour overlay.
  

Have fun printing the stamp in different colours! You can of course save the stamp in different colours but remember to Save As and give it a different name to avoid overwriting the original stamp. All is not lost tho, if you do save over the original, you can just down load it again.

Have fun experimenting and remember to have the photos of your project ready for the WMS Blog Hop on the 17th March!! We'll be running it from the Forum, so if you haven't been over to the 'house' already you might like to pop over and get familiar!!

Can't wait to see what folks make!!

Hope these tickle!

...March New stamps Day 3 Digital papers!! Nestie Eggs

Good Afternoon! LOL, sorry I'm late posting today! I left Anya and Lynn flying the WMS flag this morning while I crept back to bed with some hot lemon and medicinal chocolate...

Anyhow, just as well today's samples were super quick and easy to make, my little old jelly legs don't feel like standing all day today! BTW I get man flu, I just don't get little head colds like anyone else, when I'm suffering, I need everyone to be involved! I need to hear sympathy, or even drink sympathy in the form of hot sweet tea and plenty of it! My mother had me spoiled...lol..oh and honey toast..

But enough waffling, I've been itching to show you another new development for WMS, downloadable digital papers!!!

I'm hoping to have 3 packs of digital papers ready for the release on Monday!!

The first card for today uses papers from two of the packs, Celtic Lunettes and Celtic Squares. The green pattern paper is from, you guessed it Celtic Squares and is based on artwork for one of the stamps in the Irish Blessings Stamp set . The yellow circle is a digital paper from Celtic Lunettes and is designed with artwork from the Celtic Heritage stamp set. So now you can have stamps and paper to match!!!! I've been itching to do this for ages and at last it's finally ready, just in time for St Patrick's Day!

How simple this card was to put together! A rectangle of green Celtic Squares ( in the Creme-de-menthe shade) and a circle of Celtic Lunettes ( in Buttercup) with a white mat. I made a quick focal point by cutting out a little fancy tag with a Spellbinders die and then stamped the outline four leaf shamrock from Celtic Heritage in the centre. Then I stamped the outline four leaf shamrock again on a post it note and cut it out. I placed it over the tag image. I then inked up the spotty egg from the new Nestie Eggs (releasing Monday also) in Shabby Shutters distress ink (Ranger) and stamped over the mask, leaving it slightly offset for a fun feel!

Thread a little ribbon through and stamp the sentiment (Celtic Heritage) before attaching the focal point and it's done!



Here is the little mask I made to stamp the shamrock motif for my card, you can see I'd already stamped it once before i remembered to take a pic, just line the mask up over the prestamped outline and fill with any pattern from a solid stamp!


Today's second card uses a paper from the other digital paper set releasing Monday - Victorian. I used a green, i like green, lol, and sponged around the edges with shabby shutters ink! Distressed the edges a little and ripped across the bottom to make room for my sentiment (Spring Baskets). I placed a little pink ribbon down the length of the card to help

The focal point for this card is based around a lovely Victorian patterned egg, also from the new Nestie Eggs set, which co-ordinates with the new Spellbinders Edd dies! I also used this pattern on circle stamps from Vintage Circles small and Faux Fun circles, so if you have those sets this paper will match!!! oooh I love matchy matchy!

I stamped it in Rose Bud Memento and trimmed it out cos I'm still waiting for my dies, lol. I'm not very patient...

Mounted it on a portion of a fancy label (another Spellbinders Die) and added a wee flower made up of Prima and Heidi Swapp bits.




The last wee set of cards are super quick, super simple notelet style cards wit hthe bare minimum of stamping, sometimes I like to do something very quick and simple, like today!




I especially wanted you to see two more little egg shapes from the Nestie Eggs set, there's one with 3 wee cross stitch shapes in the centre and one with a little heart shape, these are going to be good for little simple little rustic cards. And I can see myself using them for flower petals etc too.

I loved the cross stitch egg with the pinked border, which of course, is from the Vintage Labels 3 set due for Monday also!!



Hope they tickle!!! I'll be back tomorrow, a new improved lemon and honey drenched, paracetamolled version of myself hopefully...lol