Drumroll Please…..

I am so excited I could burst! Today I get to introduce you to my first ever Deign team for Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff Digital Stamps! But first here is a little card I whipped up Last night:

Stamp: Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff, Cardstock: Doublemates, K&Co

I used my Thinking of Ewe digi-stamp and colored it with watercolor crayons. The base is Groovy Grape Doublemates cardstock from Creative Cuts and More and the pattern paper is K&Co. I used my Creative memories wavy edge cutter (don’t we all have this tool along with the circle and oval cutters?) to shape the edges of all my elements. I like to use the doublemates cardstock because one side is light so your writing in the card is easy to read and you get a nice two-toned effect, nice texture too!

And now what you have been waiting for….Lets meet the designers! Sit back, relax, grab your favorite beverage and check out these designers:

Mitzi

Melissa

Janet

Olena

Michelle

Kimberly

Tracey

Tamera

Lisa

Margie

Katt

Row

I’m sure you will be as inspired as I am by their talent! Stop by their blogs and leave them some love! Thank you for stopping by and till next time Happy crafting!

Happy Birthday Buckaroo!

I must admit that I have a soft spot for cowboys, or rather cowboy/western themed scrapbook products! I love this Free -Form Horse stamp from The Rubber Cafe, it was the first stamp I ever got from them, isn’t he wonderful?

Paper: DCWV, Stamp: The Rubber Cafe, Die Cuts: Cricut/scal

I used Kazan’s card sketch from 2 sketches 4 you to make the card. I cut all of the elements with my cricut using Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) software. I used the fonts: SaloonEXT and WMDesigns1 to make my scut file. You can snag my file for free here. You will need to have the above fonts installed to use it or it will look weird

The paper is from the new Die Cuts With a View “boy” premium stack and I LOVE every sheet of paper in that thing! To get a distressed look I inked the edges of all the elements and tapped the flourish with a  gold ink-pad before heat embossing with gold Emb. powder.

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to check back tomorrow because I will be announcing the brand new Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff Design Team! These crafty chicks rock and I can’t wait for you to meet them! Til then Happy Crafting!

Oriental Stamp Art Bunny Challenge

I just joined a fantastic stamp community call Oriental Stamp Art and you guessed it, it is all about creating with Asian themed stamps. I decided I would jump (or Hop as the case may be) right into this challenge to make some Asian inspired art with a rabbit as the theme. Well, I did not have a rabbit stamp so I sketched one with a brush tip pen so it would have a “sumi-e” feel and made it into a digital stamp, actually I made 3 stamps but who’s counting!

Stamps: Lindsay's Stamp Stuff, PSX

I had a lot of fun with this. I used a technique called “Poppin Pastels” to add color to my image, here’s how: First I printed out a sheet of my bunny digi-stamps and trimmed the ones I wanted to use. Then I used some old clear stamps I had by PSX (love this set so much but unfortunately PSX went out of business but you can get similar Asian calligraphy stamps from stores like About Art Accents) I inked them with clear embossing ink and stamped randomly over my image. Then I dipped a pom-pom in chalk and dabbed it over the stamped image. The embossing ink grabs the color making the pattern that you stamped show up like magic!

Stamps: Lindsay's stamp Stuff, PSX

I made a cute little money holder too. My friend Tracy showed me how to make these once, you seal a standard No. 10 envelope shut, fold it in half and snip off the ends making 2 pockets. Then just wrap it in a half a sheet (the long way) of cardstock. I used magnet strips that I got free from a sign shop to keep the flap closed.

Download the SVG file for the Chinese charecter charm below.

The pockets in this money holder are made by folding an envelope in half.

The Chinese character that is on the charm and near the rabbit means (you guessed it) rabbit. I made an SVG file of the character and put a circle around it in SCAL software to cut the charm out using my cricut machine. You can download the Chinese symbol here. I used stained glass tape to wrap around the stamped panel for a bit of glitz. 2011 is the year of the rabbit and since Chinese people give away money on the new year I thought this project would be appropriate.

I had a lot of fun with this challenge, I hope you enjoyed it! Until next time happy crafting!

Lookie what I got in the mail yesterday, and a note to DT applicants.

The fabulous Stephanie from sent me some stamps and a beautiful card:

5 lovely stamps and a beautiful card from Stephanie, Thanks!

She is one of the Caardvark team (and yes the whole team is amazing) and I participated in their fantasy challenge and won them from her blog, wasn’t that nice! Also she used the coolest stamp on the back of her card:

A Cutsom stamp by Onyx impressions, so pretty!

I emailed her right away to see where she got it from and it is a custom stamp from Onyx Impressions, I’m totally ordering one…or five! What a cool gift for stamping friends!

DT Reminder: I am taking applications for the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff Design team until tomorrow. If you have already applied you should have gotten a email from me back saying that I received it, if you have applied and not received an email (check your spam folders) please resend. I will announce the team in a couple of days. How exciting!

That’s all for now, it a beautiful day in the northeast and I have to tackle Mt. Washmore before I can enjoy it! Till next time Happy Crafting!

Masking how-to

Masking is one of the best tricks a stamper can have up her sleeve. It gives depth, perspective and lets you use your stamps in totally different ways. There is an awesome feature on masking in the May issue of Vamp Stamp News (I just so happen to have never-before-seen work featured in that issue too!) so if you want more techniques be sure to pick up a copy at your local stamp shop (I think Barnes & Nobles carries it too) or subscribe on line before it is sold out! Here is a card I made last night using a positive and negative (mortise) mask:

Wow! that card is bright! Paper: DCWV, Stamps: Stampin Up!, Watercolors: M. Graham & Co.

Here is how you do it:

Easy masking step-by-step!

Well, I am off to a 6 year old’s birthday party and the card is for him. I know the kid will be more interested in what is in the present than the card but his mom is a scrapbooker and she always recycles my cards of her scrapbook pages so I always try to make something they both will enjoy and I hope you enjoyed it too. BTW the stamp set I used is by Stampin up, it was a splurge for me (around $30) but worth every penny, it is such a fun easy set to use. To color it I used my M. Graham & Co watercolors on plain cheap Georgia Pacific white cardstock. I love the easy fun look it gives it (plus water-coloring is the quickest coloring method I know) and I love the results! Have a great weekend, It is going to be sunny and near 80 in the northeast!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

A project, a sale and a freebie, oh my!

Happy Friday everyone! I have had my sketchpad out this week and and have added several new stamps to the store! Here is a fun project I made with one of them.

Digi Stamp: Lindsay Stamp Stuff, Yellow Pattern Paper: Provo Craft, Marbleized paper: see below, Die cut alpha: Sizzix, Other: craft foam, ribbon, silk flower, brad

a close up of Ellie, awww, isn't she cute?

I used the Ellie the Elephant stamp on this one and as a special thank you to my blog readers you can download Ellie the Elephant free on my blog here, don’t wait because I will take down the link in a week and they she will only be available in the shop. Speaking of the shop I am having a mother’s day sale! from now until April 29th everything at Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff is on sale! Why not get a cute new stamp (or two) to make a nice card for mom, dad or grad!

The door hanger is made by stitching 12″ long 3 1/2″-4″ wide cardstock and pattern paper strips together. Before stitching all the layers together  I mounted the stamped panel to a piece of homemade marbleized paper and stitched that on 3 sides to the yellow paper to make a pocket. Then I stitched all the layers together and cut a 3″ circle at the top with a circle cutter. Note: you may need to make a few  passes with the cutter to go through all the layers. How fun would it be to leave this hanging from a friend’s door to surprise them when they come home from work!

If you want to make some of the marbleized paper for yourself here’s how. Fill a shallow tray (like a cake pan) with shaving cream. Drip a frew drops of reinker or food coloring or liquid watercolor randomly in the cream. Stir it up with a skewer and press a sheet of cardstock into the cream. Lift it up and use a squeegee or a scrap of cardboard to scrape the shaving cream off your paper and put it back in the tray. Cool huh? My kids love this project and you can make a ton of paper with one tray of shaving cream but you need to add a few more drops of ink each time. But if that seems like too much work or mess you can download my marble paper here.

My home made marblized paper, download link above,

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your freebies and the sale and till next time happy crafting!

Happy Earth Day! (a wee bit late!)

To celebrate Earth day and also because they have a tree themed project over at Caardvarks I thought I would share this tree mini album with you. The best part is you are recycling! Instead of cutting the pages out of chipboard I used a cereal box.

"chipboard" tree minibook to cut with scal/cricut, download links below.

I used a postmark stamp from Close to my Heart and circle punches to make the tire swing.

I had a leftover tree so I made this card. More recycling! The clear base for the card was plastic packaging material that my Scor Pal came in!

Digtal stamps: Lindsay Stamp Stuff, Rubber stamps: SU!, Paper MME, DCWV, Other: Plastic Packaging

The inside of the clear card.

I used my brand new Dear Deer stamp and  Primitive Bird digital stamps as well as the Trendy Trees set from Stampin Up. I colored the digi-stamped images with colored pencils and blended them with a Prismacolor clear marker.

I designed it in Inkscape so you can download my files can cut it with your cricut if you have SCAL software. I cut the tree shape out of a cereal box using the deep cut blade depth 5.5 and the pressure on my cricut on max (or 5) and yes it is baby bug compatible Don’t forget to change back to your regular blade and housing and set the pressure to medium (or or 3) to cut the paper. To cover the back of each page either flip the shape in scal or place the paper pattern side down on the mat to cut. Here are the download links:

Download the tree shape  SVG file here, the treetop svg here, and the tree trunk SVG here. You can get a printable template here.

Tip: Cut the tree shape from the cereal box first then line up the trunk and tree top shapes on the virtual mat in scal to make sure you have the right size for the pattern paper before you cut.

Until next time happy earth day and happy crafting!

2sketches4you and a bit about chalk ink.

I made a couple of cards tonight using the sketches over at 2Sketches4you and I love the way they came out:

Father and Mother's day cards. Stamps: Fiskars, Technique Tuesday, Anitias, Die cut Cricut

The first one using Laura’s sketch was so fun. It is a mother’s day card for mom (she doesn’t do computers so the secret is safe LOL!) And she has a thing for roosters so all the better. I used a new clear stamp set from Fiskars and charcoal chalk ink. chalk ink is great to use on clear stamps because it doesn’t bead up and it dries really fast. I tend to prefer brighter colors myself but I wanted a rustic look so I did all of my stamping on both cards with the chalk ink.

The Rooster Crows...

Inside of card:

But the Hen Delivers!

I used Ewonne’s sketch for this Fathers Day card for Dad who also does not partake of the Internet. He worked most of his like as a builder and for the past 20 years owned hardware store so it is perfect (IMHO that is!)

Hmmm, this could be a nice manly birthday card too...

Remember if you want quick drying ink that will work well with clear stamps try chalk ink, it is not as bright as pigment or dye but it gives a subtle matte look and is very nice for direct to paper inking such as antiquing paper or inking edges. Thanks for stopping by and until next time happy crafting!

Babies, Babies Everywhere! (New stamps too!)

I just found out this week that my little sister is having a boy! I’m so excited for her and it give me a chance to do some “blue” baby stuff instead of always using my comfort zone color pink. Other exciting news my friend Michelle has a brand new grand-baby, congrats girls! Speaking of new, here are some cards made with my brand new Babies and Bows collection available at Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff:

Stamps: Lindsay's Stamp Stuff, Paper: Autumn Leaves, Color Medium: Watercolor Crayons

The collection contains 11 images all in one sheet for ease and the 4 larger focal images also come in a separate file so you can have greater flexibility. You can get the collection of 11 stamps for $6 or the 4 singles are $1 each in the shop.

Stamps: Lindsay's stamp Stuff, Cardstock: The Paper Co., Pattern Paper: Autumn Leaves

These clips are simply colored and trimmed stamp images attached to large paperclips with hot glue. Stamps are from the Babies & Bows Collection.

These baby announcement were easy to make. First I colored the images with watercolor crayons and blended the colors with a SU! blending pen. I used a pom pom and yellow chalk to rouge the edges and attached the panels to my card. I added bits of ribbon, a flower and a die cut and of course my hot glue “pearls” to finish them. When I was pregnant with my twins I made all of the announcements before hand then after the girls were born I printed the details on vellum and added them to the inside of the card with brads. Easy, simple and pretty. If you know a mom on bed-rest it would be nice to print out some sheets of these and give her them with a box of colored pencils and she could have a nice relaxing and useful craft. The card base is simply a half sheet of cardstock folded.

Thanks so much for stopping by, until next time happy crafting!

Have you tried this?

It’s called the gesso technique and I saw a cool tutorial on Split Coast Stampers a few weeks ago. I finally got around to trying it last night. Here are the results:

Gesso Technique, Stamps: About art Accents, Paper: Autumn Leaves, Die Cut: Cricut

Close up of the gesso and embossed image, love how the text shows though!

This works with any silhouette style image, good thing I snagged this awesome silhouette set from About Art Accents, and it is quick to do! you will need old magazines that have a lot of text and some acrylic gesso. Gesso is a flat, semi-porous painting ground used to prime canvasses. Brush a layer of gesso on some torn out magazine pages and let dry. You should still be able to see the text underneath. Hear emboss a silhouette style stamp with clear embossing powder then use a make-up sponge to grab some ink off an inkpad and dab it around the embossed design. You can use ore than one color if you want. pretty cool huh? One more thing I used my hot glue dots dusted with pearl ex to make the “pearls” (Thanks Tracey for the new glue gun, It works like a dream!)

I also want to congratulate my friend Melissa who just opened her very own shop selling her handmade creations. Please check it out, her work is stunning! I wish her all the success in the world! You can visit her shop here.

Well, that is all for now, I am looking forwad to enjoying some nice weather today with family and friends, I hope you have a great day too, until next time happy crafting!