Tombow Hop Days Finale

We've been having a fun blog hop mixing Stampendous, Dreamweaver, and one of our favorite craft partners, Tombow, for the last few days. Today's the finale, but I have a distinct feeling that you'll be seeing more of Tombow's wonderful art products in the months to come from our team.

You know there will be prizes for this hop, so leave your kind comments as you go. Be sure to check previous days that you may have missed. All the rules and prizes, etc. will be found on the Stampendous Blog!

Tombow was generous (as usual) with each of us, and my new toys came in the form of their Recycled Colored Pencils. I was really surprised with these. I expected...ho hum...another set of pencils with so much wax in them that you can't get a good vibrant color, and can't layer color, and blend nicely. I was SOOOO wrong! Here's my project:

Check out the beautiful color on this darling House Mouse Carrying Mints image from Stampendous! You really feel like you can steal one of his mints from the pile! I added just a hint of Micro Crystal Glitter to them, but they were yummy all on their own.

The card base was created from a panel of Bazzill Dotted Swiss in white, to which I swiped some Tsukineko® Aegean Sea VersaMagic ink over the surface and around the edges.

I used the Dreamweaver Nested Frames Dies to cut the mat panels for the focal image, and ran them, as well as two more panels of red and green cardstock, through my Big Shot Pro with the Dreamweaver Christmas Borders Embossing Folder. These were all layered, and flipped to be opposite of the other. I swiped some VersaMagic Cloud White ink over the raised designs to highlight them.

Because the House Mouse Designs® image was too large for the die, I ended up with an extra mint, which I turned into a decorative button, and tied with twine over loops of May Art's Chevron Ribbon.

Don't forget to check out the other players links listed here, and in case there have been changes, double-check them on the Stampendous Blog as well! I hope you win, 'cuz you'll love playing with this great mix of Stampendous and Tombow product!

Stampendous Blog

Louise Healy

Latrice Murphy

Pam Hornschu

Lea Fritts

Tombow Blog

Cool Products, Cool Techniques, More Fun with Tombow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb01fGtd0FE

As we approach our exciting hops days with Tombow, we're hoping to get YOU as excited as we are! So we're sharing a very interesting and cool technique that artist Marie Browning has been teaching with Tombow products for a few years now...called, "Zero Drawing". I've shared Fran Seiford's tutorial above on her mix of Dreamweaver stencils with this technique. This is something Marie has done for several years as she and Dreamweaver's original owner, Lynell Harlow are friends, and had collaborated on this before. 

My version of this technique features the Dreamweaver Corner Flowers stencil. As shown in the video, I've sanded my Tombow Graphite Pencil a bit to create some "dust", and pounced this over my chosen paper (Canson textured). Placing the stencil on top, and taping it down with removable tape, I began to "Zero out", or erase the areas of the design using Tombow's Mono Zero and Non PVC Mono eraser. You can also use a kneadable eraser, as Fran demonstrates in the video, however I couldn't find mine, so I went with what Tombow so kindly provided for us.

Once I had erased the design areas, I stamped the Cling Dance in the Rain image in black ink on the panel. I loved the look of the pattern on her dress, so I only erased the pattern from her back and arms. Thinking that this very "grayscale" look need a pop, I used my Tombow Recycled Color Pencils to color the flower and her shoes in red, and added a bit of outlining with the black pencil.

For the card base, I used a panel of Core'dinations cardstock which I machine-embossed with the Corner Flowers stencil, and sanded to reveal the design. Once again, I added the pop of red to a flower, and outlined it as well. The focal panel was matted in red, and a black and white chevron ribbon from May Arts was the finishing touch.

I can hardly wait to see how my team members have been playing with these products. Let's go see...

Stampendous Blog

Laura Drahozal

Lyn Bernatovich

Jamie Martin

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Bray

Pam Hornschu

By the Sea with Dreamweaver and Me!

I'm on vacation at this time, taking an Alaskan cruise, and sightseeing in Vancouver, Canada, as well. So, this will be a quickie! My card today features the Humu Fish stencil from Dreamweaver, stentangled and colored in aqua. The background is the Mosaic Swirls, paste-embossed in Matte Black. Across the center is one of my favorite May Arts products, the web/mesh ribbon.

Here are links to those playing for Dreamweaver Thursday:

Stampendous Blog

Alison Heikkila

Lea Kimmel

Lyn Bernatovich

Pam Hornschu

Laura Drahozal

Louise Healy

Kristine Reynolds

For more Stampendous and May Arts and By the Sea fun, visit the Stampendous blog:

Dreamweaver Thursday: Perfect Pets and Perfect Pencils

 

We have another busy and exciting week going on from the Stampendous blog and team. We have the "Perfect Pets" theme all week, today we also have Dreamweaver Thursday, and all week we've been hopping with the team from Design Memory Craft Blog using products from Faber-Castell...specifically their huge selection of art pencils.

I threw all three challenges onto my workspace to create this beautiful card:

First, I have to say that it's been a long time since I've used the F/C Aquarelle Pencils, but it was like coming back to an old friend! And bonus! Now they have this great grip feature on them, which makes them so easy to work with, especially if you like working tip-to-tip with your watercolor pencils and a wet brush. I knew that I wanted to work with the beautiful Dreamweaver Heron stencil from Stampendous, but I wanted to create a yummy background for it first. Working on a panel of watercolor paper, I created washes of color by mixing a bit of concentrated color on my my craft mat, and watering it down a bit before brushing it over the panel...in sunset colors at the top, and watery colors toward the bottom. Since these Aquarelle's are sold in color sets, it is so easy to work in this manner.

When dry, I paste-embossed the Heron in Matte Black Embossing Paste over the surface of the panel, and set it aside to dry near a small fan in my studio. Once dry, I went back in tip-to-tip to add more vibrant color with much less water, in certain areas, including a bit of a "reflection" from the sun on the water, and some green around the leaves, and once again, set it aside to dry. Just to add some fun texture, I added smears of the Faber-Castell Texture Gems over the water, and sprinkled elements from the Stampendous Fran•tagé Encrusted Jewel Kit in Teal...including mica and glitter. I added a scrap of May Arts net ribbon twisted and tied along the bottom of my card, and placed a few more drops on its surface. What fun products to work with, and a great mix along with my Dreamweaver and Stampendous products. Go get this stuff and have some fun!

Be sure to leave comments along the way each day of the hop, for a chance to win one of the greawt prizes in the picture at the top. Three Lucky Winners this week will get three sets of the PITT Pastel Pencils (red/yellow, blue/green, neutrals), a jar of Faber-Castell Chalkboard Paint, and $20 Stampendous reward card to choose their favorite images to color! WOW… these winners must have a U.S. mailing address (official rules here!)… BUT WAIT- Aussie Fans – The Stencil Specialist has you covered again this time!! One Australian Fan will win a Stampendous Stamp, a Dreamweaver Stencil (LJ size customer choice), and one Dreamweaver Stencils Regular Embossing Paste. Wow!!

Check out today's inspiration from the teams' designers for the FABER-CASTELL HOP:

Stampendous Impressions Blog

Lyn Bernatovich

Laura Drahozal

Lea Kimmel

Alison Heikkila

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Blog

Check out today's inspiration for the Dreamweaver Thursday posts:

Stampendous Blog

Louise Healy

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel

Alison Heikkila

Lyn Bernatovich

Pam Hornschu
Laura Drahozal

Welcome to the Stampendous Picnic!

Have you had the chance to see all of the fun summery, yummy, picnic-y images that Stampendous has released this spring? You can view them all HERE. Meanwhile, here's what I have to share with you today:

If you followed along with us last week, you'll remember that we had a fabulous collaboration with Clear Scraps. For some reason, my befuddled mind thought that it was the same week as the Picnic week, so I created with both. Um, yeah. So, I'm posting with my Clear Scraps banner card today.

The base card is Bazzill Basics Dotted Swiss in white, stamped with the Cling Picnic Ants border, using Onyx VersaFine from Tsukineko®. I paste-embossed the Dreamweaver OpArt Checkerboard in red on a small section of the clear banner, and set this aside to dry.

Meanwhile, I stamped the Cling Lunch Line in Tuxedo Black Memento, and colored with Copic Sketch Markers. I added the Cling Life is a Picnic sentiment as well. I cut this to fit a portion of the clear banner, edged it with a red marker, and adhered it to the banner. This allowed me to adhere the banner to the card with pieces of foam tape to pop it up off of the card. Some little snippets of May Arts' ribbon were tied through the holes at the top.

Just think how fun it would be to string several of these near your favorite picnic place? Clearly genius.

Just like the ants, march yourself on over to these posts for more yummy fun:

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Kristine Reynolds

Stampendous and Clear Scraps: Clearly Creative Hop Day!

Welcome to the final day of the Stampendous/Clear Scraps hop week! Pour yourself a cuppa, and get ready for a clearly creative collaboration! Remember, there are three wonderful prize packages up for grabs. Just leave comments at each of the posts through the entire week for a chance to win. Prize rules can be found HERE.

I went a bit vintage for my project today...my inspiration being the Clear Scrap Deco Frame that I was given to play with. To give the frame some age, I applied Dreamweaver Color Solutions alcohol inks in Aspen Leaf and Creme Brulee to the back of the frame. The front of the frame was stamped with one of the images from the Stampendous' Natalie Kalbach Cling Studio Fiesta set and black StazOn ink. The template that comes with this stamp set is the profile of the man and woman, which I traced onto black cardstock, cut out, and ran through my Big Shot with the Dreamweaver Damask stencil. Some StazOn white ink was swiped over the embossed surface, and the silhouette was adhered to the top of an ink-distressed section of a music sheet. This was then cut to fit the opening and adhered to a piece of acetate cut slightly larger than the opening. I used Beacon Fast Finish as a decoupage medium to adhere the music section to the acetate. More was brushed over the top, and Stampendous Fran•tagé Mica chips were sprinkled over the wet finish. This was set aside to dry. At this point I shifted my focus to my background.

I knew that I wanted to create a background that would make my framed couple the focal point. I started with a square piece of Bazzill BlackBoard, which I ink-stenciled with the white ink and the Dreamweaver Stripes stencil. A narrow panel of ivory cardstock was ink-stenciled with the Damask stencil again using Rich Cocoa and Peanut Brittle Memento inks from Tsukineko®. Velvet and lace ribbon from May Arts was adhered along the edges of this panel. Now I could put the rest of this together...

The acetate piece with the music and silhouette were adhered to the panel. The frame was popped up over the top using dimensional glue dots. To embellish the frame, I stamped the flower image from the Fiesta set multiple times on the scraps of music sheet, and spritzed them with Dreamweaver Memories Mists in Pale Ale and Mango Lemonade. I cut them, loosely following the line of the design, and curled and "smooshed" them  into layered flowers to adhere along the edges. Some May Arts plaid ribbon was looped and tied with a piece of twine and a vintage button to add to the frame. The same ribbon was wrapped around the handle of the wood frame. The final touch was two Dreamweaver die cut ovals layered, with the Stampendous Cling Mr. & Mrs. stamped in black ink. This too was popped up on the framed project. Oh, wait...I forgot the most important elements that I added...glued edges on the flowers with Stampendous Gold Crushed Glass Glitter for extra vintage charm.

 Here is where you leave me a charming comment before moving on the rest of the teams. If you've missed any of the previous days, start at the beginning with this post HERE.

Stampendous Blog

Kristine Reynolds

Amy Hurley-Purdie

Lea Kimmel

Pam Hornschu (you're here)

Wendy Price

Janelle Stollfus

Asia King

Tenia Nelson

Jamie Martin

Clear Scraps Blog

KITTEN Around with Stampendous

I'm not kitten you, Stampendous has the cutest felines you've ever seen! Including the Cling Feline Curious featured here, wanting to join in on the lemonade party along with the Cling House Mouse Designs® Share a Sip image. A couple of the Hummingbird Dies and matching stamps flew in for the event as well. Using the Stampendous Pop Up Die set, there is so much fun dimension to highlight each cute image and the bright Authentique papers to go with. Just in case you are low on patterned papers, remember...you can always create your own. The light blue panels were stamped with the Cling Floral Tapestry in VersaMark ink and embossed with White Embossing Powder. A stamped birthday sentiment and fluffy silk bow from May Arts were the finishing touches.

Remember, the team are playing with kitties all of this week, so be sure to follow the links from the Stampendous blog! Here are those that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog

Jamie Martin

Pam Hornschu

Kristine Reynolds

A Widdle Dream with Dreamweavers

The Stampendous team are really "Dreaming with a Little Dreamweaver" this week...showing off just how perfect Dreamweaver stencils are with Stampendous images...

One. Two. Three. AWWWWWWWWWW. Isn't this widdle House Mouse Designs® Bottle Bunny the cutest? Cute enough to not pile too much frou frou on top. Just stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento ink, colored with Copic Sketch Markers, wrapped in yummy pink silk ribbon from May Arts, with a tied on tag of the perfect sentiment. The perfect background was created by machine-embossing the Dreamweaver Large Scales stencil on Core'dinations Vintage cardstock, sanding the embossed areas, and swiping over them with Sea Breeze VersaMagic ink from Tsukineko.

Stampendous: Spellbinder's Quarterly Hop 2015 #1

We’re excited, once again, to be partnering with the folks over at Spellbinders for a Spring mini blog hop! As Spellbinders design partners this year, we’ve been blessed to use many of their exciting products, and we know their design team is enjoying the Stampendous products we sent for their use! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week our Design Team will be sharing fun projects they’ve made with the Spellbinders products we’ve received.  Wednesday we’ll be a featured company on their blog and two of our designers will be posting tutorials for you focused on the newest Spellbinders products.

PRIZES

Here at Stampendous we’ve got some mystery Spellbinders dies up for grabs along with some fantastic Stampendous cling rubber so be sure to comment on our blog posts and those of our designers for the three days. See our Official Rules for eligibility and more. Comment deadline is Thursday, March 26th, and winners will be announced Friday, March 27, 2015.
Spellbinders has fantastic prize packages from all of their partners to give away each day, so be sure to visit their blog and use their contest entry tool to enter each day (one entry per day, per person). See the Spellbinders Blog for rules and a list Product Partner companies.

Here's something fun from me:

I really wanted to create a jewelry piece for this occasion. Unfortunately, I rejoined the Stampendous team after all the wonderful base pieces from Spellbinder had been passed out to the  team. However, I did receive a handful of fun dies...

Using the "Dragon Delight" set, I die cut three of the dragonflies from chipboard, and adhered them together for more substance. I applied VersaMark ink over the surface with a fingertip dauber, and poured on some Stampendous Aged Teal Embossing Enamel. This was heated until molten, sprinkled with more and heated again...in all three or four layers of the EE. Then I inked the fishnet-patterned background image from Nathalie Kalbach's "Studio Wired" set of grunge stamps with VersaMark, reheated the surface, and pressed the stamp onto the molten surface. This was allowed to cool before removing the stamp, and the result was this awesomely textured surface. The only additions were three small teal crystals pressed into the re-warmed surface, a thin bit of gold wire wrapped around the head to create curled antennae, and a pin-back adhered to the back with Quick Grip by Beacon Adhesives. Now I wanted this to really be the focal piece, so I created a card to display it on.

I created an easel card loosely following team member, Kristine Reynolds, tutorial HERE, using Core'dinations Vintage and Essentials cardstock, both of which were sanded a bit around the edges. The flat panel on the bottom of the card, was paste-embossed with Dreamweaver Gold Embossing Paste with the Chevron stencil. More of the Aged Teal EE was poured over the wet paste, and all of this was heated until bubbly and dry...more great texture and shimmer!

I cut a square of Mark Richard's linen fabric, frayed the edges, and stamped more of Nathalie Kalbach's images with Toffee and Deep Lagoon VersaFine ink by Tsukineko over the square. This was adhered to the card front with 3L Tape Runner (a wet adhesive would just ooze through the fabric and be seen). I cut two banner strips from scrap and stamped them in black with the Stampendous Cling Grunge Happy Birthday, and adhered these to the right side of the card.

Finally, I used the Richard Garay Celebrations "Sweet Treats" Die set from Spellbinder to cut the cool tag which has a notch at the top to wrap around a bow on a package...in this case, the natural burlap ribbon from May Arts. I punched two holes for the pin-back to slip through, and attached my beautiful pin. NOW it gets the recognition that it deserves! You know you've created a successful gift if you'd love to receive it yourself!

Here are today's links for those playing:

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Spellbinders Blog

Stampendous: Elegantly Eggy

Today is the finale of our Easter themed week over on the Stampendous blog. This is one of my favorite cards that I created for the October '14 catalog. I love playing with a bit of pointillism in my Copic coloring, especially when using my favorite colors. Aqua and yellow always make me think of my "Gran", and she'd have loved this card. The base is aqua cardstock from Bazzill Basics. The print is from Authentique, and has been run through my Big Shot with the Dreamweaver Quatrefoil stencil, and brushed over the surface with Cantaloupe Memento ink. The yummy ribbon is from May Arts (of course!) All of that is the frame to highlight this beautiful "Fabergé-style" Cling Fabulous Egg, with all of the intricacy of the originals, but far more
affordable!

There's still plenty of Easter inspiration to be found today! Just check out these EGGceptional team members:

Stampendous Blog

Amy Hurley-Purdie

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Amy Hurley-Purdie (2nd project)

Lea Kimmel

Janelle Stollfus

Dreamweaver: Marching into Spring, Week Three

If you are here for my Woodware post, please scroll down, but nothing says that you can't have a bit of fun along the way...

Ready for fresh air, sunshine, new leaves, and flowers blooming? Well, the Dream Team is right there with you! Our challenge for the month of March is...coincidentally...Marching into Spring. Per usual, we'd love to have you play along with us, and link your own creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, or at the bottom of this post. Play as many times as you'd like. Those of you who work Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous products into your projects receive bonus points, but everyone has an opportunity to be the winner who receives the stencil of their choice.

Here's my hint of Spring:

I thought I'd play with a "messy" watercolor look for today's post. In the past, when I've tried to watercolor through the stencils, the color runs underneath, and frustrated me. Then it dawned on me...why not go with that look, but outline the stencil afterwards. I kind of like the end result. I even added a bit of doodling/tangling over the design. The base was a piece of canvas-textured Core'dinations' cardstock in a natural color. The Stampendous Cling Music Score was stamped in black StazOn (to prevent bleeding when wet), and a bit of DecoArt® Media Acrylic in Titan Buff was lightly brushed over the background. The Dreamweaver Stylized Dahlia was taped over the panel, and watercolored, and set aside to dry. When dry, the clean stencil was replaced, and I used a Copic Multi-liner in .03 to trace the design and add some tangles. The card base was a gorgeous shade of cobalt Vintage Cardstock from Core'dinations which I'd run through my Big shot with the Dreamweaver Chevrons stencil, and sanded to reveal the design. A simple panel of green with a stamped sentiment from the Stampendous Perfectly Clear Friendly Phrases set, and a luscious bow from May Arts, and I'm loving the result! How about you?

The "A" team would love to share their interpretations of this theme:

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up

Dreamweaver: Marching into Spring, Week Two

Ready for fresh air, sunshine, new leaves, and flowers blooming? Well, the Dream Team is right there with you! Our challenge for the month of March is...coincidentally...Marching into Spring. Per usual, we'd love to have you play along with us, and link your own creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, or at the bottom of this post. Play as many times as you'd like. Those of you who work Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous products into your projects receive bonus points, but everyone has an opportunity to be the winner who receives the stencil of their choice.

Here's my hint of Spring:

I seem to be in a purple mode lately...no idea why. Yes, this is a sympathy/encouragement card, but there's no reason that it can't have a lovely spring tulip on it. Specifically, the Dreamweaver Tall Tulip stencil. It was machine-embossed on a strip of pale lavender cardstock, and brushed with a "strié" technique...which means simply, creating an almost linen look by using a large stencil brush and, in this case, two shades of purple ink (Elderberry and Sweet Plum Memento from Tsukineko®). Ink your brush and swipe it from left to right, and right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top. Begin your swipe off of the edge of your panel. This process catches each side of the embossed design, highlighting it, and giving the impression of truly elegant paper.

The card base was machine-embossed and "letter-pressed" by inking the Crusade stencil before the machine-embossing. This transfers the ink, and embosses the design at the same time. The center panel was done with the same technique, using the Large Scales stencil. This card was finished off with a couple sprigs of May Arts ribbon.

The sentiment is one of many in the Stampendous Perfectly Clear Sincere Sentiments set. This set is one of my favorites as it expresses my thoughts without being sappy. Take a look here:

 The "B" team would love to share their interpretations of this theme:

Dream It Up!

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Gill Wilson

Cindy Groh

An InLinkz Link-up