{Inspiration Project Post #5} Roundup!

Say goodbye to February! But before we do, here's one more round of Inspiration Projects. If you missed any of the previous Inspiration Project posts, here's a handy dandy link list so you can easily see projects you can CASE.

February CASEplorations

February 9 Inspiration Project Post
February 13 Inspiration Project Post
February 23 Inspiration Project Post
February 27 Inspiration Project Post

When you CASE a project (or two, or however many you want -- there's no limit), make sure to link them up by March 5, 11:55 p.m. PST (GMT-8) to get a shot at winning a $15 gift certificate or your choice 2 ARTplorations stencils.

{Inspiration Project Post #4}

***Looking for the Spring Coffee Lovers blog hop post? It's HERE***

Happy Friday, everyone! February will be over soon but we've got some more inspiration projects to share and for you to CASE.

          

If any of the projects have inspired you, we encourage you to share your creations by linking to the Inspiration CASE Playground. You'll find the link at the end of this post. The Playground is open until March 5th and you can use whatever supplies you have (not just STAMPlorations products). One lucky CASE player will win a $15 gift certificate to the shop (or her choice of any 2 ARTplorations stencils).

Just a reminder, though: please briefly describe in your blog post how you were inspired by the card you CASEd instead of simply linking back to our Inspiration Project posts. If you can include the card you CASEd on your post, that would be even better! Not sure how to CASE? We explain it here. And if you want more projects to CASE, you can find them here.

STAMPlorations and the Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop + Extra Prizes!

Heads up, STAMPlorations friends! There's a fun blog hop starting today for those of us who love or enjoy a cup of coffee! The hop is hosted by Amy Tsuruta and Chaitali Narla.

Amy and Chaiatali have invited 20+ sponsors for the hop, including STAMPlorations, who are offering tons of fabulous prizes! Play along by creating a spring-y themed coffee, tea and/or cocoa project. Post it on your blog and then link it up at the linky found on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog. The linky is open until Friday, March 6, at 11:55 p.m. PST (GMT-8). Winners of sponsor prizes will be randomly drawn!

Link up your spring-themed coffee, tea, and/or cocoa card(s) here

Here are a couple of cards to inspire you:

{Spotlight Project} Deepti Creates a Clean and Elegant Card

Hello, friends! Deepti here and welcome to another spotlight feature. Today I am showcasing how to make a clean and elegant card with stamps and stencil. Here's a look at the finished card:

{Spotlight Project} Shirley's Inspired by Wassily Kandinsky

Hi guys! Today's card was inspired by the painting "Two Black Spots" by Wassily Kandinsky.

Sketch #28 and February Challenge Inspiration Cards - there's still time to play!

Hey there, stamping creatives! February will be over in 3 days. Have you played in our challenges this month yet? Here are cards the STAMPlorations girls created to inspire you!

First up is Nonni's card that she created for the current sketch challenge:

NONNI

using Hashtag Authentic and ARTplorations Shutters stencil

Link up your sketch #28 projects here by Friday, February 27

{Spotlight Project} Vicki's Stencil and Spray Card

Hi, everyone! It's Vicki! Today I am creating a card using a stencil and spray ink.

{Inspiration Project Post #3}

Hello, stamping friends! We're welcoming Monday with several helpings of inspiration projects for CASEing. If you're inspired by any of our projects, we'd love it if you'd share your creations by linking to the Inspiration CASE Playground -- there's the handy dandy link is at the end of this post. The Playground is open until March 5th and you can use whatever supplies you have (not just STAMPlorations products). One lucky CASE player will win a $15 gift certificate to the shop (or her choice of any 2 ARTplorations stencils).

            

Not sure how to CASE? We explain it here. And if you want more projects to CASE, you can find them here.

{Spotlight Project} Monika Creates Scented Cards Using Homemade Embossing Paste

Hi, everybody. Today I'm having a play with homemade embossing paste and some of the ARTplorations stencils.

Making your own paste is a really good way to explore the use of embossing paste, especially as most of you will have the ingredients needed already at home. You simply mix some talcum powder with some PVA glue for a gooey consistency similar to a sponge cake mix, and you're ready to go. The added bonus is that it can make wonderfully scented cards as the perfume of the talcum powder will last for quite a while.

Here is my first card. It's actually my very first attempt at using homemade embossing paste:

{Spotlight Project} Shirley's Inspired by Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Take Three

It's me again. And it's that man again! Today I'm inspired by Hundertwasser's application of his art into architecture. In his Mouldiness Manifesto (!) he claimed the "Window Right":

"A person in a rented apartment must be able to lean out of his window and scrape off the masonry within arm's reach. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and paint everything outside within arm's reach. So that it will be visible from afar to everyone in the street that someone lives there who is different from the imprisoned, enslaved, standardised man who lives next door." [Source: Wikipedia]

I haven't dared read his Nude Speech...

I built a little street of houses using The Bee's Knees: Houses set and I took a long brush and painted some of the masonry around the windows in the style of the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna. I can't get enough of the Hashtag Authentic set, and I thought the words were quite appropriate.

Sketch Challenge #27 Winner and Top Picks

The STAMPlorations girls have voted on the winner and top picks for sketch challenge #27. But first, we'd love to thank all the talented crafters who played and shared their wonderful projects! You guys made it challenging because the girls had lots of favorites!

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Prepares for Mother's Day

Hi! Cornelia here with a Mother's Day card. I am showing you the border die cutting technique I learned on the CAS class recently. Kristina Werner had a great video about it, but its easy enough to figure out just looking at it how to do that and I am doing it slightly differently anyhow - hopefully Kristina does not mind...

{NEW RELEASE} BLOSSOM OVERTURE February/March 2015 Stamp Club Set

Hey there, STAMPlorations friends! I wanted to share the news that the February/March 2015 stamp club set is now available in the shop!

BLOSSOM OVERTURE is a 5" by 7" stamp set that features 3 flower images, 2 distressed/vintage style labels, and 20 words and phrases that can be mixed and matched to create your own special messages. The fun part is that you can fit up to 3 lines of text in the labels. If you own other STAMPlorations sets, you'll find that the images and sentiments in Blossom Overture go well with those too.

I had fun illustrating and designing this set, and I must admit, it's one of my favorites because it combines my love for sketchy/hand-drawn images with a vintage/distressed feel, typography, and sentiment building. Earlier today, I sat down and made a few one layer cards using the stamps. You'll get to see even more gorgeous projects from the STAMPlorations girls in the coming weeks.

Bi-Weekly Sketch Challenge #28

Welcome to our 28th bi-weekly sketch challenge! The STAMPlorations girls are back with wonderful inspiration projects and we're joined by 3 uber talented guest designers!

Below is the sketch for the next couple of weeks. It’s open to interpretation. Feel free to change the orientation of the sketch, use different shapes, add other elements to suit the type of paper craft you’re making, and so on — just make sure the sketch is recognizable in your submission(s). You can use stamps by other companies to create projects that you enter to our challenges but please do not use our challenges for the sole purpose of promoting another stamp company. If you have our stamps in your stash, we'd be tickled if you use them -- and we've tweaked the prize a bit to encourage you to use our stamps if you have them!

{Inspiration Project Post #2} Let's CASE over the weekend!

It's Friday and we've got another batch of inspiration projects to share. If you're planning on doing some more crafting this weekend, why not CASE a card of two from today's post? Not sure how CASEing works? Maria explains it here. We invite you to CASE the projects we share (including the inspiration projects here) and link it up to the Inspiration CASE Playground found at the end of this post.

The Playground is open until March 5th and you're welcome to use whatever supplies you have (not just STAMPlorations products), though we do ask that you CASE and link up for fun. We'll randomly draw one CASE player to win a $15 gift certificate to the shop (or her choice of any 2 ARTplorations stencils). We'll also highlight the best CASEs.

{Spotlight Project} Deepti Shares a Fun Stencil Technique!

Hello, friends! Deepti here and welcome to another spotlight feature. Today I am showcasing a fun technique with stencil and embossing paste.

Here's a look into all the finished card:

{Spotlight Project} Shirley's Inspired by Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Take Two

Hi folks, I'm back with another helping of Hundertwasser. I make no apologies for bringing you more of the same, because I found so much inspiration from this one person's work. Today's card uses a similar process to last week's, and is so suited to using the fabulous Retro Mod Shapes set.

The Never-Ending Anything Goes Challenge Winners!

Hey, stamping friends! We hit 150 projects linked up to the STAMPlorations Never-Ending Anything Goes Challenge! And you know what that means -- time to pick winners! Yes, winners -- we're not just picking one winner, we're picking 3 winners, one for every 50 entries.

Congratulations to the following ladies. They each win their choice of one (1) 3" by 5" stamp set (found here) or a $10 gift certificate to the shop.

#43 Lyndal

#97 Kamila Routsis

#117 Jerrie (Sherbert)

Congratulations again, ladies! Please claim your prize by Monday, February 16. Send an email to sheryruss@gmail.com with the subject "Anything Goes Challenge winner". [Note: it is important that you include the subject line, as it will be filtered to a special folder on my inbox. This will ensure that I get your email.] Include your preferred prize ($10 gift certificate or one 3" by 5" stamp set) in your email.

Thanks, everyone! I hope you'll keep creating using STAMPlorations stamps and linking them up to our Anything Goes Challenge. We'll draw winners again when there are 200 projects in the gallery.

{Spotlight Project} Vicki Creates a Triple Embossed Tile Card

Hi, everyone! Vicki here. Gosh, it seems like forever since I have had a project for you all. Today I will show you how to make a triple embossed tile.

Here is the finish card:

{Inspiration Project Post #1} Cards about love, shoes, and you... + an invitation to the Inspiration CASE Playground

Hey there, STAMPlorations friends! Today we're introducing a brand new regular feature here on the blog: the Inspiration Project posts! On the 2nd and 4th Mondays and Fridays of each month, the Inspiration Design Team will be sharing projects that not only will inspire you but will also encourage you to CASE!

You'll recall that on February 1, we introduced CASEplorations, the super fun concept thought up by STAMPlorations girl Maria F. (whose middle name is "Trendy Chic"). It was Monika who came up with the name for Maria's concept. It's where we CASE a project and show you how we do it. Long story short, CASEplorations nicely ties in with the Inspiration Project posts because one of the things we'd love for you to do is CASE the projects we share and link it up to the gallery, which we're calling the Inspiration CASE Playground. The Playground is open until the 5th of the following month...which means you always have plenty of time to CASE and link up as many projects as you can.

February Challenge: Stamps & Hearts

Welcome to the February challenge, crafty stampers! We’d love it if you’ll join us for the entire month! Each month we have a theme, and for February, our theme is STAMPS & HEARTS. You can use stamps by other companies to create projects that you enter to our challenges but please do not use our challenges for the sole purpose of promoting another stamp company. If you have our stamps in your stash, we'd be tickled if you use them -- and we've tweaked the prize a bit to encourage you to use our stamps if you have them!

STAMPlorations January 2015 Stamp Release Spotlight Week Blog Hop Winners

Hey, STAMPlorations friends! It's time to announce the winners of the January 2015 stamp release spotlight week blog hop! We thank everyone who participated and took the time to visit and leave comments here and on our designers' blogs!

Sketch #26 and January Challenge Winners and Top Picks! + Frequent Players Spotlight and Random Prize Drawing Winner!

Hey there, STAMPlorations friends! We've got winners and top picks to announce in this post -- both for Sketch Challenge #26 and the January Challenge. Plus we've got our Frequent Players spotlight and the winner of a stamp and stencil pack.

{Spotlight Project} The Sky's the Limit

Hi, everybody. I am back again with another Spotlight Feature using ARTplorations stencils. Today I'm going to show you a couple of techniques for creating a sky background using the Clouds stencil.

First up is a little HELLO card where I used one of the clouds from the stencil, the fluffy one above the shining sun, to sponge my background.

{Spotlight Project} Shirley's Inspired By Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Take One

Hi guys! For the next few Wednesdays I'll be doing a little feature on cards inspired by architecture, artists or art styles.

Disclaimer: I don't profess to know anything about art - if I like it, it's good art, and that's good enough for me!

I'm starting today with Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Billy Connolly had a TV series a few years ago, Billy's World Tour of New Zealand, in which he featured Hundertwasser's toilets at Kawakawa. So when we were visiting that region of New Zealand a couple of years later, they were on my "to do" list, so to speak.

That led me to find out a bit more about Hundertwasser, who was an Austrian artist and architect who rejected straight lines and preferred fluid, natural forms. He actually ended up living in New Zealand. I'd love to show you some of his work here, but I almost had to sign the Official Secrets Act just to get on the official website - linking images from there is frowned upon, so I suggest you just google his name, click on images, and you'll be able to see his works.

This card is based on Hundertwasser's landscape paintings. Here's a step-by-step of my process:

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Plays with the Clouds Stencil

Hi, Cornelia here today, trying to brighten up your day!

I love stencils and I am so happy that we now have them available at STAMPlorations. Today I played around with the Clouds stencil and that wonderful sentiment from the Typografia set.