STAMPlorations™ Blog

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

{Inspiration Project Post #154}

Hello STAMPlorations Friends! The Inspiration girls are back showcasing stamps designed by STAMPlorations owner Shery under her label Shery Russ Designs. There is a distinctive festive feel to their makes this week.

The Giving Thanks hop is still in full swing, which means, our stamps, stencils, and dies are 40% off with the BIGTHANKS coupon until the end of November.

This coupon can only be used once per customer/shipping address and does not apply to products in the New Release and Retiring categories; coloring books; and gift certificates.

Should you wish to purchase stamps from the New Release category, you can use either your own discount code, as is the case with our Stamp Club members (25% off) or if you're a returning customer (15% off), or use the DT's personal discount codes (20% off), which you can find on their personal blogs.

Of course, we'll still randomly draw a winner from all the comments left on our Inspiration Posts, so have a look and leave a comment for your entry to win a $10 gift certificate to the store.

{Mixed Media Tutorial} Layered Tags by MariLynn

Hello, it is my turn to share with you a tutorial that will hopefully

instruct and inspire you to create.

Hey, STAMPlorations friends! November (and even 2017) is nearly over but we have one more reason to celebrate this month: the addition of a new stencil designer. I'm excited to welcome the uber-talented mixed media artist Sanna Lippert and her line of fabulous and on-trend stencils designed exclusively for STAMPlorations/ARTplorations!

If you've been following our blog for a while now, you'll know that Sanna is in our mixed media design team and she creates some of the most delicious mixed media projects and tutorials every month since July 2016. I'm thrilled that she has decided to design some stencils. In fact, her first 8 stencil designs are already in the store under her stencil line, Sanna Lippert Designs.

I asked Sanna to share a little bit about herself and her new stencil line. She also created a short video showing off her stencils and sharing her thoughts about them.

"Hi, my name is Sanna Lippert and I'm very proud to be joining the STAMPlorations family with my very first 8 stencil designs. Today I'm humbly presenting Sanna Lippert Designs stencils to you. This has been something I've been dreaming of doing for quite a while now, but always felt I wasn't quite good enough. Now that the first eight designs are "on paper", I am very thrilled they are "out there". I'd like to thank Shery for believing in me and giving these designs a place to live :).

"I have a habit of always scribbling onto pieces of paper while talking on the phone and some of the stencil patterns always showed up on the pages of my notebooks, so I figured to make something out of them. I am very much a beginner in designing anything and far from being professional – but thanks to Shery it was possible.

"I think you can see my origin in the designs too. Being originally from Scandinavia, I love nature, plants and forests, so therefore my first designs are very nature bound. Lots of leaves, trees and plants are/were involved in this set. Yet all the designs are very simple and somewhat abstract in style, so they can actually be used in a very versatile way. I've recorded a video for you to watch, where I share more thoughts about my designs and what I see in them. Hope you enjoy it and my stencils. I am very thrilled and honored to be joining the STAMPlorations family and would like to thank Shery for taking me on board!"

On Wednesday, Sanna will lead the STAMPlorations girls in a fun stencil hop where her stencils take the spotlight. So make sure to stop by here again on Wednesday, November 29, at 7 a.m. Pacific because 3 lucky crafters will win some spending money and their choice of 3 Sanna Lippert Designs stencils :o)

So see you again in a couple of days for some stencil inspiration, okay? Until then, happy crafting!

Friday, November 24, 2017

{Mixed Media Tutorial} Memory Verse Booklet by Melissa

Hi! I hope you enjoy seeing the process I used to create this memory verse booklet.

I used the following STAMPlorations products for this tutorial:

Hidden Hearts - ARTplorations Stencil

Tags #1 Nesting Dies - CUTplorations

6 stamps from the Typografia In Faith line: Trust in the Lord,

The Lord Sustains, Thy Word is a Lamp, The Lord is Good, God is a Rewarder and Faith.

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Creates Rainbow Feathers

Hi, Cornelia here today, playing with the October/November stamp Club set Feathery.

My stamp supplies:

Feathery, Feathery dies

I took Bristol Paper and stamped the feathers with Versafine black ink.

Colored them with Stabilo markers. They are water based and reactivate with water.

I just loosely added some color and then took a water brush and spread the color.

Did that with yellow/reds, greens and pink/purples

Die cut the feathers.

Made a background strip with the sentiment, using my Misti. I stamped it once in black and the other times with Versamark.

Arranged the feathers on the card and attached them with foam tape. Rounded the bottom corners.

Remember if you try out any of the techniques from our Spotlight posts and hook your project up at our Spotlight Project Showcase you have a chance to win a $15 gift certificate (random drawing) OR your choice of 5x7 stamp set + a Spotlight Project guest designer spot (randomly drawn from the Top 3 picks).

Use code STAMPGIRLCORNELIA to get 20% off on all stamps, stencils, and dies on all regular- and sale-priced items in the store.

Happy Stamping!

Happy Thanksgiving from STAMPlorations

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at STAMPlorations!

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

{Spotlight Project} Monika Adds Floating Dimension

Hello Crafty Friends! It's Monika here today showing you how to create dimension with a wow factor. The feathers really jump out at you once pulling this card from an envelope. I am working with STAMPlorations' current Stamp Club set Feathery and its matching Feathery Dies.

I started off heat embossing and die-cutting several feathers, a couple more then I would need for my card. The embossing powder is a mix of several including pink, red, holographic and some with glitter. All were left over from a project I made a while back.

I then used some ready mixed magenta watercolour to initially lay down some base colour and then little flicked brush strokes to add texture to the feathers.

While the feathers were drying, I lightly spritzed the base card with gold and purple ink.

I cut one 5cm (2 inches) and one 6cm (2 1/2 inches) piece from a 2.5cm (1 inch) wide strip of acetate, scored them at 1.5cm (just over 1/2 inch) from one end and 1cm (just under 1/2 inch) from the other end and Z-folded them before adding strips of double sided tape to the tabs.

To assemble my card, I first stamped my sentiment.

Next, I attached the first feather directly to my card.

I attached the second feather using the smaller of my acetate Zs with the larger tab holding the feather itself.

To finish, I attached the third feather using the larger acetate Z. The beauty of using acetate for dimension is that you not only get more dimension than you would using foam pads or silicon glue, you also get a little bit of movement for added fun.

Here are a few close ups with shadows to give you a better idea of the floating effect.

That's it from me for today. If you fancy adding some floating dimension to one of your projects or make a project using any of the techniques shared by my teamies in their Spotlight Posts, make sure to link up your makes with our Spotlight Project gallery.

Have a lovely day!

hugs

Monika xxx

Feathery, Feathery Dies

25 Days of Christmas Tags and STAMPlorations

Welcome to 25 Days Of Christmas Tags featuring STAMPlorations! The event created and hosted by Tracey McNeely is in its 7th year, and we here at STAMPlorations are delighted to be back again as one of the sponsors. We're offering 2 prizes: a $25 gift certificate and a stamp bundle (valued at $50 MSRP)!

Make sure you check out Tracey's blog for all the information about the 25 Days Of Christmas Tags. Here are the tags that the STAMPlorations girls created for this awesome event:

VICKI