{JULY WINNERS}

We've got July winners and top picks to announce. We've also got the winners of the CASology 5th Birthday Hop and the National Coloring Book Day featuring Bloomtangled. Thank you to all of you who played in our challenges last month and who participated in our hops and event.

An important note about our winners post: all winners (challenges and blog hops) of the previous month are announced in one post (this one) published on the 9th or 10th of the following month. All winners have up to 10 days to claim their prizes. If you are a regular player in our challenges or participant in our blog hops and special events, please consider following our blog, even signing up to receive email notifications when new posts are published. You'll find those links on the right side bar. 

Winners, please claim your prize on or before Monday, August 21. Prizes not claimed by August 21 will be forfeited -- no exceptions. Please understand that because we have a lot of winners and give away over $200 worth of prizes in the form of products and gift certificates each month, it would take a lot of time to contact the winners individually. I also want to be fair to those who regularly visit our blog and claim their prizes within the time frame given.

When claiming your prize, send an email to sheryruss@gmail.com. Please follow this format in the subject line:

"STAMPlorations July (Winner, Top Pick, Random Draw) - specific challenge here"

e.g., "STAMPlorations July Winner - Theme & Sketch Challenge"

If you are the winner of a tangible/mailable prize, do include your complete mailing address in the email you send, even if I already have mailed to you before. (It saves me time having to look up your address.)

{Spotlight Project} One Die, Three Backgrounds with Cornelia

Hi, Cornelia here today using one die and 3 different backgrounds.

  

My supplies:

For the Birds, For the Birds dies, Happy Flower

{Spotlight Project} Monika Makes A Set Of Cheerful Thank You Tags

Hello Crafty Friends! I've been de-stashing through a well-known auction site over the last few weeks. Things I haven't used in a long time were in need of a new home. Whenever I send an item off to its buyer, I tend to add a little note hence these cheerful 'Thank You Tags'.

They were really quick to make and gave me the opportunity to show you how to stamp on a die cut shape using a stamping tool.

{Stamp Designer Spotlight} Blossom Sprays from Dee's Artsy Impressions by Deepti Malik + Comment to Win

Hello! It's Wednesday and we've got another fun post. Today we're featuring the Blossom Sprays stamps that Deepti designed for her line, Dee's Artsy Impressions.

   
Blossom Sprays #1 | Blossom Sprays #2 | Blossom Sprays #3

And here's Deepti showcasing her stamps. Be sure to visit her blog after reading and commenting on this post. You may just be the lucky winner of one of the Blossom Sprays stamps!

  

  

  

Simply awesome cards, wouldn't you agree? If you like the stamp sets featured today, simply leave a comment here and on Deepti's blog for a chance to win. We'll randomly draw a winner from all the comments left. You have until Sunday, August 13, to comment. We'll announce the winner on Wednesday, August 16.

And if you like Deepti's stamps, you could snap them up at 20% off. Just use the code STAMPGIRLDEEPTI on checkout. You'll find all of Deepti's stamps here.

Thanks for your visit today! Do stop by again on Monday, August 14, because the STAMPlorations girls will be back sharing projects in our August Christmas Release! If you haven't been to the store lately, check out the NEW RELEASE section because you'll find brand new Christmas stamps and dies in there -- and they're automatically 5% off (plus get extra $$$ off when you use a returning customer code,  stamp club code, or any of the codes from the STAMPlorations girls).

{Spotlight Project} Maria Water Bleaches Distress Oxides

Hello STAMPlorations friends! I'm playing with Distress Oxides again today. Thought I'd try water bleaching or "ghosting" them.

It works, probably better with some colors than others (like the purple), similar to with Distress Inks. Here's what I did.

{Mixed Media Tutorial} Monika Makes A CUTplorations Die Storage Book

Hello Crafty Friends! As you well know, I love making my own books and folders for storage. Today I am sharing another one of my makes. This one is inspired by the way Shery packages the CUTplorations Dies, on this wonderful piece of strong card with strong magnetic tape. I just had to create a book with pockets to take them.

As always, the book is made from scratch. The detailed steps should even enable a novice to give it a go. I converted my centimeter measurements as best as I could into inches, you should have seen me with two rulers, smoke rising from my brain lol The inch measurements are however slightly different, but should work fine.

Anyway, have fun seeing how it all came together.

Summer Theme & Sketch Challenge!

Hey, theme & sketch challenge players! Looking for the August challenge? The Theme & Sketch Challenge is taking a break for the summer. But don't worry, the team will be back in October :o) Thank you so much to all of you who played in last month's challenge. We'll announce the winners and top picks on Thursday, August 10, so check back again.

We don't want to completely stop the challenge for those of you who love to play in our monthly theme & sketch challenge and link up in here. So for August and September, keep linking up your projects - it's STAMPS & ANYTHING GOES! 

• Link up as many projects (even non-cards!) as you want (1 project per blog post).
• Display our graphic above in your blog post and link back to this post.
• Each month, we'll randomly draw THREE (3) players to each receive a $10 gift certificate to the store :o)

An InLinkz Link-up

Summer CAS Card Challenge! + July CAS Winners!

Hey, everyone! The girls in the CAS team are in the middle of their summer break but that doesn't mean you can't link up your CAS-ilicious cards this month. Before you link up, here are the names of the THREE (3) players who each gets a $10 gift certificate to the store!

JULY WINNERS

(Randomly drawn from entries #1 to #54)

#8 Milka

#38 Karen Dunbrook

#35 Vinita Jain

Ladies, please claim your prize on or before Sunday, August 13. Prizes not claimed by August 13 will be forfeited -- no exceptions. When claiming your prize, send an email to sheryruss@gmail.com. Please follow this format in the subject line: "STAMPlorations July CAS Card Challenge winner"

And now here are our simple rules for our summer CAS card challenge:

• Link up as many CAS cards as you want (1 card per blog post).
• Display our graphic above in your blog post and link back to this post.
• Each month, we'll randomly draw THREE (3) players to each receive a $10 gift certificate to the store :o)
• The linky is open until September 30, 11:55 p.m. Pacific

An InLinkz Link-up

{Spotlight Project} Christmas Mail Art with Deepti!

Hello friends! Deepti here and welcome to another spotlight feature. I know we all love making cards but to have an envelop as beautiful as those cards makes a huge impact. For me, it's pure satisfaction and of course the fun of making them and the delight of mailing those to my loved ones is simply priceless :) With Christmas closing in , I decided to transform my envelops from white to bright ;) 

Here's the look...

{Spotlight Project} Shirley Makes a Wedding Card for Two Lovebirds

Hellooo peeps! While I was studying the June/July STAMP Club set, For The Birds, it struck me that the negative newsprint bird looked rather masculine, and the zen bird looked all decorated and girly, ready for a wedding. And here's what happened - cute, eh?

{SPECIAL EVENT} Celebrate National Coloring Book Day with the STAMPlorations Girls + Download the Bloomtangled Page Sampler & Link Up!

Hey, STAMPlorations friends! Today is National Coloring Book Day and we're celebrating here on the blog! The STAMPlorations girls took out their favorite coloring mediums and started coloring a page from BLOOMTANGLED, our second coloring book for grownups -- specially created for creative cardmakers and crafters! Also at the end of this post is the winner of her choice of Deepti's stamp sets that we showcased last week here. 

We'd love for you to celebrate this event too so we've made the Bloomtangled page sampler available for everyone to download, print, and color. And for a chance to win a copy of the Bloomtangled coloring book, simply share a photo of the Bloomtangled page sampler that you've colored and link it up at the end of this post. The linky is open until Sunday, August 6, so you have plenty of time to have some coloring fun!

Here are samples of how the STAMPlorations girls colored the pages in Bloomtangled. Visit their blogs to read more about what they used to color the pages.

KAROLA

CHRIS

ELAINE

CAROL

LYNNE

Come celebrate National Coloring Book Day with us by downloading the Bloomtangled page sampler. Just click on the download graphic.

Download here
(Having trouble downloading? No worries! Just email sheryruss@gmail.com and the sampler will be on its way to you.)

For a chance to win a copy of Bloomtangled, simply print out the sampler, color it with your medium(s) of choice, and share a photo of the colored sampler in your blog. Then link it up below on or before Sunday, August 6, 11:55 p.m. Pacific (GMT-7).

Want another chance to win? Visit our Facebook page -- like, comment, tag a friend, and share the post we have on there about our coloring event!

Happy coloring!

An InLinkz Link-up

And here is the winner of her choice between Strongest Dad Ever and Kathryn's Rainbow - we randomly drew from all the comments left on last week's post and on Deepti's blog.

winner:

ROBYN JORDAN

Congratulations, Robyn! Please send an email to sheryruss@gmail.com on or before August 9 to claim your prize. Please let me know which stamp set you'd like to receive: Strongest Dad Ever or Kathryn's Rainbow.

{Spotlight Project} Becca Creates Simple Sympathy Cards

I've found myself in need of a few sympathy cards lately and decided to create a small stockpile.

Whenever I'm designing sympathy cards, I always wind up with clean lines and a larger sentiment. Something about the pairing of those really translates to the type of feeling needed for a sympathy card.