{Spotlight Project} Monika Shows How to Create An Accordion Flip Card!

Hi, everybody! Today, I'm back with another helping of sundae in the form of a accordion flip card. Here it is:

{Spotlight Project} Shirley Asks, "What's Your Favourite Donut Topping?"

The things we do for our art! Many moons ago when I used to eat donuts (they were actually doughnuts to me), the only version you got was coated in sugar. Not even any jammy filling. But now you can get so many different toppings, so I thought I'd do a little research for this card.

It seems there are endless varieties of topping to choose from, so I went into production to make some of my own. Here's my little donut topping factory in action:

December Challenge Winner and Top Picks

Thanks so much to everyone who played in the December Challenge! All the entries were amazing. So amazing that for the first time, we have 2 winners! The team voted and after the scores were tallied up, two ladies got the same number of votes. Normally, I'd bring in DH aka Mr. STAMPlorations to break the tie, but I felt that both ladies made awesome cards and they are both deserving of a win. And so here they are, our 2 winners and 4 top picks.

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Likes Maracoons!

Hi, I am back today with a tutorial for the STAMPlorations Sugar Rush set. I really like those delicious looking macaroons...

Bi-Weekly Sketch Challenge #25

Welcome to our 25th bi-weekly sketch challenge! Here’s 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!

Sketch #24 Winner & Top Picks + Anything Goes Challenge Winner #2

Hello, fellow stampers! This is a couple of days late, but it's here nonetheless! :o) Who won our last sketch challenge?

January Challenge: Stamps & Inks

Welcome to the January challenge! We’d love it if you’ll join us for the entire month! Each month we have a theme, and for January, our theme is STAMPS & INKS. 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!

December Spotlight Projects Random Draw Winner + Introducing STAMP Lab!

Happy new year, STAMPlorations friends! How's your year going so far? I'm off to a slow start but I have a very good reason for it -- I'll share that reason pretty soon :o)

I'd like to thank all you wonderful ladies who have supported STAMPlorations during all of 2014 -- whether you bought our stamps, played in our challenges, and commented on the spotlight projects. Know that the STAMPlorations girls, my hubby (who does a lot behind the scenes), and I appreciate each one of you. Without your support, STAMPlorations wouldn't be here. We are excited and so looking forward to sharing with you more inspiration projects this year.

And now let's get right down to business: announcing the winner of 2 ARTplorations stencils, randomly drawn from comments left on the Spotlight Projects posts in December. There were over 300 comments left on the 15 spotlight projects posts and so I had Mr. Random.org draw the winner: Teresa Godines #6857.

Congratulations, Teresa! Please claim your prize on or before Wednesday, January 7, by sending an email to sheryruss@gmail.com with the subject "December Spotlight Project 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 complete mailing address so we know where to send your 2 ARTplorations stencils.

ARTplorations Stencils now available to purchase!

Thanks to all of you who regularly check out the Spotlight Projects we publish. We hope they inspire you and that you take away something from each post. If you've missed any of the projects, we have them all listed here. We've been sharing these projects since July and to date, there are 74 projects with either photo tutorials or videos! We appreciate the time you spend here on the blog and the encouraging comments you leave. We'll be back with this month's first Spotlight Project on Tuesday, January 6.

I'd also like to take this time to introduce a new feature on the shop: the STAMP Lab!

I love designing stamps, and more often than not, I end up with more designs than I can ever release at any given time. (To give you an idea...I have close to a hundred designs in various states of completion in my STAMP DESIGN folder.) This also means I end up with lots of samples of stamps. I love having the opportunity to play with stamps on a daily basis, but it can get pretty lonely when I'm the only one playing with many of the stamps I design.

Then I had a light bulb moment: make those sample stamps available at below-retail price on the shop for those who'd like to have a play with them. Think of STAMP Lab as an "incubator": it's where you'll find limited quantities of STAMPlorations stamps that are not officially released; they may or may not be released down the road -- because several factors come into play when we come out with a new release. I may decide to officially release a design in the STAMP Lab and when that happens, it gets sold at regular price. I may also decide to not ever release a design in the STAMP Lab -- once a particular design is gone, it's gone.

So on Monday, January 5, the STAMP Lab section of the shop will have at least 4 new designs added. Here are two of those designs:

(Texturize: Big Numbers Background and Grateful Beyond Words)

The good news is that STAMP Lab stamps will be free for every order of $30 or more (before shipping). Buy at least $30 worth of products (stamps and/or stencils) and you get one stamp from the STAMP Lab section free! Even better news: YOU get to pick which one you want!

And if you've been anxiously waiting for the January stamps (preview them here), they'll be available to buy beginning Monday too! For one week only, they'll be 10% off. If you're a stamp club subscriber, you get an additional 15% off when you use your personal discount code.

Thank you again for your support, and I hope you all have a wonderful and bright 2015!

With a grateful heart,

{Spotlight Project} Monika Creates 3 Cards Using a Fun Background Technique!

Hi, everyone. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. This is a quick post from me today as a result of some playtime before the festive season where I played with my small ColorBox pigment inks and some stamps. They arrived through the post the week before Christmas, and I couldn't help but playing. Here are the two cards I made using the Distressed Damask Background and the Distressed Floral Swirls plus a couple of stamps to keep you looking forward to the New Year.

{Spotlight Project} Guest Designer Kim Makes A Couple More Christmas Thank You Cards

Hey, everyone! So happy to be here again sharing another Spotlight Project with you all. I have two more Christmas thank you cards to share. This time I'm playing with the Christmas bells stamp. I have had this set for a while but hadn't inked up the bells until now. I wanted to show you how just by changing the colour scheme you can make two cards with the exact same design look so different.

{Spotlight Project} Maria Explores Loo Rolls and Masterboards

Meet the loo roll. My teamie Shirley enlightened me that that is what spray-ink-goddess-Dyan-Reaveley would call the common toilet paper roll. Ever decorate a tree in someone's front yard with 'em? Or was that just a Michigan thing? I digress.

Actually, this all came about because of the pattern that I noticed on the TP. See the leaves?

I had wanted to make a mixed media card and decided to play with my Dylusions spray inks and see if I could get that TP design to show up on my background when I "rolled" the loo roll over the puddles of ink. (You can watch the spray-ink-goddess herself in action in this video). The design didn't show up. But that's OK, cuz the process was oh-so-fun and the result looks oh-so-cool anyhow!

{Preview} January Sneak Peek + Introducing ARTplorations!

We're excited to share the new products coming to the shop in 2015.

For one, we're introducing a new product line to complement our stamps: ARTplorations stencils!

The January 2015 release will include 8 super-fun stencils. Check them out!