Blog Hop, Challenge, and Award Event for 2010!!

The Stamp Man Award for proudly presenting

my best craft project of the year 2010

With blog hop, challenge and prizes!

We are doing something a little different for Challenge # 13.  Last year we held our first awards event, the awards were for proudly presenting your best/favourite crafting project you feel you made during the year.   We are going to hold it again this year but we are also linking it with our fortnightly Challenge. 

We would like you to join in the challenge, which is to show us your best/favourite project of 2010.  The award blinkie is just a nice random award for anyone that joins in.  Display your award blinkie on your sidebar with a link back to this blog.

The most important part of this is that we would like you all to have fun and enjoy taking time to look back on your crafting over the last year. 

We are also holding another blog hop!  As you go through the blog hop you will see that the ladies on the design team have shared their favourite challenge projects with you too.  Their cards are shown below as usual but visiting their blogs will give more details about their projects, also they will be giving you clues for a chance to win prizes!

For the challenge and the blog hop, prizes will be randomly picked and given to those that have completed the following

• Join in the actual challenge with your best/favourite project linked with Inlinkz as usual
• Take your award blinkie with pride and display it on your sidebar with a link back to here.
• Follow your way around the blog hop in the order you are given along the way, collect all the letters/code you will find on each blog. Write these down then work out the answer when the blog hop is finished.
• Leave a comment on ALL of the blogs you visit in the blog hop 
• Post our event blinkie onto your blogs or a post about the event with your best/favourite project
• Email the answer to: thestampman@btconnect.com by 9pm (GMT) on Thursday 13th January 2011.  Please put blog hop answer as the email title

If you get carried away looking through the work on the blogs you visit and run out of time to complete the hop that day, make a note of where you stop and start again another day.  You have 2 weeks to complete the awards, challenge and the blog hop, so there is no rush to get to the end, enjoy the journey and admire the scenery along the way!

So, the blog hop starts here!

But first here are the prizes…

Cardmaker's Collection worth about £70, a general papercraft selection of stickers from 7 Gypsies, Doodlebug, rub ons, ribbon, and embellishments

Moonshadow Ink set of 6, with DVD.  Create background effects like those shown in the photo with instruction from the DVD, worth £35

Set of 4 Stazon Opaque ink pads, worth over £30.  The pads come with a reinker to ink up the pads.  The best use for this pad is for vellum and acetate as it is a permanent ink for both surfaces.

Set of 2 Non-Sequitur unmounted stamp sheets crammed with images, worth about £40.

Set of French Country Starburst Stains with an instruction DVD, worth £35.  I used this set to create this tab book

Now for my favourite project this year, Ian’s birthday card, I really enjoyed making it!  It is an 8" x 8" easel card, shown here closed.

I did write a very detailed technique tutorial for it if you are interested in reading all the details.  It’s spread over a few posts, here’s the intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and the finished card

Ok, so for the blog hop, your first letter is A

Don’t forget to leave a comment here and make a note of your first letter,

You now need to go to the challenge blog for your next letter and to enter your challenge project

Have fun hopping!!

I wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and thank you for visiting and leaving me comments this year

Jill

PS:  Unfortunately due to computer problems, Frankie is unable to join us, therefore you will be collecting 2 letters from Vix

The Stamp Man 2010 Awards Event, with a Blog Hop, FaBuLoUs Candy, and lots of FuN!!!!

Happy Christmas everyone!!

Thank you for following our blog and for your support and custom this year, it is truly appreciated. 

To celebrate we are holding another special event.

Starting Friday 31st December

Our next Stamp Man challenge is something ReAiLy SpEcIaL for the end of 2010

You are invited to join us at

Our 2nd Stamp Man annual blog awards event!!!


It's the same FuN and PoPuLaR event that we ran last year, and you don't have to make anything new so you've No ExCuSe FoR NoT JoInInG In:)

What we Do want to see is the best/favourite project YoU feel you made in 2010 entered on our challenge blog.


For this you can grab The Stamp Man Award, but to win the amazing prizes we have lined up for you, you HaVe to join in with AlL the extra fun stuff too!


Please don't be ShY, all the design team here are looking forward to seeing your amazing projects and having you join us for some New Year FuN!

So, start thinking about your favourite card/project of 2010 now, and then present it with us proudly!

Please pass on the news to your blogging friends with this blinkie, the more that join us the merrier it will be!!!

Have a happy and peaceful Christmas!

Jill

Blog hop, candy and awards event 2010!!!

This proved to be good fun last year and we hope you will join in again.  

I'll post the finer details nearer the time, but I'd be grateful if you could spread the word on your blogs, the more people that join in, the more fun it will be!!!

I hope everyone is getting on OKwith the Christmas prep and taking care in the icy weather! 

Jill

Challenge # 12 Anything Goes Tag

Time for another challenge!!  This time it is a tag of your choice, it can be Christmas or any theme you fancy.

For my tag I used

Hero Arts CG197 Old Letter cling stamp

Tim Holtz Alteration Dies - Tattered Floral, Regal Crest, and Elegant Flourishes

Starburst Stains

Black Webbing Spray (only available from the shop)

Moonglow Embossing Powder stamped 

with  TH Stamps - Reindeer Flight, and Hero Arts  S5449 Fabulous Flourish

Distress inks

Here's a few close ups

I used T!m's Tattered Floral die to cut the flower from a sheet of scrunched Starburst Stains paper that I had sprayed with webbing spray.  I've forgotten which set the stains came from, it is one I had made a while ago.  I used distress inks to create the background.

I added a few layers of the Moonglow wmbossing powder onto a cardboard tile before stamping into it to create the patterns.

I hope you have time to join in our challenge some time over the next 2 weeks, we'd love to see your tags.  Our design team have made real beauties, pop over HERE for a peek at them

How's your Christmas prep going?  It's not long until the big day now, I'm hoping we get it all done before the next lot of snow comes!!

Jill

USArtQuest collage

I thought today that I'd show another USArtQuest collage piece that artist and company owner Susan Pickering Rothamel made some years ago, it shows a number of products that I'll point out in the following close up pics so you can see how they have been used.

The pic below shows layered mica tiles along with mica flakes.  The background edge has a number of different coloured webbing sprays

You can see the colour of the mica flakes a little better in this photo

The background of the fern is Pearl Ex mica powders mixed with Perfect Paper Adhesive, yes adhesive = glue but in this case it makes a rich shimmery paint!  The colours really pop on dark card.

I hope you have a good day!

Jill

USArtQuest Faux Lace

Here's another card from my play time with USArtQuest products, back to the faux lace and vintage watercolour mica paint set!

Again, I ruched up the great tape and added those sprinkly Mica Flakes and D'Lights, then watercoloured with the vintage set.

I added a mini postcard from the travel (trains, planes, boats and places) mini postcards.  I cut down the postcard and distressed it as well as the large labels 8 nestie to create loads of texture on the card.

The colours aren't showing too well in the photos, the flower colour looks a little out of place here but it matches well with the cards shimmer in real life, how odd how the colours in our photos turn out wrong sometimes!

I used the Hero Arts Fabulous Flourish stamp on the border panel and added a couple of copper curly clips.

Everyone else in blogland are showing Christmas cards, so I'm feeling a little out of place showing non Christmas cards at the moment.  After 20 odd years of Christmas card making, I decided that this year I would stick to one design and you've already seen it (no surprises for anyone getting a card from me then!), I've made loads of them so, to be honest, I'm Christmas carded out!!!!  It's been nice to move onto new makes.

Can I shock you and tell you that I've already made 5 Valentines cards!  I'd like to be able to tell you they are all for Ian, lol!!!  Can you believe that two of them have already been lost in the post...So much for getting ahead of things!  I'm usually late for everything and this has proved that bad things can also happen when you're an early bird!!

I got our Christmas tree trimmed yesterday, so I'm feeling a little more festive.  I was down south last week for a very brief and rare trip just to visit my family, normal visits to them are when I've been down for some of the Create and Craft shows and if the timing is right I get to visit them so it was a great time to just focus the trip on visiting them, it was so LOVELY to see and spend time with them all and it just flew by far too quickly. 
 
Short notice I know, but Nigel fans (from Create and Craft), hit record for the Weakest Link on BBC1 at 5.15pm tonight.  Nigel is a contestant, I'm looking forward to watching that later!

Jill

More from the USArtQuest napkin kit

The bird is another napkin kit image that I've fixed to one of the ATC boards in the kit.  I used T!m's Elegant Flourish die to create a branch.

This piece was mounted onto a large Nestie 8 die cut that has been painted with Vintage watercolour mica paints.  I mixed one of the paints to a creamy consistancy then wiped my brush around the edges to give a distressed look.  I also painted the border and other background with the same watercolour paints.  I took the photo at a strange angle to catch the shimmery gold paint effect.  The paint set has a gorgeous blue that works perfectly with this napkin that you can't really see in the photo.

I used the Hero Arts cling stamp  CG197 Old Letter on the background.

To prepare the 'topper', cut out design, or if you want a wispy edged piece to collage then use a wet paint brush around the design, it will tear away easily.

Apply the Perfect Paper Adhesive to the board.

Use the sponge to gently remove any creases, use very lightly or the napkin will tear.

Apply glue to the edges of the reverve and fold napkin to the back.

It's an ideal card for any bird or nature lover.

I hope you are having a great weekend, at least it is a bit warmer outside!!

Jill

USArtQuest Napkin kit - Paris

The main image for this card is one of the napkins from the USArtQuest Napkin kit.  I fixed it to mount board and edged the piece using the Vintage watercolour mica paint, of course I had to add some shimmery bits, I couldn't help myself!!

I used scissors to cut a mica tile then stamped it with Stazon, it was part of a T!m stamp that I've also used as the background.  I added great tape to the napkin surface before adding the mica tile so that the glue doesn't show.

The card and mount were painted with the Vintage watercolour mica paints.  

The photo's below show more pieces I made on the USArtQuest workshop,.  The Christmas tree napkin that we used isn't in the actual kit but is very nice!

I used the watercolour mica paints that come with the set to add more detail, such as to the baubles.

Can you see that lovely shimmery effect on the surface, that is the super fine crystals, we don't have them separately yet but there is a jar in the napkin kit.

I'm lovin' this kit:)

Thanks for visiting!

Jill

Santa's Wish

I've combined T!m's Santa's Wish stamps with USArtQuest products for this card.

I used distress inks for the stamping, the largest labels 8 nestie for the main panel and the Christmas Wishes stamp from AOD 33 Holly Sprays.

The background on the base card is made using the Vintage set of USArtQuest watercolour micas.

I used several strips of great tape down the border and a little way across the bottom of the card.  I ruched the glue strips to created a faux lace effect.  I then sprinkled on mother of pearl and copper mica flakes.  The copper mica flakes have a verdi gris mix/effect which is yummy!

Oh, I just love all those bits of shimmery magic!!

I hope you have a good day.

Jill

Ribbons, embellishments and other things

Over the weekend I added LOTS of new products to our website, they are all things we've had in the shop but never on this current website.  There's lots of ribbon and also self-adhesive embellishments, just what you need to finish off those Christmas cards.

There's 4 different sets of mini postcards/cigarette cards, Christmas, Travel, Screen Stars and Roses HERE There are 40 cards in each set for £3.95.

Here's the link to browse our Embellishment section.  Most of the ribbon is £2.95 for 20 yard roll.

There are LOADS of different self adhesive embellishments, most are £1.99

Have you finished yourChristmas cards yet?  I've nearly finished mine, thank goodness, I'm at the finishing touches stage and needed some of these bits and pieces myself!

We've also reduced the price of lots of Hero Arts Christmas wood mounted stamps, clings and clear sets.

Well, that's just a quick post from me tonight!!

Jill