A Blog Called Wanda

Stamp-tember Exclusive from Altenew and Simon Says Stamp!

 

 

Hi stamping friends! Today is the day I know a lot of you have been waiting for! The big reveal of the exclusive Stamp-tember stamp set from Altenew! Yay! The day is here and it's now available at Simon Says Stamp. Click the above graphic to go straight to the Stamp-tember items in the SSS store. I adore the Altenew three step florals, and this new one is just as gorgeous as all the rest. I made a cheery birthday card in shades of feminine pink! 

 

 

 

 

I used a very light pink, a medium rose pink and then a red for my color layers. I love red and pink together! For the leaves, there are also three stamps and here you can see the different shades of green too. I hand cut out the flowers and leaves and had fun arranging them until I got them just right! 

 

 

 

 

I wanted a little pop of color behind that big white panel, so I used the Let's Polka paper pad from Lawn Fawn and selected a pretty pink polka dot pattern. I added some sequins at the end also. Then, at the very last minute I threw in a tiny pop of yellow! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the full stamp set reveal: 

 

Thanks for sharing in all the excitement with me all month! Hasn't Stamp-tember been amaaaaazing!? I will be back on Wednesday with my Tim Holtz Color Pop feature using Ground Espresso. I CANNOT wait to share that with you! 

 

CLICK HERE to see what the other designers made with this set today! 

Papertrey Ink Customer Blog Hop - Fall Chalkboard!

Happy Friday! Fri-yay! How was your week? Hope it was excellent! I've had a wonderful week with lots going on. Tuesday I was able to finally get to San Francisco to meet my sweet friend's new baby boy! (I got a cold the last time I was supposed to go, and didn't want to make him sick). We had a marvelous visit and he is cute as a button! It's been about a million years since I held a tiny baby. I loved it. I've been doing lots of stamping, reading and pondering also. There are three excellent books I've been studying and reading (CLICK HERE) and they are opening my mind to an entirely new way of thinking about being an artist and creative person. God is sending me exactly what I need, and it is magical. I'm feeling super positive and blessed right now. Lucky me. Grateful me. 

Today I'm sharing the card I made for the Papertrey Ink Customer Blog Hop for this month! YAHOO. The inspiration image is GORGE. I was all on board right away. The hard part with this one is that I had TOO many ideas! One of my favorite stamp sets from PTI is called Graceful Greetings and I used that set with the chalkboard stamping technique. Then I accented my card with the (new to me) Branching Out die. Hope you likey.  

 

 

 

 

Instead of using pure black paper, I went with the Smokey Shadow paper (also from PTI). I think it's just a shade lighter than black and that makes it look more like a chalkboard. And, it's just a bit softer. For my leaves, I die cut the image with watercolor paper and then used several shades of Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a water brush. (Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon) (now I'm hungry, LOL). Then, I layered my card with a small edge of bright yellow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Inspiration Image for this month! 

CLICK HERE to see Betsy's tutorial on Chalkboard technique.

 

 

 

After I stamped my main sentiment, I added a heart and some swirls from different stamp sets. I also used some dots too. The main images were all heat embossed with Versamark Ink and white embossing powder. I used my finger and added some very light smudges of white ink around the words to really look like chalk. I wanted to mimic the berries in the photo so I used a few right red enamel dots.

 

 

 

 

The Branching out die is very large, so after I inked it up, I ended up cutting two of them into pieces to layer around my focal point. 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the Papertrey Ink Blog to see all the other entries - and to enter your own creation! It's open to anyone and everyone and it's so fun to play along! Have a great weekend. XOXO

Stamp-tember Exclusive from Hero Arts and Simon Says Stamp!

 

 

Hello my sweet crafty friends! Happy weekend! YAY! The Stamp-tember awesomeness continues! Hasn't it been such a fun month of new surprises and new stamps every week? There is still more to come! This week we had the release of an exclusive stamp and die set collaboration between Hero Arts and Simon Says Stamp. I know I will use this set a lot. It's perfect for many occasions when you need to let someone know that you're thinking of them and lifting them in prayer. 

I made a clean and simple card using the beautiful Stitched Daisies Dies and the new stamp set called Prayers. This card layout can be made in any color palette and is easy to pop in the mail. My finished card is four and a half inches square.  

 

 

 

 

I die cut my flowers out of white paper and then colored them with Squeezed Lemonade and Wild Honey Distress Inks and a sponge dauber. I die cut the prayers die from crisp black paper. I always have loved the combination of yellow, white and kraft together. I think it feels friendly and sweet. I added the tiny hearts to the flower centers (they come with the stamp set) 

 

 

Here is the graphic for the entire stamp and die set.

Click the image to order it from SSS!

Thank you for once again joining me in the Stamp-tember festivities! Hope you have a marvelous Fall weekend planned. See you soon! XOXO

My Favorite Things Stamps - Card Contest! Fall Cards!

OOOOOOOOH! I am SO excited to share these cards with you today! My new SSS/MFT order came in over the weekend and I was waiting for these two new Fall stamp sets to make some cards. The stamps are entirely too adorable. I wanted to make some cards for the Card Design Superstar Contest on the MFT blog and I am getting my cards done and entered just at the last moment. Whew! I hope you like them as much as I liked making them. Click on the link if you want to enter some cards too! You have until the 18th...tomorrow! 

My favorite crafting season is in full swing now! I got out all the Halloween crafty stash this week, and the Fall stash too. Beautiful warm colors of orange and gold and olive. Ahhhhhh. Now for some apple cider and a sweater!

My first card was made with the new set called Harvest Mouse. EEEEEK. This is one little mouse I'm not afraid of! He's so sweet! I also combined some stamps with the Sunflower Sweetheart set to make a Fall scene. (I used the wheelbarrow from that set!) My card layout was made with the Blueprints 14 dies set. I tried all different combinations of papers with this one, but ended up clean and classic with cream, orange and kraft.  

 

 

 

I colored all my images with Copic markers. I used cream cardstock as my base. I used the matching dies to cut out all the images. The little pile of leaves fit perfectly in the wheelbarrow! Yes! I cut out a bunch of extra pumpkins too for accents. Here you can see that at the end I added pretty prisma glitter to have some sparkle. 

 

 

 

I made my own pumpkin/flower embellishment to put at the top of the card by my sentiment. The sentiment was stamped in brown ink onto a flag stax die cut. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this top-down view you can see I've layered all my pieces with foam tape, but it's still flat enough to mail. I love using the Blueprints dies to do my card layouts. 

 

 

 

 

For my second card I used the new Pure Innocence Thankful Friend stamp set! I was completely inspired by THIS CARD that Donna Mikasa made for MFT release week. She is one of my very favorite crafty gals and she used colored pencils on kraft paper for this particular image. GENIUS I tell ya! So I changed it up just a bit and used my watercolor pencils on kraft paper. I matched my colors to the MFT plaid paper I wanted to use on my card. 

 

 

 

I layered two Cross Stitched Squares dies for my focal image. It felt like it needed something more.... I added some cute fluttering orange leaves and then put the card together! I wasn't even sure watercolor pencils would work on the kraft paper - but I like it! I learned to use just the tiniest amount of water...and wait for it to dry before determining if you like it or not. The water really darkened the paper and at first I was worried. But it dried really nicely. I went back at the end and used a white pencil to add a few highlights. 

 

 

 

 

Isn't this the sweetest sentiment! I like to acknowledge my friends at Thanksgiving and Autumn and this would be the perfect stamp set to use to make 'friend' cards! I recently discovered MFT Black Hybrid Ink... where has that been all my life? Supah crisp! I used the Stitched Scallop Edges die to make a little orange border. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are my Fall creations! 

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POST ABOUT THE CONTEST, AND TO ENTER YOUR CARD TOO! THERE ARE ALREADY OVER 400 ENTRIES!  Thanks for coming by today - wish me luck with the contest! XOXO

Simon Says Stamp October Card Kit - pretty butterflies!

 

Hi there! How are you? Our weekend was full of lots of creative time and football time! I hope you had a nice weekend where you live! I'm here today for the Simon Says Stamp October Card Kit Blog Hop! Woot woot! Loads of projects on this hop. And, this kit is so great! 

Today's card features the gorgeous new October 2015 Card Kit from Simon Says Stamp. WOW. These colors! The entire kit is so fresh and pretty and feminine. Lots of pink and gold and some very cool project cards - think typewriters and hearts and butterflies. Delicious! 

Did you arrive from the extra fabulous Shari's Blog? Welcome! If you need to start at the beginning of the hop CLICK HERE. After me is the awesome Yana! So much inspiration today. It's one of my favorite things -- to see what we all make when given the exact same supplies. 

Here's the card I made for the hop today: 

 

 

 

 

I layered a bunch of the papers together and then layered on the butterfly project card last. The kit comes with a gold ink pad and I stamped one of the sentiments onto a paper flag. I cut some of the butterflies out of the patterned paper and scattered them on my card. 

 

 

 

 

I distressed all my edges and turned up the corners, for a more shabby-chic look. Then I die cut the "hello" die cut in rich black to offset the pretty colors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you've found some card kit inspiration here. This one is a great one!! It's perfect for cards and also really great for you Project Lifers out there! I like that Simon Says Stamp will let you buy one kit at a time without a subscription so you can do what fits your budget and style. Thanks Simon!! 

If you DO subscribe, subscribers pay just $24.95 plus S&H for the kits. Non subscribers pay $29.95 per kit plus S&H. The kits are a "no obligation" subscription so you can subscribe and opt out for any month.  The kits ship from 17th through 27th of each month. 

 

PRIZE ALERT!!!! Simon is going to select a random blog comment on EACH and EVERY stop along the hop to receive a $25 gift card to redeem at SSS. YAY! Winners will be announced this Friday! 

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL THE AVAILABLE KITS! 

Have an awesome week everyone! Thanks for hopping by!

Next stop on the hop is Yana Smakula! 

Here's your Blog Hop link list! 

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Debby Hughes

Heather Ruwe

Kristina Werner

Laura Bassen

Lorraine Aquilina

Lucy Abrams

Nichol Magouirk

Shari Carroll

Wanda Guess

Yana Smakula

 

Stamp-tember Exclusive from WPlus9 and Simon Says Stamp!

 

 

Remember yesterday when I said I'd be back with more Stamp-tember fun? Well, here I am! Today's Stamp-tember release item is the super cute new collaboration stamp set with WPlus9! It's called "Band Camp" and it's just the more adorable thing! The sentiments are crazy cute and the images were so fun to color. This set is great for you band geeks or band moms... and you can customize the uniforms to your school colors! EEP. There are matching dies, too! 

CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE STAMPTEMBER SETS SO FAR! 

For my card I made a clean and simple design using a Fog cardstock card base. I used some papers from Lawn Fawn. My images were colored with watercolor pencils and a water brush. As I am known to do... I added some matching enamel dots! Hip Hip Hooray! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the images of the stamps and dies! 

Stamp-tember Exclusive from My Favorite Things and Simon Says Stamp!

 

 

 

Dang, this week went by fast! Happy Friday! How are you? I'm good - busy, but good. There is so much going on this month already. College Football started (yay), we made our first trip up to Apple Hill for donuts and cider, and I can feel the light changing, signaling my fav season. it's been two months since I left my corporate job and I'm finally calmed down! Wow, it has been a weird transition, and I'm so super grateful. Life is good. And I hope life is good for you too. Hello to all my new readers and followers! Stamp-tember has been a little crazy! 

I'm blogging today to share a card I made with the awesome new collaboration stamp set between My Favorite Things and Simon Says Stamp! The limited edition set is called "Thanks for Being There" and it's a beautiful sentiment set. There are two large words in a pretty brushed font and then several smaller sayings in a different font. I love that look, don't you? And, I LOVE Stamptember! So many new stamps getting released, practically every day! Are you having fun seeing all the new products? I will have more tomorrow, too. Stay tuned! 

For today's card I used the new stamp set "Thanks for Being There" along with the "Modern Blooms" stamp set and the Cross Stitch Squares dies...all from My Favorite Things. I used an Autumn color palette with some kraft and cream cardstock. I love using Fall colors! 

 

 

 

 

 

My card base is kraft cardstock. I stamped some of the flower images with Versamark ink for a watermark effect. My main focal piece is cream cardstock. I stamped my sentiments in a rich brown ink. Then I gently edged the panel with Antique Linen Distress Ink and a sponge dauber. I stamped and cut out some of the flower images from Modern Blooms and mounted them with foam squares. 

 

 

 

 

This stamp set is the PERFECT size for cards! 

 

 

 

 

 

 Here is what the full stamp set looks like: 

 

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL THE STAMP-TEMBER STAMP SETS! YAHOOOOO!

Have a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for coming by today! 

Halloween Medallion with Brenda Walton Dies!

Hello creative friends! I have such a fun project to share today! It's my first official Halloween project for 2015! Yay! My super sweet, amazing and talented friend, Brenda Walton, has asked me to create some projects to showcase her awesome craft dies! So I'll be creating some Fall and Winter projects over the next couple of months and I could not be more happy about this! I'll be using the Brenda Walton dies from Sizzix and we are going to have big fun! The Brenda Walton style is pretty and whimsical and nostalgic in all the right ways, and it's a style I have long admired and used in my own crafting. 

I love anything that is retro/old fashioned Halloween! Glitter and pom poms and rosettes and cute figurines. Love it all. My goal with today's project was to create a new piece that has that retro feeling. My finished item is a wall hanging that you can hang on the front door or use as interior decor for the holiday. Here it is on my front door!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the base of the piece I used the Brenda Walton Large Medallion Die and cut eight pieces out. Then I folded each one along the creases. There are diamond shaped cut outs in the folds and I like it when the diamonds are at the top of the creases. I used some cool Halloween paper with cool script and big spiders on it! Here are my pieces ready to assemble. 

 

 

 

 

After I glued the eight pieces together I made my medallion and secured it with a scallop circle on the top and the bottom (made with a craft punch). For this step I use hot glue and put a lot of it on both the bottom and the top. The scalloped circles hide the glue, and give you a nice smooth base to attache your other goodies. 

 

 

 

After I made my main piece....I thought hmmmm...how can we add some orange!? So I cut out six medallion dies with orange harlequin paper (From an old Brenda Walton paper pad!) I cut 2 and a half inches off the bottom of each of the pieces and that made a smaller medallion. I glued it onto the first one as you see here. 

 

 

 

 

I die cut several of the Brenda Walton Celestial Stars Dies out of black paper and then covered them in dream black sparkly glitter. Spooky and pretty at the same time! This was the best part! (But there is currently black glitter everywhere in our house! LOL) I made some of the smaller size star and then one of the medium sized star which. If you glue two of the medium stars together it will make a 3-D star. The die set has three sizes. 

 

 

 

 

To attach my stars to my project I first glued them onto some long straight pins. I used glossy accents for this step. Then you can attach the stars and they look like they're floating on the project. 

 

 

 

In my stash I found an awesome spider web doily (I think from Michael's) and some pretty silver paper. The Happy Halloween stamp is from a Hero Arts clear stamp set. The banner is hand cut. In this photo you can see that I gently sponged the edges of my medallion pieces with jet black ink. I added some hanging paper flags on the bottom. 

 

 

 

 

I cut a scalloped circle from silver paper and mounted it over the spider web doily. Then I used the center label piece from the Brenda Walton Trophy Die set. It comes with an embossing folder for this very awesome effect! The numbers are from the Brenda Walton Numbers and Dies Thinlits set. Of course I made them from black paper! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please click here to see the entire Brenda Walton die collection from Sizzix!

There are new dies about to be released next month and you can see those too!

Thank you for spending some time with me today. I hope you'll make a fun Halloween medallion too! Or a Christmas one... Hmmm, the ideas are flowing! See you soon! XO

Stamp-tember Exclusive from Mama Elephant and Simon Says Stamp!

  

 

Hi friends! Yowza! The Stamp-tember fun continues in a big way! There was a giant blog hop, and so far two amazing and exclusive stamp sets have been released from Pretty Pink Posh and Tim Holtz. YES! Today we are launching the Stamp-tember stamp set from Mama Elephant! The set is called Skater Kids! 

Before I get started today I wanted to say a GINORMOUS thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last blog post! Yeah! You guys know how to make a girl feel good for sure. I read every single comment and I'm so touched and happy that I am able to inspire you. That is what keeps me creating and blogging. You are the bomb! I'm very lucky. 

Speaking of lucky.... Last week I got an advance copy of the awesome new Exclusive Mama Elephant stamp set that was created just for Stamp-tember! It's seriously the most adorable stamp set. There are matching dies too - bonus! There are sweet animals that mix and match with little tiny board shorts. OMG. I was cracking up cutting out those tiny shorts with my Big Shot! LOL. 

The stamp set is now for sale! A bunch of us made some projects to inspire you and showcase the new set. CLICK HERE to see the Simon Says Stamp blog post with all the blog links. Have fun! My card is a happy birthday card in a cheery color combo of orange and blue. Take a look.... 

 

 

 

 

I colored my little critters with watercolor pencils and then created a funky watercolor background and cut that into a circle. No birthday card is complete without sequins! I used the Femme Frames dies set from Mama Elephant for my card layers. That is a set of dies I use over and over. EEEEK. How cute are they!? 

 

 

 

 

A little bit of orange twine at the top completes the look. Happy Stamp-tember! Hope your Labor Day weekend is fun and fabulous. See you soon! XO 

 

This graphic shows the entire stamp set! 

Happy STAMP-tember Blog Hop!

 

 

Hello my dear crafty friends! It's Stamp-tember! Click here to read more about what amazing fun that means for us! Stamp-tember is a month long creative celebration put on by the lovely folks at Simon Says Stamp. This is the seventh year of Stamp-tember! I love it because it's a time for all of us to share inspiration and creativity with each other. All month there will be prizes and tutorials and inspiring things. You don't want to miss any of it!! Our creative community is so fun and it's great when we can all celebrate together. Many thanks to Heidi for this wonderful event. XO 

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE NEW RELEASE!

For me, Stamp-tember is always the kick off to my favorite crafting seasons....Fall and Winter. There are so many beautiful products this year. Wow. And, all month long there will be new products rolling out. There are special and limited edition product collaborations with many of our favorite companies. I literally cannot wait! I feel so very fortunate to be a part of all of it! Truly. 

Today is the big Stamp-tember Blog Hop! Woooo hoooo! What a great way to kick off the festivities. CLICK HERE to see the entire blog line up. Did you arrive here from Lisa's Blog? Yeah, isn't she fabulous??At the end of my post, I'll give you the link to the next stop of the hop - amazing Yoonsun! 

You guys know me by now, and you know I can't share just ONE card with you right? I have three to share today. Two Fall cards and one CAS floral card. I'm featuring so many of my favorite new items from the collection. Okay, let's get started! 

Fall hugs! I used the Stitched Pumpkins, the Alphabet Blocks, the Stitched Ovals, and the Scripty Big Hugs dies for this project. I also used the pretty leaf stamp as an accent from the Oh Happy Day stamp set. I added just a touch of pretty plaid paper and some kraft cardstock. MMMMM. 

 

 

 

 

I cut out my pretty stitched oval and used a sponge dauber to ink the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink. I stamped my background leaves also in Antique Linen ink. I die cut the stitched pumpkins from vanilla cardstock. I colored the pumpkins with three shades of yellow and orange distress inks and a small sponge. The quick and easy way to have "highlights" is to leave some white space in the middle of all of your inking! I colored the leaves the same way and mounted them onto my oval with foam tape. I REALLLLLLY love these pumpkins!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up are some pretty Autumn sunflowers! For this one, I created my own loose gingham background paper with the new Basic Stripes stamp set and some SSS Willow Ink. I also used the new Radiant Sunflower Dies (swoon) and the Oh Happy Day stamp set with matching dies. 

 

 

 

I cut the die shapes out of brown Bazzill cardstock and the flower petals out of white cardstock. I inked the flowers with a few shades of SSS Inks - and the leaves too. I used the same color of green (Willow) on the leaves and the gingham - to tie my project together. The background was easy to make using the stripes stamps! 

 

 

 

The sentiment is stamped in rich brown ink onto cream cardstock and cut out with the matching tag die. I added some rustic twine and some bright yellow enamel dots to finish it off! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last, but not least, I HAD to use this gorgeous new Stitched Daisies die! It's sooooooo pretty! I used a sheet of Lawn Fawn printed paper and then matched the ink to it. I used the Best Hugs stamp set for my bold crisp sentiment. This is a quick and CAS card that would work for just about any occasion! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whew! Thank you so much for coming by today and sharing my excitement about Stamp-tember! Next up on this super fab blog hop is the wonderful Yoonsun Hur! I guarantee you're going to love what she made! Get to hoppin! And, remember, there are LOTS OF PRIZES so be sure to leave comments on every blog! Until we meet again my friends..... Here are your links for today: 

 

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE STAMP-TEMBER RELEASE!

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE BLOG HOP LIST!

 

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE SNEAKS ON INSTAGRAM!