Stamper of the Year 2012!

Have you seen our brand new format Stamper of the Year Competition for 2012?

This all new competition runs over six months and there are some amazing prizes up for grabs. In the new format you'll have six chances to win, and each of our six winners will then fight it out to be Stamper of the Year and scoop a bumper prize package.

Round One is sponsored by PaperArtsy and to enter you need to make one item using a PaperArtsy product - how easy is that? I can't imagine there are many readers who don't have any PaperArtsy stamps in their stash! Or what about making with the lush Fresco Finish paints? Or PaperArtsy dies?

Full details of how to enter are in the latest issue of the magazine (p29). This first round of the competition closes on 31st May. Good luck!

Stamper of the Year Comp!

Hi all
Just a little reminder that there is still time to enter our fantastic Stamper of the Year competition! We are looking for entries from stampers in all styles, whether you make cute cards, mini albums, or weird and wonderful altered creations.

Details can be found on our website :). Remember you can enter via email as well as by post.

Closing date is 21st October and we have an amazing prize fund worth £2000 up for grabs!

Can't wait to see your entry!

Sneak Peeks!

With the next issue due on sale soon (6th August) I thought I'd tease you a bit with a couple of sneaky peeks at the content! These pictures are from two of my personal favourite projects from the magazine - both stunning, though completely different in style.

We also have a new feature starting up in the Sept issue called 'Designer's Palette' which will focus on colour schemes, with a little nod to colour theory too. Three of our regular team are taking turns on this article, and I think it will be a nice addition to magazine. I know some of our readers struggle to find new colour combinations, so hopefully it will be useful too.

Last but of course not least, you'll find full details of our Stamper of the Year competition in the magazine. This year we've made it easier to enter and also introduced a new category so NO EXCUSES - I want your entry here pronto!!!

Katy x

Can you guess what I've been doing today?

I've been prepping all the info for the STAMPER OF THE YEAR 2010 competition! Woo hoo!

I love this competition as we always get a great response and opening all the packages full of yummyness is one of the highlights of my year.

This year we've got four categories in the competition:
-Stamper of the Year (overall winner);
-Cardmaker of the Year;
-Altered/Mixed Media Artist of the Year;
-Scrapbooker of the Year (this is a new category for 2010).

Prizes are worth over £1700 and there are lots and lots of gorgeous goodies up for grabs that would keep any stamper happy for many an hour.

Full details will be in the Sept issue - sorry, you've got to wait until 6th August for that!

Stamper of the Year Winner Blogs

Hi all
I thought you folks might like to learn a little more about the winners in our Stamper Of the Year Competition 2009. So here are some blog links for you to take a peek at. Unfortunately one of the runners - up Vicky Fothergill - doesn't have a blog at the moment but here are Susan and Clare's bloggies:

Our winner Susan Jenneys' blog

And our best card category winner Clare Earl's blog

Enjoy!

Stamper of the Year reminder

Just a reminder that the closing date for the Stamper of the Year competition is 16th October, so if you want to enter you better get your skates on!

Send or email your stamped creations to us (details here) - you've nothing to lose and you could win over £1000 worth of fantastic goodies.

Three of the entrants from last year - Kate Bentley, Hannah Milburn and Kim Costello - have allo contributed to the magazine as a result. You could be next!

Stamper of the Year - yay!

Just a reminder that we launched our Stamper of the Year competition in the September issue of the magazine. This was such a huge success last year, I really hope you will consider entering. We have made things easier this year too - you can make your initial entry via email rather than sending creation into us, and we will only ask for actual artwork if you are shortlisted. So you've nothing to lose really!

There is a fabulous prize on offer provided by lots of our supporters. They have been so generous this year with their donations and I'd like to say a big thank you to all of them. Their details are listed on the website and in the magazine.

Send your entry today and you never know, you could end up as a regular on the CS team like our winner from last year, Kate Bentley. I really loved judging this last year and I really look forward to seeing what you create :).

More details are on the Craft Stamper website.

Meet Stamper of the Year Kate Bentley!

I asked Kate, winner of the 2008 Stamper of the Year competition (that's one of her winning entries on the right), to tell us a little bit about herself. Here's what she sent to me:

"I live in North Yorkshire with my partner, Pete, and our son, Matthew. I work full time as a finance manager at the British Library – no jokes about creative accounting please! I love nature, bright colours, gothic and other fancy architecture, singing (very out of tune) and chocolate as well as crafting. Over the years I’ve done dress making and knitting (before they were fashionable again) and cross stitching before moving onto paper crafts.

I have been stamping for about 10 years (or more like 40 if you count potato printing and lino prints at primary school). The first stamp I bought was actually for my son who as a toddler had a favourite story about lady birds. After that I bought some kids alphabet sets with pictures and made flash cards and alphabet sheets, then Disney stamps to do craft with him. Gradually I have progressed to more grown up themes and making cards, swapping ATCs and the like.

What I love about stamping is that, with no artistic talent or training, one stamp enables me to create everything from a professional focal image to a component in a back ground. I don’t often do the same thing twice, I’m always experimenting and trying something new so the versatility to work with an individual stamp in a variety of media and to combine stamping with other crafts is appealing too. My overall favourite stamp company are Crafty Individuals. I love flowers, birds and the like which feature prominently in their collection. I also like Paper Artsy’s Ink and the Dog and Urban Snapshots ranges and Invoke Arts for something a little out of the ordinary. I have also just discovered Darkroom Door stamps which have the added benefit of coming in gorgeous tins.

A year ago I joined a fantastic Yahoo group called Alter-Native whose membership of kind, generous artists have (unknowingly) supported me whilst I developed the confidence to try out new things and to share my work with others via monthly skinny book page swaps and altered book round robins. Entering the competition was a continuation of the personal challenge, both to try some new projects and to have the confidence to push my work out to a wider audience. Although I do make quite a few cards to raise money for charity, my style of work doesn’t lend itself to neatness and precision. You won’t find matting and layering with straight, even borders or painstaking shading in my work! I therefore decided to focus on non-card entries and started by thinking of media I thought I could successfully stamp onto; the rest was something of an experiment to see what developed.

My immediate reaction to winning the competition was to jump up and down, squeal loudly and giggle a lot! That was followed by frequent checking in the magazine to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. Now the prize goodies have arrived and it has really sunk in, I have to admit to feeling quite proud of myself."

Congratulations again to Kate!

Jan issue and Stamper of the Year!

January issue is out this Friday, so here's a peek at the front cover. That's Marlene Ashby's fabulous CD mailer card on the front cover - love that project - and there's lots more to tempt you inside. Although there is a Christmas card on the cover, there is plenty of non-Christmas stuff too, if you've already got the festive season done and dusted (you're more organised than me if you have!).

If you still have cards to make, the lovely PaperArtsy poinsettia cover mount will be really useful.

PLUS - I am very excited about this issue as we announce the winner of our Stamper of the Year Competition! Sorry, not allowed to reveal the winners - you'll have to wait for the magazine to come out!!! But there is some gorgeous work in there from our very talented readers, so well done to all the entrants.

Finally, we are launching our blog challenge, which will link in with one of our projects each month. Details will be uploaded here each month on the on-sale date, so be sure to call back on Friday.

Katy x