July CREAM OF THE CROP!!

Hi!

How are you all doing this fine Saturday?? Anyone excited about our announcement on Tuesday??

I AM! I can't wait to share with you this great big secret we've been keeping! SO exciting!

I'm also VERY excited to share our picks for this month's "Cream of the Crop!"

You gals are pulling out your Market Street Stamps more and more each month! I LOVE browsing the Market Street Stamps galleries and Facebook page to see what you are making! Keep up the great work! 

Before I share the winners, we would like to encourage everyone to join in on the fun! It's super easy to enter and you can enter as many times as you want! Show us your best work!

Thank you to ALL the wonderful designers that shared their project with us this month!

So..... here are three projects that caught our eye and stood out- well executed, creative, and inspiring!!

In no particular order, here are the three designers who are the "Cream of the Crop!"

VICKI MELOTTE REYNARD

Vicki WOW-ed us on Facebook early in the month when she shared this super sassy card on our Facebook wall! She used Fasionista and Zebra Print to create these fabulous pumps- pair it with a super chic color palette and you've got a beautiful card! LOVE it, Vicki!

Stop by Vicki's blog and show her some LOVE- Crafting with Vicki

LORI TECLER

This is Lori's second time being spotlighted as the CREAM OF THE CROP and there is no wonder why- Lori has AMAZING style and shows us just how creative she can be with her Market Street Stamps each and every month! This month was no exception- she pulled out her Chillaxin' set and made a few different beautiful scenes. I LOVE the warm feel of this one- makes me feel like I'm sitting right there on the beach!

Stop by Lori's blog to see what else she has made with her Market Street Stamps- Inking Aloud

DEBBIE CARRIERE

Debbie is a super talented lady (not to mention she was was one of the Top 10 in the Paper Crafts Gallery Idol!!) so I was thrilled when I saw this beautiful clean and simple card in our Splitcoast Gallery! LOVE the color combination she chose and that cool drink from the Tiki Time set sure does look refreshing!

Stop by and visit Debbie's blog- Scrappin' My Heart Out for a serious dose of inspiration! 

Ladies- please contact me
{steph at marketstreetstamps dot com}

to collect your $20 gift certificate and the code for a blinkie that you can proudly display on your blogs!!

So... who will be the

"Cream of the Crop"

for August?

Here's how you can play along!!

The details:

The Cream of the Crop Spotlight is a merit based contest- we're looking for projects that catch our eye, but we also encourage stampers of all skill levels to upload their cards for consideration! We will be looking for projects that are well executed, use Market Street Stamps in a new and fun way, have great use of color, and have amazing overall design. Most importantly, we want to see what you're making!

• Deadline to get your project in will be the last Friday of the month
• Cream of the Crop Spotlight projects and winners will be announced that weekend!
• Spotlight winners will EACH win a $20 gift certificate to the Market Street Stamps store!
• If you are chosen, in addition to the $20 gift certificate to the Marketplace, your project photos will appear on the MSS blog (as well as a link to your blog (or gallery if you do not have a blog) !
• You may upload/link as many projects as you like!

You have until midnight on August 26th to share your projects and be in the running for August's Cream of the Crop!

Here are links to places I'll be looking for your projects:

• Market Street Stamps on Facebook
• Market Streets Stamps on Twitter
• Market Street Stamps Flickr group
• Market Street Stamps SCS gallery (keyword: marketstreetstamps)

We LOVE to see your projects! Keep up the great work!!

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Hey everyone, Samantha here... again!! I have another card to share with everyone today using Market Street Stamps. This card is was sort of an experiment, but I am super happy with the results. So the part I experimented with was the tree. I used the Of The Same Tree stamp set for the tree. I inked the top of the tree stamp with two different shades of green in random spots, then stamped it. I then re-inked the stamp and lined it up with the previously stamped image, then stamped on top of it. I repeated this a couple more times to create layers of color on the tree. I did the same technique with the trunk of the tree too, I just used brown ink. After all the pieces were inked, I cut out the top of the tree then attached it to the trunk. I used the Sure Miss You stamp set for the face. The sentiment is from the Homegrown stamp set. The background is the Lost Garden stamp set. I finally accessorized the tree with tiny heart buttons. I hope you enjoy my card!

Out of This World

Hey everyone, Samantha here! I hope you are having a wonderful day. I want to start off this blog post by thanking Angelica for giving me another opportunity to be apart of the Market Street Stampsdesign team! It is beyond words how happy I am to continue being apart of such a wonderful team filled with brilliant designers. I love the sense of community and friendship you build with people through blogs and message boards. It allows you to have endless amounts of inspiration right at your fingertips. I am always amazed and in awe of the talent, creativity, and individual styles all crafters have! I am fortunate to know Angelica for over a year now. She is one of the nicest, positive, and hard working people I have the honor of knowing. What I enjoy the most about Angelica's stamp designs is the versatility. She has a very eclectic style, which allows her stamps to appeal to a broad audience. I love to incorporate all the different styles in my projects! Her stamps always have a way of making me smile, and they are so much fun to use. I am so happy to be able to share more creations using Market Street Stamps products.

I have created a card to show you today using Market Street Stamps. This card was particularly fun, because I decided to use some bright florescent colors. I mean come on its a robot in space, it needs some brightness. I used all of different florescent colored Copic Markers to color the robot and the rocket ship. I used the Robo Star stamp set for the robot, and Blast Off of the rocket ship. Any of the sentiments on the Blast Off stamp set would coordinate perfectly with this card. I used the Too Many Martinis background stamp for the sky, and Lost Garden background stamp for the moon. For both of the background stamps, I stamped them with clear ink, sprinkled clear embossing powder, then heat set it. I used different shades of Memento ink to create texture. I hope you enjoy my card! I cant wait to share another one with you tomorrow!

Having Fun with Fashionista!

Hello!  It's me Anita Recksiedler with another guest designer post!  I hope that you are enjoying your summer and finding some time to stamp!  Today I have actually two cards to share using the Fashionista set and the Zebra background  Oh how I love these stamps!  I used to be quite the fashionista myself!  I still love fashion and buying clothes but I think papercrafting has taken quite a bit over!  Once I started stamping I got quite inspired and created two cards!

For this first card I was actually inspired by my daughter, well her clothes that is!  She has a dress in zebra in the colors I used (a dress that as soon as I saw it I had to get for her!)

I thought that it was quite suiting to the Zebra background stamp to play with a dress form die.  I stamped and embossed in pink on the dark brown cardstock and than die cut it.  I love how the zebra stands out! Added an ultra girly doily and some fun flower trim!

After making this card I couldn't stop playing with these sets so I created another card this time playing with turquoise:

For this card I used a journaling piece from Mind's Eye , it adds so much to the card as it's flocked!  Everything came together very easily once I picked this piece.  I stamped the Zebra background in brown for the background and turquoise for the shoes.  I added some matching ric rac and rhinestones.  Hmmm who wouldn't love those turquoise zebra print shoes?  I think I may give this card to my hair dresser, she has a zebra blow drier!

And there you have it!  I've really enjoyed being a guest designer for Market Street Stamps!  I want to thank Angelica for having me!  Thank you for being so nice and so easy to work with!  I hope that you all have a terrific day and would love it if you checked me out at my blog here.  Hope you have some time to stamp today! 

Announcing a new Senior DT Member!

Hi Everyone! Two Senior DT Announcements in one week! Phew! Well, this is our last Senior DT announcement until the FULL DT reveal next week. I hope you are ready - there are going to be some MAY-JAH (that was my Brit accent, needs work, huh?) prizes to be won and some fun surprises sprinkled throughout the day!

So, without further ado, the newest addition to our Senior DT is...

Samantha Casey! 

Samantha, like DoBea, was a design team member before we even had a Design Team! I am so fortunate to work with her and her creative mind both at Peachy Keen Stamps and here at Market Street Stamps. She is a master with her X-acto knife and I think the general consensus is that we'd all love to spend just one day in her mind! Not to mention she is sweet as pie and I had the pleasure of meeting her and her mama last year! Here are 3 of my FAVORITE projects  that Sam has created for Market Street (trust me, it was hard to choose just three)! 

Isn't this "Gone Campin'" card just dreamy? I love how she creates such beautiful scenes! 

Her cards are truly 'paper art'!

I had a good giggle when I saw how she made "Computer Cutie" hold a coffee cup. Just like a true computer geek would! They don't call it the "Java" platform for nothin', folks!

This card was heavily accessorized by Sam and her crafty knife skills! I adore how she turned "Robo Love" and "Robo Star" into a football player and cheerleader! 

I'm telling ya - SUPER hard to choose just three cards - especially when you take a peek at this post where she created a "Follow Your Heart" card for all 4 seasons! Simply beautiful!! 

Be sure to visit our blog the rest of this week for more Samantha inspirations! And, be sure to visit her blog and leave her a little love! 

Thanks so much for stopping by - see you soon! xo Angelica

Introducing a NEW Senior Design Team Member!

Hello everyone! I hope you've been keeping crafty while we are keeping our BIG SECRET! Yes, only a few more days until our NEW DESIGN TEAM is revealed! And you won't want to miss it! We'll have giveaways lasting all day long with a new designer announced every hour, on the hour! August 2nd is the big day - can't wait!! We have NINE incredibly talented designers joining our team and another new addition - but to our Senior DT!


I am so pleased to announced that Julie Ranae of Julie's Open Window will be joining our Senior Design Team! Julie is a sweet, knowledgable and all-around crafty girl whom I'm absolutely honored to have aboard!

Julie Ranae comes from The Forest City of Rockford, Illinois. She has been married to her British-import husband Paul for 20 years and is the mother of two children and is expecting her fourth grandson in July (any day now!).

Her professional background in retail marketing & consulting eventually led into her opening the largest rubber stamp and paper-crafting store in Illinois.  She has gone on to organize paper-crafting events and workshop and retreat weekends which have drawn crafters from all over the world.  She is currently a Creative Consultant for A Muse Studio, a wonderful line of rubber stamps that were once sold in her retail store, but are now only available through independent consultants.

In June 2009, she began a new journey with her creative blog Julie’s Open Window.  It quickly became an outlet for her passion of creative writing and a place to share her work.  Nearing its 2-year ‘blogaversary’, she is honored that nearly 700 people have become followers and participate in a variety of blog hops, challenges and fun when they visit.

She is the creator of the very popular weekly color challenge, The Play Date Café. Her newest challenge, which features the Clean & Simple-Style, is CAS-ual Fridays . She is also the Design Team Coordinator for The Twinery and Lil’ Inker Designs, designer and newsletter editor for The Craft’s Meow and is looking forward to be joining the Market Street Stamps design team.  Her work in the rubber stamping industry has been featured in a variety of trade publications and her designs have been featured in Scrapbook News & Review, Paper Craft Planet, CARDS and Moxie Fab World. 
She has recently become acquainted with Skype and can now be seen in front of the mirror, checking her makeup on an hourly basis...just in case someone calls!

Welcome to the Market Street Family, Julie!! This is the ador-a-ble card Julie made for me when she came to the Milwaukee Stamp & Scrapbook Expo! Love it! She used Follow Your Heart.

Thanks for stopping in, be sure to leave a little love for Julie over on her blog, and join us tomorrow where we'll introduce you to our LAST Senior Designer and start the countdown to our HUGE DT announcement!! Can't wait! xo Angelica

I Love this Life

As my introduction week winds down here, I have one last project to show you.
I love really great sentiment stamps, and I have to tell you, Market Street has some awesome ones. I find myself using the Simple Joys set over and over and over again. Not only are there 2 different fonts on this set, but the fonts work so well together, it is so fun mix and match.

On this card I used just the one type, but it totally describes how I am feeling lately. Not to mention the colors are the bomb, if I do say so myself ;)

I hope you are all getting excited to find out who is on the new Design Team. I know I am, as the suspense is killing me. Knowing the wonderful people that Angelica and Stephanie are, tells me it will be a great one!!

I'm a Lucky, Lucky Gal!!

I am so happy to be a part of the Market Street Design Team again, and am ready to jump in to a Senior Design Team spot with vigor. Angelica is one of the nicest, most creative souls that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I enjoyed the last term so very much and look forward to the next one tenfold.

The project that I have made for today is really near and dear to my heart. Though it is only a tag, it holds a sentiment that I try to follow emphatically. Without getting into a long drown out post {which would really happen if I didn't keep myself in check} I will say that though hard sometimes, I always let my heart be my guide.

For the background, I took the Here Comes the sun background and ran my Distress Stain {in Vintage Photo} all over it a couple of times. You may have to huff on the stamp quickly before you flip it over to stamp, but I though this gave it a great effect.

I hope you enjoy!!!

Color Cue Winner and Sketch Challenge 4

Hello and welcome back for our next Sketch Challenge! We have some great inspiration for you today, but before we get to that, let's announce the winner of the Color Cue Challenge for July.

Random.org chose:

Micia-Yellowbirdcreation

Congratulations Micia! You have won a $25 gift certificate for Market Street Stamps!!! Please email your information to angelica {at} marketstreetstamps {dot} com.

Now on to the Challenge:

 Inspiration:

Samantha

Stephanie

Tifany

DoBea

The PRIZE this week is a
Punched Tin Background Stamp!

In order to be eligible to win the prize please use the guidelines below:

*Use Market Street Stamps in some form or other.

*Create a card or layout based on the sketch above.

*Feel free to get creative and move things around, but please stick to the basics of the sketch.

*Have your project linked by Monday, August 1st at 11:59 p.m.

Technical Difficulty

Sorry about this but I am having some troubles with my computer and Internet this morning. Typing this from my phone is quite a hassle, so please bare with me. I will have the next challenge post up as soon as I can.

CHA and another Senior DT Announcement!

Hello Everyone! What a day! Three and a half hours, 200 miles, one large coffee (no bathroom breaks, either...), and some maddening morning metro traffic, Jorge and I made it down to the CHA trade show (Craft and Hobby Association) in Chicago for the day. Yes, just the day. (EEK!) I do have to admit, as soon as we walked into the convention center, it was all worth it!

Market Street Stamps is now an official member of CHA!  What does that mean? Well, it can only mean good things from here on out and we're so VERY excited!

See? I told you. OFFICIAL.

We got to meet some of our favorite people IN person! Some we didn't get photographs with, but we SO enjoyed meeting Lori Tecler, Jaclyn Miller, Amber Daigre, Windy Robinson, Kate from i {heart} papers, and many many more! I got to see my sweet friend Julie Ranae  again and even got to meet some new friends from Paper Crafts Magazine! Do you recognize them? :)

So sad my photo of Cath (Moxie Fab World) and I came out blurry - she and Susan are so kind and sweet! LOVED meeting them both!

 Ah! Imagine my excitement when Jess from KinderStampO and I bumped into each other! She has the most beautiful smile and radiates happiness! So glad we got the chance to meet finally in person!!

Really should have had my regular camera handy for these, huh?
Sorry for the iPhone pics!

And of course I can't forget Ms. Lydia Fiedler from Understand Blue (and she's also from a tiny little community called Splitcoaststampers)! She is as fun in person as she is online and I wish we got more time to chat!

We had a fantastic time and if you're heading to the show tomorrow you will NOT be disappointed!

Speaking of FANTASTIC...

are you anxious to see who our next Senior DT member is???

I am SO pleased to introduce my friend and one of the very first designers for Market Street (before there was even a team!) - 

DoBea Alberts!

I met DoBea in a Copic class last year and we hit it off right away! DoBea's always trying new things and pushing the envelope with the products that she tries. Some of my favorite techniques were learned in DoBea's basement and sitting next to her at crops. Whenever I'm stuck on a technique or not sure where to go with a design, I'll email or text DoBea because I think to myself, "She'll just know"! SO grateful to have her as a friend and a Senior Designer!!

Here are my TOP 3 favorite projects from DoBea over the last 6 months:

I just love the colors in this card - and the simple but well-placed twine and resin flower as accents. DoBea used our "Zebra" background, "Hippie Chic" (birds & sentiment) and "So Happy" (dashed and solid circle) to create this "unique" inspiration!

This was one of the first cards DoBea ever created with Market Street Stamps! The fold is so fun and the tamales from "BFF's"were colored so well! I just love it to pieces!

I love the "kiss" technique she used here! So imaginative and the result is so eye-catching! Here she used "Perfectly Pretty Grid" and "Here Comes the Sun" backgrounds.

We're SO glad to have you as a new Senior DT member, DoBea! 

Why don't you visit her and help me congratulate her? :)

Be sure to tune in again next Tuesday when we reveal our next Senior Designer!

Our new Design Team will be revealed August 2nd 

so mark those calendars!

It's going to be an all-day party and SO MUCH FUN!!

Thanks for stopping by!

xo Angelica

Sing Out

The creative process for this card was somewhat {okay...a lot} backward from what I normally do. I started off using the colors from the current Color Cue challenge as my inspiration.
{I didn't look at the colors right before starting and obviously I had a little memory lapse when recalling the turquoise...I thought it was a softer blue.}


From there I was sitting in my "craft room" {aka - a corner of our bedroom floor in front of my side of the closet} and spied a piece of a vintage carpentry estimate form from my Grandpa's former business. I thought it might be fun to use that as an extra element behind my stamped background, so I grabbed it.

Now how did I decide to use the Zebra Print background?
Well, honestly... it was sitting on my nightstand from a baby shower card I had created a few days back and it was already mounted to my stamp press...so I just went with it.

I don't have a good grey ink that I wanted to use, so I pulled out an old silver stamp pad {literally from the early 90's...and still plenty juicy} and inked up the background stamp.


I was looking through my collection of stamps from Market Street Stamps to find a sentiment and thought this one from the Hippie chic set would work well. To add in the blue, I inked the same sentiment {I did clean the stamp first} and used it to create a distressed type look around the edge of my background.

It still needed a little something, so I added some stars from the Blast Off set {LOVE those stars!} and mounted the whole piece to a red card base. I finished it off with some adorable {tiny} staples.

Even with the unfamiliar creative process I think the card turned out great. I guess that's why it is called creativity!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Please visit me on my blog - I love visitors!:



Supplies:
Cardstock: DiscountCardstock.com (Posh Red Pepper Linen 80#);
Stamps: Market Street Stamps (Zebra Background, Hippie Chic, Blast Off);
Ink: Tsukineko (Red Magic, Sea Breeze); Memories (Soft Silver);
Other: Vintage Estimate Form;
Tools: Tim Holtz (Tiny Attacher); Fiskars (Trimmer, Scissors); Martha Stewart/EK Success (Scoring Board);

Gather 'Round

Before I show you my card for today I just want to take a moment to say what an awesome experience this past term was with Market Street Stamps. I am SO excited about everything to come with this new term and my new position as a Senior DT member.
{And I think I am just as excited as everyone that applied for the new DT to see who the new members are! Can't wait!}

Okay, on to the card:


How adorable is that new Gone Campin' set?
Totally adorable, right?

I am sooooo not a camper, but I was immediately inspired when I received this stamp set and knew that the images would be great for coloring. {They are prefect for paper piecing, too!} I stamped each image a few times on a white sheet of cardstock and got out my Copic markers and had some fun.


I created a few sketches that would work well with focal images and decided to use this layout...clean and simple, but with a little bit of spunk thanks to the skewed mat behind the image. I then added some of The Twinery's twine for a fun accent and then adhered the focal image using foam tape for a bit of dimension.


Thanks for stopping by today!

Please visit me on my blog - I love visitors!:



Supplies:
Cardstock: DiscountCardstock.com (Gold 65#, Posh Milk Chocolate Felt 80#, Orbit Orange 65#);
Stamps: Market Street Stamps (Gone Campin');
Ink: Memento (Tuxedo Black);
Twine: The Twinery (Lemondrop, Marmelade);
Markers: Copic (Y00, Y04, YR12, R27, E25, E53, E57);
Tools: Fiskars (Trimmer, Scissors); Martha Stewart/EK Success (Scoring Board);