... Bold Lilies

I'm in shock, it's the first of July! How in heck? I really don't think I experience time the way everyone else in my house does, feel like I've just gotten squared up after Christmas... anywhoo...

Today I have another card, this time a set, that I shared at the release party - there was quite the scramble on the StampTV website at the release party and the whole thing sort of froze so I'm popping my cards up here for anyone who wanted to see them. Gina has just released a cracking new bunch of goodies, to see what's new click here.

Among the goodies is my new set Lovely Lilies (above), and in contrast to yesterday's card, I made this quick set of more contemporary styled cards using just two layers of the lily flowers plus the stamen. I used Wild dandelion ink and Sweet mango on white card and the stamens were stamped in Cherry Red Gina K ink. I made the card base from Sweet Mango Card.love the matchy matchy.

While I was at it I had fun playing with other inks from my Gina K collection. I love a stamp set that I can use to whip up fast cards!

Using Passionate Pink and Bubblegum Pink, again Cherry Red for the stamens.

 Jellybean Green, Grass green and Christmas Pine.

Hope they tickle!

...Lovely Lilies

Morning! Last night we had the Gina K new stamp release - there's a ton of new goodies available over at Gina's - to see all the new stuff pop over here.

My new set is called Lovely Lilies and it's a layering set that you can use in a few different ways. Here's what it looks like:

The main Lily image comes broken down into three solid layers plus a line art outline, plus a separate stamen stamp, and you can use all of these together or you can use only a couple of the layers, or maybe just the lineart outline - that's a good option if you like to colour with copics or pencils, or maybe watercolours.

Just in case you could use a little help putting these together I have a little graphic for you:

I'm still working on a video, but I can tell you right now that my favourite way to stamp these is to begin with the darker colour first and then stamp the medium tone over that finishing up with the lightest tone, it is way easy to line them up when you do it this way. Thanks for popping in, if you have any questions, just leave me a comment :)

...Special Lady and FREE Box cut files

Folks I still have a couple of things to show you that I didn't get time to post during the release.

One of them was the complete set of samples for my Special Lady project. I'm a bit of a magpie when it comes to stamping, I like a load of different styles but one thing I keep coming back to is Vintage. I just cannot get enough of those fabulous Victorian style engravings. My mother was a huge vintage/antiques fan and so I think I will forever associate Vintage style with Mother's Day projects. This latest stamp sets, Special Lady was designed with her in mind. Even though she passed away a few years ago, I haven't yet managed to design a Mother themed set without thinking about my wee mum. I think she would have loved this set.

My card is pretty straight forward, I really wanted to show off this beautiful lady image, I created this image by working with a few original victorian engravings, reconstructing the damaged areas and combining a couple of images to get this finished image of a pretty lady in a fancy hat. I paired this with a pretty font which has an old world feel. I simply stamped her in dark brown ink onto a tag I had cut with our stitched tags dies. I added just a little more pink into her hat with a copic marker.

Making Rosettes with a Picot Panel die

Do you like that little rosette? I have never made one of these before now - gasp - I know, I'm a few years behind the times. Turns out that it is super simple to make these and we already have the perfect tool! - the Picot Panel die. Here's how to make one using this die:

Line up your picot panel die face down on your patterned paper, I'm using a piece of 12 inch long designer paper. stick the die to the paper with a little masking tape. Run the paper through the die cutter, but NOT ALL THE WAY - stop short before you reach the end of the die and rewind back to get the paper and die out. 

Resposition the die, further down the paper, towards the end of this first cut - it is really easy to line up the die using the holes, you can see in the image below that I had marked a little arrowhead in pencil, along the right hand side of my paper to tell me where the end of the die was. I cut this in my Cuttle bug as the clear plates allow me to see where I am with the die cut in relation to the rollers.

If you keep going, you will eventually end up with a strip of paper like this. You can either slice this down the centre to get two small rosettes or use it whole for a larger rosette.

In order to make folding the rosette easier, I scored the strip of paper with the back of the blade in my scalpel. I scored in between each of the scallops. I trimmed off a strip about three quarters of an inch wide from one side as I did not want the rosette to be too big. Then I just concertina folded all the way along. I joined the ends together with some double sided tape, and gathered one side of the folded edges together and secured them with some hot glue from a hot glue gun. you can just see the glue in the smaller, unfinished rosette in the top left of the photo below. 

This pic also shows some little embellishments I made with some air drying clay. I just pressed some of the Cameo creations  stamps and the Cameo to go stamps into a piece of clay and let them air dry, then I coloured them pink with copics to match my project.

I used the small three quarter inch strip to make this mini rosette for my box tag.

 I used the other piece of my strip to make the slightly larger rosette for the card.

And I created another strip using the Picot Panel die and used it full size to create an even larger rosette for this box lid. I made a plainer pink stripe rosette also and layered it with the Snowflake 3 die cut - this is a surprisingly versatile die also, it's not too 'snowy-flakey' that you couldn't use it on everyday projects such as this one.

What's nice about the Picot Panel die is that it matches the pretty circles die, which I used on the inside of the card, to stamp my sentiment on.

Picot Panel

Pretty Circles

Do you like these little boxes? I made up a quick template for these and for one of the samples I cut out an aperture on the lid using the pretty circles die.

I love how the pretty circles die gives two results with one cut, like our other self matting dies. A label and an aperture in one cut.

I twas simple just to tape the die in place before running the box lid through the die cutter.

The Box cutting file is available as a .svg file for free in our freebies section at the store - just click here if you would like to have it! It's around 3 inches square, perfect for little gifts of all sorts, - it would also make a great cupcake box!

Sure hope it tickles!

...Release wrap up!

Good evening - I'm shipping like a mad thing and I want to thank everyone who stopped by our release! I have another sample for you this evening. This wraps up the official 'Release days' but I have a few things still left to show so you can pop back over the next couple of days if you like.

 Heads up - we still running our:

We want you to Pin your favourite samples created by the WMS Design Team or myself for this release to your own Pinterest boards. You can pin samples from any of this release's sample posts from either this blog or the DT blogs. Use this hashtag - #waltzingmouse, then come back and leave us a link to the pin in the comments on this post. For each project you Pin just leave a separate comment.

One random Pinner will be chosen just before midnight (GMT) on the 7th March. The winner will receive a lovely £30GBP store code!

For those of you who don't have Pinterest, just leave a little comment here on this post telling us what your favourites are. A random commenter from this post will also be chosen and will receive a free set of Kaboom Stamps. 

The DT have a little blog hop for us today as they  wrap up their release samples - So I will send you off to Laurie next, followed by:
Anya
Jeanne
Tosha
Becca
Lynn
Julia
Sandie

 

So I've been itching to do an inlaid die cut card and I couldn't wait to get my hands on this swirly Mother word die.

You are all professionals at this I know, but just humour me, I took the how-to pics and so let me show them to you anyhow...lol.

 Get yourself a Background - I chose to paint a heart with watercolours - I used a heat tool to dry it since I've no patience.

 Then I positioned the die over the heart and taped it in place with some lo-tack masking tape. I must tell you that I was cutting into watercolour paper, which is kinda thick and so I used a metal shim plate in my die cutting machine - have you used these? - they are terrific for detailed dies - I use them on all my fancy Spellbinder shapes.

 When I got the die cut out of the machine, I very carefully flipped over the card leaving the die in place in the paper. This is the back of the image. I applied a little glue to each area of the die cut NEGATIVE area - that's right, the area around the word, and not on the actual die cut word itself.

Then I laid a piece of spare paper directly on top of the area I just glued. Let it dry for a while, or don't, if you are like me.

 Now flip it back right side up and you will find that it is easier to pick out the letters as the background stays in place as it is stuck to the backing paper.

I cut a plain white Mother shape out of some of the same watercolour paper and set it back into the die cut heart - a few dabs of glue was all it took. Once it was all well stuck down I rubbed over the whole surface gently with a little scrunched up kitchen paper to remove any little papery wisps and to further bed the die cut in place. Loved it! AND I have a lovely spare pinky watercoloured sentiment now to use on another project! Hope it tickles!

...New goodies for February

Good evening and welcome to the first Product Release of 2015 at Waltzingmouse Stamps! A great big Welcome to all of our friends and to the new folks joining us for the first time - Hello, we hope you find something unique here! We have three new clear photopolymer (that's the good stuff) stamp sets and a bunch of new thin steel, USA made dies for you!

This release is a little different from our normal format - the products are going live right now, but we have another 3 days (after today) of fabby eye candy for you, showcasing what you can do with these new goodies - a couple of my samples are speckled through this post, I will be posting samples and how-to's over the next 3 days since there is too much for this one post. DT ladies showing samples with me today are:

Becca Feeken

Sandie Dunne
Laurie Schmidlin
Anya Schrier
Jeanne Jachna
Tosha Leyendekker
Lynn Mercurio
Julia Aston

There are just a few things I want to be sure that you know before we begin:

 We offer Free shipping on orders over £60GBP to anywhere. Yep, anywhere.

Our hugely popular Loyalty Scheme enables folks to gather points each time they order, points turn into discounts so it's worth joining if you have not already, for full details click here. Even if you have not shopped with us in a while, you may already have some points gathered up - we were able to backdate the scheme as far as 1 November 2012!

Folks we have a fabby little die giveaway this evening on the first 40 orders over £60GBP. It's a mini 'hello die, perfect for tags and other dainty projects. The promotion begins at 7:15pm UK time when the store re-opens. You don't have to purchase the new release items to qualify, all orders over £60GBP are in with a chance, but you will need to be quick, this offer is limited to the first 40 orders over £60GBP placed after 7:15pm this evening.

Also - don't forget you can still scoop some of the few remaining retiring sets at 40% off - click here to see retiring sets.

We are running a Pin it Competition for this release - we want you to Pin your favourite samples created by the WMS Design Team or myself for this release to your own Pinterest boards. You can pin samples from any of today's samples or from the next 3 days of samples from either this blog or the DT blogs. Use this hashtag - #waltzingmouse, then come back and leave us a link to the pin in the comments on this release blog post. For each project you Pin just leave a separate comment.

One random Pinner will be chosen just before midnight (GMT) on the 7th March. The winner will receive a lovely £30GBP store code!

For those of you who don't have Pinterest, just leave a little comment here on this post telling us what your favourites are. A random commenter from this post will also be chosen and will receive a free set of Kaboom Stamps

New goodies for Feb/March

and here they are!

Kaboom clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4
£9.95GBP 
Below is a card made with the Kaboom stamp set - I will have a full set of samples and tips for you on the blog over the next couple of days, there is just not enough room in this post!

Kaboom die £4.39GBP.
This die produces a die cut of the Kaboom word. It produces a two piece die cut - you can either use the word on it's own or with the outline shape to create comic style focal points and sentiments for your cards/Layouts.
This die produces a cut 3 inches wide by 1.25 inches high at the widest points. A great fun die - this tag below uses it - more tips to follow in the sample posts over the next few days!

Halftone Basics Backgrounds clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x8
£15.95GBP
Super useful set based on halftone printing techniques, great for comic styles, contemporary styles, mixed media, a truly versatile set.
Here it is on a 'Vintage Comic' tag - see what I did there? I merged two opposite styles...and I think it looks good!

Special Lady clear photopolymer stamp set - size 6x4
£9.95GBP
A vintage set featuring original Victorian art etchings and pretty sentiments.
I used my Special Lady set, together with the Pretty circle die on this project below - since today's post is a little image heavy, I'll pop up more pics of this and some 'how-to's' on the blog tomorrow.
Isn't she pretty?

Scripted 'Mother' die £6.90GBP
This die produces a beautiful scripted sentiment that I've been using with card, foils, watercolour papers. This is quite a detailed die and, as with all of my detailed dies I get great results by using a metal shim with this die. If you are familiar with die cutting you will know what I'm talking about.
This die is a good size and produces a cut 3.75 by 1.75 inches at the widest points.

I used this die with gold foil card on the project below - again I'll show projects in full here on the blog tomorrow.

Pretty Circles die £9.99GBP.
Another die from the pretty range, this die uses the same principle as the self matting dies to give two results from the one die. Each time you use this die you will achieve both a pretty circular scalloped label shape and a pretty scalloped aperture. The photo below show's you what the cut looks like - at the top you can just see the thin surplus ring that I have removed with my pokey tool. Your panel and aperture nest beautifully and you could use them together or separately.

The circle created is approx 2.5 inches in diameter and the aperture it creates is just over 2.5 inches wide in the opening.

Scripted 'Easter' die £4.39GBP.
A beautiful scripty word die. Suitable for so many styles of project. This die produces a cut 3.25 by just under 1.24 inches at the widest points.

Don't forget the freebie offer

Mini 'hello' die This release we have a mini hello die giveaway. The first 40 folks to order over £60GBP will receive one of these dies in their parcel. This mini die will be available for sale later in the month if you miss out now.