Take It Make It Challenge: December Winners!

Hello everyone!

We are so pleased to announce the winners of our December Challenge: Take A Theme: Snow And Ice!

As you all know, we have two winners to announce today, so without further ado, let me introduce you to the Design Winner.....

Entry Number 24: Amanda

We loved this atmospheric winter panel! So much texture and detail... you need to go check out the detail pics on Amandas blog! Amazing! Amanda will win a Guest Designer slot here on the blog, her very own Winners Profile, and of course her amazing art will be featured in it's own 2 page spread in Craft Stamper magazine! Congrats !

We also have the remaining top slots to announce!

The remaining Top Three are:

Entry number 34: Marjut
Entry number 50: Karen

Wonderful projects ladies!

We now need to share the randomly chosen winner with you all!

This winner will recieve the prize offered by our sponsor this month:

 Craftbox

The prize this month is this fabulous Craft Box selection, a wonderful bundle of goodies!

Congratulations to our winner:

  Entry Number 9: Jannet

      Congrats Jannet, I think you'll have a wonderful time creating with your prize!

Winners, you need to need to get in touch with me in order to claim your prize!  Please email me at: editor.cs@mytimemedia.com , and put TIMI Winner in the subject line, then I'll be sure to spot it! 

Top Three Design Winners, also please contact me if you wish to receive a button to display on your blog.

Our January challenge will be launched next Friday, January 6th.
We can't wait to see all the wonderful art you will all be sharing!

Take It Make It Challenge: Winners Profile

Hello!

Welcome to our Winners Profile, showcasing the Design Winner of our last Blog Challenge!

The very talented Design Winner of our November 2016 challenge is

Hannah Oxberry

 From: www.hannahoxberry.com/blog

Hannah won the challenge with this fabulous art panel! We loved the effect of the stamping into the background, and the pop of red is amazing!

We asked Hannah a few questions all about stamping (well, we are Craft Stamper after all!)

Q: How long have you been a stamper, and how did you get started?

A: I have been stamping for about 3 years now, firstly using them in my jewellery designs before moving on to include it in my artwork.

Q: What are your favourite kinds of stamps, and do you have a favourite stamp company?

A:  I love to use simple stamps with clean lines and strong design features. My favourite stamp companies include Stampendous! And IndigoBlu.

 

Q: Describe your style, are you a messy kind of stamper or a more ‘clean and simple’ kind of person?

A: If I had to describe my style I would say it is quirky but with a feminine edge.

Q:What kind of projects do you like creating the most?

A: I enjoy working with mixed media projects, using stamps to create interesting effects and adding details to embellishments.

Q: Apart from stamps, what is the one product you wouldn’t be without when you craft?

A: Choosing just one product, aside from stamps, that I wouldn’t be without be without for my craft work is so hard! I love to use a whole host of different mediums when I create!

We also asked Hannah to show us a couple of her favourite stamped creations,  and share why she likes them so much. Here are the gorgeous projects she has chosen:

"This Love Letters tag, really encompasses my style – quirky and grungy, this was the first piece that gained lots of lovely feedback and really gave me a boost" - Hannah

"Bright and bold, I love the contrast of colours in this piece" - Hannah

Congratulations on being our November Design Winner Hannah , and it was lovely to learn a little more about you!

Do YOU fancy having a winners profile all about you on the CS blog? 

The profile is part of the prize package for each Design Winner of our challenges. All you need to do is enter a creation into the challenge, then if you are voted Design Winner everyone will be reading all about you before you know it!

Our current challenge 'Take A Theme: Snow and Ice' is open until December 28th, so still lots of time to enter! Don't forget the fabulous prize, the bundle of Craftbox goodies!

  All the details can be found HERE.

Throwback Thursday!

It's Thursday... time for a little Throwback! Every Thursday we will be sharing a wonderful project from a past issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.... a full step by step tutorial for you to feast your eyes upon! As a new project for our newer readers, or a reminder for those who have been with us a while... it's sure to inspire!

This week, we have the talented Clare Buswell sharing a project first published in December 2014. A fab tutorial on creating your own stamps... a brilliant art project you could get the children involved in, and of course the stamps you create don't have to be festive! We love the card Clare created:

Clare says: 

I really love how simple and affordable these stamps are to make. I had lots of fun experimenting with different designs. It’s very easy to cut the craft foam and the stamps are much easier to use when mounted onto foam core. Once you’ve made these stamps, children would love using these to make their own Christmas projects too!

Cutting shapes from craft foam is a fun way to create bold and simple stamps. Craft foam is readily available from most art and supply shops and is very affordable. I really like the technique because it’s a quick way to create your very own custom stamps.

Once you’ve decided what design you’d like to turn into a stamp, it’s very easy to transfer it onto the craft foam using tracing paper and a bone folder. The craft foam is very easy to cut with a sharp craft knife or scalpel on a cutting mat. The craft foam stamps well with a variety of inks but I did find pigment ink gave the best results.

The sheets are usually quite thin so it’s best to mount them onto something rigid. I used some lightweight foam core, available from most art supply shops; it makes the stamps much easier to handle and adds some extra cushioning when stamping. If you don’t have any foam core you could also try using some corrugated cardboard!

Materials

Stamps Clare used...

Waltzingmouse Stamps: Seasonal Remedies

Other materials...

StazOn Ink: Jet Black

Memento Luxe Inks: Pear Tart; Love Letter

Craft foam sheet

Foam core

Baker’s twine

Card: white; green

Craft knife

Hole punch

Tracing paper

Bone folder

Foam pads

Silicone glue

Step By Step Instructions:

1 Draw your design onto some tracing paper with a pencil. It’s best to keep the shapes fairly simple until you become more experienced with cutting the craft foam.

2 Using a bone folder, transfer the design from the tracing paper onto the craft foam. Rub firmly along the lines using the bone folder. The lines should transfer quite clearly.

3 Using a craft knife or scalpel cut out any details from the centre of your stamps first. Then cut along the outlines to cut out the rest of the shape.

4 Small circles can be difficult to cut out perfectly using a craft knife so I cut out the berry stamps using a hole punch.

5 Glue the craft foam shapes onto small rectangles of foam core. Once dry cut away any excess foam core around the edges of the stamp, as shown.

6 Stamp your holly stamp in a repeat pattern to create the background paper for your card.

To finish the project:

Once I had stamped the background paper, I stamped an extra holly leaves image and fussy-cut it out. I covered my card base with some green card and added some baker’s twine. I layered the stamped background onto my card base using foam pads for some extra dimension. I stamped the sentiment onto a strip of white card and attached this across the card blank. To finish I added the fussy-cut holly using silicone glue.

Thanks Clare!

We will have more Seasonal Throwback Thursday projects to share over the next couple of weeks, so don't forget to check back!

Happy Crafting xx      

 

Take It Make It December Challenge: Inspiration

Hello!

Our current Take It Make It challenge is in full swing, with some amazing entries so far!

Just in case you need a little more inspiration, the DT have come up with some more amazing projects to share today :) First though, a bit of a reminder.....

  This month is:
Take A Theme: Snow and Ice
 Create seasonal makes, or use lots of white product! Think gesso, embossing paste, white paint, embossing powders and glitters. Remember to include rubber/polymer stamping on your project somehow, somewhere!
Show us how unique you can be, create anything your imagination cares to dream up! Share your cards, journal pages, layouts, 3D assemblage or whatever else takes your fancy. Your project can be any colour you want... Just make aure you stamp somewhere, then you're good to go!

We have two prizes on offer, as always. The first is the Sponsor Prize, and the winner of this will be randomly chosen from all the eligible entries of the challenge. To make sure your project is eligible to win, make sure you have followed our challenge guidelines. These can be found on our sidebar over here ---------->

and also in a tab under the banner at the top.

We are proud to announce our sponsor this month is....

 Craftbox

Craft Box is a monthly box full of scrapbooking, card making and mixed media supplies. Every box contains 15 unique, individually packaged products. Craft Box was created by a crafter to provide other crafters with a beautiful monthly box they deserve. Products include mulberry flowers, charms, resin pieces, embellishments, papers, canvases and more.
The boxes are simply wonderful, it's just like Christmas every month!

The prize this month is this fabulous Craft Box selection, a wonderful bundle of goodies!

As always, we will also have a Design Winner this month!

This winner is chosen by our DT, who all vote for their favourite design from all of the eligible entries. This winner will have their winning project published in Craft Stamper Magazine, (with a 2 page spread of their very own!), they will have a GDT slot for an upcoming challenge, and will also feature in their very own Winners Profile blog post! 

I hope the prizes have given you all an incentive to win...... and how about some eye candy from the DT to give you some beautifully stamped and seasonal inspiration! 

Guest Designer: Rahmat Gouse

Cheremane Smith

Elina Stromberg

Elizabeth Robinson

Ellie Knol

Jolande van Oosterhout

Kymona Tracey

Linda Walmsley

Mandi Mance

Nikki Killinger

Shirley Bampton

 
I hope you are all inspired to join in! The link up can be found in last Fridays blog post, HERE!

Throwback Thursday

It's Thursday... time for a little Throwback! Every Thursday we will be sharing a wonderful project from a past issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.... a full step by step tutorial for you to feast your eyes upon! As a new project for our newer readers, or a reminder for those who have been with us a while... it's sure to inspire!

Our project this week is by the super talented Helen Chilton, and was first published in the December 2014 issue of Craft Stamper. Helen shows us how to create a masterboard, and use it to create this stunning card!

Helen says: 

I'd never made a masterboard before but I'm always up for an experiment. It's a really good way of creating something unique and is surprisingly easy once you get started.

 A masterboard is simply a large background piece that is then cut up into smaller pieces and used for several projects. It's like your own personalised piece of patterned paper. The beauty of it is that anything goes. You can use paints, inks, sprays, pencils, stamps, doodling, stencils… whatever you like. It's your choice and it's very liberating.

I started with some blobs of paint and a roller and just brayered it this way and that. Next I sprayed inks, and then used inkpads for stencilling in different colours before getting to the stamping layers. Try to stamp randomly using background stamps, images, borders etc. While you’re doing all this, don't underestimate the white spaces. When you spray or stencil or stamp it looks different on the paint than on the white paper, creating more interest.

When you're ready to cut up your background, try cutting out some different sized windows and placing them over different parts of the background to see which bits you like. Use the remnants of the masterboard to stamp your images on to get a really coordinated look. 

MATERIALS

Stamps Helen used...
IndigoBlu: Connor's Crown Jewels IND0121; Snowflake Lace IND0113; Dinkie Holly Flourish IND0122

Other materials...

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic paint: Ice Blue; Mermaid; Antarctic;

Distress Inks: Stormy Sky; Mowed Lawn; Evergreen Bough

Crafters Workshop Stencils: Quatrefoil TCW381; Ledger TCW267

Memory Box Designer Stencil: Texture Rhapsody 88515

VersaMark Ink

Dylusions Spray Inks: Fresh Lime; Vibrant Turquoise

Silver embossing powder

Pebeo Mirror Effect Foil Leaves: Silver

A3 heavyweight cartridge paper

Glue stick/glue pen

Mirror card: silver

Card: green; light blue

Brayer

Heat gun


Step by step instructions:  

1 Blob some paint on the cartridge paper, using all three colours.

2 Brayer the blobs of paint over the paper, working in all directions. Leave plenty of gaps.

3 Spray on the Dylusions inks, rolling them out with the brayer as you go.

4 Choose your stencils and which ink pads you're going to use. I've chosen a large background pattern, a text stamp and a small repetitive pattern.

5 After using the Texture Rhapsody stencil and Evergreen Bough ink pad, it looks like this. The stencilling appears different depending on what's behind it.

6 Next stamp over the design randomly in two different colours. I've used a large snowflake background and a small flourish.

7 This close-up shows how the masterboard comes together. I stopped here but you can carry on building up the layers as you want.

8 Cut out some windows the size of your card backgrounds, and place these over the masterboard to see which areas you like best.

9 Use the windows as templates and cut out five pieces from the masterboard. Keep any leftovers for stamping onto.

10 Stamp and silver emboss the bauble collage.

11 Very lightly rub over the embossed areas with a glue stick. For more detailed areas use a glue pen and allow to dry slightly.

12 Press the foil over the glued areas silver side up and then pull off. 

To finish:

Stamp and emboss extra parts of the image to layer on top, and add embellishments. Layer onto silver mirror, green and light blue card.

Wow! We love this... so much amazing detail!

Thank you so much Helen!
Don't forget to check back next Thursday for another blast from the past Christmas project!