Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Blog Hop!!!

For the second year in a row, Simon Says Stamp and Show & The Simon Says Stamp Challenge are joining forces to bring you a SUPER hop and treasure hunt to celebrate the approaching fall and winter holidays.

To help celebrate they will be giving a BIG BASKET OF CRAFTING GOODIES to the winner of this hop! PLUS 3 $25 VOUCHERS to the Simon Says Stamp Store ! The vouchers will be the  hidden treasure on 3 DT blogs and you have to find them.

The Blog hop will start at on August 31 st, 2011 on the Simon Says Challenge Blog

and will finish on September 5th, 2011 at on the Simon Says Stamp & Show Blog.

The theme for both challenges this week will be ANYTHING GOES. You can make anything you like … a card, an ATC, a Scrapbook layout … the possibilities are endless!

You will need to hop through each blog, find the little parcel of goodies and make a note on which designer’s blog you found them. You do not HAVE to comment on all the DT blogs but we would appreciate any comments you would like to leave. If you lose your way at any time a full list of all the participating blogs with links will be available on Simon Says Stamp Challenge and the Stamp and Show Challenge blogs

The last stop on the hop is the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge blog. You will need to leave a comment there with the names of the 3 blogs with hidden treasure. The comments will be moderated so you will not be able to see the answers.

 For more details please refer to the Simon Says Stamp Challenge or the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge blogs for more details.

If you arrived here from Becca's blog then you are going in the right direction otherwise you need to start at the beginning on the Simon Says Stamp Challenge.

My thoughts have turned to autumn already, probably because the UK hasn't really had a summer yet this year! Doesn't this autumnal triptych put you in mind of crackling log fires, falling leaves and pumpkin pie?

Products that I used included the Psychedelic Grunge, Bitty Grunge, Thankful Silhouettes and Pumpkin Galore stamp sets, along with Promarkers and Distress Inks.

Edit:  A few people have contacted me, asking for the names of the patterned papers I've used.  I just want to say, in case anyone else was wondering the same thing, the answer is "none"!  Everything on here has been stamped, using the stamps listed above.

From here you need to go to the super talented Jo's blog for more inspiration :-) I would appreciate a comment if you would like to leave one

Plane Sailing!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "travel".  I've had this Tim Holtz aeroplane stamp for ages and never gotten around to using it, so today was the perfect chance!

I cut the back panel and the two cloud shapes from the world map sheet in Tim's Kraft Resist pack and applied distress stains to them (Picket Fence, Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire).  I also stamped the plane on the same paper and ran some picket fence over it to make it stand out a bit better.  I used two idea-ology washers and fed some paper twine through them.

And that's about it!  Not a complicated one, but effective - at least I think so!  A great "man's" card too, I think.

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

For the second year in a row, Simon Says Stamp and Show & The Simon Says Stamp Challenge are joining forces to bring you a SUPER hop and treasure hunt to celebrate the approaching fall and winter holidays.  Be sure to come back on August 31st to start the hop.  It will run through September 5th.  Simon Says Stamp is offering some great prize packages, and there will be other opportunities to win some blog candy, too!

Craft Room Wall Art

Isn't it amazing what you can do with 2 sheets of brown card, 3 of black, a Cricut with SCAL and 15 minutes? This is on the wall of my craft room, above my desk - hopefully it will inspire me! :)

Just a bit of cardy messing about (again!)

No plan, no aim to this piece, just goofing around with stuff :)  Rather than discard it I stuck it on a 5x5 card, you never know when you might need one! :)

Blings ain't what they used to be!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "some bling".  Those of you who visit my blog regularly will know that "bling" isn't something that finds itself on my creations with any regularity, so I really had to scratch my head on this one!

Having just taken delivery of the new Distress Stain colours, I was itching to give them an outing, so they played a big part in this piece!

The frame was "lime-washed" with a couple of coats of Picket Fence distress stain then I used an ink blending tool to sponge  Claudine Hellmuth's red, orange and yellow paint through a star stencil I had cut myself from a sheet of acetate.  The centre of each star was blinged up with the addition of an adhesive backed gem.

The figure was stamped and coloured with Promarkers.  The wings from Tim Holtz's Royal Script set were stamped in clear ink and embossed with clear powder.  I used a baby wipe to rub some of Claudine's black paint over the wings and then cut them out and fixed them on the frame with the figure.

The panel in the frame was spritzed with water from a mini-mister and then swiped with Dried Marigold, Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany Distress Stains, to give a blurry, watercolor finish. Finally I applied some black paint down the right hand side.  The stars were sponged in white and pastel yellow paint using the same stencil as earlier, then each one was edged with a white pen, which I rubbed with my finger to blur it before it dried.

And that's about it!  I had great fun making it, and I think the blingy gems really add to it!  Who knows, maybe I'll try to use some a little more regularly in future :)  As ever, if you'd like a closer view, click on the picture!

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

It'll be all white on the night!

My friend Hels has been staying this weekend, and what a lot of fun we've been having! We went down to Art From the Heart today to see Dy (and stock up on some stash - I got some of Dina Wakley's new stamps, love 'em!).

Hels hosts her regular Sunday Stamper Challenge, and asked me to be guest "setter" this week, so I chose "white" as the theme.

I had a play with lots of new stuff on this tag - several of the new Distress Stain colours (including white picket fence, obviously), a couple of Dina's stamps and a couple of new techniques! Why not pop over to Hels' blog to see her piece for the challenge?  She made it while sitting at the desk next to me, and it's a stunner!!  Even better, have a go yourself! :)

A Panel Show

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a Tim Holtz technique", and I had to think about this one for a while, just because there are so many techniques to choose from!

In the end I went for the Wrinkle-free Distress technique.  If you're not familiar with it, Tim has posted a video on youtube demonstrating it.  It's the 2nd technique in the video.

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

A Night at the Movies!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a tag", and I had so much fun making this vintage movie-themed tag!

The green part was white card embossed in one of the Tim Holtz embossing folders from the "Playing Games" set.  I then sprayed with green and blue colorwash sprays, which I diluted with water and applied with a mini mister.  I then took a Wild Honey distress ink pad and applied it directly to the ticket to highlight the raised areas.

The stamps used were from Tim's set "At the Movies".  The popcorn was a bit of precision multi-stamping (which I always love trying - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, lol!).  I started out by inking the stamp with Barn Door distress ink and then used a baby wipe to remove the ink from all but the central circle.  After stamping, I inked the stamp with black Versafine ink and used the baby wipe to remove the ink from the central circle, before stamping again in the same place.  I'm pretty easy-going about this technique and don't mind if the two colours don't quite match up, but surprised myself by getting this one bang in the right place on the first try!  I coloured the background and highlighted parts of the popcorn kernels with promarkers and distressed the edges with Frayed Burlap distress ink, before folding it across one corner and running the ink pad down it to give a dark line.

I used a similar technique on the "sister eileen" movie details, but this time stamped the whole thing with Wild Honey and then restamped the top part again with black ink.  I wasn't as accurate with the positioning on this piece, so if you look carefully you will see wild honey peeping out along the edge of the black lettering.  Things often end up printed like this in real life, so if you try it and that happens, don't worry about it, think of it as extra "character"! :)

Edges were distressed with Frayed Burlap ink, and I added some strips of tissue tape to the left and right edges before I fixed the elements in place.  Finally I added a brown button with some baker's twine, to echo the red in the popcorn ad.

Phew!  These things take much longer to type than they do to create! LOL

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)