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We have been busy before and after the holidays and are looking forward to an exciting year, starting with our first participation at the CHA show in Anaheim from January 24-27. Make sure to stop by our booth #33 and say hi!

Our website is undergoing some changes to include more features and tutorials. Keep your eyes open for the new look coming some time in January. Our blog will continue in its daily Monday-Friday format.

We will continue to have guest designers show their phantastic creations and will present them during our Monday posts.

Look out for upcoming fun with myStampBOX, including new stamp sets coming this month, more blog hops (the next one will be Feb. 8th),  inspiration and lots of exciting new ideas!

Enjoy a crafty and creative 2010!

I brought back this cute little snow card from my ski trip for you. The numbers are stamped with glue ink and topped with glitter. The snowman got a popped up hat and scarf for dimension. I had fun taking his picture in his natural environment!

Happy stamping,

Bettina

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We wish you a very creative, happy, healthy and peaceful 2010!

May the Mojo be with you!

All the best from your myStampBOX team for the coming year.

We hope our New Year’s card selection from some of our designers will get you into the festive mood:

by Ellen Sosnoski

by Gudrun Loennecken

by Allison Cope

by Cherie Niemeyer

by Jolene Johnston

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Are you up for it? I am putting the twist on challenge day today. Instead of showing a sketch, or a blog hop, I am going to challenge you to create a beautiful gift for yourself or someone else. a little indulgence is always what we need to unwind from stressful days. Enjoy!

Well wasn’t this a month for spectacular projects & ideas. I know I was seriously inspired!!!!! Today I thought I would show you what I created for everyone around me this year for the holidays. A perfect hostess gift…say for a New Year’s party, or a birthday, or in the photos I will show you a teacher’s gift.

Here’s what you can do:

Buy a cute little jar, I like these ones that have a nice closure, a quaint size. You can usually pick these up at a dollar store, or in this case the Superstore. I took Staz On Ink and the myStampBOX, Let It Snow… set and stamped all over the image. I also put the Kaisercraft bling in a few of the snowflake centers. Just for an added touch. Then I created tags by spraying the with glimmer mist, drawing a little doodling around the edges and then putting stamped out images on the tag, raising them with pop dots. I used myStampBOX, Santa’s Tags &  HOHOHO. LOVE this set. seriously! I coloured in the images with copic markers.

So do you want the yummy body scrub recipe?

2 cups sea salt, kosher salt, or white sugar. Salt will be slightly more abrasive than sugar. (I actually prefer 1 cup coarse salt, 1 cup sugar)
1 cup sweet almond oil. Grapeseed and olive oil are also excellent choices for oils. 10-30 drops of cosmetic-grade and/or high quality essential oils of your choice. Lavender is suitable for most skin types. A covered, plastic container for mixing and storage.

Now you can keep reinventing this recipe to suit your needs. For the holidays, I crushed real peppermints in red & green and put them in the scrub. they will melt in hot water, but they smell glorious. I used spearmint essential oil instead of peppermint cause it is a little subtler, and not as strong. More recipe ideas are gingerbread flavour, cinnamon, etc.

Another recipe I LOVE, is to switch out the white sugar for the rich dark brown sugar, cut open chai tea bags and put in the mix (about 6-8 tea bags) then use vanilla essential oils. (this is a recipe my friend Kara made for me and it is sooo yummy in the tub.

This would be fun for a wedding shower, to do pedicures, making your own scrubs, and as you can see, with all the different myStampBOX stamps, you can decorate the jars appropriately. This really gives the handmade touch.

Have fun ladies, and lock yourself in the bathroom, with your new scrubs and ENJOY!

Happy New Year.

smiles & best wishes,

Here’s to creating realistic resolutions…have you thought about those yet?

Leica

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How many times have you heard THAT this week? With Christmas and Holiday parties and dinners, we’ve all heard that 100 times. You pick up your glass of wine, take a sip, put it down for a minute and then turn around and its gone.

“Is that my glass?” you ask.

“Um, I don’t think so. Gee, you know I’m not sure” they reply.

And there you both stand trying to figure out whether your sister is drinking your Chardonnay. If only there was a way to be sure….

Enter the wine glass charms!

I saw some for sale in Macy’s a few weeks ago – a set of 6 for $20. I had them in my hand and was going to buy them, and then I thought to myself, I could make those…

So I went to my local craft store and picked up some “Shrinky Dink” plastic, a package of elastic wire, some beads and headed back to my craft table to get started.

I grabbed a few sets of festive mSB Stamps and got to work. I started with a couple of snowflakes from the ”Let it Snow” set. I stamped my images onto my plastic sheet using black Stazon Ink – this is CRUCIAL…you MUST use Stazon ink or you’ll be in for a world of frustration. Take my word for it…

After stamping my image, I used a 2 inch punch to cut out a circle shape, and a scallop shape. I used a hole punch to put a hole in the top of each one so that I could later string my wire through it. If you have a crop-a-dile, use the bigger size hole as it will shrink down when the plastic melts. If the hole is too small if will close up and you’ll have no way of putting your wire through.

Now bring on the heat – if you’re like me and you have a gas oven, then you can’t bake your charms. Instead, pull out your heat embossing gun. Using a pair of tweezers or a small embossing stylus, hold the plastic in place as you heat it. Move the heat tool around so that you don’t scorch the plastic.

As the plastic gets hot and starts to shrink it will start to curl up and flop all over the place. DO NOT PANIC! It will fix itself when the shrinking process is done and flatten back out. The result will be a much smaller, much thicker piece of hard plastic. You may need to flatten down a little bit, so just take a stamping pad or a book and put it on the charm while its still warm.

Once I felt confident with doing the snowflake charms, I got a little braver and used some of the stamps from the “Deck the Halls” set. I used Copic markers to add some color and then heated them up and shrunk ‘em down. (note: If you’ve never used “Shrinky Dinks” before you have no idea how much fun you’re missing!)

Once you have all of your charms made, then you can string them with beads or whatever you want to decorate them and make them your own. Make sure to use “Elastic Wire”, this is key to getting the charms to stay on the stem of the glass and not keep falling off. You can find it in the jewellery making section of any craft store for under $3.

When you have the beads strung, cut the elastic wire and tie a series of knots. Multiple knots are important because as you stretch the wire to pull it over the glass bottom it will pull on the elastic. If you only have one or two knots tied they’ll just pull out and your beads will fly all over the place….again, trust me….I found that tying about 12 knots one on top of the other worked perfectly.

And there you have it, a beautiful, one-of-a-kind wine glass charm! Try tto make each charm a little different, add beads to some, add bling to others, let your creativity run wild…the point is for each one to be unique so that when you pick up a wine glass you know who it belongs to

Have a wonderful, safe and prosperous New Year. Here’s to 2010!

Marci

myStampBOX Design Team

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While Christmas is here and Santa is still busy in some parts of the world, we would like to take the opportunity and wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful, healthy and prosperous 2010. We have enjoyed bringing to you our fun stamps and truckloads of ideas what to do with them. We hope you have gotten some inspiration from us and that we will see more of you in the coming year.

Enjoy the holiday season!

With best wishes from your myStampBOX design team.

by Tina McDonald

by Natalie Kalbach

by Leica Forrest

by Virginie Delbecq

by Tracey Taylor

by Kim Sonksen

by Trace Geworsky