Sometimes it seems like we are scrambling for a quick birthday or thank you card so I decided to make a set of note cards for my son to have quick access to, though he liked them so much he said he was going to keep them – how cute!

The images are colored with Prisma color pencils and gamsol with accents of Smooch and Smooch Glitz!

These cards were created using myStamp Box – Warm Tweets, Mention it and funky flowers.

Thanks for stoppin’ by!

~ Carolyn

Thank You card by Carolyn Lontin

Thanks Friend card by Els Brigé
Click HERE for more photos and details on her blog!

Love Forever card by Gladys Chia

Happy Earth Day card by Isolde Pyncket

Nature ATC set by Jaine Drake
Click HERE for more details on her blog. Exactly where did she use plastic  bags?

Birds card by Janet Zeppa
Click HERE for more details on her blog!

I {Heart} You, Earth card by Jolene Johnston
Click HERE for more details on her blog!

Thanks for joining us today. Plant a flower, hug a tree, or celebrate something wonderful in your corner of the world this weekend. Be inspired by all that nature has to offer!

]]> http://mystampbox.com/2012/04/celebrate-earth-day/feed/ 12 http://mystampbox.com/2012/04/new-designers-to-our-team/ http://mystampbox.com/2012/04/new-designers-to-our-team/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:16:32 +0000 Bettina http://mystampbox.com/?p=11333 read more »]]> Welcome to our three new designers! Today we will introduce them with a short bio and you can even visit their own blogs for more information.

We will have a few changes in our blogging routine, with 3 posts every week, but you will be seeing our same great features and quality and we will be keeping up challenges, tutorials and blog hops!

Instructor and designer Christy Riopel is fun, energetic, and wildly creative. As a mother of two daughters, she still finds time to be a Contributing Writer for Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine and a paper crafting instructor, between the carpooling and mountains of laundry. Her background in Interior Design comes through in her well designed and creative layouts and projects.

Christy has taught with her own entertaining style of creative escapism internationally at many industry leading events like Camp Croppin’, CHA, Crop and Cruise, The Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnival, ScrapFest, and has worked for some of the leading companies in the industry like, Westcott and BasicGrey.

You can read more about Christy at www.christyriopel.blogspot.com

My name is Carolyn Lontin. I have been married to Rick since January 1997; we have one son, Seth and two crazy dogs! We live in gorgeous Colorado, in a suburb just south of Denver. We are less than 20 minute drive to the mountains and love to go there often! I began scrapping in October 2001 to preserve my son’s childhood memories and it quickly became an obsession! I love capturing my family’s “real” moments both in my photos and in my journaling on my layouts and projects. I have found the creative outlet of scrapping to be incredibly relaxing and quite addictive, which is shocking to the previously dominate non-artistic side of me! Over the past few years, I have had the honor of having my work published in major publications!  Since April 1994, I have been a Human Resource Director for a manufacturing company. I also enjoy spending time with family and friends, photography, cheering on my son’s many sports teams, mini-adventures exploring in the mountains, playing with our dogs, and reading. I am super excited to be a part of the My Stamp Box Design Team!

You can read more about Carolyn on her blog: http://carolynlontin.blogspot.com/

Hello… My name is Gladys Chia and I am from Sunny Singapore. I have been introduced to the scrapbooking world in 2008 by my elder sister. Loving all the beautiful things – papers, ribbons, stickers, flowers. I used to hoard them because they are toooo pretty to use them! I love to create my own handmade stuff whenever I am having time on my hands. Its has been a very fun and interesting journey so far. I am loving each and every part of the process in creating my own art. I love traveling, shopping, reading, watching movies and having fun!! I can’t wait to start this wonderful journey to show you what I can create.

Here is my blog: http://gladyschia2010.wordpress.com/

Again welcome to our team team and we can’t wait to get started!

Happy Stamping!

Welcome to Spring! Welcome to our joint blog hop!

Today is the day to see our fabulous products merge and see ways on how to use Faber-Castells beautiful lines with our clear stamps. Our wonderful designers are inviting you to get inspired by their imaginative creativity.

The Blog Hop starts at the Faber-Castell blog, please begin your journey here: (http://designmemorycraft.typepad.com/design-memory-craft/).

If you have missed blogs, you can visit any one from here by clicking on the link. If you have seen all of our blogs, just leave a comment below and check on Monday, if you are one of the lucky winners!

START AT: Faber-Castell (http://designmemorycraft.typepad.com/design-memory-craft/)
Marsha Valk (http://marshavalk.wordpress.com/)
Linda Abadie (http://lindaabadie.com/)
Jaine Drake (http://www.craftydrake.blogspot.com/)
Janet Zeppa (http://janetsjoy.blogspot.com/)
Els Brigé (http://bestamped.wordpress.com/)
Jolene Johnston (http://jolenejohnston.blogspot.com/)
Rita Barakat http://letsembellish.blogspot.com/
Jennifer Mattot http://arttalk-sigmagirl.blogspot.com/
Mou Saha http://collagecollagecollage.blogspot.com/
Isolde Pyncket (http://sollie79.blogspot.com)
Agata Pfister (http://underconstruction-agata.blogspot.com/)
Jill Hildebrand  http://www.fromthefarm-jill.blogspot.com/
END HERE: myStamp BOX Blog

Tell us in your comment: which projects you will be using for inspiration for your next creative moment in stamping!

We are giving away some amazing product from both participating companies. All you have to do is COMMENT on all designers blogs along your journey to WIN. Our three blog hop winners will be drawn from all participants, so be sure to leave comments by Sunday March 25th at 6pm EST. We will announce the winners on the myStamp BOX blog and Faber-Castell blog on Monday, March 26th.

And here is a glimpse at the stamp sets we will be giving away to three lucky winners! Spring inspired they will each be matched by a Faber-Castell package.

We hope you enjoyed our Blog Hop! Don’t forget to leave your comments!

Good Luck!

We have finally decided on our new Design Team for the coming term. Again, we have many of our amazing designers return.

Welcome old and new designers! We are excited and proud to have you on our team!

Thanks to all who applied for a DT position. It is always so hard to have to choose so few from all these wonderful applications!

Here is the long-anticipated list:

Jolene Johnston (USA) – design team coordinator

Carolyn Lontin (USA)

Christy Riopel (Canada)

Els Brigé (Belgium)

Gladys Chia (Singapore)

Isolde Pyncket (Belgium)

Jaine Drake (Luxembourg)

Janet Zeppa (Canada)

Again welcome everyone! We will have a more detailed introduction of our new Design Team Members once the term has started – early April.

On Thursday we are blog hopping with our Partner Company Faber-Castell. You will see how wonderful stamps and Faber-Castell products are working together. Mark your calendars and get ready to hop along with us. There will be inspiration! There will be prizes!

Until then,

happy stamping!

ATTENTION all stampers and myStamp BOX fans!

We are looking for new Designers to join our team. If you are enthusiastic about our stamps, love to stamp, are a good team player, and know a thing or two about blogging, you are the right match for us! We are interested in designers with a variety of styles who can creatively showcase myStamp BOX designs in their layouts, cards, altered art, and other projects. No previous design team experience is necessary. International applicants are welcome to apply.

Our Term is 6 months from April 1st, 2012 to September 30th, 2012.

Team requirements:
* 4 projects per month
* 1 blog entry per month including good quality photos of a project and instructions/tutorial
* Upload all projects to the myStamp BOX website gallery and other online galleries
* Submit at least 2 projects per term for submission to print magazines of your choice
* Occasionally help with additional design opportunities – new stamp sets, classes, etc.
* make myStamp BOX the only stamping company you design for during this term!

Team benefits:

*bio and picture on the website, with links to your blog
*a starter kit of stamp sets and myStamp BOX products and additional stamp sets throughout your term
*other free scrapbooking supplies from product partners as they become available
*30% discount on purchased myStamp BOX items during your term

Please include in your application:
*personal information (your name, address)
*a short paragraph about yourself and why you think you’d be a good fit for myStamp BOX.
*link to your blog and gallery
*3-5 examples of your work showcasing your stamping ability and style

Applications are due by Leap Day – February 29th, 2012.
Send your application to bettina@mystampbox.com
myStamp BOX website: www.mystampbox.com

So go ahead, take the leap and apply for the team. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Until then – happy stamping!

We had great fun creating projects that were packed with sequins, glitter, crystals, and even feathers! Hope that you will get inspired to “pack it on” this February!

glitter card by Jolene Johnston

pink mask by Jaine Drake

party card and detail by Linda Abadie

Party layout by Isolde Pyncket

glitter card by Els Brigé

embossed mask and detail by Marsha Valk

Colourful birthday mini album by Agata Pfister

big rides layout by Jill Hildebrand

Jill used a very cool technique to create the flower and is sharing it here for everyone to try out!:

The BIG, glitter flower is created using an enlarged, scanned image of one of the flowers in the latest Striped Stems stamp set.  I, first, stamped the flower image on plain white paper. I then scanned the image and enlarged it to the desired size and traced the image onto two-sided Sookwang Paper and cut the flower image out. I peeled off one side of the sticky Sookwang paper and adhered the flower image to my layout. With a craft-knife, I carefully cut away the remaining paper on the flower (petal by petal) and added the coloured glitter to each seperate piece of the flower until the entire flower was covered with glitter. This is a great technique to incorporate stamps onto a layout in a unique and creative way. You don’t have to stamp directly onto your projects — you can think outside the box and use the images of the stamp sets on your project without actually stamping.

Repeat After me:
I also combined the “zig-zag” stamp from the Repeat After Me stamp set with an actual machine-stitched (black) straight stitch. I stamped in red ink to give the two stitches contrast. A great way to incorporate stamping and stitching together!

Great Ideas, Jill! This will be a fun technique to try out!

Share your colourful Winter-Blahs layouts or projects with us!

Until then, happy stamping,

ATTENTION all stampers and myStamp BOX fans!

We are looking for new Designers to join our team. If you are enthusiastic about our stamps, love to stamp, are a good team player, and know a thing or two about blogging, you are the right match for us! We are interested in designers with a variety of styles who can creatively showcase myStamp BOX designs in their layouts, cards, altered art, and other projects. No previous design team experience is necessary. International applicants are welcome to apply.

Our Term is 6 months from April 1st, 2012 to September 30th, 2012.

Team requirements:
* 4 projects per month
* 1 blog entry per month including good quality photos of a project and instructions/tutorial
* Upload all projects to the myStamp BOX website gallery and other online galleries
* Submit at least 2 projects per term for submission to print magazines of your choice
* Occasionally help with additional design opportunities – new stamp sets, classes, etc.
* make myStamp BOX the only stamping company you design for during this term!

Team benefits:

*bio and picture on the website, with links to your blog
*a starter kit of stamp sets and myStamp BOX products and additional stamp sets throughout your term
*other free scrapbooking supplies from product partners as they become available
*30% discount on purchased myStamp BOX items during your term

Please include in your application:
*personal information (your name, address)
*a short paragraph about yourself and why you think you’d be a good fit for myStamp BOX.
*link to your blog and gallery
*3-5 examples of your work showcasing your stamping ability and style

Applications are due on Leap Day – February 29th, 2012.
Send your application to bettina@mystampbox.com
myStamp BOX website: www.mystampbox.com

So go ahead, take the leap and apply for the team. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Until then – happy stamping!

Here is what everyone made of it:

by Isolde Pyncket

by Agata Pfister, a simple and elegant card

by Janet Zeppa paired with green

by Els Brigé, just in blue

by Jill Hildebrand

purple exploration by Jaine Drake

by Linda Abadie using the new Warm Tweet set and Back to the basics

by Jolene Johnston, beautiful pairing of the colours

layout and detail by Jill Hildebrand

this beautiful little chest is by Marsha Valk, the colours just pop!

… and inside! The Itty Bittys fit perfectly on the cubes.

We hope you liked our challenge!

Stay tuned for our design team call coming up later this week!

Until then, happy stamping!

Our Design Team has put together a beautiful collection of their favourite family-themed projects.

We hope you will enjoy our selection! Have a wonderful weekend scrapping your favourite family pictures.by Agata Pfister

by Jolene Johnston

by Sue Sykes

by Janet Zeppa

by Linda Abadie

by Jaine Drake

by Isolde Pyncket

by Marsha Valk

by Els Brigé

Happy stamping,

love,

Hi, I’m Isolde Pyncket and I live in a small village in the west part of Belgium.  I live together with my boyfriend and our cat Baileys.  In june 2006 I started scrapping and I’m totally hooked since then.  Scrapping is a way to express myself in a creative way.  I love to play with paper, stamps and glimmermist.  That’s why I walk around with dirty fingers most of the time, haha.  During daytime, I work as a teacher in primary school and during night time, I’m a scrapper!  I’m thrilled to be a member of this DT and hopefully you’ll be inspired by my work.

Hi, my name is Els. I life in a small town in Belgium with my husband and two children (girl – 2008, boy – 2011). Stamping and paper are truly my passion. A few years ago I started stamping and making cards again. I was instantly hooked. Not too much later, I took the plunge and made my first few layouts as well. My children are my biggest inspiration, along with all the fabulous products available in this industry. I love trying out new products and new techniques.

Again, welcome to the team, Els and Isolde!!!

Our new Design Team coordinator is Jolene Johnston. Jolene has been with the myStamp BOX design team since the very first term! Thanks for taking over Jolene! Looking forward to working with you in the coming term!

Happy Stamping!

This time around a lot of our designers will stay on, but we are sorry to see some of them go. To these three we are saying good-bye today and wish them all the best in their crafting future. May our paths cross often! It has been so much fun to work with you ladies!

You are invited to wish them well, here or on their own blogs (just click on their names which are linked to their blogs).

Allison Cope

Birgit Koopsen

Rebecca Keppel

Later this week we are sharing Fall inspired projects by our designers. Fortunately here in Toronto the weather has been great over the weekend, rather Summery than Fallish, but the leaves are bound to turn colour soon and there will be more time spend indoors on our crafts again!

Happy Stamping!

Love,

Thanks to all who applied for a DT position. It is always so hard to have to choose so few from all these wonderful applications!

Here is the long-anticipated list:

Jolene Johnston (USA) – design team coordinator

Agata Pfister (Switzerland)

Els Brigé (Belgium)

Isolde Pyncket (Belgium)

Jaine Drake (Luxembourg)

Janet Zeppa (Canada)

Jessica Griffin (USA)

Jill Hildebrand (Canada)

Linda Abadie (USA)

Marsha Valk (Netherlands)

Sue Sykes (Canada)

Wendy Morris (USA)

Sadly, our past Coordinator, Allison Cope, had to resign. She is now the proud owner of a pizza and catering business, Kapp’s Pizza in Elkford, BC. We wish her much luck with her endeavours! Ally, come visit any time And we will have to travel far for some good pizza!

We are now looking at all submissions and will be announcing our new team next Monday. Stay tuned!

I decided to fill a couple of pages in my Summer 2011 art journal.  For the first page about our National Day celebrations,  I’ve used music score paper as my background but painted it first with gesso to dull the printing. I’ve used flowers from the Funky Flowers stamp set as fireworks, giving them a sprinkling of glitter to make them shine. I’ve also used the Mini Pennants for the bunting and the border stamp from the Border Lines set to frame the page.

For my second page I’ve transfered the music score paper onto watercolour paper using gel medium to make a subtle background. I cut out some rough circles to use as masks and sprayed inks over the page using dye inks. I’ve used the Friday Night Stencil alphabet for my title, emphasising it with the brackets from the oversized set.  I wanted to stamp the film strip from the Snapshot set at the bottom of the page and ended up dropping it. I could have covered it up by stamping it a second time onto paper, cutting it out and sticking it over the top but I actually liked the messy look it gave me, so I left it there. I finished off the page using the Graphic Borders stamp printed onto book page as a frame.

Here are a couple of gorgeous pages from Birgit and some explaination on how she did them.

For “the sky is the limit” I used Colorful Companions, Bottlecaps, Repeat
after me and Backgrounds. For the background I used Gesso and TA Glimmer
Chalkboard. I stamped with Stazon and colored in the little dots of the
bottelcap stamp with Letraset markers and then I put little punched out
paper circles on top. The stars where made using sequin waste.

For “Heaven” I used Colorful Companions, Abundant blossoms, Bottlecaps,
Backgrounds and He loves me. The background was made with acrylic paint. I
also used acrylic paint to stamp the butterflies and the flowers. I used
Stazon to stamp the bottlecap stamp and the little swirl from the He loves
me set. Again I colored in the little dots of the bottlecap stamp with
Letraset markers. The little circles and the words “heaven” where cut from
bookpaper. The angel wing is a rubon from Hambly.
The little white dots on both pages where made with the back of my brush
dipped in acrylic paint.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Rebecca and Agata are here to put some color into your world! We’ve teamed up for this challenge and chose to make some layouts using a great stamp set: Colorful Companions which is all about butterflies! Here’s Rebecca’s beauty:

She took only one stamp from that set, stamped it numerous times in colors that matched her patterned papers. Then she cut out all those butterflies and pop-dotted them on her layout for some dimension. Rebecca has purposely chosen the butterfly with a simple shape as she knew she would be cutting out a lot of them!

As for me I used almost all stamps from the set to create a patterned paper of my own. I used some chalk and pigment inks which was useful since I’ve embossed two images with an iridescent embossing powder.

Depending on ink’s color this technique gives different effect. Here are some close-ups:

Hopefully those layouts will inspire you to take out this beautiful stamp set and get inky!

&

We are looking for new Designers to join our team. If you are enthusiastic about our stamps, love to stamp, are a good team player, and know a thing or two about blogging, you are the right match for us! We are interested in designers with a variety of styles who can creatively showcase myStamp BOX designs in their layouts, cards, altered art and other projects. No previous design team experience is necessary. International applicants are welcome to apply.

Our Term is 6 months from October 1st, 2011 to March 31th, 2012.

Team requirements:
* 4 projects per month
* 1 blog entry per month including good quality photos of a project and instructions/tutorial
* Upload all projects to the myStamp BOX website gallery and other online galleries
* Submit at least 2 projects per term for submission to print magazines of your choice
* Occasionally help with additional design opportunities – new stamp sets, classes, etc.
* make myStamp BOX the only stamping company you design for during this term

Team benefits:
*bio and picture on the website, with links to your blog
*a starter kit of stamp sets and additional stamp sets throughout your term
*other free scrapbooking supplies from product partners as they become available
*30% discount on purchased myStampBox stamps during your term

Please include in your application:
*personal information (your name, address)
*a short paragraph about yourself and why you think you’d be a good fit for myStamp BOX.
*link to your blog and gallery
*3-5 examples of your work showcasing your stamping ability and style

This call ends Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Send your application to bettina@mystampbox.com
myStampBOX website:  www.mystampbox.com

We can’t wait to hear from you!

Our Design Team has used this sketch made by Allison Cope and created their different takes on the theme. Enjoy!

The sketch:

Our takes:

by Marsha Valk

by Jaine Drake

by Allison Cope

by Jill Hildebrand

by Linda Abadie

by Jill Hildebrand

We hope you enjoyed our takes on the sketch and get inspired to try your own version!

Happy Stamping!

Allison Cope, our talented sketch artist, has provided us with two different sketches, one for cards and one for layouts. Today it’s all about cards and you can view some beautiful interpretations of the sketch below.

Hopefully you feel inspired to try your own version of this fun sketch!

Here are the interpretations:

by Jolene Johnston

by Janet Zeppa

by Birgit Koopsen

by Agata Pfister

by Rebecca Keppel

Rebecca rotated the sketch. This is a great idea when you have something in mind that does not quite work with a chosen sketch. Just rotate it

Come back tomorrow for our Sketch Challenge for Layouts!

Happy Stamping