We have been busy stamping and scrapping all year and before we take a week off, we are going to show you what we have been creating for our friends and families.

Hoping you will find a last minute inspiration for a card.

by Jolene Johnston

by Jaine Drake

by Els Brigé

by Agata Pfister

gift card holder by Sue Sykes

card and details by Wendy Morris

cards by Linda Abadie

by Marsha Valk

by Janet Zeppa

by Isolde Pyncket

We wish you and your families a peaceful and very merry Christmas and a happy and crafty 2012. Keep stamping!

Best wishes from the myStamp BOX team,

The Fall colours are beautiful right now and I got to think about things I am grateful for while driving through the countryside yesterday.

The most important item in my life is my family, which inspired me to do this layout. I arranged the “Thanks” from the “You name it” set and leaves from “All year round” as if they were swirling around in the wind in the upper part of the LO and arranged them more neatly in the bottom part. I added a few hand made photo corners and matched the stitching to the layout: tidy in rows on the bottom and swirly on the upper part. I decided to leave out a big title, as I have  16 mini titles and tucked the journaling behind the largest photo, written on a hand made tag.

I love making everything from scratch and let the stamps speak for themselves. The colours and motion make me think of a Fall hike on a windy day.

And now I would like you to meet our guest designer for the month of October – we are super excited to have Chrissy Lux with us.

My name is Chrissy Lux and I am thrilled to be joining you as the Guest Designer for October!  I live in NC with my husband of two years and am a full-time teacher.

I have been into paper crafts seriously for about two years now and I really love that this hobby allows me to make inexpensive, but thoughtful gifts for friends and family in a realistic amount of time for my busy life. I have always been into crafts and have done everything from cross-stitching to card making to scrapbooking to quilting over the years.  Needless to say, my office is pretty packed with paper and fabric!

I would describe my paper crafting style as being cute and simple.  One thing that I couldn’t live without is plain, colored cardstock. I almost always make my own patterned paper, so I love having stamp sets that I can use to make interesting and customized designs to work with my cards and projects.  I also enjoy finding ways to use stamps for backgrounds that maybe weren’t intended to be!  (You will see a few examples of this in my projects this month!)  During the school year, most of my crafting happens on the weekend or later in the evenings and I often start with a color or sketch challenge (there are many great challenges online) to give me a jump start. I was very excited to find out that I will be published for the first time this January in CARDS magazine.

Chrissy will share a couple of projects this week. For more of her work, check back next Monday

Over the past year or so, I have been working on building a collection of holiday and seasonal themed accordion tags.  They are cute to have around the house.  When I saw the Boo! stamp set, I immediately thought it would be great for just such a project!

I really like making my own patterned paper using my stamps.  You can see that I made some really cute paper with the spider web circle image, solid circle image (for the pumpkin background) and the jack-o-lantern face circle image.  Whenever I am making patterned paper, I like to have all my pieces cut and stamp each image on all the parts before moving to the next image.  Doing this in an assembly line process makes quick work of your project!

Actual assembly of the tag was really easy – just adhere all the layers together; punch some circles; dip adhesive chipboard letters in ink and add them on top of the card stock circles.  Then punch some holes and finish off with some ribbon!  The tag measures 4-1/4″ tall and each scored segment is 2-1/2″ wide.

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Boo! from my Stamp BOX
Ink: PTI Orange Zest, Fresh Snow, Palette Noir Black
Paper: PTI White, True Black, Orange Zest
Accessories: PTI Orange Zest grosgrain; Heidi Swapp chipboard alphabet letters
Tools: Scor-Pal, 1-3/4 circle punch, 1-7/8 scallop circle punch

Tags can be really fun to make and they are also very versatile – you can add them to a card, a wrapped gift, or gift bag …or just about anything else!  I really wanted to try to think outside the box and use my Boo! set for something other than Halloween … this sure was a challenge, but I discovered the solid circle image in the set can used in many different ways.

One of my favorite color combinations is pink and green.  So, I started by stamping the solid circle image from Boo! in bright pink ink.  Then I cut out the circle, and notched out some triangles with a pair of scissors to create a funky flower shape.  I trimmed a few of these flowers further to vary the sizes so my finished project would be more interesting.

I used the Everyday Lines set to stamp out the “Happy Birthday” sentiment, which I cut out and distressed with ink and an edge distresser tool.

To assemble my tag, I covered a chipboard tag with green polka dot paper and stitched some hot pink ribbon along the bottom – I love this technique.  It’s girly and fun!    I sanded and inked up the edges of the tag to age it a bit before adding the sentiment and flowers with foam tape.  Curling the petals up and adding a few rhinestones in the middle of the flowers really jazzes up the tag.  Finally, I added some ribbon and twine at the top of the tag to finish it off.

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Boo! and Everyday Lines from my Stamp BOX
Ink: PTI Hibiscus Burst, Chamomile; SU! Chocolate Chip
Paper: PTI White, Bitty Dot Paper; chipboard tag
Accessories: PTI Raspberry Fizz grosgrain; Martha Stewart adhesive rhinestones; twine
Tools: sewing machine, foam tape. Heidi Swapp edge distresser tool

Lots of new and exciting things happening at myStampBOX today! We are announcing a winner, but first are celebrating Canada Day with a new stamp set: “Lots of Dots Sentiments”. The great thing about this stamp set is that it coordinates with the “Lots of Dots” and “Lots of Numbers” sets. These sets work great together! You can use a sentiment and customize it with your own words from the alphabet set. I would love to see what you will come up with!

I’ve tried a few very simple cards, for a variety of different occasions: new baby, anniversary and thank you.

Here I used the “baby” sentiment and a cute rattle stamp from the “All year round” set.

This sentiment is made up of the “love” stamp plus letters from the alphabet set and from the numbers set.

Here I used the “thanks” sentiment and tried to colour coordinate it with the thread that I sewed under the composition. “To you” is done with the alphabet set.

To win the Lots of Dots sentiments stamp set, you can leave up to two comments, each entry will win you a ballot. You must do one or both of the following:

1. leave a comment, please include your first name and last initial, plus your city/country

2. on a second comment post a link to the place where you have posted about my Stamp BOX’s  blog (on your own blog or in a forum), again you need to include your name and last initial, plus your city/country – Good Luck!

This contest is open until July 13, the winner will be announced on July 14. Make sure to check the blog and to send in your address, if you win!

Now it is my great honour to announce the winner of the contest from June 1st, who will receive the “Tree for all Seasons” stamp set: Kelsey B. left this comment: Those are super cute! Be great for outdoor pics! From Fredericton, NB.

Send us your snail mail information, Kelsey. Congratulations and enjoy this sweet set! Thanks to everyone who has visited our blog this month and left us a comment.

Come visit us often, our talented Design Team is always showing their stunning work and sharing techniques in their tutorials. You surely will be inspired!

Happy Stamping, love, Bettina

I cut the sentiment off and matted the picture. To the heart I added part of the sentiment.

I used a black marker to colour the snowman and jack o’ lantern and framed it. A mini piece of orange card stock makes a pretty snowman’s nose.

Some more matting and use of little paper dots. They look great with Helmar liquid scrap dots, popping up for dimension.

Here I used dimensional glaze (for the bunny’s tail and rattle) and glitter to make it sparkle.

Hope you feel inspired to make some tag sets. Make a whole bunch of sets ahead. They really come in handy when you suddenly have to come up with a small gift.

Happy stamping,

love, Bettina

For the simple, no fuss card maker — here is a simple and clean design. The leaf is from the stamp set Floating Leaves. You can stitch your cards with a pen. It doesn’t really matter if the lines aren’t perfect, heck, I can’t stitch straight myself! But, the faux stitching really adds pop to the card!

Here I stamped the leaf, also from the Floating Leaves set, onto a tear out of a book and colored it in with prismacolor pencils and baby oil.

Yes, baby oil! I did try to search for gamsol or odorless mineral spirits at my LSS, but I gave up and tried baby oil instead since I have heard that it achieves the same results. I’ve been hooked ever since! When you color with your pencils, start light. Color in circular strokes over your entire image with the lightest color first. Then, choose a darker color and only color in the outer edges and in towards the center but not all the way. Finally, choose a darker accent color and just color the outlines. Now comes the fun part, take your blender and dip it into your baby oil, in small circular motions, blend all the colors together. The baby oil will smooth out any hard edges and make the colors flow right into each other! My lightest color here was yellow. I did a reverse and colored the middle with red and the outer with a dark olive color… then blend, blend, blend. It looks like any old Autumn leaf in New York!

I stitched a frame around the leaf and went over it verrrry lightly with a green pencil to make it more visible.

Last but not least is this fun collage with the leaf from All Year Round. I wanted to try a different, but hot color combo – grey, yellow, and blue! Funny, this started off as the traditional 9 squares lined up perfectly lay out, but Audrey kept sneaking her tiny little fingers into my workspace and messing things up. I got annoyed and just jumbled it up together and it looked even more interesting that way! (Thanks Audrey!) I did some random stitching and I think it came out great — and very different!

Hope you enjoyed these leafy creations!

Kryssi