I used one of my favorite stamp sets, Neighborhoods, and my favorite stamp from this set. I guess this stamp makes me think about my own neighborhood, with the school building and the bus. I just love it! I’ve already made a Halloween card and Christmas card with it. Time for a New Year card. I thought about how my neighborhood looks when the clock strikes midnight on the 31st of December. And I remembered the fireworks! Immediately another favorite stamp set came to my mind, Funky Flowers. Some of the blooms look just like fireworks! OK, here’s how I proceeded.

1) First, I stamped the sentiment on my card base using Summer Alpha and Lots of Numbers sets.

2) Second, on a piece of black cardstock I stamped at the bottom the row of houses and white embossed it. Then on the top portion I stamped some blooms using white ink.

3) The third step consisted in stamping and embossing more blooms on top of white stamping. You know, just like fireworks , some fading and some just blooming.

4) And finally, I’ve assembled everything and my card was finished. Just in time to wish you a Happy, inspired and a very stampy Year!

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,

Be scared!

Halloween Card by Els Brigé

Witch by Jaine Drake

Layout by Jill Hildebrand

Layout by Jill Hildebrand

Card by Jill Hildebrand

Card by Agata Pfister

Layout by Jolene Johnston

Trick or Treat!

Love,

Ally and I have created some back-to-school themed projects to share with you today!

I have a dirty little secret to share – and I’m sure many of you can relate … I HATE packing lunches!  Most of the time, my kids bring home half of what I sent with them!  So I had an idea…

We sat down and made a list of their favourite foods (Mom-approved, of course!) from four basic food groups:  Grains, Protein, Dairy and Fruits/Vegetables.  Once we had about 8-10 items in each category (or more or less, if your children are more/less fussy than mine), I sat down and created this:

It’s a menu planner!  So, how does it work, you ask?

Well, when you were younger, did you ever have one of those books where each page was cut into three or four sections and you could mix and match the girl’s clothes and shoes?  Same idea!  The album, made from 6×6 pieces of chipboard, was decorated using patterned paper, cardstock and of course, myStamp BOX stamps, Funky Circles and Lots of Dots Alphas.  I then printed all of the foods from our list onto cardstock and trimmed them to 1.5″ x 6″.  A small strip of patterned paper, a stamp of colour and a quick punch with my Crop-o-dile, and voila!

Each child plans their lunch by mixing and matching the cards, ensuring a well-balanced lunch that they will eat, because they are in control of the situation!  I will also add some milk or water, and a small treat or extra snack to round out the lunch!

To add a little sunshine to their day, I created a little envelope from kraft paper and attached it to the inside cover:

Inside, I tucked teeny note cards that I created, using the Seal It and Itty Bittys stamp sets.

I will slip one into each of their lunches every day, to remind them how much I love them!

And here’s Ally…

Hello!  In order to get ready for a new grade, I thought I’d better complete a layout about my son’s first and last day of Kindergarten from last year so that’s what I did.  The journaling boxes from the “Your Story” stamp set worked perfectly to journal the details of each of my photos.

Stamp Sets Used:  Letterboxes, Mini Alpha, Fleurishing Punctuation, Your Story, Neighborhoods, & Mini Pennants

Thanks for visiting – and Happy Back-To-School!

and

I have a sketch challenge for you today. I don’t know about you but I love using a sketch as a jumping off point to get my layout started. It may not end up looking like the sketch at all but that’s okay because it got my mojo in gear.

Here is my layout:

Here is the sketch that I started with.

I stamped my “Welcome” into the diecut using just part of the stamp from the Neighborhoods collection.

Using the little camera from the Symbols set I stamped it multiple times on a strip of paper to make my own border strip and then also stamped and cut it out a few times and pop dotted them onto some of the existing cameras to give some dimension.

I challenge you to get out a sketch and your mySTampBOX stamps and have some fun!

Janet

Here’s the card that I created:

I created the card using a 7″ x 6″ piece of Bazzill, folded in half.  I love this size card – it’s large enough to remain unique, yet small enough that the card is finished in a snap!

Using the city skyline from the Neighborhoods stamp set, I stamped the green cardstock with VersaMark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then fussy cut the buildings and attached them to the patterned paper, using dimensional adhesive.  I attached a border and added faux stitching around the edges – easy peasy!  Using the sentiment from the same stamp set, I stamped “We are moving!” in the top left hand corner.

Thanks for visiting – if you complete this challenge, please share a link to your project!

Cheers,

It seems that both Eva and I we were inspired by it in the same way: the overall design. Here are our versions:

Eva turned it into a 12 x 12 layout and still kept a large picture on the top with text underneath. She used the Neighborhoods and Graphic Borders sets to make the border for pictures and Just Add Notes set to do the little circle accent. For the plane trail, she stamped repeatedly the phrase from the Neighborhoods set. Here are some details:

I loved the clean style of the picture, it went great for the layout I had in mind about my son and the way he says how old he is. I also used a picture showing just a part of the body, in this case the upper part of my son. Here are some close-ups:

The title was stamped directly on picture with Staz’On ink and  Summer Alpha set.

For the border I used the fine stitching stamp from the new set Repeat after Me. It’s perfect for bending and making shapes with it!

Hopefully this picture will inspire you to make a project. Please be sure to share it with us! Happy scrapping!

&

Now we would like to show some projects that our team has come up with during the month of February. We did not have a chance yet to share these with you and hope you will be inspired by our many ideas.

Maryfrances Fabbri

by Agata Pfister

by Allison Cope

by Jaine Drake

by Jolene Johnston

by Cari Locken

by Jill Hildebrand

details

by Eva Pizarro

by Melissa Wright

by Stephanie Ackermann

Thanks for checking in today!

Happy Stamping!

I cut out two ATCs from one sheet of paper and punched out a few circles from the same sheet. I chose a skyline from the “Neighborhoods” set and stamped it on the bottom of the cards. Then I added hand stitching and a short title with the “Mini Alpha” letters.

I like the graphic result and the colours that all came from one sheet.

I wish you a great start into the new week and a new month as well!

Happy Stamping,

When making cards I often use one fun technique and create several cards at once so that I have some on hand when in need. Yesterday I played with the “Neighborhoods” stamp set and came up with a fun way to “colour” part of the stamps.

First I repeatedly stamped a skyline onto white cardstock. Then I stamped the same skyline on different coloured cardstock (yellow, orange, red, green). I cut out parts of the coloured skyline, mixed the bits up and glued them onto the white skyline. One piece per card was popped up with Helmar Liquid Glue Dots.

The skylines were glued onto coloured cardstock. Some got a sentiment, some are waiting for their occasion.

Last I added a bit of stitching – and done! Very simple, but cute.

Tell me about your weapons of mass production. What techniques / embellishments do you produce in series to save time?

Happy Stamping!

Today I’d like to share some fun autumn related projects I have made to both put in my scrapbooks, give as gifts and also to hang on my walls.

I started off by celebrating the first day of my son going to Kindergarten for the full day.  I captured him all dressed and ready for school on his first full day of school and thought it would make a great layout to share with you!

Ready 4 School

For this layout, I used some non-school themed stamps to add those special touches.  I used some of the postage stamp canceling images from the Road Trip stamp set and the school related stamp set from Neighborhoods, of course!

Here are a few closeups…

Next I wanted to create a fun card caddy to give to my son’s teacher around Thanksgiving; which is next week here in Canada.  So I found a 6×6x1 acetate container to use as my card caddy and then I decorated the front…

Autumn Card Caddy

For the front, I used some autumn inspired papers from Imaginisce as the starting point for my colour palette of light orange, rich red, dark brown and a pop of dusty blue.  I stamped the tree with coloured leaves from the Tree For All Seasons set and than added a fun tag using the Itty Bittys (the wood grain stamp) and Small Greetings for the sentiment.

I created one card to put inside my caddy too!  I used the pretty little leafy branch from the Floating Leaves set to decorate the front oval.  Doesn’t it look great with that similarly patterned paper?

And here’s the back of the little card caddy… using the simple leaf shape from the Floating Leaves set again.

Next I wanted to create something autumn related for my door.  So I grabbed some fabric and created a stuffed fabric ring and wrapped it with some soft satin brown ribbon and tied it at the bottom.

Fall Wreath

To decorate my wreath, I stamped a variety of leaves from the Floating Leaves stamp set onto the autumn patterned papers and then cut them all out.  I adhered each leaf using the amazing Professional Acid Free Glue from Helmar Adhesives, one of our extremely generous partner companies.   Each leaf is securely attached but flexes with the fabric.  I’m so impressed by this great glue!

And the final autumn inspired project that I have created to share with you today is a fun welcome sign to hang on my door as the happy haunting season begins for Halloween in a few weeks.

Batty Welcome Banner

I started off my using some black embossing powder and heat embossing the entire surface of that super cute bat chipboard piece by our newest partner company, Magistical Memories.  A few sprays of glittery mist to add some sparkle didn’t hurt either!

I strung a bunch of Halloween colour inspired banner pieces from our newest stamp set here at myStampBOX, Pennants (soon to be released!).  I added some fun Halloween themed stamps from our BOO! set to the tops of some of the banner pieces to add to the holiday theme.

I then used my Funky Alphabet stamp set and created a fun “welcome” statement to hang below my glittery bat.  The title appears to float below because I used some of my “recycled” stamp backer acetate pieces from all of my myStampBOX stamp sets and adhered the hand cut letters using Helmar’s fabulous Scrap Dots and black foam adhesive circles called Zapdots to it and then attached it off of the back of the chipboard bat.

I coloured the inside of all of my funky alphabet letters using some coordinating Copic marker colours to match my pennant pieces.

Thank you for joining me today on my autumn inspired journey.  I hope that just one of these fun projects inspires you get out your myStampBOX stamps and create something fun today!

Happy stamping everyone!

For most of you, there’s only a week left of summer until school begins again.  So I thought I would share with you some fun scholarly projects with you today.

My only son, Spencer, is going into Kindergarten this year and we had a variety of school supplies to get to start him off at school this year.  So instead of sending him with boring old looking supplies, I thought I’d make a few special more personal items just for him.

So I grabbed some fun school related papers from GCD Studios called “Schooled” to use as my inspiration.

I first created the cover for one of my son’s notebooks.  This is originally what it started off looking like.  I know… just not inspirational or fun looking at all!

And this what it became…

I used the Rough Copy Alphabet stamp set to create a name plate for the front.  I stamped all the letters so they touched each other and then cut it out all as one word.  I added some pizazz to it with some fun colour coordinating mists and my Copic airbrush system.

Then I created this cute little faux chalkboard piece… so very simple to make.  I stamped my little view of the school yard on smooth black cardstock using my Neighborhoods stamp set using white ink to make it look like chalk.  Then I created a brown mat and adhered it over the stamped image to appear just like a mini chalk board.

I also used my file tab punch and added a stamped “subject” element too using the word from the Snapshots stamp set.

I layered all the elements including a fun embossed ruler piece using a Cuttlebug embossing folder, mini book mark and my faux notebook across the front of my book.

Next I created a fun little back pack.  I thought it might make a cute little mini card holder to give to his teacher as a gift.

I used the GCD Studios lined papers for the back pack and they worked perfectly with the myStamp BOX Mini Alpha – Small Box stamps so I stamped a variety of fun school related words all over the lined papers on the front and back of the little back pack.

And finally I thought I’d make a cute little book mark for his reading books at home.  So I took the fun school themed paper scraps I had and made a fun book mark.

To add some school elements, on the front, I stamped the numbers using my Review Time stamp set.  I also used the star from the set and stamped a row of those in blue ink.  I had some small scraps of lined paper left and using my Mini Alphas – Small Box stamps to stamp a variety of school related words on the back to match his mini back pack.

So in the end, I have a fun notebook, a cute little back pack and a fun book mark for him for school next week.  I thought even if he wasn’t allowed to use that actual notebook, that I would keep it at home to either practice his printing at home or use it as a communication book between myself and his teacher.  One way or another, I have 3 fun school projects I just adored making.

Why don’t you look at your young kids school supplies and see what your stamps can do to jazz them up and make them more personal.  And get your kids to help… that will make them even more special!

Happy stampin’!

This card is jam-packed with fun goodies! I started with a glittered background paper from Kiki Art, one of our product partners.  I stamped the suburban scene from one of my very favorite myStampBOX sets called Neighborhoods. The scene is stamped onto a shaped die cut journaling spot from Pink Paislee. Keep your eye out for these little gems – they’re the focus of our challenge this week! I copied the idea of the swirled background paper and stamped some clouds from the Wishing You Sunshine set of stamps. The top cloud is adhered with a Zap Dot from Helmar, another one of our product partners. (Don’t we have the coolest partners?) I finished up the card with a sentiment from the Neighborhoods set and more Zap Dots. I just love how the shaped journaling die cut had a bit of colored swirls around the edges and created a focal point for my stamped image. I challenge you to use a premade die cut sheet or make your own to showcase your stamping talents. Happy stamping!

When the July weather starts behaving itself here in Manitoba, I love to bring my projects outside and enjoy the day.  What better inspiration is there than our own backyards and gardens?  So….in celebration of summer, I decided to create a garden stepping stone to add to the numerous pathways in the gardens around my yard.

There are a few supplies that you will need to create a beautiful stepping stone for your garden:

1. a concrete stepping stone – purchased at any gardenstore/lumber yard.

2. any waterbased paint – you can use exterior/interior house paint; I used my acrylic craft paints.

3. paint brush & paint tray

4. Solvent Ink pads (i used StazOn), acrylic blocks and, of course, an assortment of mSB stamp sets.  For this project I used: Neighborhoods, Borderlines, Wishing you Sunshine, Tall Solids I & II and Mini Letters.

5. Vinyl Rub-Ons – my sister cut mine out using her Cricut Machine.

6.  a UV-Resistant Clear Acrylic Coating Spray - I used one from Krylon.

The first thing you want to do is give your stepping stone a good coat of paint.  I painted two lighter coats, rather than slapping the paint on in one coat.  You can choose to get into all the crevasses of the stone, or leave them for a more natural look.  Leave this paint to dry overnight.

Next, choose your favourite myStampBOX stamp sets and some Solvent ink colours and have some fun!!!!  I choose to stamp a tiny little village along the bottom (it’s actually Crystal City, where I live) in Black ink.  I then added giant “stems & leaves” from the Borderlines stamp set in Cactus Green & Forest Green — layering the stems and making sure some of them crossed eachother.  Next, I stamped the circle “flowers” from the same Borderlines stamp set in Fuchsia Pink & Azure (blue), finally finishing the stamping with clouds in the sky using the same two colours.

To add some pop to the stone, I added some dynamic vinyl rub-ons in a bright red that really seem to stand out against the light pink background of the stone.  I love the way they give a whimsical feeling to the stone, playing beautifully with the whimsy of the Borderline flowers.  Hint:  be sure to make sure your rub-ons will stick to your stone.  I cut off a tiny portion from the stem and rubbed it on the back of the stone, just to be sure.

An addition of a bold title (“grow BIG or grow HOME”) makes this stepping stone complete.  To “seal the deal” and make this stone UV resistant and ready for the great outdoors, spray 2 light coats of Clear Acrylic Coating over the entire stone.  I did this in my garage.  Let this dry for 24 hours before bringing the stone to your garden.

You have just created your very own stamped garden stepping stone………are you done yet?!?  It was easy, wasn’t it!!?!

Now, GO, have some more fun in the sun!!!!……..and take those stamps out of the house!!!!!

smiles,

Supplies Needed:

Itty Bittys Stamp Set, Mini Alpha Small Box Set, Black Ink, Anything to color in your stamp images, a small frame, cardstock cut to the size of the frame (to be used as a background), white cardstock for stamping your images, scissors and adhesive.

Using the Itty Bittys Stamp Set stamp 8 images of your choice onto white cardstock.

Color each image in or as many as you like using glitter pens, pencils, paints etc.  Then cut each image out leaving a small white border around each.

Using adhesive attach the 8 images to your background cardstock cut to the size of your frame.

Using the Mini Alphas Stamp Set stamp the word ENJOY with black ink.  In my example I also embossed the word with black embossing powder.  Cut out each letter and mount them on pink cardstock.  Cut each out leaving a small border of pink.

Attach the letters to the font lower right side of your project and insert into your frame.

And there you have it…a fun and easy teacher gift.  You can use any of the wonderful myStamp Box sets to create a project of your own like this.  Some suggestions I have that may work really well are Abundant Blossoms, Any Occasion Stamps, Colorful Companions,  Neighborhoods (for a new neighbor that just moved in).  There are so many to choose from you really can’t go wrong with whatever you pick.

Have fun making your teacher gifts this year, make sure to share a link to your creations with us here at myStamp Box.

Enjoy!  Maryfrances

Welcome to the neighborhood gift bag:
“Gift bags are easy to dress up when you need a gift on the spur of the moment. I dressed mine up by stamping the neighborhood stamp numerous times for a fun background. I also highlighted a few of the buildings by stamping again onto white card stock and punching them out with circle stamps in a few different sizes and attaching them with foam dots. Some vintage buttons and a sentiment finish it off well.”

Down Town page:
“These stamps were perfect to use on my page about spending a day shopping down town. I used the stamps on my tag by stamping them onto various strips of patterned paper and adhering them to my tag. I also used the stamps as a border along the right hand side. I love to try to find lots of different uses for one stamp. They can stretch a long way. I love the way these stamps worked here.”

Thank you so much for being with us this month, Brenda! Your projects were so beautiful and truly inspiring. I hope we will have you back some time soon!

Hi! I’m Brenda Weaver from Robesonia, PA. My husband and I have been married for almost 14 years and we have three kids ages 10, 8 and 4. Naturally, my kids are most often the subject of my scrapbook pages. I’ve always been a crafty person. As a child I spent many hours drawing pictures and making clothes for my paper dolls, so turning to paper crafting as an adult has been a natural progression. Now my favorite projects are my scrapbook pages, but I also enjoy card making and almost anything else that can be done with paper. I don’t know what I would do without my stamp collection. I find myself reaching for my stamps more than any other product in my arsenal. I have been published in CARDS magazine, Embellish magazine and Scrapstreet.com and have more publications coming up In CARDS and Scrapstreet.com and also Scrapbook Trends and Paper Crafts magazines.

We’re moooving card!
When I set out to use these stamps, the little farm scene caught my eye right away. Once I began throwing ideas around in my head it occurred to me that the “We are moving” sentiment would work well with it. I wanted to insert a few more “o”s , so I inked up each part of the sentiment separately that I needed to use, being sure to clean my stamp thoroughly in between. The farm scene was water colored with stamping ink. I hand drew the little black spots on the strip at the bottom of the tag and then colored them in with a marker for my cow spots.

Girl’s Night Out card:
I wanted to make something girlie and feminine with these stamps, so I thought a girl’s night out card would be fun. You could send cards like this to your girlfriends inviting them for a girl’s night out, or after the fact send them a card to let them know how much you enjoyed spending time with them. The city skyline was stamped onto grey card stock and carefully cut out using a scissors and craft knife. Then I attached it to my card with foam adhesive to make it stand out a bit. The sentiment was printed out on my computer. A big satin bow, a strip of micro beads along the bottom, and some feminine gems finish out this card.

These are fabulous creations, Brenda! Thanks for sharing those with us. I love the different colours and the feel of each card.

Check out more from Brenda next Monday.

Happy Stamping,

Bettina

I love working with stamps, and when I spend a certain amount on a set, I want to make sure that I use it as often as possible, but without always looking the same on every project.

One technique I enjoy, but don’t often take the time to do when working on something, is layering my stamped images to create a 3D effect..it really is quite basic! And you can use this technique to create so many different looks using only one stamp.

To begin….

1) Stamp the image several times onto a piece of cardstock

2) Colour in the image, using markers, copics, chalk, etc

3)Cut out each image…After I do this, I cut out each element from the stamp, so that the image will be in several different pieces.

4) Adhere to your project using your preferred adhesive…For a 3D look, I suggest using pop dots.

***It really is that simple!

You can add each element of the image separately, or you can have one stamped image on your project, with one added element, so that only that part of the stamped image looks 3D.

For the layout “merry Christmas” I used both techniques with the decoration stamps. I also used a Tim Holtz mask and glimmer mist for a fun look to my layout. Stamp sets used: Merry Mr. Snowman

For the card “welcome to the neighborhood” I Stamped along the card, and then added a few stamped images to create a fun 3D look(school bus, trees, etc). Stamp sets used: Neighborhoods & Tree for all Seasons

For the layout “wishing you sunshine” I used this technique on the sun and the clouds. Stamp sets used: Wishing you Sunshine (my Stamp BOX)

I would love to see different ways in which you have used this technique on a project… I also look forward to seeing different ways you could layer stamped images.

Today I’m excited to share this fun gift set called Family Favorites. It was accepted for publication in the December 2009 issue of Crafts ‘n Things magazine and is on newsstands now! I used one of my very favorite sets of mystampBOX stamps called Neighborhoods to create this embellished cookie mix jar and matching card. Try using your stamps to jazz up premade packaging especially at holiday time. It will save you lots of time and make your family and friends feel extra loved by your handmade touch.

To celebrate we are giving away two free copies of the December 2009 Crafts ‘n Things magazine that has the cookie recipe and more details about this gift set. For a chance to win, leave a comment here on this post about your favorite handmade gifts to give. For a second chance to win, click over to my blog and do the same thing. We’ll accept comments until Sunday October 18th at noon EST. The winners will be announced on Monday October 19th. Good luck!

I love to recycle and reuse things and make it useful on my scrapbooking and cards.  I recently came across a great idea over at Cards blog.  They challenged their readers to use the packages the scrapstash comes in, to make cute gift-cards/boxes.

I grabbed the idea, my favourite my Stamp BOX stamps, some patternd papers, a empty ribbon box from CosmoCricket and some smarties. This idea would be PERFECT for a tiny little gift for some friends just to say hi – and remind them how much they mean to us. 

What you need to make a card/box like this:

-a empty plastic package

-your favourite mSB-stamps. (I have used “Neighborhoods” )

-some patterned papers (I’ve used some of my favourites from Cosmo Cricket “Earth Love” and “Early Bird” )

-a stamp pad (color of your choice – I’ve used black)

-scissor and glue

-ribbon, button, and embellishments of your choice

-some smarties or m&m or other sweets you like the best

-start gathering a empty box and all the supplies you need for this project.

-Cut one of your patterned papers to fit the inside of your package/box.  I have used a PP with soft pattern, because I want it to be a nice background to my stamped images.

-I stamp on the patterned paper with my “neighborhoods” stamps, and cover the entire piece of paper with the cute houses.

-Stamp stripes of houses on some of the other paterned paper too, and the quote . These stripes will be embellishments on the front of the package.

-cut the stripes out of the patterned paper

-Cut out a circle of patterned paper. I have cut out a flower circle from a Cosmo Cricket “early bird” paper.

-put the smarties / sweets inside the box.

-add the circle, the stripes of stamped houses, the sentiment, a ribbon and a button – or what ever embellishments you like the best.

-voila! The cutest little box-card for your friends, or neighbours.

Have fun, and happy creating!

~gudrun~