Stamp School

Stamp School is officially in session January 1, 2012! That means you can get their new stamp sets, paper, ink, and felt starting tomorrow. To get you ready for the release, I thought I'd put a little product info out there so you know just what Stamp School is all about and the quality you can expect.

Cardstock
Poptone Cardstock from Stamp School is a heavy 100 pound cover weight cardstock. It works brilliantly for card bases, however we suggest you score your cardstock before you fold it, it's just THAT heavy weight. The Poptone Cardstock cuts beautifully with any diecut machine and die, even the thin wafer thin steel rule dies from My Favorite Things or Spellbinders. It has matching dye inks, and matching wool felt.

Inks
The Poptone Dye Ink from Stamp School is a raised dye ink pad. The inks are made to match the Poptone Cardstock. The ink pad comes with a hinged lid, so you won't ever lose your lid, and is labeled with the ink color. It works beautifully on our clear stamps, and because it is a dye ink you can do any technique fit for dye inks. We also have re-inkers available.



Felt
Soft to the touch yet sturdy, Stamp School felt is medium-weight 100% merino wool, imported from Holland. Be forewarned, once you craft with it you'll have a hard time ever going back to a blend or acrylic. Approximately 14 oz. per linear yard (36x72 inches) and 1mm thick, almost 1/16 inch. Our felt is not flammable,and safe for babies and children.

Stamps
Stamp School stamps are made in the USA with the highest quality photopolymer. 

Stamp School will release two stamp sets per month. One set is a themed image set, drawn by one of our illustrators. The other set is a sentiment set that is meant to be used on the inside of your handmade cards (although we’re sure you’ll love them so much they might take center stage on front too!).
That covers the products, but what about how to use the stamps? As the name implies, the site is opening up Stamp School to help teach stamping techniques from the most basic of stamping to cutting edge techniques that use the latest and greatest tools. Stamp School has a YouTube channel, where you can watch the Faculty (Design Team) create handmade cards, altered arts, or other paper crafting projects. They have a full line-up of tips and tricks that our Faculty will share with you every day on the blog. Lastly, they have step-by-step tutorials planned that the Faculty will share on the blog, and they’ll be available in the Stamp School archives.

Here are a few cards I've created with one of January's stamp sets:

This is just to pique your interest, if you want to find out more about this stamp set, check out Stamp School, and see really great cards, head over to Stamp School's Blog by clicking here.

A Few Things for the New Year

I'm super excited that the countdown has started for the release of new stamp sets from the BRAND NEW COMPANY Stamp School:

The first 2 stamp sets will be released January 1, but if you head over to Stamp School's Blog right now, you can see projects made by the owner, Lisa, and by the design team using the new sets. I'll also be back here tomorrow with a card or 2 I've made using the new sets and some info about the card stock, ink, and felt Stamp School will be carrying as well. If you can't tell, I'm super excited to be starting out my new year as the design team coordinator for this awesome new company.

Now on to 2 projects using the same base pieces. About 2 weeks ago A Walk Down Memory Lane handed out these fun packs of kraft calendars (2 sets of calendars per pack) from Maya Road for customer appreciation day. Before that day, Lisa gave me a pack and said, "can you do something with these?" Oh...music to my ears, and challenge accepted!

Up first is a purse/pocket calendar made 6 badge holders tied together.

You can find the badge holders at just about any office supply store or office section of a big box store. I paired the calendar pieces with paper and stickers from Simple Stories' Year-O-Graphy collection. I kept the embellishments flat and minimal to keep this calendar from being bulky in your purse. It's cute, simple, and fun to put together.

If you're looking for a bit more of a challenge you can try making a wall calendar:

This starts out as a calendar, but turns into a photo display.  The calendar cards are attached with Removable Glue Dots®, that way when the month is done, you just take the calendar off to reveal the photo underneath. The paper is again from Simple Stories Year-o-Graphy. All of the circles (photo and patterned paper) were cut with the Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Circle Dies.

I punched holes through the Maya Road 3″ Super Mega Bottle Caps, and strung some May Arts ribbon (that you can buy by the yard. You’ll need about 3 yards total) through the holes. Then you can use the stickers from the Simple Stories Year-o-graphy line to embellish the photos and calendar pieces as you like.  This is a really fun project that can be hung in your house long after the calendar year is over!

Thanks for stopping by!

Quick Christmas Tree Layout

I took some photos of my kids decorating and checking out the Christmas tree. I really love how they turned out, and wanted to make sure I got at least one of the photos scrapped. I took about an hour today to quick get it down on paper. Better yet, I used up my leftovers from another project!

Everything except for the buttons is from Crate Paper's Peppermint Collection. The buttons are from Bo Bunny Blitzen.

Merry Christmas!

Sketch Support Week 2

'Tis the season for neglecting my blog it seems like. I'm just popping in here to let you know that I have another layout over on Sketch Support. This week the sketch is a 2-page layout.

Head over to Sketch Support to check out (and download) the sketch this layout was created from.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sketch Support Week 1

Today my first projects for my December guest designer stint are up over on Sketch Support. Here's a look at the cards I made for the sketch using Echo Park's Season's Greetings:

If you want to see the sketch (and print your own copy of the sketch to use) you'll have to head over to Sketch Support. You'll also find directions on how I made the ribbon tree as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

A few sketchy things

Hello! I wanted to pop in and let you all know that I am super, super excited about being the December Guest Designer over at Sketch Support. This week is Card Sketch week. My cards aren't up yet, but they'll be up later this week, and you really don't want to miss out on the fun Christmas Card sketch and the great projects the design team has made with it. I'll post my cards here once they've gone up on Sketch Support, but you can only see the sketch over there (oh, and P.S. you can pick up all of Allison's Sketches for... books here at AWDML).

If you've followed my blog for a while, you also know that I'm a big fan of Liz Qualman's sketches for Little Yellow Bicycle. They have a sketch contest going on right now (entries are due until Dec 31, so you have plenty of time to enter), and I made a layout with it using Winter Twig (which is even more beautiful in person than it is in pictures!). Here's the sketch:

Here's my take on it:

I added a few more layers, and changed up the photos a bit, but otherwise I stayed pretty true to the sketch.

 

 We had this amazing ice storm last February, every inch of everything outside was covered in a layer of ice. I've seen a lot of snow storms, but this ice storm may have just been the most beautiful winter storm I've seen, Especially when the sun shone on it. 

Thanks for stopping by!

December 1st means...

... two new featured manufactures at A Walk Down Memory Lane. This month you can shop Bella Blvd and Stampin' Scrappin' at 25% off! I created this layout with Bella Blvd's Hello Fall line. I hope it inspires you.

Thanks for stopping by!