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!

A Different Kind of Memo Board

 I almost didn't share this project, in a strange way, it feels a bit more personal than I usually get here. I made these for me, to remind me, to help me. But, hey, what's the point in having a craft blog if you're not going to share it, so here goes. I'll try to keep my explanation short...but I know I'm going to be long winded today, so feel free to just scroll down to the pictures if you only want to see what I made.
For a while I've been wanting to make a board to tack bible verses on that I come across and want to commit better to memory. I've also thought at time it would be nice to have a prayer board of some kind, because I often leave something out of my prayers. I've also thought it would be nice to have a little place to remind myself to work on things (be patient, speak with gentleness, etc.). These were 3 separate ideas that were in the back of my mind that all came together this weekend. I had 3 framed prints that I didn't much care for anymore. I took the frames from those prints and re-purposed them into 3 pretty yet functional dry erase boards.

My board for writing Bible verses I want to memorize:

Write them on the tablet of your heart (Proverbs 7:3)

My board for writing prayer reminders:

Pray Continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

My personal reminder board:

How great the love the Father has lavished on us. That we should be called Children of God! (1 John 3:1)

Here's what they look like on my wall:

The glass acts like a dry erase board. I have small dry erase markers that have an eraser built into the cap and have a magnet attached to them, so they can hang on my refrigerator. The wall where these hang is directly across from my island in my kitchen...a place where I spend a lot of time. The finished size of each frame is 10" x 10". I cut the words from vinyl. To make cleaning easy I cut the words backwards and adhered them to the inside of the frame instead of the outside.

Thanks for stopping by!

December Daily

It's almost December, so I thought I'd share my December Daily Album with all of you. I've never done one before, but I always feel like this time of year goes really fast, so this year I decided to capture some of the craziness that is December in a DD Album.  This concept has been around for quite a while, and I really don’t know who originally came up with it, but here, in my own words is what it’s all about:

A December Daily (DD) is a way to capture the fun, excitement, and craziness that is the month of December with minimal work done in December. The key is to make your base pages (seen below) before December. Then when December rolls around, each day you just need to add journaling and/or a photo or two and any extra embellishments you may want to add. Because this is my first DD, I planned most of my pages out ahead of time so I was able to add some extra theme stickers ahead of time. If you’re not sure what your crazy December will look like, just keep the pages generic and add special touches at a later time.  There does not need to be a photo on every page, sometimes just journaling about an event, tradition, or favorite memory is enough. Pages can be a single page per day or a double page per day (or, like I did, a mix of both).  My DD measures 6″ x 8″, but again, there really is no right size to make it. I decided to use 2 Echo Park Paper Kits (Holly Jolly Christmas, and Christmas Dots and Stripes) combined with lots of twine, buttons, and brads from my stash to create my album.  Below are a few close ups of my favorite base pages, and the last picture is a collage of all the pages in order.

 

 

 One more thing before I'm done today, A Walk Down Memory Lane's 12 Days of Christmas Sale starts Thursday. Check the blog each day to find out the new sale item and see some amazing inspiration:

Bottle Cap Christmas Ornaments

I got this idea in my head to make some Christmas ornaments from the Maya Road 4" Jumbo Bottle Caps (which, coincidentally are 25% off until the end of this month at AWDML). I came up with a few different ones, and I thought I'd post 2 of them today.

First up is one I made for May Arts' Ribbon Challenge.

May Arts sent 4 different ribbons and the challenge was to use those to create something with a Christmas theme. I used the 4 ribbons (the twine for hanging, the green twine on the Christmas tree, the red/brown ribbon that's filling in the bottle cap, and the brown multi-strand twine as the tree trunk). I also added 2 more ribbons from May Arts (the pleated cream for the tree and the black/cream striped for the bow) to complete the ornament.

Next is an ornament I made using Echo Park's Season's Greetings.

Season's Greetings is definitely one of my favorite Christmas collections this year. I rubbed some green Alcohol Ink onto the bottle cap to dull the color a bit. I also added some Stickles, pearls and rhinestones to complete the ornament. The ribbon on this ornament is from May Arts as well.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

This Week

I always love this time of year. I especially love that I get to see my husband more. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, he takes a few days off, and I truly appreciate having him around the house. I'm busy cooking and baking this week, and on either Friday or Saturday we put out all the Christmas decorations. Here's a new one I made this year to add to the stash:

I've steadily been making my way through my Echo Park Season's Greetings Colletion Kit. It's amazing how many projects I have been able to create with this kit and I still have more of it left (right now the count is at 2 home decor projects, 2 Christmas ornaments, 4 Christmas cards, and 1 layout). For extra embellishments I used some May Arts ribbon, Bo Bunny Blitzen Brads, Bo Bunny Blitzen Buttons, and Hero Arts Dots.
I wanted to use this frame to tell the Christmas Story so the text portions are Bible verses that start with Isaiah and end with the Wise Men kneeling before their King.
A few notes about the measurements. The frame size is 11" x 14". I chose that size because I wanted something larger, however I didn't think it through completely. I got home and realized I don't have background paper large enough for that size frame. I realized that I did have kraft wrapping paper somewhere in my house, so I trimmed a piece of that down to 11" x 14", and it worked out just fine. Each individual square is 2.5" x 2.5".

Thanks for stopping by!

Teal and Orange Party Decorations

 This month, Glue Dots® challenged its designers to create teal and orange party decorations. I happen to have Christmas on the brain, so mine are geared toward a teal and orange Christmas party. However I'll explain simple ways to change up the decorations to make them fit for other party situation, too. I have 2 ideas today. First up is a fun centerpiece:

I chose to make mine look like a Christmas ornament, but you could just as easily make yours look like a pumpkin, apple, or even switch out the shape for a star. My finished piece is just about 6" x 6". If you'd like to make one about the same size you'll need:
 

Ultra Thin or Craft Glue Dots®
A way to cut circles (or any other symmetrical shape). I used the Lifestyle Crafts nesting circle cutting dies.
3 - 12" x 12" pieces of paper (I used Authentique Gathering Grow and Together and Little Yellow Bicycle Hellow Fall Bundle-up Blue)
A scoring tool
A topper for your centerpiece (I used Fiskar's Scalloped Sentiments border punch to create an ornament topper).

Cut 12 circles and score them down the middle.

Attach the wrong sides of the circles together from the score line to the curved edge with Ultra Thin or Craft Glue Dots®. Repeat until you have a 12 adhered into a circle.

I cut the bottom of my circle off slightly to create a flat base instead of a rounded edge. Add your topper (ornament topper for an ornament, stem and leaves if you're making an apple or pumpkin).

For my second project I decided to make something that can be hung from a light or the ceiling. Make a dozen or so of these to really add ambiance to your party:

 For this project you'll need
Mini Glue Dots®
18" of orange ribbon per decoration
1 Teal pearl (If you don't have teal pearls, use a white one and color it teal with a Copic Marker)
Glitter paper (I used American Crafts Pow! Glitter Paper)
String to hang your piece from when you've finished.

 Cut your 18" ribbon into 3 - 6" pieces of ribbon. Form a loop with each piece. Adhere together using a Mini Glue Dot®

 Form each loop into an 8 shape by placing a Mini Glue Dot® in the center and pinching together.

 Layer all 3 loops on top of each other, adhering with mini glue dots.

Cut a shape from glitter paper for the center of your ornament. Depending on your theme, you can pick appropriate shapes: hearts for a wedding or baby shower, snowflake for a winter party, flowers for a spring party. Attach the glitter shape to the center of your ornament with a Mini Glue Dot®

 Add a teal pearl to the center of your glitter paper using a Mini Glue Dot. Add string and hang! My boys and I are going to add string and use a snowflake shape in the center and hand them out as Christmas ornaments to our family this year.

Happy party planning!

I wrote this post while participating on the Glue Dots® Design Team.