Hello and Happy Thursday! We’ve got some winners to announce today but first we want to thank each and every one of you who participated in our Simple Holiday Stamping Challenge! It was a fabulous week of fabulous entries, and we thoroughly enjoyed click, click, clicking through the gallery, admiring your creations. (You can view them all HERE –so many wonderful interpretations of “simple”!) Now let’s take a look at some outstanding simple holiday cards!

Our Fresh Face prizes goes to Kim Dellow for this tree-mendous card that caught our attention with its great color combo! And her stitching? Perfect!

In the Digital category we have this gorgeous creation from scrapperjjb! She printed a tree from the Scribble Trees DigiKit and added some lovely finishing details. The result is a card that’s simply beautiful!

Now for our First Place winner — congratulations, kimberlykscrawford! Her snowflake card is breathtaking and is a wonderful example of simple stamping. So elegant with the silver accents!

The Second Place prize this week goes to Virginia L for her beautiful layered holiday design. Everything about this card says “classy”! We especially loved the touch of glitter on the pine bough.

In Third Place we have a simply sweet set of cards from sugarbuffet featuring reindeer set against a polka-dot background. Adorable proof that less is more…

But wait, there’s more — we’d like to recognize several outstanding Honorable Mention creations too!

We fell head over heels for this design from Lucille K — clean, crisp, fresh, and simply perfect!

Next, NinaB (Croatia) stamped a card so sweet, you can almost taste it! The ruffled ribbon detail is irresistible…

Another Honorable Mention goes to Sanne - Denmark for her beautiful scalloped square card. The added touch of gold makes the design extra special and really makes the trees stand out.

And finally, take a look at the simple elegance of Rosemary D’s pine bough design. We love the way she highlighted the ornament with the color block and the gems.

Way to go! Winners and honorable mentions, please email us your addresses and phone numbers with “Simple Holiday Winner” in the subject line and we’ll take care of your prizes. NOTE: We now have a NEW, separate email address for blog winners to use when contacting us. You can find it over in the blog sidebar under the heading “Email Us”.

Great work this week everyone…thanks again for sharing your simple holiday cards!

Happy holiday stamping,

Hi everyone, Nancy here. I am back to bring you the Paper Tearing Challenge winners today.  First off, let me say that you all really “tore up” the challenge with your fantastic entries.  Such creative uses of paper.

Now for the winners, starting with Fresh Face clmlcc! We love her torn paper flower, and the “grass” that she created with the Clear Design Feather Grass set (CL282).  The torn edges complete the look:

Next up is the digital category, with this fabulous hybrid creation by crzy4stamps-kathy. The torn paper edge really softens the look of the Stone Etching:

Now, for our First Place winner. This week’s prize goes to sarahjane4kids (Sarah M). Just look at all of the torn paper “ruffles” that she has incorporated in her card. Wow!

Next, coming in Second Place is this sweet singing owl card by  Mom of One (Lee Anne). We just love her unique design and use of torn edges:

Coming in Third Place this week is  jillianavery8222, with her torn paper hill. So fun:

Congratulations, winners!  But that’s not all!  We just couldn’t “tear ourselves away” from the entries and picked some Honorable Mentions to share, starting with this holiday card featuring torn patterned paper by teamwarner:

Then there’s this super fun torn paper tree and snow by mbelles. That woodgrain stamped trunk is so clever:

Finally, we have one more Honorable Mention to share by sally sherfield, featuring layers and layers of torn papers. Simply elegant:

Congratulations, one and all. Please email us your addresses and phone numbers with “Paper Tearing” in the subject line and we’ll send your prizes.

Until next time, keep stamping and paper tearing,

Hi! Sally here, back to announce the winners of the Holiday Accessory Challenge. As usual, we had a hard time picking winners…there is SOOOOOOOO much talent out there!! I am glad to see all the entries…thanks for playing.

Our Fresh Face winner is grammy sue1948. Her simple design with traditional Christmas colors really appealed to me.

Our Digital winner is Alice W (Aliceh83)…do you just LOVE that handknit scarf?

Coming in First Place in the challenge this week is vanessa.1978. This lovely group of trees is simple but elegant.

In Second Place we have mabelscrap. Whoa…can you believe this ribbon tree? Great idea mabelscrap…did you use every ribbon you had?? Love it!

Our Third Place prize goes to Pia Overgaard. She created her own little wreath embellishment that looks fantastic against the pink lined notepaper.

And finally, we have some Honorable Mentions to hand out. The first one goes to Heather Ruwe for her wonderful cards designed to hold cocoa packets.

Leni4jjc created an adorable set of winter doll cards. Here is one…check her photostream here for the green and blue versions too! Check out the cute ear muffs…

Congratulations everyone! Please email us your addresses and phone numbers with “Holiday Accessory Challenge Winner” in the subject line and we’ll send your prizes.

Thanks for joining us last week and entering the contest. Stay tuned for more fun stuff. Keep stamping and get going on those holiday cards…it’s right around the corner!

A big round of applause for the many, many inspiring projects you all submitted for the Paper Piecing Challenge! Thanks to everyone who stamped and pieced along with us last week — it was so much fun to see the creative takes on the technique and the different stamp possibilities to use with it!

Now here we go with this week’s picks…

The Fresh Face prize goes to maropeusa! Her adorable card features a paper pieced snowman inside a snowy acetate window. Love the colors she used here! Fabulous little details too…

Now moving onto our Scrapbooking category…congratulations to ishouldbesleepingbut! She included paper pieced apples and a wise owl on this wonderful school themed page. Best of all, her son’s precious kindergarten handwriting is now preserved. So sweet!

Next, we have skrappergirl as our Digital winner! We loved her innovative use of the Poetic Petals kits. She printed the flower image from the kit on several colored papers, then cut, inked, layered, and glittered to create this breathtaking card. Wow!

First Place honors this week go to “card”rageous (Robin) for her super creative snowglobe greeting! I think this card deserves a nice little shadowbox frame and a spot on the wall. Check out that fabulous glittered and cutout pine branch…

Coming in Second Place is Linda aka Oz with an out-of-the-box Halloween card that made us laugh out loud! Linda went beyond standard white ghosts and pieced hers instead with some fun patterns and then tied it all together with a clever saying inside — “Are those my sheets?” Ha!

In Third Place we have stampersuzz! Get a load of her gorgeous butterfly, meticulously pieced with patterned paper and accented with pearls. Stunning!

But wait, there’s more! With so many fabulous entries, we wanted to recognize several creations for Honorable Mentions as well.

First, we loved Vera Rhuhay’s idea for using the Thank You Cling stamp as a window for the doll. Brilliant! And such yummy colors…

Next, we have another paper pieced card featuring dolls — just take a look at the amazing details on this card by ScrappinBari (Linda W)!

And another Honorable Mention goes to jen ink for her wonderful pieced apple design. It’s cute to the core with it’s mix of patterns!

Winners and honorable mentions, please email us with your name/address/phone number and we’ll set you up with your prizes. Thanks!

Now, how about even more paper pieced inspiration from our Hero Hostesses? As always, they did an amazing job with their challenge cards this week. (Click on any of the circles below for more detail.)

Projects by Tracey Kuzniak, Sarah Moerman, Cathy Andronicou, Tiffany Ervin, Kathy Racoosin, Lucy Abrams, Lin Brandyberry, Virginia Lu.

Congratulations once again to all of the winners, and thanks so much to everyone who played along!

Hi Everyone. Shari here back to announce the winners of our Hero Arts ATC Challenge.  This has to be the hardest part of my job…how do you pick only a few winners from so many outstanding entries?  You all are such a talented group!

First up is our FRESH FACE winner ClaudiaS9 with her adorable (and first ever submission to our challenges) ATC.  What caught my eye was her wonderful cut out sun in the upper corner, so cute!

Next in our DIGITAL category is Vanessa.1978 with her Hybrid ATC, so pretty! Vanessa combined three different digi kits to create her elegant ATC.  So nice!

Our FIRST PLACE winner Stampin Sue made this elegant ATC as a Hybrid card but I especially like the left border. Sue’s ATC uses Hybrid as well, I really like the dragonfly on acetate with glitter, it looks so real!

SECOND PLACE goes to JaneB74 with her winter girl, love the layering and distress edges. The cloud background and snow banks add so much to her card, well done!

And our THIRD PLACE winner is Shemainesmith with her stunning ATC, love the technique she used on the background. The ink colors pop sitting next to each other, it’s beautiful!

Now for a few Honorable Mentions!

I love Amie Majelle’s cute owl and the colors she used!

Alice W did a fabulous hybrid card using one of my favorite background stamps.

And Scrappinbari’s delightful Holiday ATC is just too cute!

And finally Simone Naoum’s sweet Asian holiday doll.

Please send us an email with your mailing address so we can get your prizes out to you.  Thanks!

Here’s some highlights of our Hero Hostesses ATCs, just stunning! Click on any circle for a larger view.

ATC’s by Lin Brandyberry, Sarah Moerman, Cathy Andronicou, Tiffany Ervin, Lucy Abrams, Virginia Lu, Tracey Kuzniak, Kathy Racoosin.

Thanks everyone for joining me for a week of ATC’s.  I hope to do this again sometime soon!  They are so addicting!

Hi, Nancy here, back to announce the winners of last week’s Photo Card Challenge. Oh my, what a hard choice. I absolutely love all your creative uses of photos combined with stamping.

The Fresh Face winner in the Photo Card Challenge is perdie1. What a great Halloween card. I love the use of color and shape to emphasize the web photo, and yes it is a pretty scary thing to have in your back yard.

Our prize for the Digital category goes to scrapperjjb. Her beautiful card is truly one-of-a-kind and is sure to be treasured by her friend.

Take a look at the unique gatefold presentation…

In First Place we have Deirdre - Irl. A card with an added gift (bookmark)…wonderful! The photo selection of the boys at the park is so much fun; we grandmothers can appreciate this card. Who wouldn’t love to see those adorable boys. The flourish shape complements the shapes of the close up photos above it.

Alice W. (Aliceh83) is our Second Place winner this week. I loved this idea. I guess I will be hauling some of my stuffed animal collection to my favorite restaurant too. Karen is correct…I smiled when I saw this entry and read the copy.

Coming in Third Place is juicyflavor with an exquisite card featuring her wedding photos. The techniques and details on this card are just perfect for the photos.

And finally, an Honorable Mention goes to stampingmathilda. This creative “get well soup” shaker card contains alphabet noodles for a fun touch. What a great way to show you care.

Please email us at the address in blog sidebar with your name/address/phone number and we’ll arrange for your prizes to be sent.

Let’s also have a look at what the Hero Hostesses came up with for the Photo Card Challenge last week. (Click on any circle for a larger view.)

Projects by Kathy Racoosin, Lin Brandyberry, Tracey Kuzniak, Cathy Andronicou, Virginia Lu, Tiffany Ervin, Sarah Moerman, Lucy Abrams.

Thank you all for your creative use of Hero Arts stamps and your special photos. I hope I remember how many different ways there are to combine photos and stamping when it comes time to start my holiday cards… On second thought, I should start them now so I won’t forget all your beautiful ideas. Thank you for taking time to enter our contest.

Good day, stampers! Thanks so much to all of you who played along with the “learning” challenge last week. You all rocked this challenge! We loved not only seeing your wonderful projects, but also reading about what each of you have learned.

Now it’s time to award our winners!

First up is our Fresh Face prize, and it goes to skermit12 for her fabulously frosty snowman card. The snowflake stamped acetate strip is an awesome touch and really makes this card a standout.

Let’s hand out the prize for our Digital category next. Congrats to lizhaworth! We love Liz’s use of color and design elements. Everything just works together perfectly on this beautiful card.

This week’s Scrapbooking winner is AmieMajelle for this outrageously sweet “Tiny Toes” layout! She said she just starting to scrapbook — can you believe it?!

The First Place winner this week is stampersuzz, who lists embellishments, tags, grid cards, layering and sponging among the things she’s learned. It all adds up to one gorgeous tag — wonderfully done!

Coming in Second Place is leni4jjc for this elegant pumpkin card featuring a great combination of stamps and patterns. She’s included many wonderful details and finishing touches on her card. Love it!

And in Third Place we have a lovely card from Stampin Sue. She revamped one of her first uploads and the result was this eye-catching card. The embossed/resist color blocks are fabulous!

Now we have some terrific Honorable Mentions who will be receiving prizes as well…

First, vanessa.1978 said the newest thing she’d learned from this group was using digital elements, so she created this hybrid friendship card with her new found skills. Simply beautiful!

Next, check out this sweet autumn design from marlacards…great colors and love those buttons on the tree! It’s all in the details.

And finally, this pink snowflake resist card from SmilynStef grabbed our attention with its simple elegance. Stunning!

Congratulations everyone! Please send your addresses and phone numbers (for shipping purposes) to the blog email address over in the sidebar and we’ll get your prizes ready for you!

In addition to hosting our week of learning on the blog, the Hero Hostesses have also come up with even more creations. Just click on any circle below to check out their fabulous designs…

Projects by Tiffany Ervin, Sarah Moerman, Virginia Lu, Lucy Abrams, Cathy Andronicou, Tracey Kuzniak, Kathy Racoosin, Lin Brandyberry.

If anyone needs any more inspiration just go take a look at all of the challenge entries HERE!  Thanks again to each and every one of you who participated last week. Hope you had fun!

Keep on learning, keep on stamping, and I’ll see you next time!

We’ve fallen in love. The judges, that is — fallen in love with your Fall Color Challenge creations. Truly inspiring!! See for yourself — all 300 entries are HERE. It doesn’t get any better than that, wow!

As a refresher, here are the four Fall palettes we were working with:

Now it’s time for some winners…

Our Fresh Face pick this week is MegBecka, who created this simply beautiful thank you card using the earthy colors from palette #3. We love how she added the pops of color with the three blocks that are part of the stamp design.

The winner in the Digital category is AmieMajelle. Take a look at this gorgeous hybrid card she created with the Friendship Definition digital kit...

And our Scrapbooking prize goes to pandabear1981 for her page full of wonderful colors and patterns. Love the gold ink and those circles along the bottom!

Now for First Place! This home decor project by wteresa15 blew us away. She said each letter was made with ten layers of die cut chipboard glued together. Great details, and the little bird is a fun touch! Imagine making these for different seasons for your home…

In Second Place we have kiaraleestudio with a stunning butterfly thank you card. What a beautiful use of the colors from palette #2!

Next, Third Place honors go to Vera Rhuhay for her cute ghost shaker card using the colors from palette #4. So creative and fun — and just perfect for the color scheme! Check out the gems on the spiders too…

And now, here are three more impressive entries that will be getting Honorable Mention prizes.

Check out this beautiful Fall card from tomoh08! Such a great mix of colors, patterns, textures, and stamped images. My favorite touch is the realistic looking raindrops…so cool!

How utterly clever is shannavineyard’s card featuring a turkey with leaves for feathers?! The body is printed clip art, and the leaves are stamped. Cute, cute, cute!

Finally, an Honorable Mention goes to janeB74 for her delightful purple owl card! It’s full of great details…we especially love the sparkly black cape and hat.

Congratulations everyone! Please send your addresses and phone numbers (for shipping purposes) to the blog email address over in the sidebar and we’ll get your prizes ready for you!

Now let’s have a peek at what the Hostesses came up with for the challenge — owls, birds, butterflies, trees, leaves, flowers — all in gorgeous autumn colors. Wow! (Click any circle for a larger view.)

Projects by Kathy Racoosin, Tiffany Ervin, Tracey Kuzniak, Lucy Abrams, Cathy Andronicou, Sarah Moerman, Virginia Lu.

Thanks so much to all who played along with our week of Fall colors! I hope you had fun. We received some requests for more seasonal color palettes, so we’ll keep that in mind for future seasons and challenges.

Have a great day!

Hello!  I am back to present the winners of the Man Week Challenge. Many of you mentioned that masculine cards are challenging for you, but I couldn’t tell from the fantastic entries! Let’s get started…

Our Fresh Face prize goes to kristina1974 for this very cool dad card.

I love seeing all the Digital entries!  This week’s winner is scrapperjjb for this awesome card.

Next we have our First Place spot for stampingmathilda for this rockin’ card.  So creative and classy.

Second Place goes to kellsterstamps for this perfectly masculine card.  I really like how she layered the text, clouds and pine for a great background.

Third Place is for Ashley.M for this great boy card.  My son would LOVE this.

Our Honorable Mention goes to wowzer98 for this very classy design.  It could work for a male or female.  Love that!

We also picked some male winners for this challenge. We LOVED all of the cards you GUYS created, too!  Here is one of our favorites.  Dogwoodmnr (sally)’s husband, Courtney, had some serious fun.  Be sure to check out his creations and fun commentary HERE.  I think it is so funny that he was surprised how much stuff and space is needed to make a card.  I know I can relate to that!

We decided to pick another male winner.  This prize goes to 4-yr-old Josiah, whose mom is jaemom.  He made this awesome card for his dad.  The story is cute, be sure to check it out HERE.

Congratulations! Please send us an email with “Man Week Winner” in the subject line so we can get your mailing information.

We also wanted to show some of the great “man projects” created by our Hero Hostesses. (Click on any image for a larger view.)

Projects by Tracey Kuzniak, Lin Brandyberry, Sarah Moerman, Kathy Racoosin, Virginia Lu, Lucy Abrams, Cathy Andronicou, Tiffany Ervin.

Thanks again for sharing all your creations with us.  Have a great Thursday…

Hey there, colorful stampers.  Today I get to announce the winners of last week’s coloring challenge.  I tell ya, there were some amazing entries.  It was hard to pick!

Here are the winners…

This week’s Fresh Face award goes to  lawnfawncards/Kelly Marie.  The colors on this are so incredible.  Fantastic!

Oh my - check out the winner of our Scrapbooking prize - LaurieinFlag.  Simply amazing!!

I really love seeing some of you folks using the new Hero Arts Digital elements.  If you haven’t tried them yet, this card will likely convince you that you need to.  Isn’t this winning Digital project leapfroglbna (Laura) beautiful?!

Our First Place prize goes to Yada-Yada-Yada.  This is such a delicious card…

Our Second Place prize goes to luluinlove for this excellent coloring and patterned paper combo.

Third Place is for Jacqueline.fr - isn’t this elegant?

Since there were so many great entries, I picked a few special Honorable Mentions.

Wteresa15 gets an Honorable Mention for this lovely fall card.  Check out those adorable leaves that fell to the ground.

The next Honorable Mention is for Ashley.M.  That cake is incredible… I must try this!

And I had to say a special thanks to Colorado Country for creating this awesome page using my wedding photo.  So stunning…

To everyone mentioned above, please email us with your name, address, and phone number (for shipping purposes) and we’ll arrange for your prizes to be sent!

I also have to share with you some of the great creations by our Hero Hostesses:

(Projects by Cathy Andronicou, Sarah Moerman, Lucy Abrams, Lin Brandyberry, Virginia Lu, Kathy Racoosin, Tracey Kuzniak, Tiffany Ervin.)

Thanks again for coloring along with us this week.  See you tomorrow with more of our “Man Week!”