Hi everyone!  I’m back to announce the winners of last week’s Deck the Halls Challenge.    I know that I always say this — but WOW — what truly incredible entries!  The judges had a super hard time narrowing down their favorites.

So, without further ado…

…drumroll…

Third place goes to wteresa15 for these fun Halloween doorknob hangers!  Aren’t they the cutest?

Second place goes to murphy_latrice for this super duper decorated mailbox/advent calender.  Love it!   She and her daughter created it together, and they plan on checking it every day.  Too fun!

Finally, first place goes to Gigi 001 — she outdid herself on this advent calender.  Just look at all the little yummy details — each time I look, I see something else that I didn’t notice!

Winners, please email us at the address in the blog sidebar so that we can get your gift certificates right out to you and you can start shopping.  Please put “Deck the Halls Challenge Winner” as the subject line so that we can find you.

Since the judges had such a hard time choosing the winners — and since the challenge was a little more more involved than creating a card or scrapbook page, we decided to feature several honorable mentions.

We’ll start off with this ornament by sarahjane4kids — she stamped the Holly Bird with StazOn and then stitched him — too clever!

Next, the judges loved how becs attwood created this fun lantern from recycled envelopes!

Look at these super cool shadowboxes that scrapperjjb created as a display for her hallway.  Love how she embossed the Clear Design Long Seasonal Borders + the owls + corrugated cardboard!

Next, feast your eyes on this candle that judkajudi created. Wouldn’t it look simply stunning as the centerpiece of a fall table setting?

newkidfish’s sparkly snowman sun catcher really caught the judge’s eyes.  It’s sure to brighten any day!

Now feast your eyes on this festive angel tree topper by leapfroglbna! WOW! Love the glittery gold embossing powder.

Finally, designs by diana turned family heritage photos of her grandmother, mother, and aunts into beautiful, meaningful Thanksgiving place cards.

Honorable mentions, I have some goodies to send to you!  Please email us at the address in the blog sidebar with “Deck the Halls Challenge HM” as the subject line and I’ll have them sent right out.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered — hope you had tons of FUN!   I think there’s going to be some very festive houses all around the world.  See all the great entries by clicking HERE.

Hope that you are enjoying Leslie Lightfoot’s week of masculinity! I know that I sure am. There’s still plenty of time to enter her challenge — click HERE for full details.

Until next time,

Wow!  Where has the week gone?  I had so much fun sharing some of my holiday decorating ideas ideas with you!  Hope you’ve been inspired to enter the Deck the Halls Challenge — there’s still plenty of time to play!  Click HERE for full details.

Here’s a summary  of the projects that I did — click on each link for detailed supplies and instructions.

Monday: Trio of Trees

Tuesday: Ornaments/Magnets

[Update:  I added a template for the birdhouse ornament -- enjoy!  See the post or download it HERE.]

Wednesday: Candles + a Video

Friday: Door Hanger

And that bring us to today…World Cardmaking Day!  Click HERE to go straight to the festivities!

See you there,

When you are wrapping presents, do you have the same problem that I do with people trying to sneak a peek? Then check out this combination holiday decoration/alarm system that I came up with…

Ha ha, this year anyone who tries to sneak a peek while I’m wrapping will be discovered!

Instructions:

1. Coat a wooden door hanger with gel medium, then adhere patterned paper.  Distress the edges with sandpaper.
2. Stamp owls so that they are standing on top of one another as shown on a Cream notecard trimmed to the width of the wooden door hanger. Trim any excess from the top and bottom, sand the edgess, then rub with distress ink.
3. Stamp owls again on white cardsock, color and cut out.
4. Ink DesignBlock Holly Flourish with VersaColor ink and stamp on the Cream Piece.  Sprikle with clear sparkle embossing powder, then brush away the powder over the owls and emboss.  Tip:  By brushing away the embossing powder where they owls are, you will be able to adhere the owls stamped on white in place without lumps and bumps! Love how the sparkle embossing powder adds a little “extra something” to the design but doesn’t distract from the owls.
5. Adhere the owls stamped in white in place.
6. Punch the edge of a Crimson notecard with the scallop edge border punch and trim to fit the cream piece.  Tie on jingle bells with twine, then adhere cream piece. Adhere to door hanger with gel medium.
7. Stamp “absolutely” and “peeking” with the Sparkle Clear Cute Letters on white cardstock strips.  Stamp “NO” with Sparkle Clear Little Letters.  Adhere stamped strips to Pool, Crimson and Lime notecard strips, then adhere to piece with foam tape.
8. Add Black Gemstones for the owl eyes, and Smooth Gemstones for extra bling!  Tip:  I think this would also be cute using wiggle eyes instead of the black gems — but I liked how the middle owl was looking up so that’s why I didn’t use them.

Supplies:

• Clear Design Owl Christmas
• DesignBlock Holly Flourish
• Sparkle Clear Cute Letters
• Sparkle Clear Little Letters: “N” and “O”
• Clear Sparkle Embossing Powder
• Smooth Gemstones
• Black Gemstones (for the owl’s eyes)
• Crimson, Cream, Pool, Lime Notecards
• Memories Black Ink
• VersaMark Ink
• Other: jingle bells + wooden door hanger (craft store), colored pencils (Prismacolor), twine, patterned paper (Cosmo Cricket), gel medium (Golden), sandpaper, Old Paper Distress Ink (Ranger), ribbon (May Arts), scallop edge border punch (Fiskars, “Treading Water”), foam tape

Enabling alert!  ALL of the stamps used in this project are HERE in the Hero Arts Online Store. Love those owls — they crack me up!

Hope that I’ve inspired you to enter the Deck the Halls challenge (click for more)! Here are some other ideas that I had — but didn’t have time to stamp:

• Garland:  Try stamping a message on punched out scallop circles backed by scallop edge circles  with an alphabet and stringing them together.  I plan on making one that says “peace & joy” to hang above the fireplace with the Clear Design Bold Caps Alphabet.  Love it that the set has an “&” in it!  You could also do one for Halloween or Thanksgiving.
• A ginger bread house:  A quick search on Google will lead you to many templates to use to create a house.
• A wreath:  Stamp notecards with DesignBlock stamps, then use leaf cookie cutters or a template to cut out leaf shapes.  Use holly leaves for Christmas or maple/oak/beech leaves for fall.
• An Advent calendar!
• Stockings:  Cut shapes out of  paper and stamp away!   I also like to cut stockings out of felt and stamp on them with bold stamps.  Quick how-to:  Using dye ink, ink your stamp well.  Stamp on the felt, but do not lift the stamp right away as you normally would.  Instead, press it firmly on the felt for around 30 seconds so that the ink has time to transfer.  Do not try to use inks which require heat setting — you’ll melt the felt!
• Scrapbook pages: Frame a holiday scrapbook page and hang it up for everyone to enjoy!  I think it would be neat to create a grouping from different years.

I took a peek in the Flickr group, and I see some great entries already!  WOO HOO!

Be sure to visit the blog tomorrow — we have something very special planned for World Cardmaking Day!  A little birdie told me there’s going to be a great giveaway, too…!

If you have any questions on this project — or any others that I did this week — please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Until tomorrow,

I truly enjoyed reading everyone’s random facts! Some of them are too funny — really made me smile.  Isn’t it neat how much alike we all are?  Oh and just for the record — I do clean up my stamp desk in between projects — otherwise I’d never be able to find anything, ha ha!

Now for the three random winners of the Felt Poinsettias + the Sparkle Poinsettia:

• #141 - Crystal G, who wrote on October 1st at 8:12 am:  These candles are awesome!  I can’t wait to try this!  A Random stamping fact about me is that I have only been stamping for almost a year.  I tried it and became instantly hooked.  I have one big storage container but it is nearing capacity so I think it is time to get another one.
• #216 - Fay W, who wrote on October 1st at 9:50 am: Love the candles! A random fact about me is that I am an organized messy person—my craft room is an absolute mess, but I know where everything is! When I “clean up”, I can’t find anything after…
• #436 - Beth Russell, who wrote on October 2nd at 2:44 am:  Well I think your description also sums me up well… I am a messy worker! I try really hard to be organized and put things away but the mess keeps piling up until I also only have a postage sized square left to work in! I am fairly new to stamping, love scrapping and card making though- my sister says I am a compulsive buyer, and that I must just sit and look at all my products rather than producing! One has to be able to find space to work in..lol

Congratulations!   We will email you to get your postal address and send the poinsettias right out to you.

Have fun stamping,

It’s Watch it Wednesday, and you know what that means…yep, I have a video to share with you!  Today I’ll be showing you how to make a candle that looks like it was stamped on — but it really isn’t! — plus some tips for working with stamps like the poinsettia where the stem touches the flower and adding shading with colored pencils.

Here are the projects — inspired by Shari’s “shabby chic” Challenge:

And here’s the video:

Here are some extra candles that I made — this technique is so easy that once you start you just don’t want to stop!  Plus the candles smell really good.  Mmmmmm, cinnamon.

Supplies:

• Sparkle Poinsettia
• Poinsettia Bloom
• DesignBlock Poinsettia and Birds
• Special Edition Good Cheer Message
• Felt Poinsettias
• Small Blossom Gems
• Red Gemstones
• Christmas Queue
• Crimson, Kraft Notecards
• Pearl Combo
• Other: various candles, white tissue paper (use tissue paper, not facial tissue like Kleenex),  ribbons (American Crafts, May Arts), twine, colored pencils (Prismacolor)

Tip:  I’ve only tried this technique by stamping on white tissue paper — I have a huge package of it that has lasted for years.  I think you could use colored tissue paper as long as it matched the color of your candle. But I never bothered since the white works so well.

Another tip: I’ve burned candles that I’ve created with this tissue paper technique before without problems.  But whatever you do, don’t leave burning candles unattended…!

One last tip: I’ve found that the best candles to use for this technique are the least expensive ones.  The pricier ones don’t seem to melt as well — must be whatever they do to make them burn longer.

Enabling alert! ALL of the poinsettia stamps + the felt poinsettias are HERE in the Hero Arts Online store!  

Now I think it’s time for a giveaway! Three lucky winners will win a package of Felt Poinsettias + the Sparkle Poinsettia stamp! To enter, just leave a comment on this post with a random stamping fact about yourself.  I’ll announce the random winners on Friday. [Update: The winners have been announced HERE.]

Here’s a random stamping fact about me:  The first thing you notice when you walk into my stamp area will either be a crazy apron with multi-colored splotches all over it hanging on my bookcase OR a huge mess.   Once I get started stamping I tend to have papers and stamps all over my desk and even the floor — ha!  I usually end up trying to work in all huddled in a tiny postage stamp sized area.  I’m trying to learn to put things away as I finish with them or decide not to use them, but so far it’s not working — my husband shares the room with me and he has given up and just laughs at it.  Well, except for the time I got glitter all over his cell phone — never try to apply glitter with the ceiling fan running full blast…!

Okay, enough random facts about me — now it’s your turn!

Tomorrow I’ll be announcing my pick for the “Win a Day” on the Hero Club Blog contest — WOW what a tough decision!

Until then,

Thanks for all of your comments on Monday’s post — I really enjoyed hearing what music everyone listens to while stamping! I’ve been having fun listening to new things, plus I dug out my Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives and Harry Connick Jr. tunes — love them!

Now it’s time to find out who will be winning these YUMMY Stewart Superior embossing powders. Thanks again to John at Stewart Superior for the generous donation of prizes!

The three randomly chosen winners are…

• #148 - Brenda at 10:54 am on Sept. 29th
• #225 - Kelly Booth at 8:46 pm on Sept. 29th
• #251 - Linda 7:24 am on Sept 30th

Congratulations winners!  We will email you for your mailing addresses and get your goodies right out to you.

Reminder:  There’s another giveaway on today’s post so be sure to comment HERE for a chance to win some poinsettia goodies!

It’s a Christmas tree ornament!  No, it’s a magnet! Actually it can be either, depending on whether you add a hanger or a magnet…

I’m planning to put these on the fridge, so I made them to go with our  kitchen — it’s mostly white, but then we have Fiesta dishes in ALL colors — a teal platter, red cream + sugar set, lime vase — well, you get the idea.  I was going for kind of a retro/modern look so I added touches of pink — I was giggling while I made ‘em, hee hee — what do you think?  You could easily change out the colors for a more traditional feel if you like.

Peace & Love Deer

1. Using Celadon ink, stamp the DesignBlock Holiday Words on a Pool rectangle.  Stamp deer with black.  Cut a hill from white cardstock for the deer to stand on.  Position where you would like it, but do not adhere in place just yet.   Draw pencil lines where the legs go, then stamp deer on the hill.  (Use a scrap of paper to protect your work surface — I use copy paper that’s been printed on.)  Adhere hill in place.
2. Cut another hill from white cardstock and adhere with foam tape.  Outline both hills with liquid pearls.  Add more liquid pearls where the deer is standing to add a little extra depth.  Set aside to dry.
3. Layer piece to a Crimson rectangle.
4. Stamp “peace & love” on a pink strip and round the right corners with a corner punch.  Layer to Crimson and round those corners too.  Adhere in place.
5. Add pom pom ribbon + polka dot ribbon with glue dots.
6. Now add bling!  A red gemstone to the deer’s nose + glitter glue to the scarf.

Bright Birdhouse

1. Stamp birdhouse on white cardstock and color with pencils.  Cut out.  Add liquid pearls to the roof and let dry.
2. Download ornament template HERE, then print, cut, and trace it onto a Lime notecard.  Cut out, then and stamp it with the DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes using olive pastel chalk ink.  Emboss a White notecard with a Cuttlebug + swiss dots embossing folder, then punch out a circle and adhere it to the Lime piece.  Use glue dots to adhere the pipe cleaner.  Tip: I shaped the pipe cleaner into a rough circle before I glued it down.  Add glitter to the snowflake centers + dots and let dry.
3. Stamp bird on a white scrap with black, color with pencils and cut out.  Add to birdhouse with foam tape.
4. Add Red Gemstones to the holly and a Teal gemstone to the bird’s hat.
5. Thread a heavy duty needle with twine, then poke a hole at the top of the ornament.  Tie twine so that it looks like the birdhouse is hanging from it.  Tie on more twine for the hanger.  Add ribbon bow with a glue dot.

Tip: I traced a cookie cutter to create the ornament.  I love using cookie cutters for things like this, + hearts, flowers, etc.  Plus making cookies, too.

Be Merry Froggy

1. Punch out a red circle from a Crimson notecard.  Stamp it with red ink and the DesignBlock Holly Flourish.
2. Cut a hanger cap out of  Chocolate and adhere in place.  Add a strip of cardstock to the back to strengthen it.
3. Punch an oval from white cardstock.  Stamp all over with snowflakes from the Clear Design Jolly Christmas + Sparkle Clear Birdhouse tag using VersaColor Celadon, Lime and Petal Pink pigment inks.  Adhere in place, then out line it with clear glitter glue and set aside to dry.
4. Stamp frog on a Lime scrap and cut out.  Stamp again on a white scrap, color the scarf, cut it out and adhere it in place.  Add to the ornament with foam tape.
5. Stamp “be merry” with black on a pinks strip.  Use a corner rounder to round the edges.  Adhere in place.
6. Add Light Pink gemstones.
7. Make a snowdrift for the frog to sit on with liquid pearls and let dry.
8. Adhere a hanger made from a loop of pipe cleaner with a glue dot.

Supplies For All Three Projects:

• Clear Design Jolly Christmas
• Sparkle Clear Birdhouse Tag
• DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes
• DesignBlock Big Holiday Words
• DesignBlock Holly Flourish
• Green Apple, Crimson, Pool, Chocolate, Pink Notecards
• Christmas Chalk Queue
• Red, Light Pink, Teal Gemstones
• Memories Black, Cherry Red
• VersaColor Celadon, Lime and Petal Pink pigment inks
• Other: liquid pearls (Ranger) or white dimensional fabric paint, cording, magnets, colored pencils, pink + green striped ribbon (Strano), red polka dot ribbon (May Arts), pom pom ribbon (Marcel Schurman), clear glitter glue (Ranger), silver pipe cleaners, various punches (EK Success + Marvy Uchida), Cuttlebug (swiss dots embossing folder), glue dots, foam tape, cookie cutter (traced to create the birdhouse ornament)

Tip: These ornament/magnets also make a fun, easy-to-mail gift!  Just pop them on a card front with repositionable glue dots and write a little message inside so that the recipient knows what to do.  I mail mine in a bubble wrap envelope.

Another tip: Cover the backs of your ornaments with felt.

One more tip:  ALL of the stamps from yesterday + today’s projects are now HERE in the Hero Store!  WOO HOO!

One last tip: The yummy embossing powder giveaway is still going on, too! Details HERE.

I’m looking forward to our chat from 6-7 pm PST today!  That’s 6 pm PST, 7 pm MST, 8 pm CST and 9 pm EST.  If you have any questions about this project or yesterday’s — or any other stamping questions — just leave me a comment and I will answer them. You can leave the questions before the chat too if you like.   [Update:  Thanks for chatting everyone -- that was fun!]  

Tomorrow I’ll have a “shabby chic” project + a video to share — can’t wait!

Hi everyone — it’s Lisa here! Get ready to deck the halls this week — I have bunches of holiday decorating ideas to share with you.  I thought I’d start off with one of my favorites — trees!

These trees are sure to brighten up your table or mantle place!  They also make a great gift for the person who has everything.   Give them one or a trio, then watch their eyes light up!  You can personalize the tree to match their decor.  And, they are perfect for mailing since they are lightweight and won’t break during shipping!

Basic Instructions For All Trees

The basic instructions are the same for all of the trees — details on each tree are below, so keep on reading…

1. Cover a Styrofoam cone with plain cardstock or patterned paper.
2. Stamp a DesignBlock on the front and back of three notecards — since DesignBlocks are so BIG they cover the whole side in one swoop!
3. Emboss, then punch out circles or cut into strips and adhere to the tree with glue.
4. Add bling!  I used Hero Arts Gemstones and pearls, plus mirrors from the craft store.
   

Details on the Cream Tree

For this one, I stamped the the DesginBlock Big Holiday Words on white with brown pigment ink and embossed with clear sparkle  powder.  Then I roughly cut out the words in strips and distressed the edges, and glued it to the tree to make garland.

I stamped on the mirrors with snowflakes using White Staz On ink before adding them to the tree.  It’s impossible to get a good shot of them because the stamped image reflects in the mirror.  Trust me tho, it looks neat.  Here’s a tip: don’t be surprised if the clear stamp sticks to the mirror — they are super clingy!

Finally, I put a large Felt Snowflake on the tree top with a mirror behind it so it would show up better.

Details on the Blue Tree

This is the peaceful tree of the trio.  I used the blues from the Winter Notecards pack — love them! I  stamped the DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes with baby blue pigment ink, then embossed one half of each notecard in white and the other half in sparkle clear embossing powder.  Then I cut them into strips and tore the strip in twos.  Hero notecards are white inside, so when you tear the edge you get that white distressed look — kinda reminds me of snow.

To finish off, I added Felt Snowflakes with straight pins, then hid the pin with a Smooth Gemstone.

Details on the Red + Green Tree

I kinda went crazy on this one, hee hee — was going for sort of a mod/retro look.  I used red + green glittery embossing powder from Stewart Superior.  Check out the embossed notecards before I punched out the circles — aren’t they yummy?

I used VersaMark ink to stamp with — all of the color that you see is from the embossing.

I used three different sizes of circle punches — things always look better in threes to me.  Then after I adhered the punched circles I added Felt Poinsettias with a Smooth Gemstone in the center.

Supplies For All:

• DesignBlock Big Holiday Words (for cream tree)
• DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes (for blue tree)
• DesignBlock Holly Flourish (for red + green tree)
• Clear Design Owl Christmas (for the snowflakes stamped on the mirrors)
• Smooth Gemstones
• Medium Pearl Accents
• Felt Snowflakes
• Felt Poinsettias and Leaves
• Snowflake Gemstones
• Sparkle Embossing Powder
• White Embossing Powder
• Winter, Crimson, Green Apple and Green Notecards
• VersaMark Ink
• White StazOn ink (for stamping on the mirrors)
• VersaColor Baby Blue, Bark pigment inks
• Other: Circle punches (EK Success, Marvy Uchida), cream linen-look paper for cream tree background (Bo Bunny), green and white 12×12 cardstock, Styrofoam cones, little mirrors (they can be found at craft stores, don’t remember who makes mine), paper distresser (Tonic), pins, glue (Crafter’s Pick), red + green super sparkle embossing powder (Stewart Superior)

Now for this week’s challenge: using at least one Hero Arts stamp, create something to deck your halls!  Submit it to the Hero Arts Flickr Group Photo Pool by Sunday, October 5th at 11:59 PM PST.  Tag it with the code word “deckthehalls” — that’s “deck” + “the” + “halls” — all  together with no spaces.  It can be any holiday from now until December — including Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Be creative and have fun — and get started on your decorating early this year!  Plus, if you use a stamp from the 2008 Winter Catalog, you can also submit it for the current “Win A Day” contest! Just add a second tag “winter2008″.  Click on the link by the Santa Owl over there in the sidebar for full details.

Here are the prizes:

• 1st place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 2nd place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 3rd place: $10 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!  I have tons of ideas to share with you this week, including magnets, candles and more!

But in the meantime…how about a GIVEAWAY?  My friend John from Stewart Superior has donated three sets of super yummy embossing powders that I used!  Feast your eyes:

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post with your favorite tunes to listen to while stamping.  I’ll announce the three random winners on Wednesday.  Thanks so much, John!  [Edited to add: The contest is now closed and the winners have been announced HERE.]

See you tomorrow, when I have a fast, fun project to share.  I’ll also be online from 6-7 pm PST to answer any questions that you may have!  That’s 6 pm PST, 7 pm MST, 8 pm CST and 9 pm EST. Please ask your questions on tomorrow’s post so that they don’t get lost today with the giveaway going on.  You can post them anytime tomorrow before the chat starts, tho!  

[Edit at 9:51 am PST: just fixed a typo in the times -- sorry about that!  :)]

Can’t wait to hear what tunes y’all listen to — I need some new ones to add to my playlist!  Oh and for the record (ha ha, sorry, bad pun!), I was listening to Feist when I did these.  Love her voice + Mushaboom!

Until tomorrow,