Hi!  It’s Jennifer here.

I am BLOWN away by not only the quantity but the quality of the mini projects submitted for last week’s challenge!  WOW.  I don’t know what else to say but - WOW.  We decided that just the few winners randomly picked from our favorites just wasn’t enough.  So this week we have extra honorable mentions who will get prizes, too!

Here we go…

Third place goes to torn-paper jen for this “Yippee!” card.  It is perfect for a little boy!

Second place goes to jolliemoe for this simple, yet elegant card.  It is perfection!

And… drumroll… first place goes to cvaladez67 for this great mini card set. Aren’t they just adorable?

Now, on to our honorable mentions!  Each of these stampers will receive a mini stamp and a pack of mini gems!

The first honorable mention goes to wteresa15 for this great accordian style card.

p.overgaard deserves an honorable mention for the cute little pom poms used as a pile of snowballs on this card.

And how about an honorable mention for this mini scrapling from Susanne Nilsson?  Fantastic!

Look at this clever mini card from sarahjane4kids.  It needs an honorable mention, too!

Congrats to the winners!  Please email the address on the blog sidebar with your postal address and the prize you won in the subject line.  Thank you.

Please know that you have until Sunday night to play along in our newest “inspired by” challenge.  For more information, check HERE.

Thanks, everyone!  Happy Thursday,

Hello!  We are happy to announce the lucky winner of Monday’s BasicGrey and Hero Arts prize…congratulations to Stephanie (scrappinghappiness)!  We will email you.

Thanks to all who participated.  Keep coming back…we will have more giveaways this week.  Bye!

Welcome back!

Today is supposed to be Take Two Tuesday, where we share with you another idea based on our theme.  But I am instead calling today Take THREE Tuesday.  Why?  Because I have three different card combinations to share - each with three cards.  And, of course, they will all be mini to go along with our theme. For a bit of fun, all three card combinations use the same set, Hero Arts Birds and Branches:

Often when making mini cards, you may end up with extra supplies and time to make more than one card.  So here are some ideas for making three mini cards together.

First, here are three super mini cards I made.  I used a 2 1/4″ x 2 1/4″ scallop punch to create the card.  (For information on making cards from punched shapes and also on adding shading to stamped images with pencils, watch HERE.)

Size: 2 1/4″ x 2 1/4″
Supplies:

• Birds and Branches
• Sweet Moments (”enjoy”)
• Crystal Gemstones
• Various Colorbox Chalk Ink Queues
• Other: EK Success Paper Shaper square scallop punch, vintage text paper, corner rounder, Prismacolor colored pencils

Now we have some fabulous monogram mini cards from our wonderful Tami Hartley. Aren’t they adorable? This little set of personalized notes would be perfect for gift giving. Tami kept the design simple by using just one color (plus white) on each. The floral flourish stamp from the Birds and Branches set is large enough to fill most of the 3 x 3-inch card.

Size: 3″ x 3″
Supplies:

• Birds and Branches
• Monogram Alphabet
• Crystal Gemstones
• Notecards (Pool, Cantaloupe, Lime)
• Other: circle and scalloped circle punches, ribbon, machine stitching, pop dots

And how about some adorable goodness from Shari Carroll?  Since we are doing mini cards, I thought asking her to create some of her fabulous 1 1/4″ x 4 1/4″ “scrap-lings” would be fun.  (Want to know more about scrap-lings? Check out THIS.)  It turns out Shari had such fun making her three mini cards, she decided to throw in a fourth - the horizontal one…

Size: 1 1/4″ x 4 1/4″
Supplies:

• Birds and Branches
• Fall Mix Notecards
• Baby Blue Notecards
• Neutral Mix Notecards
• Kraft Notecards
• Memories White ink
• Fall Chalk Ink Queue
  
• Card Buttons Neutral
• Various Gemstones
• Other: Ranger Distress Ink Old Paper, Memories Mango ink, Foof-a-la paper, 7 Gypsies paper, Crate Paper paper, DeJa Views paper, The Paper Company paper, Martha Stewart ribbon, string

Thanks for visiting!  Remember, you still have a chance to win on yesterday’s post HERE.  Be sure to come back tomorrow for a video and more.

Happy stampin’…

Hello, stampers!

It’s Jennifer McGuire here to host this week’s blog.  I thought we would make it a mini week - a week full of mini cards, pages with mini photos, etc.  It is fun to create when your “canvas size” is a bit smaller - gets those creative juices going!  Along with ideas, we will have videos, giveaways and special guests.  Let’s get started.  (And keep reading, I will announce this week’s challenge and be doing a giveaway!)

First, I thought I would share some ideas for the upcoming fall holidays.  My favorite “mini card” size is approximately 2″ x 4 1/4″.  Why this size?  It is simple - it is a Hero Arts notecard cut in half.  Very fun.

To make this card, I cut a Hero Arts acetate card and a Hero Arts orange notecard in half.  On the acetate card, I stamped the tree and greeting with Black Staz-On ink.  Once it dried, I colored in the leaves with permanent pens.  On the orange card, I used the Cuttlebug to emboss it and added a large scallop circle and torn green edge.  The two are then tied together with string.  And, of course, I finished it off with some orange gems. To jazz up the envelope, I covered the flap with some BasicGrey paper.

Size: 2″ x 4 1/4″
Supplies:

• Birds and Branches
• Happy Winter Messages
• Jet Black Staz-On Ink
• Fall Mixed & Green Notecards
• Acetate Cards
• Orange Gems
• Other: BasicGrey paper (on envelope), Bo Bunny paper (scallop circle), Paper Shaper scallop punch, permanent color pens, Cuttlebug embossing, string

Oh - and a great tip: That tree stamp I used is from a non-holiday stamp set.  But by using fall colors and a thanksgiving greeting, it easily becomes “holiday-like!”  Another tip?  If you stamp with Staz-On on an acetate card and aren’t happy with the results, no worries!  A little bit of Hero Arts UltraClean will take it right off so you can try again.

Here is another card idea.  Kandis Smith made this wonderful card that is a 4″ circle.  Isn’t it delightful?

Size: 4″ circle
Supplies:

• Halloween Seal
• Owl-oween
• Fall Notecards
• Card Buttons Summer
  
• Other: BasicGrey patterned paper, Coredinations cardstock, ribbon, machine stitching, linen string, Cuttlebug embossing, colored pencils 

Next, I have a great Halloween card from a great guest artist, Kelly Goree.  I simply love how she combines BasicGrey patterned paper and Hero Arts stamps for this mini 4″ x 5″ card.  Thanks, Kelly!  (Oh, and for a chance to win the stamp set she used, click HERE to visit her blog.)

Size: 4″ x 5″
Supplies:

• Owl-oween
• Dots and Lines
• Spider Border
• BasicGrey Ambrosia 6×6 pad (Pome, Fresh Squeezed, Citrus, Ebony, Rind)
• Other: embossing powder, Uni-ball Signo pen, ribbon, Marvy Uchida circle punch

Many often ask what envelopes I use for my mini cards. I normally just use a regular envelope since the USPS minimum letter size is 3.5″ x 5″. (For you non-US folks, I recommend checking with your postal service.)  I also like to go to dollar stores once in awhile and look for mini card packs that are discounted.  I just pitch the cards and keep the envelopes to use with my own creations.

Now…time for this week’s challenge. Create something “mini” using at least one Hero Arts stamp. This can be a mini card, mini book, page with mini photos - anything “mini.”  Submit it to the Hero Arts Flickr Group by Sunday, November 2nd at 11:59pm PST. Be sure to tag it with the code word “mini.”  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

We can’t wait to see your entries.

BUT!  In the meantime, how about a fun giveaway? Just leave a comment here by Tuesday, October 28th at 11:59pm PST.  And in celebration of “the little things”… please share with us a simple little something you are grateful for today.  I will randomly pick a winner of a 6×6 pad of BasicGrey paper, a pack of Hero Arts notecards and some Hero Arts gems:

And I do believe our guest artist, Kelly, will have a giveaway on her blog today, too!

Hope you’ll come back tomorrow for some more “mini” fun.