Happy, Happy Birthday, Laura!

Today is a special day!  Today is Laura's birthday!  "Laura who?" you might ask.  Well, allow me to tell you!  Laura is our friend as well as the fearless leader of the Stampendous Design Team, she's lovingly referred to as our Fairy Stampmother and, bless her heart, she has to herd the lot of us creatives!  She wears many other hats at Stampendous, but, for me, she wears a crown.  

Happy Birthday, Laura!!

Here's what I used to create this card:

Stampendous® Daisy Field Rubber Stamp

Stampendous® Crystal Micro Glitter

Archival Ink in Jet Black by Ranger®

Derwent® Inktense™ Pencils

Strathmore® Mixed Media Paper

Ruby Red Cardstock by Bazzill Basics Paper®

E-Z Runner® by Scrapbook Adhesives®

Here's a list of my team mates that are hopping with us:

Kristine
Jamie
Pam
Wendy
Janelle
Tenia
Dee
Mark
Lea - here

Laura, I hope you have a wonderfully happy birthday with many more!  Love you bunches!

Hugs,
Lea

Hopping with Canvas Corp

It's the last day of Stampendous and Canvas Corp week-long hop using their canvas shoulder bag.  I sure hope you've enjoyed the inspiration from our Design Team.  Who knew one little bag could look so different?  I really enjoyed creating mine and I hope you like it, too!

In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the back side of my bag:

Here's what I used to create this canvas bag:

Canvas Corp™ Shoulder Bag

Stampendous® Cling Daisy Mix Rubber Stamp Set

Stampendous® Friendship Bouquet (Due to it's popularity, this particular stamp is sold out, however,  Flower Path would make a wonderful alternative!)

Stampendous® Lavender Crushed Glass Glitter

Stampendous® Fuchsia Crushed Glass Glitter

Derwent® Inktense™ Pencils

Faber-Castell® PITT Artist Pen in Black

Archival Ink™ Jet Black Ink Pad

Gem-Tac™ Permanent Glue by Beacon Adhesive

Water Brush

Here's what I did to create this canvas bag:

Stamp flower images onto bag with black ink, use mask (included with stamp set) to cover large daisy and stamp leaves.

Stamp sentiment at bottom.

Draw flower stems with PITT pen.
Color images with pencils, then use water brush to bring out and set color.
Add green pencil around edges and set color with water brush.

Add glue to fuchsia flower petals, cover with fuchsia glitter and shake off excess, repeat process with lavender glitter on lavender flower.

Set aside to dry completely.

Here’s our Official Contest Rules and there are three prize packages up for grabs.  Be sure to read the rules and play along to win!

Cling Bird Blossom Stamps Set

Bird Blossom Die Cut Set

Jumbo Acrylic Perfectly Clear Stamp Handle

Canvas Corp® Canvas Shoulder Bag

Surprise Goodie Bag of Canvas Corp Product

Australian fans can comment for a chance to win a Stampendous Stamp, a Dreamweaver Stencil and a surprise Stampendous goodie.

Here’s a list of my teammates that are playing along today:

Stampendous Blog

Pam Bray

Jamie Martin

Wendy Price

Lea Fritts

Tenia Nelson

Canvas Corp Blog

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you've enjoyed our hop with Canvas Corp and have left comments along the way.  You never know, you might just be winner.  Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs,

Lea

Canvas Corp Fun

It's Stampendous Dreamweaver Thursday and this week the design team is hopping with Canvas Corp.  We each received this nifty canvas shoulder bag, perfect for carrying your water bottle, phone and ID while on a walk!  My project is a two-part creation; I'm sharing the back today and I'll share the front tomorrow. For the back side I used a Dreamweaver stencil so I decided it was appropriate to share it for today.  It's rather simple but sweet and, I really like the way it turned out, I hope you do, too!

The back side of my shoulder bag.

Here's what I used to create this canvas bag:

Canvas Corp Shoulder Bag
Stampendous® Dreamweaver Stencil LJ806 Hexagons
Stampendous® Cling Daisy Mix Rubber Stamp Set
Derwent® Inktense™ Pencils
Archival Ink™ Pad in Jet Black
Archival Ink™ Pad in Chrome Yellow
Faber-Castell® PITT Artist Pen in Black
Cosmetic Sponge
Water Brush

Here's what I did to create this canvas bag:

Stamp images onto bag with black ink.
Use masks (included as part of the stamp set) to cover stamped images and, using stencil, ink design onto bag with a cosmetic sponge.
Draw flower stem with PITT pen
Color image with pencils, then use water brush to bring out and set color
Add green pencil to two corners and set with water brush

Here’s our Official Contest Rules and there are three prize packages up for grabs.  Be sure to read the rules and play along to win!

Cling Bird Blossom Stamps Set

Bird Blossom Die Cut Set

Jumbo Acrylic Perfectly Clear Stamp Handle

Canvas Corp® Canvas Shoulder Bag

Surprise Goodie Bag of Canvas Corp Product

Australian fans can comment for a chance to win a Stampendous Stamp, a Dreamweaver Stencil and a surprise Stampendous goodie.

Here’s a list of my teammates that are playing along today:

Stampendous Blog

Laura Drahozal

Pam Hornschu

Alison Heikkila

Louise Healy

Lea Fritts (me!)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Be sure to come back by tomorrow so you can see the front of my sweet shoulder bag.  Don’t forget to comment for your chance to win a prize package.  See you then!

Hugs,

Lea

Two Great Companies...

...one awesome hop!

This week we are playing with some fantastic products from our friends at Clear Scraps and we’re excited to share our finished projects. You can image how much fun it is to have a clean canvas to start with but when you use Clear Scraps it’s a see-through canvas!

Our friends at Clear Scraps take pride in new product inventions with the best interactive albums and the best innovative designs.  In addition to their own fantastic and innovative products, Clear Scraps sells a huge selection of Stampendous products as they travel the nation visiting various consumer shows like Scrapbook Expos and others.

For my project today, I've taken a set of pages and created an album perfect for anyone buying a new home or even a military family moving to a new duty assignment.  I had a fun time making this as the idea popped into my head almost as soon as I saw the products I received.  Here's my project:

Here's what I used to create this project:

Clear Scraps Round Tabs Acrylic Pages

Clear Scraps Gears Embellishment

Stampendous® Family Home Perfectly Clear™ Stamps

Stampendous® Mixed Media White Paper

Green Cardstock by Bazzill Basics Paper®

Derwent® Inktense™ Pencils

Archival Ink Jet Black Pad by Ranger®

Copic® Markers: Y15, Y18, YG67, W7

Solid Oak, Inc. Steampunk™Small Gears

Zip Dry Paper Glue by Beacon Adhesives

AC Remarks® Highline Alphabet Stickers

Tim Holtz® Idea-ology Key

Here's what I did to create this project:

• Stamp houses, color with pencils
• Cut houses out but leave a grassy section creating an increasing height of grass with each page
• Lay each house/grass section down on green cardstock, draw around it and trim to match that section (This gives you a way to adhere the pieces to the acrylic but cover the glue and it gives it a more finished look and a place to write)
• Take clear gear embellishment and color both sides of it with the darker yellow Copic® marker
• Remove protective covering from pages and adhere papers as shown, be sure to insert sun/gear behind top paper on the last page
• With a green Copic®, color gears that have been matched up to create trees
• With the warm gray Copic®, draw tree trunks and branches and attach gears, one on each side of acrylic page for each tree
• Stamp sentiments on each page
• Adhere letters to tabs to spell "Home"
• Using lighter yellow Copic®, add sun rays on back page
• Poke holes through papers to add rings
• Put rings through and add a key to top ring and add extra gears to bottom ring

I hope I've not left anything off but I really think it's pretty obvious what I did if you just look at the photos.  I really love how this turned out.  It makes me super happy when a project comes out pretty much exactly the way I have it pictured in my head.

So, do we have prizes for this hop?  Clearly we do!!! In fact, we have three prize packages up for grabs.  Each will include our Cling Jumbo Filigree Stamp Set, a Jumbo Perfectly Clear™ Acrylic Handle, PLUS a Clear Scraps Mixable Album and some extra acrylic accents! Comment on our blog and each designer’s blog of the day throughout the week of our hop and the winners will be announced Monday, May 18th. Official Rules apply for Stampendous prizes. Please let us know where you live. As you know, prize winners have to be US residents EXCEPT….

Aussies – Look HERE!  An exciting treat for our fans “down under”!!  The Stencil Specialists , one of our Australian Wholesale Distributors, is going to offer a prize to one Australian fan every time we have a giveaway!!  How completely exciting! Plus they’re stocking way more than stencils from Stampendous now!

For the Clear Scraps Blog Hop, The Stencil Specialists are offering A Stampendous Stamp, A Dreamweaver Stencil (LL size customer choice), A Silicone Mould.  A Tub of White Ultra Light Paper Clay and 3 packs of Adhesive Gems.  WOW… Now there’s a prize package! Comment each day on the Stampendous and participating designer blogs and include in which area you live! We’ll announce the winner the following week!

Here's the list of each teammate hopping along today.  Be sure to comment on each blog if you want a chance to win one of the awesome prize packages.

Stampendous Blog

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel (me)

Pam Hornschu

Wendy Price

Janelle Stollfus

Asia King

Tenia Nelson

Jamie Martin

Clear Scraps Blog

That's it for me today!  Thanks so much for stopping by.  Please be sure to check back with us on Monday to see if you're a lucky winner.  In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

Hugs,

Lea

Wild About You

Today I'm sharing the Stampendous® Cling Jumbo Parrot set and the Wild Sayings Perfectly Clear™ Stamps Set for the sentiment.  I absolutely love this jumbo stamp set!  Parrots are such pretty and regal looking birds, and, since they come in so many different colors, you can be as wild or as tame as you choose.  The foliage stamps can be used with so many other stamps that have just been released with the April catalog so there's plenty of overlap between sets.  Great way to get lots of bang for your buck!

Here's what I used to create this card:

Stampendous® Cling Jumbo Parrot

Stampendous® Wild Sayings Perfectly Clear™ Stamps

Stampendous® Mixed Media White Paper

Jet Black Archival Ink by Ranger®

Dylusions Ink Sprays by Ranger® in Postbox Red, London Blue, Lemon Zest, Dirty Martini and     Squeezed Orange

Derwent® Inktense™ Pencils

Red Cardstock by Bazzill Basics Paper®

Zip Dry Paper Glue by Beacon Adhesives

Here's what I did to create this card:

Stamp parrot and three leaves with black ink
Color all images with Inktense Pencils and blend with water
Trim background paper to 3.75" x 7.75" and spritz with Dylusions Sprays, set aside to dry
Trim card base from red cs to create a 4" x 8" card
Cut out parrot and leaves
Adhere background paper to card base
Stamp sentiment on background piece in upper right corner
Adhere leaves and parrot to card front

This was a super easy card to create with lots of color that creates a big impact.  This set would also be great for mixed media cards, journal pages and even canvas home decor projects.  I love how versatile the larger stamp sets are from Stampendous.

Thanks bunches for stopping by today.  I'll have more Stampendous goodness for you on Thursday and Friday so be sure to check back by for those projects, too.  Hope you have a wonderful day!

Hugs,
Lea

Let's Face It!

Hello!  I've decided to periodically share some of my own art, either from my sketchbook or my art journal.  I love to sketch, paint, and just create art that makes me happy.  I'll share bits of my journey with you as I learn new things, tips and techniques.

Pinterest has a ton of pins on drawing, painting and creating mixed media pieces.  I've always loved to draw but I've never been good at drawing faces.  Thanks to Pinterest, I've found various sites that teach you how to do faces.  I'm going to be brave and share with you all my first face.  Granted, it took me several months to complete as I was only working on it here and there.  I've done a few artsy stylized faces but not a realistic face.  I'm not saying photo realistic but somewhat realistic.  So without further ado, here's my first completed, somewhat realistic, face:

Done with a No. 2 Pencil and a blending stump

And here's a page from my altered book journal:

Done with DecoArt Gesso and Derwent Inktense Pencils

I am always open to constructive criticism, so, if you happen to have a neat tip or trick to share with me that will help me learn or possibly improve a sketch I've done, please feel free to share.  I would love your feedback but please be kind.  I'm still working on my technique so be patient as I grow!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you're going to enjoy this personal touch to my blog.  I'm kind of excited about it, myself!  I would love to know what you think about it!   Have a wonderful day!!

Hugs,

Lea

Sparkle!

This is an art journal double-page spread that I thought I would share.  I really like how it turned out. Originally it was just the right side but after giving it some thought, I decided to add the left side as well.  I like to sketch when I have time, usually late at night when I'm sitting in bed.  The mood just comes over me and I have something in my head I just have to get out.  For this one, I was itching to use my Derwent Inktense Pencils.  Have you even seen a watercolor pencil that's this vibrant?!  I love them!

My sentiment on here is subtle as I didn't want it to be the focal point.  I wanted my young lady to have an ethereal glow and the whole page to have a magical quality.  I think it does!  

On top of my Inktense Pencils, I also used Stickles, a Copic Multiliner, Ranger Inkssentials white opaque gel pen, a gold gel pen and a Copic atyouSpica glitter pen in clear.  Oh, and a #2 pencil!

Thanks for stopping by and having a look!  I'll see you again on Wednesday when it's time to get Wicked!  Have a wonderful Monday!

Hugs,

Lea