My scrappin' life

A Card With Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L and Elizabeth Craft Designs

Today on the Crafty Power Blog step-by-step instructions on how to make this card using Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^TM and Silk Microfine Glitter from Elizabeth Craft Designs.

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Wishing you a lovely sunday and happy crafting!

Behind the Scenes - Meet Viva Las VegaStamps

It's Friday again, almost weekend! :) But first we have a new episode of Behind the Scenes - Meet the Manufacturers!

Lucky winner of last weeks BTS is:

Congratulations Alice! Please e-mail me your address and the stamp set + chipboard album are coming your way! :)

Today's manufacturer is also a stamp company. I had the priviledge to guest design for them last year November and loved working with their stamps! Today we are talking to the lovely DeeDee Catron. It was great meeting DeeDee in person at CHA! So please let me introduce you to Viva Las VegaStamps:

 

DeeDee, please introduce yourself and guide us through your company!

Hello! My name is DeeDee Catron and I’m the Marketing and Artistic Director for Viva Las VegaStamps!; the world’s largest rubber stamp manufacturer. I live in Las Vegas with my husband and son and our two dogs.

VLVS! offers the highest quality deeply etched pink rubber stamps available on the market. We were founded in 1991 by Wayne Gartley (Stampo in the stamping community!) with a large naughty bits and famous faces section. Viva Las VegaStamps! has since evolved to include rubber stamps in categories like vintage, steampunk, people, backgrounds, western, Egyptian, scenes, nature, animals, words and sayings and many more! We pride ourselves in being in ALL aspects of paper crafts; from altered goods to cards, from scrapbook layouts to tags and everything in between.

VLVS! manufacturers over 19,000 pink rubber wood mounted stamps. They’re manufactured on a 9x7 inch plate of plain rubber. Then they’re cut apart, cushioned and mounted on individual blocks for purchase. You can get them mounted, cushioned on cling foam for your acrylic block, or just the plain rubber! Some of my favorites are the Pointed Pen Tip, the Six Hexagon Background, and the Bird In Flight, because they’re timeless stamps that I can use on almost everything.

It would be awesome if we could have a little peek inside the factory, how and where are the products produced.

The manufacturing process is very interesting. Images to be made into stamps have to be strictly black and white. They’re laid out on a 9x7 inch plate with adequate space between them. They’re then sent to an Engraver who makes a Magnesium plate and a Matrix board. Both are mailed back to us, the Magnesium plate is stored and the matrix board gets indexed and taken to the factory. In the factory we have shelves of boards with their coordinating piles of rubber. When we need a stamp made, we cut a piece of rubber to match the size of the matrix board, lay them together and put them in a press! The press pushes the rubber into the matrix board at a high temperature, which cures the rubber in that specific shape. Viola! Included in the pictures of the process are the stacks of plates and rubber and the press itself. 

How are new stamps developed. Do you have in-house designers or designers from outside.

Products are developed right here in my office! Being the marketing and Artistic Director gives me lots of power! Not only do I get the chance to design stamps myself, but I have a handful of wonderfully talented artists who do drawings for me as well. Some artists draw on request, and some draw whatever they feel like for me to pick and choose from. Once I’ve got an idea for a board (Or theme of stamps) I look through the artwork I have, send out a few requests, and fill in some spots with my own designs to create a cohesive set of stamps.

How do you think the scrapbooking/mixed media scene will evolve in the upcoming year. What will be hot and new, what will be out.

I really think mixed media is where it’s going.. which is great! It brings together mass produced paper and embellishments with fine art skills, creating true works of art. As far as trends go.. I think more hands on DIY stuff will be even more prevalent than it is now. People doing their moldings, making their own floral vines, creating their own patterned paper.. that sort of thing.

Where can we find your company?

VLVS Website

VLVS Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Here are some projects created with VLVS stamps:

 

BY Aimee Fleck for VLVS.

By Hermine Koster for VLVS.

Journal page by Susan Brown for VLVS.

Journal page by DeeDee Catron  for VLVS (There's Nat, DeeDee and me at CHA! :))

By Sandra Strait for VLVS.

Here is a video for making your own Washi Tape.

And here is today's awesome giveaway: Plate917 – a 9x7 inch collection of images perfect for mixed media! 

For your chance of winnig this inspirational set of stamps you go to the VLVS website and find your favorite stamp set of the 2013 releases. Then you come back here and leave a comment. You can comment until Thursday, February 21 midnight (GMT +1). Winner will be announced in next weeks BTS! Good luck!

Thank you so much for this peek into your company DeeDee!

Wishing you all a happy and creative weekend!

Congratulations Histoires de Pages!

One of my favorite French magazines, Histoires de Pages, is celebrating their 8th anniversary!

Congratulations to the HdP team for making such a wonderful magazine for all these years. Hopefully there are many more to come!

In the current issue they are taking a tour through Europe featuring scrapbookers from 12 different European countries and guess who is proudly representing the Netherlands? ;)

Wishing you all a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Stamp Carving - A Whole New Experience (and CS blog hop winner!)

Before I forget I'm going to announce the winner of the Craft Stamper blog hop. And thank you to everyone who visited my blog and all the sweet comments on my Gelli Plate post!

The winner of the Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^tm and WOW! Embossing Powder package is:

Congratulations Ann! Please e-mail me your address and I will send you prize out soon! :)

Now, if you have seen my Gelli Plate/Craft Stamper blog hop post you know that I sometimes have stuff lying on my table for quite some time before actually using it. Here we have such a thing again. I had the stamp carving set for at least 3 months, maybe longer. And last week I finally decided it was time!

So I drew some designs and started carving. Wow, that was not that easy at all. If you push just a little to enthousiastic you carve something away that was not supposed to and you have to find a way to adjust.

But hey, they are your own designs, right, nobody sais you can't change them. And by the way, who likes perfection??

Anyway, I thought that once the design was drawn it was a very relaxing occupation. I did it in the evening at the dinning table while chatting with my family who were watching tv. Not much thinking involved. Loved it.

So here are the results:

The first one, making it hard on myself with all those little circles. So they obviously didn't turn out perfect and neither did the cuts on the opposite side. I was worried that I ruined the stamp but I actually love how it looks on paper :)

The second one. Thought this would be easier but no way. I got all kinds of little cuts and imperfections and had to go back quite a couple of times to make it look better but again I really like the outcome:

And then my Valentine's special. I totally messed up the upper part of the angel wings so I decided to carve the whole part out and create a space to do some writing and now I'm totally happy with that!

And now my whole carving block has been used. I turned the little left overs into little leafs and circles.

Love, love, love them! 

I used my new stamps to create this card for my sweet Valentine:

What are you making for your Valentine?

Thank you for stopping by!

Behind the Scenes - Meet MyStamp BOX

Hello! It's friday again :) Time for a new episode of Behind the scenes! I know some of you are already looking forward to these weekly interviews and I want to thank all of you for your great response and all your sweet comments.

As you probably know by now we always start with announcing last weeks winner.

Today we have a very lucky winner of 3 complete collections from 7 Dots Studio:

Congratulations Anne! Please e-mail me (info@birgitkoopsen.nl) your address and you will soon receive this great giveaway! 

And now on to today's manufacturer! I'm happy to introduce to you myStamp BOX! I've been on the MSB DT for a 6 months term and loved working with their lovely stamps. I also love the storage solution they have. All sets come in transparent plastic cases (like a CD case) and are perfect to store and find the stamps you need in a second!

Please meet:

 

Thank you, Birgit, for inviting us to your "behind the scenes" blog.

Our company, myStamp BOX was founded 4 years ago. We are based in Toronto, Canada. Being the owner I am involved in all of the aspects like designing, producing, marketing, accounting, etc. 

I have been living in Canada for 15 years together with my husband and two high school aged sons. My family is part of a fantastic neighbourhood and community. I enjoy being crafty and mainly create with stamps, paper, ink or my sewing machine. When I am not creating I need to get active through many sports, such as tennis, swimming, running, (ice) hockey or fitness. In the Summer we enjoy family  time around our cottage at the Baltic, on the German coast.

I am the main designer for the stamp lines. Some stamp sets have been created by other designers, such as Karen Ellis from The Art House Studio.

As you may know, myStamp BOX is a manufacturer of clear stamps. There are many kinds of clear stamps in a wide range of price and quality. Generally you get the quality you pay for, just like any other product. Our stamps are made from a material called Photopolymer, created in a process that involves exposure to UV light. They are manufactured in the US and in Canada and are of better quality than the acrylic kind. Photopolymer printing plates were developed for the printing industry and ink up very smoothly, like red rubber stamps. Acrylic stamps have generally a larger rim around the stamps' base and ink often pools on them in little droplets.

Products:

Stamps - our stamps come in a broad range of themed sets, each set is packaged in a clear storage box with an index. The sets range between 4-12 stamps and cover such themes as nature, holiday, as well as backgrounds, shapes and journaling.

The stamps are our main and my favourite product. They are easy to use, applicable to a variety of techniques and craft types, like card making, scrapbooking and mixed media. You can even stamp on dishes, fabric, candles and cookie dough!

We also carry chipboard albums in shapes that coordinate with our stamps, such as camera, suitcase, etc.

Embossing powders in basic colours are our latest addition and complement our product line.

Our products can be found in many craft and scrapbooking stores as well as in our online store.

We have an international Design Team that we choose every six months. We try to accommodate a range of different personalities and crafting styles to be able to inspire our fans with new projects through our blog and Facebook page. From time to time we invite guest designers to create with our products. Contact us, if you think you would be a good match for us.

I think scrapbooking and mixed media will keep being a popular craft sector. Stamps are incredibly versatile and perfect for all types of media and applications. Mini albums will continue to be popular and crafters will, inspired by the multitude of stamping and mixed media techniques, create many embellishments from scratch. I think embossing is enjoying a newfound popularity as well. We will be seeing many old and new ways how to use this great product.

Have a look at our stamp sets (they are generally 4x5" in size). And check out how they would fit into your creative portfolio...

you can find us here:

Website  

Blog

Online store

Pinterest

Facebook

 

Here are 3 suggestions from the blog for some fun stamping... tutorial/inspiration style

A Latte Goodness

Altered Cotton Reel

MMMM Cookies!!

And, of course we have a giveaway today!

A set of clear stamps: Wishing you Sunshine and a cloud chipboard album:

 

And here are some project created with this giveaway:

   

And here is what you have to do to be able to win this giveaway:

First visit the myStamp BOX website, then come back here and tell me what is your favorite stamp set. Comments close on Thursday, February 14 at midnight (GMT+1). The winner will be announced in the next Behind the Scenes on Friday, February 15.

Next week's manufacturer is Canvas Corp! Don't miss it! :)

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Art Fusion - Mixed Media Event in the Netherlands with Nat Kalbach and Birgit Koopsen (that's me :))

Yes, finally we get to announce our little secret :)

The date was set for ages, the plans were there even longer, we just had to make it concrete and now we did!

The weekend of April 13-14 my sweet friend Nat Kalbach is coming to my home village Winsum in the Netherlands where she and I will be teaching together on our Mixed Media Event called Art Fusion! You can find all about Nat, her awesome colorful mixed media art and all her amazing initiatives (like Creative Jump Start) right here: Nathalie's Studio!

 

A fusion of nationalities, styles and art media brought to you in 4 workshops. There will be 2 workshops on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. 

The exact location will depend on the number of attendees but it will be in Winsum which is easy accessible by car, train and bus.

We started a blog where you soon can find all the information regarding workshops, time tables, prices etc. and you can find it here!

We would love to welcome and inspire you!

Craft Stamper Blog Hop - Looking Back

Welcome to my part of the Craft Stamper Blog Hop! If you didn't pop in here because of the blog hop then make sure to hop over to the Craft Stamper Blog first now to join in, as there are awesome prizes to be won!

My name is Birgit Koopsen and I'm a newbie on the Craft Stamper Design Team. I'm thrilled to be invited to work with such an awesome and talented team and looking forward to creating hopefully inspiring projects for the magazine!

I would call myself a mixed-media scrapbooker. I love to create layouts and mini-albums as well as off-the-page projects like canvasses and every now and then do some Art Journaling. I love vibrant colors and lots of texture. I'm always trying to combine different techniques to create colorful and interesting backgrounds or embellishments. My style goes from quite clean and geometric to busy and messy depending on my mood and the products I have on hand.

Now, the theme for this blog hop is "Looking Back". We were asked to pick our favorite project/technique of last year. Since my first project for Craft Stamper Magazine is yet to come and I therefor don't have a personal project from last year I decided to go through some previous issues to see which article inspired me most to try myself. I came across Kate Bentley's "Gelli on a Plate" article in the newest issue. I know, that's not exactly last year, but.... I brought home a gelli plate from CHA last year and it has been sitting on my desk for a whole year, not used once, although I thought it would be real fun and I absolutely wanted to try. So now I thought was a good time to do so. I spend an afternoon in my studio playing and ohhh you won't believe the fun I had. I just couldn't stop. Every print brought up ideas for a next print and at the end of the day I was left with about this:

And then I made a couple more using more different colors and layers on one print:

For these prints I mainly used stamps, stencils and paper shapes but I can think of so many more objects to "stamp" with!

Stamps are from MyStampBOX, Darkroom Door, 7Gypsies, Prima and Infocrea. Stencils from The Crafter's Workshop.

The technique itself is quite simple. You add a thin layer of paint to the Gelli Plate and stamp or draw in it, add stencils or paper shapes on top and then put a piece of paper on it. You can keep on adding layers and colors as long as you like. Just imagine all the things you can do with these prints. Use them as backgrounds for your layouts or art journal pages, create nice mini-album covers, die cut them to create fun embellishments or make a simple but nice card like this one:

The letter to collect from me is: K

SPOT PRIZE!!! 

My spot prize is a variety of WOW! Embossing Powder and Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^TM products worth about $ 40, (BPS 25,-, € 30,-)!

To be in with a chance of winning simply leave a comment on this blog post by midnight (GMT) on Friday 8th February 2013. The winner will be drawn at random week commencing Monday 11th February.

I hope you enjoyed my post! Your next stop on the hop is Kim Dellow.

If you get stuck on the hop at any time, pop back to the Craft Stamper Blog. Have fun checking out all inspiring blogs coming next and good luck! Maybe you are one of the lucky winners! :)

Thanks for stopping by, but don't leave without checking out my previous post with another awesome prize to win, generously donated by 7 Dots Studio! 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Behind the Scenes - Meet 7 Dots Studio

It's Friday! BTS-day! But before I introduce you to todays manufacturer let's announce last weeks winner!

Congratulations Jackie! You are the lucky winner of those 5 gorgeous TCW stencils! Please e-mail me you address so we can send them out to you! :)

Today I'm happy to present to you an awesome patterend paper manufacturer from Poland! Please meet 7 Dots Studio:

Have you noticed that there are several very talented designers in Poland? Today we're talking to Anna Dabrowska aka Finnabair. Have fun!

My name is Anna Dabrowska-Pekocka, better known in the industry as Finnabair. I'm a proud DT Coordinator, Educator and Product Manager of the Polish scrapbooking brand, 7 Dots Studio. I live together with my husband, Andrew in Warsaw, Poland, but I travel a lot in the last 2 years too.

I’m a woman of many interests: I’m a full-time mixed media artist, scrapbooker, art journaler and teacher who loves new challenges, experiments and developing new techniques and skills. My projects are mostly media-based: I create paper and canvas layouts, collages and altered art, tags, journal pages – and many more. I love paint, texture and believe in power of recycling and upcycling. I just adore flea market supplies but also freestyle, careless creations.

How, when and by who was 7 Dots founded?

7 Dots Studio was born in October 2011 from dreams and for dreams - and it is a baby of a group of scrapbooking friends, who created a perfect team having different experiences and skills connected to scrapbooking industry. From the very beginning we intended to create a scrapbooking brand providing great mixed-media quality papers with a bit alternative look. We wanted to be as versatile as possible - from clean, graphic designs to mixed-media, grungy collage look. I think we achieved our goals and we're happy to see that many crafters and artists are interested in our designs!

7 Dots studio is a paper and paper embellishment manufacturer - we've got great quality paper collections suitable not only for scrapbooking but also all kinds of mixed-media creations - our 250g/mm papers work beautifully with sprays, paint and inks. We also offer stickers, tags and elements coordintating with our paper collections. All of them together are a great start for a scrapbook page or any off the page project and can be easily mixed with other brands.

What is your personal favorite product and why?

Oh, that is not a surprise I guess - I love papers, especially these which I can use as backgrounds for my projects - so as plain as possible, leaving a lot of freedom and space. Most of our collections provide this kind of design - double sided papers usually are more patterned on one side and more plain on the other.

How and where are the products produced. 

All our production is printed in Poland, and our headquaters and warehouse are in Warsaw, which helps us to control the printing process and manage the logistics. Thanks to that we can make the production process a bit shorter too. When the designs are finished and approved they are prepared by editors for printing... and in few days we are getting ready to pack, check and send our collections to the shops. Shipping time depends on the option chosen by the customers and the coutry they are located, of course.

How are new products developed. Do you have in-house designers or designers from outside.

On the beginning of the 7DS adventure we decided it will be more beneficial for us to relay on the freelance designers, whose personalities and style will be easily recognisable, so we don't have any in-house designers at the moment, but we've got editorial staff and creative director who support the designers. So far it works really well and I believe it is a perfect solution for us!

What are your thoughts about how scrapbooking/mixed media will evolve in the upcoming year. What will be hot and new, what will be out.

I'm sure mixed-media are strong and they will go up in the coming years - people want to play, design, enjoy the creative process. They will need more tools, mediums and surface to play for sure...  I'd say people will get more adventurous,open for the new creative ideas. On the other hand I think there will be also a movement in the opposite direction - going back to the roots of scrapbooking - so art journaling and simple projects saving our everyday lives such as "project life" or 31 Days of December. Diversity - this is the future I think!

Do you have some exciting news, new product releases maybe, that you want to share?

We are very excited about our new release, which is hitting the shops' shelves right now: "Queen's Heart" Collection - soft, beautiful vintage collection by Anna Iwanowska and  "Love is in The Air" - colorful, artsy collection by our new designer Agnieszka-Anna Niedżwiedzka. Both are simply delightful and our talented DT is working hard now to make some inspiratinal samples for our fans! Soon our bog will be full of new designs - I simpy can't wait to see and share them with everybody!

Where can we find your company? 

Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Here are our DT galleries and some examples from our DT:

Dreamer and Elise Rebel Collection

All I Ever and Wonderland Collection

Domestic Goddess and Hopefully Collection

And last but not least... here is the giveaway for today! Not just 1 but 3 collections to be won by one lucky reader. The 2 newest collections and 1 older one:

How awesome it that?! Would you love a chance of winning these great collections then this is what you have to do:

First visit the 7 Dots Studio Blog, then come back here and tell me which blog post of the last month was the most inspiring to you. Comments close on Thursday, February 7 at midnight (GMT+1). The winner will be announced in the next Behind the Scenes on Friday, February 8.

Next week's manufacturer is My Stamp BOX! Don't miss it! :)

Thank you so much for stopping by! Make sure to check back later today as there will be another post with great giveaways!! Have a great weekend!

Wintery canvas for WOW! Embossing Powder UK

Hello!

The last year I've very much enjoyed beeing on the WOW! US DT but starting this year I switched to the UK team as that seemed more convenient for me living in Europe.

I have done a guest post on the WOW! Embossing Powder UK blog bu today I have my first post as an official DT member up there!

The theme for this month is "ice and snow"

And here's the canvas I created:

For close-ups and detailed instructions please hop over to the WOW! Embossing Powder blog!

Did you know that there is a monthly challenge on the blog featuring the theme of that month?

By entering the challenge each month, you'll get a chance to win a set of 12 embossing powders of your choice in a handy carry case. The winner will be randomly selected from eligible entries.

Click here to see how you can play along this month!

Have a great day!

I'm jumping today!!

Very excited! Today is my turn at Creative Jump Start Summit 2013!!

Here's a little sneak peek of what I'm doing:

If you haven't signed up yet, you still can! Click here!

If you have... Enjoy!! :)

Have a lovely weekend!