Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A Winner!

The Blog Hop Candy Winner has been announced! Congratulations to Estella, comment number 125 on Dawn's blog. She will be mailed all 4 of the new release stamp sets as soon as she contacts Dawn with her snail mail info. Thank you to all the other commenters...you all had some lovely comments for both Dawn and the new stamps!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Thinking of You

Good day artful stampers! I am very pleased to hear that many of you are receiving your new release sets...and I want to send out a warm welcome to all of you who have just recently found Artful INKables. We are glad you are here and thank you for helping us grow.



I have a card to share with you today. I am slowly working my way through the new sets to come up with a few samples of my own, though I suppose that is why I have a DT, so dont forget to visit their blogs for continued inspiration. *wink* Anyway, I stamped the row of mailboxes from the new POST A NOTE set and colored them with copic markers. I wanted to make a vertical card so I cut only three mailboxes from the row and I also stamped the little bird (that comes with the set) on one of the posts. The mailboxes were then attached to a lovely piece of dp from the new Basic Grey Porcelain collection. The green wash on this paper lent itself so perfectly to create this scene, right down to an area for the ground to 'plant' the posts on. I used another piece of dp from the same collection for the triangle layering in the background of the card and the solid card stock is from SU!. To finish up I embellished with some prima flowers and fuzzy brads and stamped the sentiment.

Check back on Wednesday to see who won the Blog Hop Candy being given away on Dawn's blog!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Cards by the Half Dozen

Weekends are the busiest time of the week for me so even though I may have the best of intentions, I rarely get any stamping done then. However I do have some special projects to share with you to kick off the week.

My 13 year old daughter has been quite busy with my newest release of stamps and has created some special projects. She has been stamping since she was about five off and on but since she has gotten to middle school it has been more off than on. However, the two sets with the girls in them (Think Big and Berry Picking) have really intrigued her and she cant seem to stop making more cards, lol (Shameless enabling here: those of you who have teen and tweens should consider these sets for your girls!) So today I present 7 cards recently created by my crafty daughter. :)


















Now as an artist, there are some things I'd change on a few of these cards but as a mom, I'm just so proud! She made these all without input or supervision by me. The layouts are hers, as are the color and paper choices. I'm especially impressed with the cupcake card where she masked the 3 and popped the large one! And the 4th card, the girls with black hair...I may have to copy that little tab idea (though I will be compelled to center it more, lol). A few of the cards have her own handwritten sentiments on them but since her writing is so pretty you might not be able to tell. Maybe I'll get her to write a few greetings for a set in the future!
Please be sure to leave a comment or two as she is very excited to share and get some "Non-Mom" feedback.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A Birthday Best Sample

First of all, I want to thank both our readers and all of the new INK Girls for a fabulous Blog Hop! Many readers said they had a great time hopping from one blog to the next and viewing the beautiful variety of samples made with our new release sets. Didnt everyone do a wonderful job? Im just floored by the talent we have on our DT. (If you missed the hop just follow the links in the post below.)

Next, I want to remind you that anyone is eligible to enter the drawing for the blog candy we are giving away on Dawn's blog until February 24th. Dawn will choose a winner on the next day, Feb 25th. So if you havent yet entered, be sure to visit her blog and leave a comment under the blog hop post. The prize is all 4 of our new release sets and a sampling of May Arts Ribbons. Good Luck!

And finally, I want to share another card I've made using another of our new release sets. I made this card using the 3 tiered cake from the Birthday Best set. I just masked a border around the edge of my vanilla card stock and stamped the cake at an angle. Then I colored it using prismacolr pencils and gamsol.

At the edge of the masked area, I drew a thick line in brown to frame the image...in retrospect, I suppose I could have just layered card stock and achieved the same framed effect. :-) The brown card stock is Chocolate Chip by SU! and the decorative paper is also by SU! but for the life of me, I cant remember the name...it is discontinued anyway, so I suppose it doesnt matter. To finish it all off I added 2 pink dew drops. What do you think?

It's A New Release Blog Hop!

It's time for a new release and to kick it off the INK Girls and I are bringing these new sets to you in the form of a Bouncy Little Blog Hop! So after you enjoy the samples and news I have to share here, you will be directed to the next Ink Girl's blog on our list...follow them all the way to the end and the last DT member will have a little surprise for you in the form of some super blog candy, along with directions on how to enter. Sounds like fun, huh?


My favorite of the new sets if called Think Big so that is the set I will be highlighting today. My youngest girl is in first grade and she loves to read so she was the inspiration for this image. For this card, the girl was colored using copic markers, too many to remember actually. :) The colors were mainly chosen to go with the DCWV enchanted paper. Basic Grey paper was also used along with Stampin up card stock. All in all the card is pretty simple, I spent most of the time doing what I like best, coloring! In fact all of our new sets are well suited for coloring!





All of these 4 new sets are available for sale as of today in our STORE and are very affordable.

Think Big


Birthday Best

Berry Picking


Post a Note
Now it is time to hop on over to the talented Toni Armstrong's Blog to see the great project she has to share using one of the new sets. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Valentine's Puppy



It occurred to me yesterday, as my children busily prepared their school Valentines, that I hadnt yet made a card for my husband. So today, I sat down at my desk and looked over my Artful Inkables stamps to see what I could come up with. Now, since we dont have any Valentine's specific stamps sets yet, this posed a bit of a challenge, lol. I did, however, create the valentine above and I am pretty tickled with it!

Most of this card was made using our Top Dog stamp set, with the 'love you' sentiment coming from the Basic Sentiments set. I stamped the doggy on white card stock and colored it with Copic markers and then cut it out...and cut off his head *grin*. Then I stamped, colored and cut out the heart as well. Many circles were cut from many different colors of red and pink but eventually, I settled on the ones I used above (SU Real Red and Positively Pink). I stamped 'love you' repeatedly on the white circle and added a bit of decorative paper by Heidi Grace to my layers. To finish it all off, I attached the doggy pieces to the circle in the front with the head popped up on dimensionals and the heart stuck in between so it looks like it is being held in the pup's mouth. For a simple embellishment, I used some of the 1" wide Burgundy May Arts satin ribbon we carry in our store.

If it werent for the fact that I wanted to create a special homemade valentine for my hubby, I would have found this card hard to make...you see, I have our 4 soon-to-be-released stamp sets sitting here looking at me, begging me to use them! But alas, I have to be sure our fabulous new INK Girls get theirs and have some time to make their lovely creations before I can share them with you. Hopefully, that will be really soon but for the time being...I guess we will all have to wait a little bit longer for the big reveal.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A Quick Note

Just a reminder that today is the last day to get the 50% off selected sets. (Code "50% off") After today we will be gearing up for our new release.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Can I Have a Drumroll, Please?

Wow, oh Wow am I excited about our new design team!! Let me tell you, I really think we have picked some major talent to work with us! Not only that, but we were able to pick a larger team this time around so "variety" will be the buzz word around here for awhile!!

So, who will the new INK Girls be? Well, without futher ado let me introduce them to you: (to visit their blogs, just click on a name)

Toni Armstrong
Cathy Indelicato
Elena Joldersma
Loretta Lock
Dawn Lusk
Holly McMillen
Kerri Michaud
Joy Stagg
Joanne Travis
Velta Wesson

CONGRATULATIONS Ladies!!
I am really, very excited about working with our new team to showcase our stamps, get the word out even more about Artful INKables and make new stamping friends.

The Ink Girls will be settling into their new roles here shortly and then, we will be rolling out 4 new stamps sets that I am dying to share with you!

And to the 100+ ladies who also applied to be on our team...please dont feel discouraged! This was such a hard decision and many factors went into making our choices. This business is so subjective and just because you were not a finalist doesnt mean you 'dont have what it takes'! Lots of variables were considered here, not just talent but writing ability, enthusiasm, photography, blog traffic and just a 'fit' with our particular company. I encourage everyone to continue to apply to any company calling for designers and to apply with us again when we have a call in another 6 months! Also, we plan to initiate a 'guest designer' program in the near future and ALL of you will be considered for these positions as well. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you all so much for your applications and for your continued support of Artful INKables.