August winner and Top 3

Hello all you lovely Peeps, time to announce our August winner, but not before I say thank you all for your beautiful entries this month, you really do know how to make life difficult for us selecting our winners don't you, but decisions had to be made and I am pleased to announce that the lucky winner who can go spend £35 at Crafty Devils is.............................

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Jessie

Stunning sunset and so tactile

Huge congratulations Jessie, please mail me with your details so I can get your prize arranged and also collect our winners badge for your own blog.

And our Top 3 for August are.......................

Sandie

A lovely balance creation

Catherine

Wonderful in the soft sepia colours

Berit

Beautiful image and perfectly embellished

Well done to you all, please go collect our special sidebar badge for your own blogs.

I will see you all again on Sunday with our new challenge.

Win a £35 crafting shopping spree

Hello all you craft Peeps, time for some mid month inspiration and the continuation of our desert island crafting where this month Lynn finds herself marooned. And a little reminder that we have a fabulous prize on offer this month from our lovely sponsor Crafty Devils with an opportunity to win a £35 shopping spree at their on line store.

Lynne has made another lovely card to inspire us all which of course has a beautiful butterfly................

Lynne

I had to think long and hard about which items to take to my desert island! I tend to use quite a variety of materials and techniques in my crafting, so trying to choose just six items was very difficult. However, these are what I decided upon:

1) Colouring medium: (we are allowed 5 colours). Distress Ink Refills - Salty Ocean, Mustard Seed, Bundled Sage, Picked Raspberry, Shaded Lilac. I've gone for the refills rather than the inkpads as they would be more versatile. I could stamp with them, paint with them in various dilutions, and mix them to make other colours.

2) Craft knife. The one essential item I couldn't be without! I use one daily. It would also be very practical on a desert island, as it could be used for all sorts of things besides crafting! (But please can it include an endless supply of spare blades too, Brenda??!)

3) Metal ruler. Again, an essential item! For measuring, and cutting along with the knife.

4) Water brush. To do my colouring with. Could be used wet or dry.

5) Set of butterfly stamps: Would have to have some butterflies! Don't mind which, as long as they are not cute!

6) Set of permanent ink drawing pens: I'd use my time on the island to learn how to draw! Then I could make a variety of cards, not just butterflies! I could sketch scenes on the island, flowers, etc.  do Zentangle, pen and wash pictures, and because the ink would be waterproof, I could write a message and send it off in a bottle for someone to find and rescue me. On the other hand, with the sun, sea and sand, endless time to craft, and no housework, I might just decide to stay there!

It occurs to me that it would be an interesting exercise to see just what we could do with our six items. Thought filed at the back of my mind for future reference!

Along with the above we are allowed 50 sheets of card. I would want them all to be white, as I could colour any I wanted with the Distress ink refills. Hmm. 50 sheets would not last very long. Maybe I'd better be rescued after all!

Thanks for sharing Lynn, I hope everyone finds the little insight into your crafting essentials as fascinating as I do. A couple of things need clarifying, yes you can have extra blades, if we let you have a brand new knife it should come with a tub of spares as well. But as for being rescued well I'm not sure about that as I am saving Captain Jack Sparrow for when I find myself on that island paradise.

Happy Crafting everyone and don't forget there is still plenty of time to join in with this months theme.

July winner and Top 3

At long last I am here with the winner and Top 3 for our July challenge, we only got home from a great holiday late PM yesterday but thought I had better make this post a priority as you have been so patient waiting so long. So without further ado here we go with what was a closely run contest.......................

Winner of the fab prize from our lovely sponsor Little Claires is............................

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Beryl with this beautifully vibrant floral creation

Huge congratulations Beryl, please mail me with your full postal addy so I can get your prize arranged and don't forget to grab our winner badge to display on your own blog.

And our Top 3.............................

Coops

Tracy

Jackie

Well done to you all, please collect out Top 3 badge to wear on your own blogs with pride.

There is still plenty of time to join in our August challenge, so if you have not already done so or would like to enter again we look forward to seeing your creations.

August challenge

It's time for our new challenge here at Stamping Sensations and of course another lovely new sponsor who I am very pleased to welcome Crafty Devils who are offering one very lucky winner a £35 voucher to spend at their on line store. Do pop over to their store and have a browse, they have a huge range of all things crafty.

And we have a great theme this month.....................

****Wings and Things and a Touch of Vintage****

Your entry doesn't have to be a card, it can be anything you have created yourself so long as it follows the months theme and you can enter up to three times so even more changes of winning or bring in our Top 3.

Crafty Devils are one of the UK’s leading paper craft specialists with over 10,000 card making, scrapbooking, stamping and die cutting products on line.  We aim to bring you the latest high quality products from all over the world, supplying quality branded products including Spellbinders, Marianne Designs, Molly Blooms, Tim Holtz, Ranger, Docrafts, Papermania, Promarkers, plus lots more at the lowest prices around and FREE postage to all UK postcodes for orders over £12.

Now for some inspiration from the design Team and this month Guest Designer who we are very pleased to welcome is Marie with this delightful creation.....................

Brenda


Eret

Francesca

Lynne

Maddy

Sally

Tracy

We hope you love this months theme as much as we did and look forward to seeing your lovely entries.

July winners

Just a little message to you all to say I have not forgotten about this months winners, but as I am on holiday at present as are some other members of the DT,  the winners post will be published as soon as possible after my return on 12th August.

Meanwhile our August challenge has been scheduled for Sunday 4th so do pop back here to check out the theme and prize on offer from another fabulous sponsor.

Desert Island Crafting

Good morning to you all, time for some mid month inspiration which this months sees the start of a little bit of fun with our Desert Island Crafting where each month we will feature one of the DT. Each will be allowed six items of their choice, for the colouring medium they are allowed five colours but need to explain their choice and in addition each can have 50 sheets of cardstock

This month it's the turn of our Tracy and you will see below her items of choices and also another lovely card from her:

My six essential Desert Island crafting items are:-

1) Colouring Medium (we are allowed 5 colours) - Distress inks - Brushed Corduroy, Stormy Sky, Worn Lipstick, Shabby Shutters, Mustard Seed.

I chose distress Inks as I can use them to colour images and to ink around edges, and as a versatile colouring medium I can mix colours to make colours, hence my colour shade choices.

2) Guillotine - I'm a bit of symmetrical person and have to have straight lines

3) Collall - all purpose glue - it just sticks anything and could complete a full card using that as the only adhesive.

4) Flower Punch - being partial to my handmade flowers on my cards one of these would be a must for me to embellish.

5) Stickles Diamond Dust this is my favourite and I love my sparkle

6) A set of House Mouse stamps - they are my all time favourite stamps

In addition we are all allowed 50 sheets of cardstock of our choice - I would choose 25 sheets of white as I could colour stain them with inks, then 25 sheets of assorted pastel colours as I like pastels best.

I know I'll have forgot some kind of essential

Tracy x

Thanks so much Tracy, I had a feeling those little mice would make an appearance.

There is still plenty of time to join in with this months challenge where we have an option theme, Tracy's sketch and/or summer colours an as always you can enter up to three times to increase you choice of wining the fabulous prize from Little Claires who are this months lovely sponsor.

July challenge

Welcome to our July challenge where we are pleases to introduce a fabulous new sponsor Little Claire Designs and of course a great new theme.

But before I tell you about that I have some bad new and good news to share, our lovely Pinky is taking a few months break to concentrate on family and her card making business which has become rather busy lately. We will all miss you so much Pinky and your lovely cards, but understand you need to take time out and really hope you will be back with us again soon.

But that does bring me to the good news, we have decided to increase the DT to eight and I am so thrilled to announce the new crafty girls to our team Eret and Maddy. Both have been regular's at Stamping Sensations over the years and have both been challenge winners so it was an easy decision to invite them to join us. I hope you will join myself and the DT in giving them a very warm welcome.

So now for our theme which is an option, a lovely sketch designed by our own Tracy and Summer colours. This means you can use just the sketch, just summer colours or combine the two, it's up to you completely. 

Now to introduce our sponsor..........................

‘Little Claire is a team of 3 consisting of Gill (Little Claire) Steve and Carol (long suffering member of staff/friend/all round good egg!) ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ this is the saying that sums up the creation of Little Claire Designs.


We love stamps and what better way to satisfy the stamping ‘urge’ than to create our own designs exactly as we want them!

Our products are designed and manufactured here in the UK and we get really excited when an idea comes to fruition and ends up as a real live stamp and is translated into a beautiful card.  And talking about beautiful cards, we are very fortunate to have a wonderful team of designers who are very loyal and supportive to Little Claire and they make the most amazing card samples which in turn help to sell our stamps & accessories, thank you to our ‘Teamies’ x

So this is us, we are always moving forward, constantly thinking of new ideas, sketch book always to hand, we love what we do and hope you do too x’

And now for some inspiration from the design team and this months Guest Designer who we are very pleased to welcome................Marianne, who has made this delightful card.............

Brenda

Francesca

Eret

Lynne
Using Little Claire's "Swirly Whirlies Owl Family" (part of stamp)

Maddy

Sally
using little Claire's Cherish, Hug, Dream stamp set

Tracy

Good luck with the challenge everyone and myself and the DT are really looking forward to seeing all your lovely creations this month.