It's National Stamping Month!

Can we call it International Stamping Month?

Welcome to the Australasian Blog Hop for September's very special limited edition stamp sets. There are three special stamp sets to choose from this month, all available from your Close to My Heart Consultant with no additional purchase necessary. Check with your consultant for your local price, but here in New Zealand the cost is $25 a set. Buy one or two or all! When you purchase all three sets for $64, you will save $11.
If you have arrived here from Maz Wood's Blog, Inky Fingers, then you are in the right place. The hop is one big loop, so just continue clicking around till you come back to where you started. With three stamp sets to feature, you are sure to see all sorts of ideas for the different packs.

My favourite set was the cardmaking one, and since I have been having a play with the watercolour paints this week I decided to combine the stamps with my new CTMH paintbox. I absolutely love this style of font. It's funky and fresh, and goes so well with the organic style of unpredictable watercolours running wherever they want to!
My three cards also feature some embossing. This combines really well with the watercolour technique, as the embossed wording resists the colour and remains bold, shiny and legible.

I tried out three different techniques with each of the three cards.

Card #1 - Hello

1. Stamp the sentiment on watercolour paper with black archival ink.
2. Sprinkle with black embossing powder, shake off excess and heat set.
3. Paint background with watercolour paints. Use a lot of water so that the colours run into each other.
4. Allow to dry.
5. Back with Cranberry cardstock and set on a Colonial White card.

Card #2: Oh Hey Thanks

1. Mask a piece of watercolour paper with painters tape.
2. Wet paper and paint with watercolour paints, right up to the painters tape.
3. Allow to dry fully.
4. Stamp with white pigment ink. Emboss with white powder.

Card #3: Honeycomb

1. Paint entire watercolour paper with watercolour paints. Allow lots of spreading.
2. Cut honeycomb card from Artfully Sent and Pacifica cardstock.
3. Stamp "hello" sentiment in Pacifica ink on White Daisy speech bubble.
4. Put the card together by adhering watercolour paper to the back of the honeycombed cover, and raise speech bubble up on foam tape.

Please leave a comment before you head off to the next blog on our hop, which is Mez's Craftroom.

April's Stamp of the Month

Welcome to the Australasian Blog Hop for the very very awesome April Stamp of the Month!
If you have arrived here from Wendy Hopper's blog - Expressions of the Heart - you are in the right place. Feel free to browse all the ideas which the Aussie and NZ consultants have put together for you to be inspired by, comment as you go, and hop along to the next blog at the end of each post.

I love this stamp set. I know most of my customers have had their eye on it for months! If you're into cardmaking it's an absolute must-have - such a versatile set. It's a set of 19 - yes, you read that right - a set of NINETEEN! - stamps worth $33 and only available this month. However, if you would like to get this amazing set for $5, contact your CTMH consultant. With an order of $75 you'll be able to add this set for just $5 - and it won't be hard adding your order up to that threshold this month, believe me! To find out more about the Stamp of the Month programme, click here.

Here's my very quick and easy card using the Typed Note set and the new masculine themed papers, Jackson (NEW PRODUCT!!):

 I teamed the stamp set with cardstock in Cocoa and Juniper, which matched the colours in the pattern piece I was using from the paper packet. All three strips are cut to 1.75x3.75". I embossed the Cocoa piece with the chevron folder to give it more dimension.
To see more about the Jackson paper packet, have a browse through the new Seasonal Expressions magazine.

 I stamped the typewriter image with Cocoa ink and the sentiment in Glacier. The Glacier ink matched with the Glacier extra thick twine (NEW PRODUCT!!) I used along the bottom third of the card. As you can see I popped the typewriter up on foam tape.

I hope that you liked my wee project and that it helps you plan your cards using this very cool stamp set!
Hop on over now to Doris Taylor's Creative Inspirations for more SOTM ideas.
Thanks for stopping by!