Wonderful Woodgrain

Hello! It's Julia and I'm excited to be here at Market Street for my first MS blog post.

I'm a huge background stamp fan as there are so many wonderful possibilities and techniques to do with them. Have you checked out the Market Street Stamps backgrounds? Every single one is either at home in my scrap room or on my wishlist.
























One of my favorite Market Street Backgrounds is Woodgrain. It's so versatile! I've never paper pieced a background stamp before but as soon as I saw this stamp, I just had to give it a whirl. The beautiful wavy lines were so fun to cut and I love how it turned out.
















To create this paper pieced design, you need three coordinating colors of cardstock and some sharp scissors. Stamp the image once on each color of cardstock. I used the lightest color as the card base and then carefully cut out layers of the mid-tone and darker cardstocks.

Lastly, the sentiment and circle stamp are from the So Happy stamp set.


Take the time to look at your background stamps in new ways. I hope this project gets you thinking!

You're an Inspiration

Hi there and happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there! I hope your kids and family are spoiling you rotten today!!!

I'm sharing a sweet but not-too-frilly card that I made for my own mom for today. I used Card Patterns' sketch #112 from a couple weeks ago since it was perfect for the idea I had in mind.


I can't get enough of Market Street's So Happy set, so here are those wonderful daisy-like flowers again. I did some simple masking to create a little grouping of them. Then added that adorable butterfly popped up on dimensionals and his trail behind him.

My sentiment is from March's new set Hippie Chic. I love how all of Market Streets sets just work together. The sentiments and images are so interchangeable. It really gives you a lot of bang for your buck.


My favourite part of the card is the hidden pocket behind my main image panel. I tucked a tiny tag that I made out of the same decorative paper I used on my card behind the image panel and stuffed it with a gift. You can see it peeking out in the first photo above.

Here's a brief tutorial on how to achieve that:

• Mount your main image panel up on dimensionals. Make sure you only put one small dimensional in each corner of your image panel.
• Make a tag out of decorative paper or cardstock about 1 inch longer than your image panel.
• Fold up the bottom at the 1-inch mark to make a pocket. Staple or tape the sides closed.
• Insert money into the pocket you just made.
• Round or notch the corners of your tag.
• Punch a hole in the top of your tag.
• Insert a snippet of ribbon so the tag can be removed easily.
• Insert the entire tag behind your image panel, peeking out ever so slightly. [But not so much that the money shows. You just want to pique your receiver's interest!]
  

Fresh and Springy!!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend out there! I am so ready for the warm weather! I am loaded up on shorts and capris, just waiting for the temperatures to get to the point were they are wearable. {Up here in the Midwest, we have been having a terribly long winter.}

So, as I am hoping and wishing that Spring finally comes, I made this nice and cheery card to help lift my mood. {This So Happy stamp set is one to help lift anyone's mood.}

**Make sure you check out the current challenge going on here. You have the chance to win a Follow Your Heart stamp set!!

Aahhhhh..... spring.....

Hello, there! Steph here to share some spring with you! Are you all seeing some flowers popping up where you are? I hope so! I know we are down here in North Carolina! I truly LOVE this time of the year and so I took a little inspiration from spring and a little from this weeks Card Patterns sketch to make this card:

First, I heat embossed the Bit of Burlap background stamp with white embossing powder on white cardstock. Then, I took Broken China Distress Stain and rubbed it all over the top of the heat embossed background! Love the effect and I'll definitely be doing this more!

Then, I pulled out my So Happy stamp set and played with the beautiful flower image. The flower and leaf images are colored, cut out, and popped up with foam tape to add some dimension to the card. Finished it off with some hot pink rhinestones and this super sweet sentiment and I think I have the perfect card to send out in the mail to by niece! She's gonna love it!

DON'T FORGET!

We're still looking for projects using Market Street Stamps to be highlighted as the "Cream of the Crop!" You can link your projects that use Market Street Stamps to any of the places linked below for a chance to be spotlighted and win a $20 Market Street Stamps Gift Certificate! I can't wait to see what you all are making! You have until April 25th for consideration this month!

• Market Street Stamps on Facebook
• Market Streets Stamps on Twitter
• Market Street Stamps Flickr group
• Market Street Stamps SCS gallery (keyword: marketstreetstamps)}

Hello There

Today I have a soft, spring-like card to share with you. I was inspired by FTL-134 and the Clean & Simple Cards color challenge on SCS.

I thought these soft colors screamed spring, so I immediately reached for my So Happy set from Market Street. I did a bit of masking to stamp only the top of the tulip here, in a grid-like fashion.

To add some interest to my card, I stamped the tulips again on scrap cardstock. Then cut that center petal out and mounted in on dimensionals for each flower.

The sentiment is from Market Street's Slow Movin' set. I highlighted that with two teeny tiny pearls.

Hope you like it!

So Happy

Hi there! I'm so happy to show you my card today.

And OK, I promise, no more cheesy puns relating to the card I made for the rest of the post!

I used sketch #106 from Card Patterns as my inspiration. I really wanted to make a bright, springy card because we've had nothing but dreary weather lately. So I paired some bright pink cardstock with yellow and purple inks.

I used Market Street's So Happy set for my entire card. I did some masking using post-it notes to stamp the little sunflower image repeatedly. Then cut it out with circle nestabilities to serve as my focal point.



I popped the adorable butterfly, trail, and sentiment up on dimensionals to make them pop. Then I went back with my Copic Spica lavender glitter pen and added some extra sparkle to the butterfly and sentiment to really make them stand out.

I hope this card brings a smile to someone's face, because it sure made me smile while I made it!

Celebrate Cake

Hi, there! Stephanie here! Today, I'm going to show you a card I made with the new Market Street Stamps Celebrate Cake and So Happy! These sets are now available over at the MSS store and are soooo much fun!

Here's the card:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the circle image from So Happy! I used it to create a background on kraft cardsock with white and silver ink.

I paper pieced the cake with Making Memories Black Tie paper and added rhinestones around the base of each cake layer!

Of course... I couldn't help but add a satin bow! I think it gives the card a very elegant feel! This card would be perfect for either a special birthday or a wedding!

Thank you so much! Card

Love is in the air! Can you feel it? I love Valentines season, there is so much pink and red in all of the stores and people get so crafty with making handmade cards, flowers, cookie and such. You can almost taste Spring in the air, hoping that it comes early this year. Can you hear the little chirps in the background?

Yeah, me neither. I live in the frigidly cold upper Midwest where we are barely to spring before the official Summer is supposed to start. ;)

This card has to be one of my favorites lately. Even though I have two girls, I am not a huge lover of pink except at this time of year. GASP!!! I know, right? So, I thought just little pieces of it would work perfectly.

For the background I used the Hearts A Plenty stamp, and then used the So Happy set for the flower and sentiment.

You might have noticed, or maybe not, but I use craft paper, a lot. I also have had the obsession with canvas and pins. But, we can talk about those issues at a later date. I also sewed around the edge of the card. I don't usually sew on paper, because, well, I am lazy. I hate to drag out the sewing machine just to do a little card. Well, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. Especially when there is an idea floating around in our heads.

Well, I have been uncharacteristically chatty today, so I will now leave you with the pics. Hope you enjoy!!