Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I have so much to be thankful for this year including "you"... all my stamping and scrapbooking friends and customers. Thank you all for your support and friendship.

My family and I are also very thankful that our beloved coon-hound Marble is now back home and recovering from injuries. We are not sure what happened but think she was attacked by some kind of wild animal in our nearby woods. Husband and the people at the Vet's office think that the injuries could have been caused by some kind of cat (panther/bobcat) or maybe a wild boar. I won't go into the gory details but she (and we!) are lucky that she was smart enough to come home right away, and that the puncture wounds did not hit an artery.

Thank you Lord for all your blessings!

Mine & Pam's Play Day Samples

Hi Stampers and Scrappers,

My friend Pam came over yesterday for a rubber stamp "play day" and we had so much fun! We took a couple stamp sets and went to town creating some fun and easy cards that I thought I would share with you. We mainly used two of our new winter sets - Holly & Pine and Oh Dear! Here is what we created.This is a kind of tag-card with the sentiment stamped on the back. Pam likes to not only stamp on her cards, but also inside and on her envelopes. I love that don't you?back view

Non-Stamp, Diaper Cake

Hi Stampers and Scrappers,

My husbands Aunt Margo and I have a lot of fun when she comes to visit from MA, she likes to cook and craft like I do. Her last visit we made baby shower invitations with matching favors which were decorated jumbo binder clips. Another one of her daughters is pregnant so this visit we made this diaper cake for her baby shower that will be held in late December.


This was really fun to make... all you do is roll up some diapers (we used disposable but you can use cloth as well) and hold them together with rubber bands, make a couple layers of your cake and then decorate. We did not stamp on this but I did use my Cricut die cut machine to make the topper and some snowflakes and gift packages that were attached to toothpicks and stuck in amongst the diapers. The curling ribbons really made the project come to life. We were very proud of our accomplishment and had a lot of fun shopping for all of the supplies and figuring out how to put it all together. I hope you get a chance to craft with a friend this holiday season too!

Half Price Sale!

Hey everyone,

As you know these are hard economic times and the craft industry is really feeling the effects including us here at The Stamping Studio. I have been so pleased that our exclusive unmounted stamps are still popular as ever and our holiday designs have been selling well. We are so glad that you like our stamps!

To try and combat the effects of the economy we have decided to concentrate on giving more of what you like... new stamp designs... and less of the "supplies" that have not been selling as well. What that means is that we are going to give you great deals on a bunch of our stock (lots of Half Prices!) in an effort to accumulate funds to produce more rubber stamps.

I have just marked down some wonderful products to Half Price this morning including, Micro beads, Glitters, and Glimmer Mists. We have a limited supply of all of these and have listed the quantities to help you. You can find these items in the very bottom section of the online store "4 Sale/Close Outs". I will be adding more items in the days to come so get them while you can! http://thestampingstudio.com/

Stamper's Quest

Hi Stamping and Scrapping Friends,

I am so excited and honored to be the guest designer on the Stamper's Quest online magazine this month! I posted about this new online magazine before and it is a really fun place to check out and look around with great samples, techniques and inspiration. Here is a link to there website http://stampersquest.com/

And here is a link to the guest artist feature where I have a tutorial on how to make a Spring Card. http://stampersquest.com/2008/11/17/november-guest-artist-melissa-baldwin-of-the-stamping-studio/

Thank you Stamper's Quest!

Stair Step Card Tutorial

Suzanne Milam made a Stair Step card in her last batch of Design Team cards and I had to make one too using some of our new stamps! Here is a tutorial of my design, that we made at the Christmas Card Workshop.

Gather your supplies which should include;

Pattern cardstock - white cardstock

Snowflake Tree and Joy& Noel stamp sets

Jet black StazOn ink pad

Adirondack ink pads, Red pepper, Pool, and Citrus to match my paper

Metallic Shred from the dollar store

Rhinestone gems

Let's start out by stamping on our white cardstock. We are going to stamp 3 trees and I like to work from lightest color to darkest so I will start with the Citrus.Stamp it on the white cardstock then...Lift the stamp up a bit (without re-inking) move it about a bit and stamp again and again until you get this, what I call, halo effect. It kind of looks like the tree is glowing!Do that for all 3 trees

Then stamp the "Joy to the world" on one of the trees, and also use the small snowflake from the Snowflake tree stamp set to stamp the top of the tree and around the tree using black ink for all, and then trim out the trees

The base of your card should be cut 10x5.5" and you will want to score it at - 1.25, 2.5, 4.25, 6, 8.25. These are your stair steps!

Trim coordinating pattern paper that will get glued to the front of the foldsStamp the saying on the smalled pattern piece, which will be the front of the cardLike so
OK now let's do some embellishing. Grab your trees and shred...Wind single strands of shred around your trees to create garland Mine looked like this on the backs, which I thought was OK

Then add some rhinestones and you are done!

Of course this Stair Step Card fold has tons of possibilities. If you don't want to cut your image out, how about die cutting some shapes out and then stamping those? I am sure you can come up with your own wonderful designs, and hope you will try this out!

Fall Photo Home Decor

Thank you to everyone who came out to The Paper Rabbit scrapbook store in Greenwood SC yesterday. We had a great time with the classes and everyone loved all the new Christmas/Holiday Stamping Studio stamps!

Thank you Lynn for hosting the event at her wonderful store... stop by and check it out if you are in the area she has lots of great stuff you are going to want.

On another note... I posted some fall photo's I took of my boys and my nephew Angelo, the other day and I thought I would show you what I created with them. You may remember that I recently hung 6, 12x12 shadow boxes in my living area and filled them with family reunion scrapbook pages... well here is my fall scrapbook pages. I still have finishing touches to put on some of the pages but it just makes me smile when I pass them by every day, and isn't that what scrapbooking is all about?
My 6, 12x12 shadow box collage

All four boys with their pumpkins

Angelo

David, youngest twin

Alec, the older brother

Sean, the eldest twin

The pumpkins... I still need to do a title and journaling on this one.

I kept all the layouts very simple so the photo's would really stand out, and I will add a few things before I transfer them into my scrapbook.

The Boys and Goodbye

Every fall we buy pumpkins and I take the boys annual "pumpkin" photo's. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have some fall foliage colors as a background, but here in Georgia fall comes late. This year we were so happy to have my nephew Angelo included in these photo's, and it really is quite comical watching the boys follow me all over our property with their heavy pumpkins so that I can get a great background or have them sit on a fun prop. These photo's are usually some of my favorites to scrapbook and craft with. I hope you will take the time to get outside and take a few fall photo's this year of your family or animals and create some fun memories that you will love to look back on again and again.


On another note, Angelo and my sister in-law Kim will be leaving us this Sunday to return to their home in Madagascar. Please pray that they will have a safe and smooth trip, and also please pray for all four boys as separating is going to be hard for them. They have been hanging out almost every day since Angelo arrived this spring. I already had a batch of tears last night and it breaks a Momma heart. But we have decided to bug them a lot, until they come visit us again soon!


Here are just a few of the fall photo's I took a few weeks ago.
Sean, 9 years old

David, 9 years old

Angelo, 9 years old

Alec, 12 years old

Snow Globe Card and Tag

Hey everyone!

I am getting so excited for the Christmas Card Workshop coming up this Saturday! I have been busy designing fun holiday cards using a lot of our new stamp sets and having fun. BTW, we still have spots open so give me a call or email and let me know if you want to come. It is only $5.00 to make 5 cards and that includes food! (707) 359-6387 - melissa@thestampingstudio.com

I thought I would give you a Sneek Peak of a card that I designed with our new Perky Penguin set. Isn't the snow globe design the cutest? I cut that out using my Cricut die cut machine. My heart melts every time I see that penguin with his little snowman. I had some paper left over so I scaled down the size and designed the matching tag... or it could be glued to the front of a card as well. Your sentiment, or to-from can be stamped on the backs of the card and tag postcard style.

Tag

Card

Hope you have a great day everyone!

God Bless America

Here is my nephew Angelo with his Mom Kim right after they signed the document that confirms that he is officially a US Citizen. Yea!

My brother in-law Colin, and sister in-law Kim live in Madagascar along with Angelo whom they have adopted. They came back to the states to make all of this official and after many months it finally is. We are so blessed to have Angelo in our lives (he is the same age as my twins and get along famously!) and we are so sad that they will be leaving us for the long trip back to Madagascar to join Dad/Husband. We will miss them so much.

We truly live in a great country, so don't forget to exercise your opinion and vote today! Here in GA we were able to vote early so I was able to vote, with out a line this past Tuesday. One thing is for sure... we will have a new President soon and "Husband" and I will be glued to the TV set tonight. I better get my stamping done early!

Hello Dear!

I LOVE this new stamp set "Oh Dear!". Here is a super simple card I made with it earlier today and I love how the deer look like they are running by just stamping a few times with brown ink.

I hope you all had a chance to stamp this weekend!