~Trendsetting Spotlight In Review~

Hello TSG Friends!

Well, normally this would be our weekly Trendsetting Spotlight Stamper feature, but I did a little whining and Jessica let me interrupt our normal schedule to bring you a "Friends of TSG" review.

There She Goes has some of the BEST customers and friends. Each Friday, we have a chat over in the There She Goes forums and most of these ladies have been there a time or two (or every time for some!).

Our first beauty is brought to us by Theresa W. The colors on this are amazing. The whitewashed look reminds me of those beach houses on Long Island.



To see more of Theresa's fabulously inspired work, check out her blog, My Sassy Cards!


Next up is this jaw-dropping beautiful tag made by our friend, Michele L. I literally gasped when I saw this inspired creation!


You can find more of Michele's beautiful work on her blog: The Enchanted Stamper


Linda L. made this impeccably detailed wonder with the Dance set. Linda's details are so perfect and well balanced. I want to hug this card!



Head on over to Linda's blog, a Happy Scramper, to see more of her stuff!


I am in love with the colors on this fab card by Iwona P. You can bet I'm going to be looking for that embossing folder, too!



Stop on over to Iwona's blog, Random Acts of Creativity, to see more of her fun style!


Corinna M. put a lot of fun and whimsy into this little beauty. Those fruit slices are genius!



Corinna's blog, Stamping with a Java Junkie, is chock full of fun and creativity. Check it out!


You can never go wrong with the pink/brown combo, am I right? Well, Banu N has proven that to be true with this super sweet little number. I'm going to break that set out tonight because of her!



If you'd like to see more of Banu's genius work, check out her blog, Stamping with a Passion.


And last, but certainly not least, I give you this absolute darling sample from Angela T. Yummy colors and fun designer papers make this a card that will please either a guy or a girl! Way to go, Angela!


I bet you'd like to see more of Angela's work, huh? Well you can on her blog, Sparkle and Bling!

Well, that's it for our "Friends of TSG Review". We will be back to our regular feature next week. If you'd like to be considered for our weekly Trendsetting Spotlight, all you have to do is play along and link up to our Monday challenges. Oh, and I liked doing this review so much that I will probably beg Jessica to let me do it more often :). So watch your e-mails for an invite!!

Thanks, friends!!

Hugs,
Holly

Wednesday Trends - Ruffled Ribbon

Hi everyone, Heather here. :) I'm popping in today to share a tutorial for one of the many ways to ruffle ribbon.  There really is no right or wrong way to ruffle, and by simply changing the way you rotate your wrist you can completely customize the ruffle design. 

Wavy Ruffle:

Step 1 - Apply layer of Scor-Tape to your card base. (Scor-Tape is my preferred adhesive as it has some "give" to it. If you make a mistake, or aren't completely happy with the ruffle you've put down, you can gently pull the ribbon back up and try again. Some adhesives are much less forgiving...)

Step 2 -Leave a little excess at the edge of the cardstock and press down to secure.  Hold your ribbon (with the top of your hand parallel to the card base) and press down the first ruffle into the adhesive.

Step 3 - Rotate your wrist so that the top of your hand is perpendicular to the card base and secure ruffle with adhesive.

Step 4 - Continue rotating left and right, securing the ribbon as you go along, until you've reached the end of the adhesive strip.  Trim excess.  (Tip: when rotating your wrist, your movement should resemble old-fashioned ribbon candy.)

And there you have it, a super quick and easy way to create a wavy ruffle. :) If you have any questions, just let me know... Have a great day!!

Trendsetter Tuesday- Heather

This week our featured Trendsetter is the always fabulous Heather! Whenever I am in need of some inspiration mojo, I head on over to her blog because I know that her cards will having wanting to stamp in no time :)

TSG63- Inspiration Challenge

This week’s challenge is brought to us by our Trendsetter of the Week, Heather! She was perusing a fellow-stamper’s blog, and was inspired by the gorgeous patterned paper combinations that were featured. So today Heather is issuing an Inspiration Challenge for us…the possibilities are endless! We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

To be eligible for the giveaway, you are to create a card that is inspired by the provided photo, and then come back to the TSG Blog to add your name and a link to your project in the Inlinkz that is located at the bottom of this challenge post. This challenge is open until the winner has been announced on the following Monday (July 19th). The winner will get a $5 gift certificate to use in the TSG Web store!

By participating in this challenge, you may also find yourself in the Trendsetting Spotlight that shines on the TSG Blog every Thursday. We will be on the look out to find challenge cards that stand out and show Trendsetting qualities. TSG stamps are not required to participate in the challenges but are appreciated :)

You do not need to have a blog to be able to participate in the TSG Challenges! You can simply add the URL link from your project after it has been uploaded to your online craft gallery. If you upload your card to an online craft gallery, please use the keyword TSG63 so we can check out your beautiful work!

Need some inspiration to help you get started? Check out these great cards made by the following Trendsetters!
~ Heather
~ Mercy
~ Jessica
~ Jodi

Winner from last week's TSG62 Color Challenge: Christy
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:6
Timestamp: 2010-07-12 06:30:59 UTC

Week In Review (July 5-11) & Card Give Away

What is Week In Review (WIR)?- WIR is where we showcase cards made by the Trendsetters and myself throughout the week. Not only to you get to see gorgeous projects made using TSG stamps, but you also have a chance to WIN one of these cards! Leave a comment on this post and tomorrow (Monday) I will choose a winner using a random number generator. That person will then get to pick out their favorite card and the Trendsetter that created it will send it to them :)

Winner from last week's WIR (June 28 - July 4th): Linda
Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:2
Timestamp: 2010-07-11 06:49:07 UTC

Jodi

Mercy

Danielle

Pam

Holly

Holly

Sandra

Jessica

Jessica

Jessica

Jessie

Jessie

Heather

Stampbook Saturday by Lisa

What is a Stampbook Page? A Stampbook Page is a scrapbook page created using stamps and inspired by a card. Each week we create a new Stampbook Page to give you ideas on how to use your stamps in a new way and hopefully inspire you to catch up on those family photos that you've been meaning to scrapbook. ;)

Hello! I've been excited to share this with you because it's been in my head for a few weeks now. It need to come out, hehehe! As soon as I made this card for our last release, I KNEW I had to use a similar design to scrap these sweet photos of my little guy waking up. These pictures bring tears to my eyes. It's a bittersweet moment when you move a little one from the crib to a big boy bed AND when this is the BABY and you have to take down the crib, well, it's even more of a tearful moment. This was close to one of the last naps my sweet babe took in the crib. Glad I captured the moment.

As you can see, I didn't stray too far from the card design. I used all of the same elements. I love acrylic stamps because lining up that giant scallop to stretch across a 10 inch space was sooo easy! Of course those sweet little lambs from Polka Dot Pals was a perfect fit with the sleepy theme of my page. I also used A-Z and 1,23 for my title.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a fabulous weekend and feel inspired to maybe squeeze in a little scrapping soon!

Hugs, Lisa

Two guest bloggers plus Friday Night Chat!

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I hope that you all had a great week and are looking forward to a fun weekend :) We have lots going on for today's post so we'd better get to it. First up we have tonight's Friday Night Chat info, then we have two more TSG friend guest bloggers sharing some great project ideas with us :)

Friday Night Chat

Join us tonight right here on the TSG Forum for the Friday Night Chat! the official chat doesn't begin until 7:00 PM but feel free to stop in at any time during the day to say hello. Everyone is welcome to join in and we love to meet new people!

Dollar Find Friday

By: Anita Autore

Anita altered a mini tote bag that she found at the Target dollar section and turned it into a great project using the stamp sets Butterfly Happiness, Art is the Window & Polka Dot Blooms. The images were stamped onto the bag with Distress Ink Dusty Concord.

TSG Tips & Tricks

By: Meredith aka Crafty Math Chick

Next up we have Meredith who has put together this awesome (yet simple!) picture tutorial showing us how to create these fun corner book marks.

Straight from Meredith:

I know there are a lot of corner bookmark tutorials out there, but I honestly think this is the easiest one hands down. You can use any sized square piece of cardstock, which gives you a great spectrum of embellishing options.

These are great for all sorts of occasions for people who love to read, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thank You gifts for teachers or librarians, holidays - and they fit in the same envelope as a card so they are easy to send (might take a little extra postage depending upon how embellished they are though).

I chose to decorate with TSG's 'Penguin Love' set, stamping the "Just Chillin'" sentiment on the different edges of the float ice piece image (I thought that sounded like a good 'reading' sentiment). I stamped the penguin with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored his beak and feet with an orange marker, cut him out and secured him to the ice. I wanted to use glitter but didn't know if readers want glitter all over their books, so instead I used a C3 Copic marker around the edges of the ice to add the look of a little dimension.


I should mention that I chose to have the penguin image sticking out a bit over the top of the bookmark, because I think it looks cute to see him peeking out as if to say "here I am! I have your page right here!". Some folks might prefer to have all the embellishments within the outline of the bookmark itself so nothing gets bent, it is just personal preference.


I thought it would be fun to make a 'front and back' bookmark, I am amused by animal backs on things, so I stamped the penguin image another time and colored over him with a black marker (penguins' backs are black right?). I cut off the tips of his feet (that sounds horrible doesn't it?) to make it look like the heels of his feet instead and that we were seeing his back, and colored them in with on orange marker as well. I added a Pop It to the back of the stamped front image. Then I cut the back image out, added some adhesive to the lower half of his body, and positioned him over the front image so the heads were aligned. Voila! Front & back bookmark!

You can download this TSG Tips & Tricks sheet to add to your collection by visiting THIS LINK.

Before I send you off to enjoy your weekend, I would like to say a big thank you to all of our guest bloggers this week for taking time out of their busy lives to share some of their talent with us! It was so much fun to switch things up this week and it is always great to hear from TSG friends :)

Have a fun and safe weekend everyone!