Topflight Stamps Hop - Happy 8th Birthday!

It's Topflight Stamps' 8th birthday!! Happy birthdayyyy! To celebrate I’ve teamed up with some great designers to showcase celebratory projects using the unique products available at Topflight Stamps. Please hop with us and see all the beautiful talent from this group of amazing designers - I love being invited to hop along! I'm otherwise quite a bit out of the loop these days. 😊

You can go to the Topflight Stamps Blog for the full list of links and other hop info - in addition to the blog hop there is a hop on Instagram, and you'll find that info there too. Keep reading for prize info!

If you're not familiar with Topflight Stamps, they have the most amazing collection of hard-to-get products from outside the US all in one convenient online shop! You will love browsing there if you haven't before - or even if you have! I'm always finding things I've never noticed before. For today's hop I ended up with a fun collection of dog and mail-themed products. We have a new puppy, and Sunday was National Puppy Day - that's all something to celebrate!

For my first card I used the Happy Mail clear stamp set by Heffy Doodle to create some faux postage stamps. I did a couple of layers of masking to create my little scenes - all of those images are separate stamps. Coloring was done with colored pencils. I used the Art of Traveling stencil by Stamperia to create the background panel, adding in a few stamped hearts from the Happy Mail set to bring my colors together. 

I also wanted to test out the Fallen Leaves Versafine Clair ink - I have had their Pinecone pad, which always blends out with a reddish tone... THIS was the brown I have been looking for. It's a nice dark espresso brown and it's perfect for brushed edges.

I used the same stamp set and stencil to create a little background vignette for my second card, coloring up that circle panel with Copic markers and Distress Oxide inks. The Rufus die set here is the star of the show - he is part of the Pet Pals line from Creative Expressions. I took some color cues from our puppy, Terra - she is a Great Pyrenees mix! About 3-1/2 months old and already a big girl.

To color the die cuts, I brushed the Fallen Leaves ink around the edges, then did a little masking to brush ink on the ears and tail. Extra shading was added with colored pencils. The die for the head piece has openings that can be stenciled for the eyes and nose - very clever! I used a black pen to color those in, then added highlights with dotted white paint.

Here are links to the products I used from Topflight today:

Creative Expressions - Pet Pals - Rufus die set

Stamperia - Art of Traveling - Postal Stamps stencil

Heffy Doodle - Happy Mail clear stamp set

Tsukineko Fallen Leaves Versafine Clair Ink Pad

During our birthday hop, your order from Topflight will be 20% off - no code is needed!

Annnnnnnnnd it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes! Topflight Stamps is giving four lucky winners a $50 Gift Certificate to the store. Two winners will be chosen from commenters on the blog hop and two will be chosen from commenters on the IG hop. For a chance to win, make sure to visit the stops on the hop and leave a comment by April 1st. Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on Thursday, April 3rd. U.S.A winners only due to shipping issues. Good Luck! Please be sure your comment or Google account gives us a way to contact you.

Here is a list of the designers who are sharing projects today to celebrate this special occasion:

Topflight main post

Kathi Rerek

Dina Kowal <<<<<< you're here with me!

Esther Asbury

Annette Allen

Rachel Kleinman

Connie Mercer

Lisa Hoel

Gwen Lafleur

Colleen Dietrich

Ericka Strange

Autumn Clark

Natasha Vacca

Colleen Balija

Alanna Moses

Sara Naumann

I thank you for visiting me, and for celebrating Topflight's birthday with our talented crew!

When you shop through the affiliate links used here, the company sends a small commission my way at no cost to you as thanks for the referral.
It's a lovely way to partner with these companies that mean so much to our creative community. Everybody wins!

Topflight Stamps Hop - Happy 7th Birthday!

It's Topflight Stamps' 7th birthday!! Happy birthdayyyy! To celebrate I’ve teamed up with some great designers to showcase celebratory projects using the unique products available at Topflight Stamps. Please hop with us and see all the beautiful talent from this group of amazing designers - I love being invited to hop along! You can go to the Topflight Stamps Blog for the full list of links and other hop info - in addition to the blog hop there is a hop on Instagram, and you'll find that info there too. Keep reading for prize info!

If you're not familiar with Topflight Stamps, they have the most amazing collection of hard-to-get products from outside the US all in one convenient online shop! You will love browsing there if you haven't before - or if you have! I'm always finding things I've never noticed before. Here is my "celebration" of small things and creative reuse!

I chose the most adorable Woodland Bundle by Stamperia to work with, and though it's sold out at Topflight (I'm so sorry!) I can wholeheartedly recommend Stamperia's products - this was a nice sampler of their stencils, papers, rubons, die cut stickers and chipboard ephemera! Their products are beautiful and the highest quality. I hope my projects will give you ideas that you can use with their other products at Topflight!  They do have 2 other Stamperia product bundles HERE and HERE - if you're shopping the sale  you might want to grab those before they're gone! 

A couple of years ago I got a little obsessed with buying vintage wood stamp lots on ebay (oopsie!) - one lot in particular had a lot of self-mounted stamps that were not indexed and the maple blocks were in really nice condition after I removed the rubber. I set them aside to alter and found them last week as I was cleaning, so I decided that would be my project for the hop today! For 2 of them, I glued paper from the Stamperia paper pack as the base, then added some of the die cut elements to create a little scene. Here I added the mouse then used one of the stencils around the edge, creating a raised design with matte gel medium. I brushed ink over the stenciled design to darken the edges of the panel and highlight the mouse, then added some fern die cuts (Craft Emotions - Dies - Fern Leaves), die cut kit images, and a Lavinia sticker (Lavinia - Sentiment Stickers - Uplifting Collection) to the corner. This block is 5"x6" and I think it will be a sweet decor piece!

Here are a couple of closer peeks - my idea for the stenciling was initially to create more of a resist, but I needed different ink for that and I didn't want to risk damaging the paper by getting it too wet. I do like the effect I ended up with!

My second block is a little bit smaller. My process was the same, using paper to cover the block, then adding die cuts to create a little scene. The little mice are so cute! I die cut and watercolored more ferns, popped up more word stickers, and then sponged the bottom edges for depth.

I thought those words were so sweet - the Lavinia stickers remind me of the refrigerator magnet words that you can group together in different phrases. This one spoke to me today.

My favorite thing in the kit besides the mice were the intricate stencils - they are a large 7" x 7" size, and so well designed with multiple motifs on each panel. One of them had a beautiful sentiment framed with leaves and berries, and it was a perfect fit for a larger block in my box. I prepared the background with gesso and acrylic paint, sanded lightly to create a texture, then stenciled  the design with black texture paste. I had picked up some small sea sponges at the thrift store - I used one to create a border of color. When that was dry I went back in with my craft paints and painted the leaves and berries. There are several layers of paint, as well as highlights added with an acrylic paint pen.

I did use a brush to connect the letters where the stencil design had gaps - it's not noticeable unless you look closely, and I like that continuity better. The raised outline of the leaves and berries gave me an outline to work with and also gives texture even in the places it's covered by paint. TIP: Remember there are other ways to use stencils besides just brushing ink through them! Stamperia definitely has stencil designs that lend themselves well to painted projects like this.

Those are my projects and I hope you are inspired to try something similar!

You know our hop wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes! Topflight Stamps is giving four lucky winners $50 Gift Certificates to the store. Two winners will be chosen from commenters on the blog hop and two will be chosen from commenters on the IG hop. For a chance to win, make sure to visit the stops on the hop and leave a comment by April 1st. Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on Monday, April 3rd. U.S.A winners only due to shipping issues. Good Luck!

Thank you for visiting me! And I almost forgot - please enjoy a birthday discount at Topflight - no code is needed!

You can visit the Topflight Stamps Blog at any time for the full list of links and other hop info - have fun,  be inspired, enjoy the hop and sale, and good luck with the prizes!

When you shop through the affiliate links used here, the company sends a small commission my way at no cost to you as thanks for the referral.
It's a lovely way to partner with these companies that mean so much to our creative community. Everybody wins!