I blame Marjie!!

Yes. It's ALL her fault! Yeah, so what if I got her started on scrapbooking all those years ago...she has taken it to an all new level. (Really--you should have seen the layout she did of her boys in their favorite jammies! She SCANNED the jammies, then made paper pieced paper dolls from the matching scanned printed paper! All back when I was still in my "Fast Formulas" phase!) Talk about upping the ante.

Anyway, this talented gal, Marjie, has gotten hooked on other kinds of paper crafting, including stamping. I love the look of all the distressed vintage craftiness from artists like Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi, though my style tends to be rather different. However, the spark keeps striking, so after quite some time of enjoying her amazing talents, I've felt inspired to give stamping a "go." Here are a couple of my first baby attempts:

New Home Card

This is my VERY first try, once I received my very first set of Wendy Vecchi stamps in the mail. 'Homemade Art' provided the house stamp and the included Wendy idea sheet gave me the idea for the layered papers and textures. Other stamps are from Autumn Leaves and Close to My Heart. Other embellishments from Prima and Amuse. The photo shows front & back of the postcard sized "congrats on your new home" card, happily mailed off to the intended recipient!

Laundry Tag

I've been holding on to this laundry paper from Cosmo Crickets Boyfriend collection for awhile now. Seemed appropriate, given the massive quantities of laundry this family produces on a daily basis. ;-) Hadn't come up with a project yet, but I have a small shadow-box type wall hanging with this sentiment on it and it struck me that it might be fun for a tag. Not 100% sure I like the way the dial came out, but hey, not so bad for a newbie. (Any ideas?) Curly-q stamp from Recollections is embossed with Tim's Distressed Embossing powder in Peeled Paint; I used Tea Dye distressed ink around the edges and on the dial. Oh, and a Tim Holtz game spinner, too! A little Glossy Accents for fun, and VOILA!

Heart-Head Tag

This last one (for today!), was inspired by a quote on my "Wild Words from Wild Women" desk calendar. I printed the quote really small and glued it to the back of one of Tim's raffle tickets--"The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner in crime." (Mignon McLaughlin) Wendy Vecchi's 'A Form of Art' provided the mannequin and the background stamps; the winged heart is from Close to my Heart. I discovered Sheer Shimmer Spritz by Tsukneko on a trip to AC Moore yesterday, so had to break it out and mist a little Sparkle on. (Had to hold myself back...I do love my bling!) Background and edges are done with Distress Ink in Vintage Photo by Tim Holtz. A little more Glossy Accents--can't get enough of that stuff!--and we're good to go.

Sure had a lot of fun diving into this! This process is a little more on the self-indulgent than my usual scrapping efforts, but I think it's a fun way to let a little more "me" out to play. Now, off to sign up for some of the challenges...