Darkroom Door

Guest Artist: Connie Mercer

Name: Connie Mercer

Zodiac sign: Leo

Lives: Belmont, Texas USA

Known for: Pecans!!

Blog: http://craftygoodies.blogspot.com/

Loves to: go junk'in, or better known as 'antique shopping'

Loves to create: scrapbooking layouts using ephemera

Favourite Darkroom Door product: The number rubber stamps are really cool. The texture of the finished imprint makes them look really old - I love that!!!!

Let’s say you’ve been invited to come into our darkroom for a day. What would you bring with you? My credit card!!!

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We are so excited to have Connie as a Guest Artist here at Darkroom Door! She has created a bunch of projects... we're going to be sharing her projects all week here on the blog! So exciting!!! Let's take a look at the first one...

Notes from Connie:

My idea on this "vintage tag book" was to use the entire book as a gift.  It was designed with that purpose in mind.  What a cool gift~when ever they need a gift tag for a present they can grab one from their ring of beautiful tags!
 

This is the pocket tag that is the first tag in the set~making it clear when it is given as a gift.
I folded one of the manilla tags and made a pocket for the flower (Prima).

Next up are three of the vintage tags that are on the ring.  I decorated them each differently so they would work for both men or women.

Lastly, these are the last three tags on the ring.  I used vintage lace and buttons to compliment the Darkroom Door products!!

Darkroom Door supplies used:
Photochips: Venetian
Wordstrips: Prague Vol 2, Art De Fleur
12x12 Paper: Meadow, Legato, Esplori,
Photobooth: Ladies
Alphastrips: Black

Thanks for sharing this with us Connie! It's fabulous!!

Be sure to check back again tomorrow to see what else Connie has created :)

Projects from the Flickr Pool!

Here's some fabulous projects from the Darkroom Door Flickr Group!

 

1. Color Challenge ATC 2, 2. may-25-5, 3. DRDoor---Patience, 4. Create Art, 5. ATC swap Hero Arts, 6. Old car, 7. Piano Hinge, 8. Background Stamps ATC, 9. Paradise, 10. Pam4, 11. grass collage, 12. Christmas Stamps, 13. P1030394, 14. tag/card, 15. ATC blauw gessospray vlinder, 16. 145

Everyone is welcome to upload their Darkroom Door projects into the Flickr Group! (please try and tag your photos with 'Darkroom Door' - they can then be featured in these mosaics really easily!)

Thanks to everyone who's a part of the group - we love seeing your creations!! See the full Flickr Pool here.

Sunday Links #20

Hurrah - this is our 20th Sunday Links post! And today we have some great links to share with you...

Old Truck Card by Annette (also check out the rest of her blog while you are there. She has lots of sneak peek pictures of Darkroom Door cards that she's teaching at Daisy Chain Scrapbooks!)

Beautiful Butterfly cards by Connie

Daffodil Tag by Belinda

Friendship Flowers card by Karen

Wilderness Card by Heather - simply stunning!

Hope you all have a fabulous Sunday! If you have any links to Darkroom Door projects you'd like to share with us, please email them to info @ darkroomdoor . com! Thanks!!

 

NEW Background and Word Block Stamps!

We'd like to introduce our NEW stamps that are released today!

We are so excited about these Word Block Stamps! There are 6 different themes: Birthday, Congratulations, Hello, Baby, Journey and Christmas. Create amazing projects by using the stamp as one complete image or stamp the words individually - which makes these stamps very versatile! These stamps are perfect for card making, scrapbooking, invitations, gift wrap and many other projects.

Here's a few cards that I've created using the Word Block Stamps:

Birthday Word Block Stamp

Idea 1: Stamp over an Alcohol Ink background on glossy paper.

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Congratulations Word Block Stamp

Idea 2: Use the Crayon Resist technique to highlight a few different words.

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Hello Word Block Stamp

Idea 3: Stamp extra words on contrasting coloured paper, trim them out and mount onto card with 3D foam adhesive to make them pop from the page!

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Baby Word Block Stamp

Idea 4: Stamp in different colours, use as a background and add Filmstrips over the top.

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Journey Word Block Stamp

Idea 5: Choose one word to highlight. Stamp it onto different cardstock in a different inkpad colour and adhere to card. Frame stamp with photo corners.

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Christmas Word Block Stamp

Idea 6: Highlight words with Tim Holtz Fragment pieces or with Glossy Accents.

There's so many different ways to use these stamps! We look forward to sharing more ideas with you in the future.

We also have NEW Background Stamps available:

New Background Stamps include Damask, Scratches, Checkered, Postcards, Stone and Mesh. All Darkroom Door Background Stamps cover a complete A6 card front. Suitable for card making, invitations, scrapbooking, mixed media, collage and many other applications!

Damask Background Stamp

 

Scratches Background Stamp

 

Checkered Background Stamp

 

Postcards Background Stamp

 

Stone Background Stamp

 

Mesh Background Stamp

All stamps are now shipping! Order here or find your favourite stockist!

We'd love to know what you think... which ones are your favourites? What would you like to create with these new stamps? Curious minds want to know... we'd love for you to leave a comment! Thanks!

Unlock the artist within!

Beautiful cards and winners!

We received some beautiful thank you and hello cards with some recent ATC swaps... check these out:

Created by Robyn Wood using the Flourish Background and the Fuschia stamp from Art De Fleur Vol 1. Very pretty! The Flourish Background is embossed too, so in real life it has a beautiful shiny raised finish. Thanks so much Robyn!

This card is from Sandra De Marchi. You can't really see from the picture, but this card has a real metallic sheen over the image - it looks stunning! Sandra has used the Little Door Photo Stamp and various Wordstrips. Thanks Sandra!!

This card is from Vicky Fernando. Love how she has sponged the Eiffel Tower stamp with different coloured inks to show off the different elements in the stamp! She's also used a Prague Vol 1 wordstrip and some Craft Queen ribbons and Bakers Twine too! Thanks Vicky!

We also have some winners from last weeks Leaves post! Congrats to the following ladies:

Sue Smith said...

Lots of gorgeous inspiration here! Love the new stamps :)

May 20, 2011 at 03:33 PM

Karen said...

These are gorgeous!!! Our leaves are just unfurling here, and the ornamental trees are in full flower. It's a glorious time of year. Isn't it just amazing what beauty trees bring, at any time of year!
These stamps really capture some of that magic and these artists have brought those stamps to life. Marvellous!

May 20, 2011 at 08:27 PM

Carol said...

Gorgeous stamp set and versatile! The DT did a fabulous job with the set, reminds me of fall (my favorite time of year) thank you for sharing!

The last few weeks the DT projects have been fabulous and inspiring. Thank you

May 21, 2011 at 04:00 AM

Please email us your mailing details to info @ darkroomdoor.com and we'll send a goodie pack out to you!

Sunday Links #19

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Sunday Links! There's lots to share today, hopefully these will inspire you to have a creative day!! (or at least drool over the gorgeous projects!)

Mother card by Sephi Kemp

Old Truck card by Destination Art

Hello Baby ATC Postage Stamps by Emilia's friend in Taiwan (sorry, I don't have your name!)

Some fabulous projects by Anneke:

Full Bloom Card - Stamping with Distress Stains

Paris Card

Piano Hinged Book using Fashionable, 1920s Chic and various other stamps

Another Day in Paradise card - great use of many different stamp sets!

Layered stamping card with Full Bloom stamps

Art de Fleur card

Please keep emailing your links in to us at: info @ darkroomdoor.com

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Leaves stamp set ideas!

Today we want to share some projects with you using the Leaves stamp set!

 

This set has been on my 'wish-list' for a very long time, but for various reasons we weren't able to release it until now. I'd been collecting leaves from my garden and our neighbourhood to create this stamp set, so there's lots of different varieties in there! I've also made little versions of some of them too - great for inchies, tags and ATC's!

Godelieve is our main feature artist today, she has created fabulous projects with this stamp set!

Details from Godelieve:

All stamping was done with Archival Ink #Coffee.  I colored the Tree Line image with Distress Ink and pencils.  The bird is from the Love Birds set.
Background is sponged with Distress Ink, I added more color to the leaves with pencils.
Twine, mini staples and a sentiment from the Simply Circles set are the finishing touches.

Isn't it fantastic! Godelieve has created two cards using similar colouring techniques. Here's the first one:

Details from Godelieve:

Double stamping of the leaves, over stamped with Background stamps Criss Cross and Weathered Stripes using Distress Inks.
The quotes are from Wilderness Vol 1 and Full Bloom Vol 2, stamped with Archival Ink #Coffee.

Here's the second one:

It's autumn right now here in the southern hemisphere, so these leaves are falling everywhere right now! Beautiful colours!!

Godelieve's also created a gift tag:

Isn't that clever!! Here's some info from Godelieve:

A stamped leaf, cut out, used as a gift label to attach to a wine bottle.
Celebrate from the All Occasions set was stamped with Archival Ink #Coffee.

What a great idea!

I've also had fun with this set... here's a card I created by embossing the leaves then going over the top with Distress Stains.

The sentiment is from the Simply Circles stamp set, adhered with foam adhesive.

So there you go - a few idea on how to use the Leaves in your cards and other projects!!

I'd like to say a HUGE thankyou to our Creative Team for all their inspiration and projects that they've shared with us over the past few weeks!! It's always such a pleasure to show off their creativity - we are so lucky to have such a great team! I'm sure you have all enjoyed their projects as much as I have!

I'm sure they'd love to read some comments here too, so feel free to leave some love for them ;) I'll giveaway a prize to one lucky commentor. I'll draw a winner by Monday.

To all our blog readers - hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Artist Trading Card Swap Video Gallery: Filmstrips #2

We've finished another ATC Swap video gallery, this time the Filmstrips #2 Swap which was from March 2011.

Hope you enjoy the video!! Thanks again to everyone who participated :) You are more than welcome to put this video up on your own blogs or share the link with your friends on Facebook & Twitter etc to show off your work!

If you'd like to take part in future ATC swaps, check out the side bar for the upcoming themes!

Click here for full details on how to take part!

Simply Circles stamp set ideas

Today we want to share with you some ideas on using the Simply Circles stamp set!

This set came about because I often create cards where I've used all sorts of embellishments and just need a simple circle sentiment to finish it off. Especially useful for the centres of flowers! Instead of using buttons or gems, you can just stamp one of these circles and bingo, perfect for the flower! Just like I've done here with the Spiral Flowers stamp set:

Of course the circles can also be used by themselves as you can see here:

I've used different Adirondack inkpads for the different circles, then punched them out with a circle punch.

* To punch out the big circles with a border - use a 1 1/4" circle punch.
* To punch out the big circles without a border - use a 1" circle punch.
* To punch out the smaller circles with a border - use a 1" circle punch and without a border - use a 3/4" circle punch.

I hope that makes it easy for you guys when you use these stamps!!

Sarah has created a beautiful card, using the solid flowers from Viva La Flora Vol 1.

Isn't it stunning! Sarah has some details on how she made the card:

I stamped a flower from the Viva La Flora Vol 1 stamp set over some cream patterned paper, then used the "Thanks" stamp from the Simply circles set to create the flower centres. They were stamped onto the same patterned paper then punched out with a 1" circle punch. I then inked around the edges and mounted them to the flower centres using foam mounting tape.

Super quick and easy so you can make lots of them in one sitting, or whip one up quick if you're in a hurry!

 Godelieve created a gift tag using the Journal stamps as a background too:

Just write your message on the journal lines! So fabulous!

Michelle has also created a tag to attach to the top of a gift...

Such great ideas! This stamp set would be easy to stamp up a heap of circles ahead of time and keep them on hand for when you need a quick card. Great for using up cardstock scraps too, just stamp and punch them out. My kids love stamping these and punching them out too.

Hope that's given you a few ideas on how these Simply Circles stamps can be used!!

Fun & Games stamp set ideas!

Yesterday we shared projects using the Playing Cards stamp set and today we're continuing on with the games theme and sharing projects with the Fun & Games stamp set!

 

This set is full of cool game pieces... a Joker card, Bingo card, chess pieces, dominoes, bingo numbers, card suits, dice and a couple of quotes thrown in too! So much fun can be had with this one! Here's some ideas from the Creative Team:

I've used the Splatter Background, then layered the Bingo card and Joker card along with the Fun & Games quote.

Godelieve has created a fab card using the chess pieces:

She's used a checkered background paper then stamped and adhered the chess pieces on top! Very striking! Here's another card that she's created:

Using the Joker and Fun & Games quote. The background is from the Ornate Elements stamp set.

Michelle has created an Inchie Wall Sampler:

Notes from Michelle:

I used a tin bottom and used it to created an Inchie Sampler of Wall Art. This hangs beautifully on a wall just by just sitting the tin over the top of a hook.
 
At first I was going to mount the inchies on the inside of the tin and have it as a shelf sitter and then I got to thinking how you could mount either side depending on how you wanted to use it. You could even mount both sides and have changing art!

To create the inchies, Michelle has stamped randomly using blue and red inks! Looks fabulous!

Jill has also created some wall art... check this piece out:

Jill's used the Bingo card stamp along with the Enjoy the Game quote. She's also snuck in a 1920s Chic lady and embellished with real vintage game pieces and cards. Fabulous!!!!

And last but certainly not least, Sarah has created a fun ATC:

Sarah's used the Joker and card suits as the main images, and the Bingo card in the background. Love how she's layered the joker face... see here:

Inspiring stuff - that's for sure! There's so many different stamps in this set, so it's easy to mix and match to whatever you need! And here's a little bit of extra info... if you look at the dice and the dominoes, they show all the numbers from 1 through to 6. So if you need a specific number, it's right there for you!

Hope you enjoyed these ideas using the Fun & Games stamp set! As always, thanks to our Creative Team for sharing such amazing artwork to inspire us all!! :)