Darkroom Door

Word Block Stamp card ideas

Following on from yesterday's post, here are some cards I've created using the new Word Block stamps!

There's 6 new themes, a nice addition to the 6 existing themes of Word Blocks!

Awesome: Stamped the Awesome Word Block onto a kraft tag with Archival Vermillion ink, then stamped around it with little stars from the Robot Vol 2 stamp set. Added some Robot Filmstrips and old dictionary paper.

Creativity: Created a background with Wild Honey and Broken China Distress Stains, which blended to give some green tones as well. Stamped the Creativity Word Block over the top with Archival Jet Black ink. Stamped the pen and paintbrush from the Artist stamp set, trimmed, wrapped in ribbon and adhered over the words.

Love: Stamped the Love Word Block onto Basic Grey patterned paper with Archival Magenta Hue ink. Stamped it again using the same ink onto Blush patterned paper. Stamped a heart from the Hearts stamp set over the words and trimmed to size. Adhered over the Word Block background with foam adhesive to give a spotlight effect!

Friendship: Stamped and embossed the Friendship Word Block with Ranger Weathered White embossing powder. Went over the top with Dusty Concord and Wild Honey Distress Stain. Coloured the butterfly chipboard with Pistachio Precious Metal Colour. Stamped the Word Block onto white cardtsock with Saffron Archival ink, trimmed out the words 'Friends Always' and mounted onto the card with foam adhesive.

Thank You: Stamped the Thank You Word Block onto Basic Grey patterned paper and trimmed out each word individually. Adhered them down the left side of the card. The flowers are from the Bold Blossoms stamp set, stamped in Monarch Orange Archival ink.

Smile: Stamped the Smile Word Block onto white cardstock with Archival Jet Black ink. I used the new Limited Edition Winter Distress inks to sponge over the top. I love how they blend together - and this shows that you can use these inks for more than just Christmas cards! I've sprayed a little Perfect Pearl Mist over the top before adding the ribbon and a Maya Road metal ribbon slide.

I hope these have inspired you!

- Rachel

Photo Stamp card ideas

Over the past couple of days I've had a lot of fun playing with the new Photo Stamps! As usual, these new Photo Stamps were created using my own photos taken in various parts of the world. I've explained a little about the history of each image below.

English Pub - Stamped with Archival Jet Black onto Basic Grey paper. As the name suggests, this is a pub from England, burtsing with flowers at the top, chalk board signs out the front and old wooden doors. I love the window frames in this pub too! Makes me want to go inside, sit by the window, order a bistro meal and enjoy an ale or two with some friends :)

Star Flowers - Stamped with Archival Jet Black onto white cardstock. Coloured with Marvy Le Plume Pens, using a blender pen to blend the colour. I love Star Flowers (also known as Pentas)! I had one of these in the garden at our previous house, it bloomed red starflowers. So pretty and the leaves were so textured. This image was created with old sheet music and old postcards with the star flowers laid on top.

Arches - Stamped onto old text book paper with Archival Jet Black ink. Quote is from the Gothic Arches stamp set, mounted inside a Vintaj frame. Old key is from my own stash. This image is from my Malaysia trip. I photographed many old doors and windows while I was there. I love this set of four, all the same shape yet slightly different. This stamp would also look great if you cut the door open so they fold back to see what's inside :)

Bicycle - Created a background with Lake Mist, Pebble and Juniper Alcohol Inks. Stamped over the top with Archival Jet Black ink. Attached a fabric label, stamped 'ride' using Alphabet Medley stamps and stamped it using Espresso Adirondack Paint Dabber. I found this bicycle in one of my favourite cities - Amsterdam! (I think the canal gives it away ;) Let me tell you this - it's easy finding bicycles in Amsterdam, but not so easy finding one that's by itself with a perfect backdrop, lined up just how I wanted. Sure I could have gotten my own bike and set it up myself, but I also believe that the perfect scenario will present itself eventually. I like my photos to be 'real life'. I walked around Amsterdam for 3 days before I came across this perfect scene. So worth it, makes me want to jump on the bike and ride!

Old Car - Stamped using Archival Jet Black ink onto Basic Grey paper. Added some corrugated board for texture. I rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Ink over the edges and ridges. This old car resides in central NSW, Australia. It's not too far from my mother's farm, where a few old Holden's have found their resting place in bush paddocks. I used a panoramic camera for this shot, tilted slightly to give a rounded earth look for the horizon. A country homestead in the background adds some country charm to this image!

Birthday Cake - Stamped with Archival Jet Black ink onto white gloss cardstock, then coloured with Marvy Le Plume pens. I use a Marvy Blender pen to blend out the colours and create a softer tone of colour. 'Celebrate' is from the All Occasions stamp set. It's always a pleasure to create sweet stamps for you guys - of course we get to eat the cake after the shoot and wish we could share it with all of you!! We have a fabulous bakery near by that makes the best cakes. This one has chocolate sprinkles all around the sides with beautiful vanilla frosting on top. The cake stand is an heirloom from my Grandmother, I've always loved the intricate design and I'm so pleased I was able to use it in a stamp!

So... I hope these cards give you a little inspiration! It's always a lot of fun to sit and play with the new stamps, seeing them come to life. There's lots of other ways these Photo Stamps can be used of course, and we'll be sharing more ideas from the Creative Team soon!

- Rachel

Red ATC Swap Gallery

A big thanks to everyone who took part in the Red ATC Swap earlier this year! Rather than doing video's, I thought I'd upload this swap here to the blog instead, that way you can take your time browsing them and you can click on them for a larger view. Hope you enjoy checking them out!

Thanks again to all the artists who took part! I love all the varied themes and techniques used with the colour red!

If you're interested in taking part in our ATC swaps, you can find out all of the info in this post here. Swap themes are always listed in the side bar on the left with their due dates. If you have any questions or suggestions for future swap themes, you are always welcome to email us! info (at) darkroomdoor (dot) com.

- Rachel

Seaside Photochips Image Transfer

Jill has been playing around with the Seaside Photochips and created an image transfer. It looks fantastic layered with the old book papers and some Wordstrips.

So soft, love the blue hues!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Silver Christmas Wishes

Sarah Schwerin has created some elegant Christmas cards using a variety of Darkroom Door stamps to share with us today... take a look at these:

Stamps used: Yuletide Vol 2 (Santa), Christmas Reindeer (Joy)

Stamps used: Flourish Background, Christmas Reindeer (Peace)

Stamps used: Christmas Reindeer

The black pattern is a transparency sheet by Collections.

Don't these cards look stunning!! Fabulous ideas for Christmas. Have any of you started sending out Christmas cards yet? I plan on getting creative this weekend and making a big batch of them in between setting up the Christmas tree... wonder how many cards I'll actually get made!

Dear Santa Tags

With Christmas only a few weeks away, we're continuing to show you some Christmas ideas to help with all your festivities!! Here's some fab tags by Godelieve using the Tags and Dear Santa Vol 2 stamp sets:

Tag #1:
I stamped the large tag on smooth watercolor paper with Ranger Archival Ink #Vermillion, cut it out and distressed the edges.
Santa was stamped on another piece of watercolor paper, and I stamped a round tag on top of it, cut it out and distressed all edges.
Added  "from - to"  and a banner with 25 Dec.

Tag #2:
I stamped the large tag on smooth watercolor paper with Ranger Archival Ink #Vermillion, cut it out.
I used stamps from the Dear Santa Vol 2 set again, directly onto the cut out tag and distressed the edges using a Tonic Paper Distresser.
A cut out banner was added with 3D tape.

Love how fresh the red and white look! Thanks for sharing these with us Godelieve!! 

Dear Santa Photochip Decorations

Looking for some great ideas on decorating your home or Christmas tree this year? Connie Mercer has created the most gorgeous ornaments using the Dear Santa Photochips and Wordstrips...

Check these out:

Connie has combined the Dear Santa Photochips and Wordstrips with lace, trims and beads to create these beautiful pieces!

You need a closer look, right?

Connie has also created a frame using the same supplies - perfect to place on your mantlepiece this year!

Just stunning!!

Thanks for sharing these with us Connie!

Christmas Ideas...

Godelieve has been creating some beautiful Christmas projects with our rubber stamps lately.Take a look at these:

A couple of tags using these stamps:

Tags

Christmas Sentiments (merry, mini reindeer)

Yuletide Vol 2 (holly)

Christmas Reindeer (Believe)

Noel (Christmas Definition)

Look how beautiful they look when lit from the candlelight:

You can see more photos and read more about this project here on Godelieve's blog.

Here's a card:

Such an assortment of stamps used for this card and it has come together perfectly!

Stamps used:

Dear Santa Vol 2

Christmas Reindeer

Christmas Sentiments

Christmas Word Block

Roses Photo Stamp

See more photos and info on this card here.

We are always so grateful to have Godelieve as a part of our Creative Team, her ideas are amazing and we love how she uses different stamps together :) Thanks for sharing these with us Godelieve!

We also so grateful to all of our blog readers too - for reading our posts and for leaving comments! We love hearig your feedback and ideas on how you'd use our stamps. Thanks to all of you who left comments on our post about our new Photo Stamps and Word Block Stamps in our last blog post! :)

Hope you are all having a creative week!

- Rachel

NEW Photo Stamps & Word Block Stamps!

We've been tinkering away again, taking pictures of bicycles, old cars and English pubs, eating birthday cake, admiring archway windows and creating collages out of sheet music, postcards and beautiful flowers. The end result... a whole new set of Photo Stamps for us all to enjoy!

Please welcome 6 new images to the Photo Stamp Collection:

New Photo Stamps include:

DDPS011 Star Flowers, DDPS012 Bicycle, DDPS013 Birthday Cake
DDPS014 English Pub, DDPS015 Arches, DDPS016 Old Car

We've also enjoyed brainstorming words around the studio table, coming up with combinations of love, friendship, gratitude, creativity, happiness and out right awesomeness! The end result... a whole new series of Word Block Stamps:

New Word Block Stamps include:

DDWB007 Thank You, DDWB008 Love, DDWB009 Smile
DDWB010 Creativity, DDWB011 Friendship & DDWB012 Awesome

The Word Blocks can be used as one whole image or you can cut out different words and phrases depedning on your needs. Lots of variety in each stamp!

We're looking forward to sharing some new projects and ideas with you soon, so stay tuned to the blog for future updates! In the meantime, we'd love to hear your thoughts... which stamps are your favourites? What projects would you love to create with these? We hope they inspire you!

- Rachel

Monday musings...

This week has gotten off to an exciting start! First up, my hands right now are inky from stamping up some new rubber... yes, that's right... NEW rubber! The detail in these new guys is amazing!!! I'm in love with them and can't wait to share them with you. We'll have them up on the website verrrry soon. I know you'll be busting to see them, so here's a sneak peek:

Can you guess what they are?

In the meantime, thanks for all of your comments on Michelle's Dear Santa cards! We have some winners!

Kirsten Alicia said...

I love these vintage Santa images & the cards are gorgeous.

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Carol W. said...

Beautiful cards! Love them all! Thank you for the chance to win!

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Nicole K said...

Loving your cards Michelle. Always love vintage Santa images, they are always my favourites. Thanks for the chance to win :)

Please email us your mailing address and we'll get some Dear Santa goodies out to you right away! Email: info (at) darkroomdoor (dot) com. Thanks!