*** WINNERS FOR OCTOBER 09! ***

Thank you to everyone who entered the Boxes, Bags, and Envelopes challenge in October!

I hope you all had as much fun seeing the creations as I did!

Without further ado, the lucky winners are as follows:

* FIONA SHULTZ! You have won a lovely "Enjoy Life" stamp set courtesy of Darkroom Door! I just loved your little noodle box! Such lovely stamping too!

* NATASHA RUMBLE! You have won a very cute set of Stampendous "Cupcake Numbers" stamps courtesy of Stamp and Scrapbook Madness! Your pizza box was lovely! Your handmade flower was gorgeous, and the colouring on your stamp was very well done!

* LAURENCE SCHMITZ! You have scored your choice of $30.00 worth of unmounted stamps PLUS free postage from Paper Forest Designs! This project took my breath away! Such a fabulous idea, and beautifully executed!

* JANET O'BRIEN! You will have fun shopping with a $30.00 Gift Voucher from Scrapz.Biz! Wow - so much work went into this set! Such a lovely project!

* MARIANNE VERSCHOOF! You are the lucky recipient of a $20.00 Gift Voucher from The Stamping Queen! Such a cute little gift box, and the stamped images were coloured so nicely!

* ROS CRICHTON! You have won a $20.00 Gift Voucher from Tarisota Collections! Loved the heat embossing on the box, and the stamping on the flower was great too!

Congratulations ladies! It was really hard to choose winners again this month - you all did great work!

Check out all the lovely entries in the slideshow HERE.

Now, don't you all have some Twinchies to get started??!

~Sarah~

A Stampbord Twinchie!

Hi there stampers!

Today's entry was sent in by Carmen Sanchez from Spain:

Carmen created her Twinchie with a 2x2" piece of Stampbord.

From Carmen:

"I inked the Stampord piece with distress inks and I stamped a Paper Artsy stamp over it. Then I scratched the leaves a bit to highlight them, and put some Stickles dots on the edge".

"I used the twinchie to embellish a naked gift box which I covered with patterned paper and ribbon".

Great work Carmen! I'm sure the recipient of your gift box will be thrilled with it! :)

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to choose last month's winners - will post them here tomorrow!

~Sarah~

Snowman Twinchie!

Hello stampers!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Today's Christmas Twinchie entry was sent in by Benedicte Skjelanger of Norway:

Benedicte made her Twinchie background from Bazzill cardstock, and the Snowman stamp is from Whipper Snapper.

With her Twinchie, Benedicte created a Matchbook Candy holder using this tutorial at Splitcoast Stampers:

From Benedicte:

"I have placed an After Eight chocolate inside my candy holder. The letters on the front are stickers, and the phrase "GOD JUL" means Merry Christmas in norwegian. I have embellished the inside with pattern paper and flowers".

Great work Benedicte!

I'll be back tomorrow to announce the winners of last month's challenge! :)

~Sarah~

Sale at Scrapz.Biz!

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* no other discounts, deals or coupons apply


Click HERE to see the sale items.


There is also a whopping 40% off all Imaginisce products (including stamps!). See them HERE.


AMAZING ONE CENT DEAL - You can score this cool 49 piece stamp set worth $15.95 for only one cent if your order total is over $50.00 (excluding postage, Christmas sale items, and Imaginisce sale items).


Happy shopping!


~Sarah~

It's all in the name......

Hello stampers!

Thanks for all the feedback regarding the Twinchie challenge! I'm glad you love them as much as I do and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

So now you know what Twinchie is, but did you know there are a whole heap of other sizes and shapes etc for your artwork? I thought I'd do a quick explanation here of the names and sizes to break it down for you all and perhaps introduce you to something you've never heard of before! Besides the fixed size, anything goes!

Inchies:

A very small piece of art - 1 inch x 1 inch!

Rinchies:

Just like an Inchie - only round! Rinchies are the perfect size for adding into flattened bottle caps, so you can make things like jewelry and charms etc.

Twinchies:

A 2 inch x 2 inch piece of art.

Edited to add: I've just found out there are also Trinchies, and 4x4's as well! The 4x4's don't have a cool name like the rest of them though. LOL! So, as you can imagine, they are 3"x3" and 4"x4" respectively. :)

Moo Cards:

28 x 70 milimetres or approximately 1.1 x 2.8 inches.

MOO is a custom printing company that makes, among other things, mini business cards, and someone had the great idea to alter one once, and it all took off from there!

Find lots of Moo inspiration at Make a Moo or Two. Unfortunately no longer operating as a challenge site, but still lots to look at!

Skinny Card:

A card that is 3 inches x 5 inches.

Check out this previous Wednesday Stamper Skinny challenge for inspiration!

Gothic Arches:

There is no particular size for a Gothic arch, as long as it has the gothic arch shape. You can get a template HERE and HERE. Check out Belinda Schneider's awesome Gothic Arch book project which will blow you away!

There is  Gothic Arches challenge site too - it used to be HERE where you can still find all the old challenges and examples, however it has now moved to a Ning community HERE which requires a log in to participate. Edited to add: Woohoo - Gothic Arches is back up and running again with a new challenge every Sunday and with no log in required! Find it HERE.

Scraplings:

From what I can tell, Scraplings were started by someone at Hero Arts who wanted to use up scraps of 1.25”x 4.25” cardstock which were bi-products from making square cards out of Hero Arts Notecards. See them here. Whilst that size is a good starting point, your scraplings may be a little different depending on what you are working on at the time. There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule for scraplings - some people do them wider (2.5 inches) but they all seem to be 4.25 inches long. Basically, the idea is to use up your scraps. Check out these examples from Godelieve.

ATC's (Artist Trading Cards):

2.5 inches x 3.5 inches.

So there you have it! Let me know which one excites you most - you never know what I may do for next month's challenge! :)


Happy Stamping!

~Sarah~

Please help for a great cause.

One of our regular Inkurable stampers, Danielle Sheehan is part of a team that is participating in Relay For Life this weekend.

Danielle and her team will be doing a 24 hour relay - taking turns to walk laps around a Bankstown oval to raise funds for The Cancer Council.

This weekend in Sydney is forecast to be raining - and Danielle and her team will be walking rain hail or shine for a full 24 hours! They will also have to camp out in less than ideal conditions - surely this is worth some of your hard earned cash!

Danielle has a goal of raising $200 and has only reached $130 so far. So close! So I'm calling on the help of all you fabulous stampers out there to help get her across the line! Even if you can only spare $5, it is $5 well spent towards such a great cause.

Visit Danielle's donation page to make a tax deductible donation today! If we get her over the line, I will give away a fabulous prize pack here at Inkurable. :)

Thank you in advance for your support!

~Sarah~

Our first Christmas Twinchie entry!

Hello stampers!

I already have the first Christmas Twinchie entry to share with you! Just over an hour after the new challenge was posted, it landed in my inbox! That has to be some sort of record!

Tania Davey was so inspired by the challenge that she set to work straight away to make this little beauty:

From Tania:

"I have used a Tim Holtz Stamp, stamped onto manila Card in blue ink. Then I distressed the edges and sewed the stamped piece onto the black 2 x 2 square".

"Then I added some liquid pearls and some pen lines and dots. The 09 is Making memories magnetic stamps".

Here is the gift tag that Tania made with her Twinchie:

Excellent idea Tania!

I can already tell that this is going to be one of my favourite challenges! I can't wait to see what you guys come up with this month!

~Sarah~

*** PRIZES FOR NOVEMBER 09! ***

Just by sending in an entry to this month's challenge, you could win one of these fabulous prizes from our sponsors:

* A fabulous set of Calendar Stamps from Darkroom Door:

* A gorgeous 2010 Somerset Studio Calendar from Paper Forest Designs:

* This lovely large wood mounted Stampendous Wisemen stamp from Stamp and Scrapbook Madness:

* A $30.00 gift voucher from Scrapz.Biz!

* A $30.00 gift voucher from Scrappin' Happy!

* A $20.00 gift voucher from The Stamping Queen!

* A $20.00 gift voucher from Tarisota Collections!

A big thank you goes out to our generous sponsors for such fabulous incentives to give the challenge a go!

Happy stamping!

~Sarah~

THE THEME FOR NOVEMBER 09 IS.......

CHRISTMAS TWINCHIES!

Back in April we did Twinchies as one of the Cyberstamp challenges, and so many of you loved them  and said you wanted more! So I thought it would be fun to do some Christmas Twinchies to use on your festive projects!

Your task this month is to create a Christmas themed Twinchie, AND use it in a project.

What is  Twinchie?

A Twinchie is a piece of art that is 2 inches x 2 inches square (5cms x 5cms). The size of a Twinchie is the only rule - anything else goes! Twinchies can be made from anything, about anything!


Here are the challenge rules:


* Your Twinchie must be Christmas themed. If you do not celebrate Christmas, then I will also accept Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and whatever other religious festivals are happening around Christmas time in your part of the world. :) Your stamps don't have to be Christmasy - you can use any stamps you like as long as the Twinchie is Christmas themed.
* You must use stamping on your Twinchie. (The rest of your project doesn't have to have stamping on it, but feel free to do whatever you like!).
* You must photograph / scan your Twinchie by itself first, before adding it to your project. We wanna see your tiny art in all it's glory! Then take another photo after your project is complete.
* Your project can be anything you like! Cards, christmas decorations, jewelry, ATC's - whatever your heart desires!
* Entries are due by midnight AEDST 30th November 2009.
* Entries must abide by the official rules as outlined in the sidebar under "How to Participate".

Here are some close ups of my Twinchies:

For my boy Twinchie I used a 2x2" piece of black cardstock as the base. I then attached some green lace "doily" paper (Basic Grey) to some red basic grey paper, and cut a square slightly smaller than 2x2". I inked the edges with black ink and then stuck it onto the black background square.

I stamped a Stampotique stamp onto white cardstock with black ink and cut him out. I coloured his jumper with a red marker and his face with "Antique Linen" Distress Ink.

I die cut his santa hat out of Bazzill cardstock using a Quickcutz Santa die and my Cuttlebug machine.

I wrapped a red cord around the Twinchie and attached a pewter holly/bells brad.

For my girl Twinchie, I again started with a black background square. I cut a piece of red Basic Grey paper and stamped the Stampotique girl onto it. I then stamped the girl again onto plain white cardstock, and cut around her head, neck and body, then stuck her over the stamped image on the red paper. This was so I could have her in white without having to cut around her hair. Also gives her some dimension. I then colourd in her necktie with a red marker.

Again, the hat is from a Quickcuts Santa die. I drew a black line on the side and stuck some Kaisercraft rhinestones to the end for a hanging Christmas bauble.

Here are the cards I created with my Twinchies:

Boy Card:

My base card is black Bazzill cardstock. I die cut a bracket shape out of red Basic Grey paper and then embossed it with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I sanded the raised surfaces, and then inked over the top with black ink for a grungy look.

I mounted my Twinchie to the front of the card using double sided foam mounting tape, and then added Kaisercraft Rhinestones o the back ground for a bit of bling.

Girl card:

Again I have used a black Bazzill base card. I made the wreath by die cutting some Basic Grey doily paper with a scalloped circle Nestabilities shape. I adhered the wreath to the card front using spray glue.

I attached my Twinchie to the middle of the card using double sided foam mounting tape and used red Kaisercraft pearls to decorate the wreath. I created a bow out of some lovely green ribbon, and attached it to the top of the wreath.

Now it's your turn!

Looking for more "Twinchspiration"? (See what I did there?! LOL!). Then check out these great Twinchie (and Inchie) sites:

* Small world of Inchies and Twinchies
* Art by the Inch
* 1000 Squares
* Wednesday Stamper Twinchie challenge - June 2008.
* Inchie INKlings
* Google Image Search - Twinchies

I can't wait to see all the fabulous creations from you all this month!


Happy stamping!

~Sarah~

New Releases from Darkroom Door!

While you're waiting for me to upload the new challenge, I thought you might like to know that Darkroom Door have just released some fabulous new goodies that I'm sure you'll be rushing to add to your stash!

There are 4 new single Photo Stamps, new A4 Pearlescent Papers, and my favourite, 4 new Background Stamps:

Aren't they just divine??! They are a whopping 110mms x 155mms - designed to completely cover a  whole A6 card front! Awesome!

They have also added a new Acrylic Block (to fit the background stamps) as well as a Stamp Positioner Kit.

Check out the details HERE.

Happy shopping!

~Sarah~