Here are two very similar cards Alexandra Sirugue-Macleod whipped up after a trip to the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami. She used “every happiness” (#40-198) + four different shades of inkpads + clear embossing powder to make these glossy beauties.

Thanks for stopping by today - if you’re looking for more inspiration, please visit our gallery on Flickr and at Splitcoaststampers. You can also find us on Facebook, and on Twitter, too! See you again soon – we have an exciting announcement to share tomorrow! – Jenn

Penny Black designer Cathy Andronicou used Black Scraperboard (also known as scratchboard or Claybord, it’s available in art stores such as Blicks) to create this card using Penny Black cling stamp Longing 40-196, transparent stamp Love Assortment 30-090, as well as Spellbinders Grand Ovals and Floral Ovals.

Want to see how she achieved this effect? Check out the video!

Cathy has two more projects on her blog today, and here is a sneak peek. Click the image to see the bonus projects!

Thanks for stopping by today - if you’re looking for more inspiration, please visit our gallery on Flickr and at Splitcoaststampers. You can also find us on Facebook, and on Twitter, too! See you again soon, Jenn

Talented Penny Black designer Jill Foster created this set of ATC’s featuring new Penny Black backgrounds (40-203 Peacock Feather, 40-204 Fleur De Lys, 40-201 Roman Surround, 40-202 Indian Wheel, 40-206 Glory of Modesty), the cute Transparent set  30-110 Bugsy and Owly, Mix and Match Cardstock, and Tsukineko inks.  She also used 3859H Corner Piece and 3860J Pointille. . . .and lucky for us, she videoed her process. Look below for today’s PB&J Card Class!

Thanks for stopping by today - if you’re looking for more inspiration, please visit our gallery on Flickr and at Splitcoaststampers. You can also find us on Facebook, and on Twitter, too! See you again soon, Jenn

It’s been a little while since we’ve shared some of our recent favorites from Penny Circle (and there have been SO many pretty creations uploaded by you all!), so we’re back to share a trio

Annie Rose won this sweet Scooter Mimi stamp in a recent giveaway. She watercolored her with distress inks on watercolor paper and shared more details here. The layers and piercing and bright colors just made us go, “Ooooooooh! How CUUUUUUTTEEE!!” when we saw it.

Nina Brackett is designed all the stamps used on this pretty card, including Petal Party. The colors and textures and layers and die cuts work so well together; she blogged about her work here.

Kim Hamilton visited her local scrapbook store recently, and brought Blooming Garden home with her, and we couldn’t be more pleased with her pretty poppies! She shared details about her stunningly simple card here.

We’re sure you’re all sitting on the edges of your seats, waiting to find out who the lucky winner of our TAKE FLIGHT TWENTY prize package is. . .

Congratulations! We’ll email you this morning with instructions on how to claim twenty new stamps from Penny Black’s Take Flight catalog. 

ENJOY your new stamps and thank you EVERYONE for your sweet comments and participation. We’ll be back soon with more good things from Penny Black!

Alexandra Sirugue-Macleod revisits a previous technique to make a little on-the-road scrapbook from ephemera and pictures of her recent trip to Florida. She stamped with gesso (for the cover) and used a lot of scraps of papers. The stamps she used for this project are: Kate’s alphabet #30-168 ; Roman Surround #40-201 ; A day in Paris. See how she pulled it all together here!

What better way to close out our twenty days of inspiration than with a cup of espresso? Grab one (or a cup of anything, really!) and look back over the last many pages of projects, and get stamping! We’d love to see what you’ve created with your new Penny Black stamps!

Here is a card Alexandra Sirugue-Macleod made using “espresso break” and Madison paper pad. The sweet image was colored with watercolor pencils. We adore the combination of pretty colors, polkadots, and kraft, don’t you?

Today, Penny Black designer Cathy Andronicou has a terrific video to share today showing how she colors with Copics, and how to make the sweet tutu, too!

Materials used: Penny Black “Madison” paper pad 80-001 and “Tutu Sweet” 30-154

For a little bonus project from Cathy, click on the tutu cute image below!

Karen Dunbrook‘s clean, simple and very striking card was made by stamping Bed of Roses in Memento black then cutting it into three strips.  She stamped the background again and cut out and coloured just one of the roses with Copic markers.  A sentiment from Edge to Edge was stamped on a hand-cut banner, and the rose and banner were adhered with foam tape. Simple beauty!

Stephanie Wincott is back again today with three cards featuring Tree-mendous & Eloquence and the Madison Paper pad. It’s super easy to stamp a bunch in different colors (with all different sentiments for all different occasions) to have on hand, or to package up and give as a gift. The little pink bird, scalloped strip peeking out, and bakers twine tie everything together beautifully.

Stephanie Wincott’s designs are clean, elegant, and always pack a punch! These designs feature bright colors, touchable texture, glitter, bakers twine, and sweet scallops peeking out from below the main images – what’s not to love?

Stamps: Every Happiness, Dahlias & Friendship

Penny Black designer Angela Kennedy is back today with two fairy sweet cards created with 30-151 Fairy Sweet. Both were colored with Pebbles chalks and accented with lots of glittery goodness. Aren’t they just darling?!

Join her on her blog to see how she did it and how she used that fun effect to create two scrapbook pages…

I used some of the same techniques to create the orange card but covered the whole card base with colour and splattered masking fluid before each colour application.

Peet Roeven‘s taken Becky Fleck’s adorable T for Transparent April Showers set, stamped and embossed in white, and combined the images with pretty patterns from the  Madison paper pad, 05-003, 01-001 & 14-003 Mix & Match Paper. . .

Put all of those together with some tiny green pearls and some perfect machine stitching, and you have this card!

Penny Black designer Angela Kennedy is an absolutely phenomenal mixed media artist, and she’s equally talented in the cardmaking arena! It’s amazing what she can do with some chalks and colored pencils . . . take a peek!

Angela used 40-214 Flower charm, 40-198 Every Happiness (sentiment) and then colored with Pebbles chalks and colored pencils.

Here, she stamped 30-154 Tutu sweet, then colored with Pebbles chalks and colored pencils.

Join Penny Black designer Alexandra Sirugue-Macleod as she shares a sweet project idea and tutorial – a mini scrapbook made with stamps from our Take Flight catalog. Read for more!

“Hello Friends! Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I thought it would be fun to make it for a loved one and use some stamps from Penny Black Inc’s new collection.”

The stamps used for today’s project are: slapstick/cling “fleur de Lys” #40-204; love chapter #30-163; uptown #40-191

For a complete tutorial on how to make the structure of the mini, how to decorate the cover and the inside pages, please join Alexandra at  http://www.artscrapandmore.com/2013/02/alexandras-sunday-scrapbook-how-to-make_9.html

Penny Black designer Cathy Andronicou is ever-so-clever! She recycled the packaging from one of her Slapstick cling stamps to create ta wallet for her sweet little notes and envelopes.  Check out her video for a how-to, and have a happy Saturday. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for another day of Take Flight Twenty!

Edited to add: we’ll get the video set to “public” ASAP! Thanks for your patience!

Here are some pictures of each card – definitely covered for many occasions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other: Mat Board, Recycled Cardboard, Gesso, Gold Metallic Acrylic Paint, Mod Podge (used as an adhesive)

On black card stock, I stamped the background stamp, Friendship, with Versamark Ink.  The image was then heat embossed with clear powder.

I stamped an image from Fancy Flowers with Onyx Black Versafine ink  on watercolor paper (smooth side).  The image was then heat embossed with clear powder.  I colored the image using watercolor pencils and a watercolor brush.  Because the flowers were quite small, I picked up the color directly from the pencils with my watercolor brush and painted them directly.

I fussy cut the stamped image.

Once this was all completed, I adhere the frame on a slant and added the flowers and cart image below the sentiment.  Both frame and stamped image were adhered with dimensional foam tape.  Finally, I added colored pearls for added dimension.

Remember as part of Take Flight TWENTY, one lucky stamper will receive TWENTY new stamps from the new catalog!  To be eligible, just leave a comment on any Take Flight Twenty Post, either here on the blog OR on our Facebook page.  Each comment is an entry for the random giveaway, so the more your comment, the more chances you have to win!

Hello! Today, Alexandra’s using a background stamp (Penny Black Inc.#40-201 Roman Surround) to create the cover of a mini book and a stamp from the “Friendship” T for Transparent set (#30-160) to decorate it.

“This is a very quick mini (3½ x 5″) to make for you or someone else and it could also be a simple notebook with no pictures… I hope you’ll join me at art scrap & more for the complete tutorial…”

Don’t forget – Take Flight Twenty starts TOMORROW!! Click the graphic for more info!

Be sure to join us on Monday for the start of an exciting blog event:

Join us on Monday as we begin 20 consecutive days of inspiration, featuring stamps from the Take Flight catalog!  Our designers and contributors have LOTS in store for you.  And since we’re featuring 20 days of inspiration, we’re also giving away 20 NEW stamps to one lucky reader. 

See ya on Monday with the details.  Get ready for your creativity to TAKE FLIGHT!

Becky and Alex’s beautiful stamps sure have us thinking about Spring.  We spied some of YOUR beautiful Spring creations in the Penny Circle Flickr Gallery and just had to share them here today.

Quilterlin shared this card using Petal Party on her blog. The card says “Life is Beautiful” . . . we say this card is! From the lovely color choices to the use of the vintage-y sheet music and lace to the fussy cutting and perfectly placed pearls, we love it ALL!

Rosemary D shared this card in Penny Circle, and we were instantly drawn to the gorgeous clean and simple layout and bold color choices, as well as the use of Soft Wings in such a striking red.  The little button with twine tie accents the sentiment flag perfectly!

Agnes Tan (lordnagnes) has so many beautiful things in her gallery, and this is no exception! The layers, the torn paper, the gorgeous saturated backgrounds with white overstamping . . . just so so so pretty!

And another lovely card from Agnes Tan (lordnagnes) created with Sweet as Honey . . . and what a perfect use of background stamps. We especially love the colors!

And would you just look at this card from shellshaub. . . it’s just ethereal, isn’t it? Love the different shades of purple and the sweet tulle tie.  She blogged about it here.

Wow, ladies! Your springtime stamping sure makes us smile.  Have YOU uploaded to the Penny Circle gallery?  It’s easy, fun, and you just never know when you might spy your card featured on our blog and on our Facebook page!

Now, you’ve probably been wondering WHEN we’d reveal our winners from our contest last week, huh? Wonder no more! We figured since this post was all about YOU, we’d post the winners here!

Jan. 22, Tuesday (Wood Mount):

Judy Jung

“From the first moment I saw the new release, the Field of Poppies was at the top of my wish list. Honestly, the new stamps make my heart beat faster!! Such a great selection for all styles of stamping!!”

Judy will receive 4302K Mona Lisa, 4308K Field of Poppies, 4314K Bridal March, 4311K Flower Poetry, 4319J Snapshot from Penny Black HQ.
 
Jan. 23, Wednesday (Slapstick/Cling):
Jennie Harper
“Wow, these are gorgeous! LOVE Glory to Modesty…what fun techniques that one will be perfect for!”

Jennie will have 40-198 Every Happiness, 40-193 Wistful, 40-217 Venetian Summer, 40-191 Uptown, and 40-201 Roman Surround in her mailbox soon!

Jan. 24, Thursday (T for Transparent):
Lostinpaper

“My fave is ‘Edge to Edge’, who could resist such a wonderful collection of sentiments! Thanks for the chance to win!”

You won 30-156 Tweet Tweet, 30-164 Edge-to-Edge, 30-165 Tree-mendous, 30-161 Embellishments, and 30-157 A Day in Paris!

Jan. 25, Friday (Mimi & Mindy):
AnnieRose
“I am so excited for this new release! Mindy is adorable and Mimi on the scooter is just too cute! I’ve got to add all of these to my collection. Thanks for the chance to win!”

She’ll get 4330J Mindy, 4325H Cheerleading Mimi, 4329H First Aid Mimi, 4327H Scooter Mimi, and 4331H Gymnast Mimi delivered right to her!

Please check your email for a note from me (Jennifer) – we’ll make sure to have your stamps out to you ASAP so you can make some pretty things and share in Penny Circle! Congratulations!