Hoppin' With Operation Write Home {GIVEAWAY}

We @ Viva Las VegaStamps! are super honored to be included in the OWH hop this year. These girls work so hard each day all year to gather cards to send to the troops so that they may have easy and beautiful ways to send letters home!

 

Today our design team has put together some cards that we'll be sending them in! I apologize for the cards that aren't "Thank Yous", I neglected that tiny bit of info when I sent the idea on to the team for consideration, but we've still got a great big bunch of other cards to send off!
(Leave the DT some love on these!)

We'd also like to offer up a GIVEAWAY and a code for 20% off any orders placed in the store! With over 19,000 deeply etched pink rubber stamps in our line, we're sure you'll be able to find something to send the troops!

 

For the giveaway we'll be offering up a POUND of Unmounted rubber stamps from our line, guaranteed to be NOT duplicates in the bag!!

To be entered into the giveaway just leave a comment here with your favorite VLVS! stamp!

Okay.. we are FINALLY onto the work from the DT! 

Our first card is by Susan:

She used Sunflowers and Thanks A Lot!

Our next card is by Ellen:

She has used The World Is A Better Place

The next is from Lea Cioci:

 She used the following stamps : Hearts and Washi Grid Background. 

Then we have Sheri:

 She has used Tea Party and Make A Wish.

We also have a card from Pinky:

All the stamps she used are from Plate1397.

and two from Lyneen:

She's used Boy in Cape, Too much of a good thing, and Whimsical House.

Now head back over to the Operation Write Home blog and keep on hoppin!!!

Helmar & VLVS! Inspiration {Susan & Hermine}

Well folks, this is wrapping up our final day with Helmar, and we're so full of ideas after our week long celebration!

Today we're ending with a bang and I'm super excited to show you two projects...

The first by Susan with this AWESOME cake!

She has put together this cake with some recycled ribbon spools and the following stamps from Viva Las VegaStamps! : Cat Jumping, Party Streamers, Washi Lines Background, Large Doily, and Celebrate. She's also done a great job utilizing the extensive line of adhesives from Helmar including 450 Quick Dry, Craft and Hobby PVA, Craft and Decoupage Paste, Fabric Glue and Scrap Dots.

And rounding out our week have Hermine:

For the front cover of her journal she has used the Swirl, Washi Grid BG, Be Adorable, Blowing Dandelion and Wheeled Jester from Viva Las VegaStamps!. She's also utilized the PVA glue and Decoupage paste from Helmar. She has taken the time to stamp on all the inside pages as well, for a full reveal and a tutorial on the front please head over to Hermine's Blog. 

And for our last scoot n boogie, please visit Helmar for some more inspiration!

Helmar & VLVS! Inspiration {Glenda & Ellen}

Welcome to day FOUR of our week with Helmar.

All week long we're sharing projects between the Helmar blog and VLVS! blog.
I hope you've been commenting! We'll give away some glue AND rubber to two lucky commenters! (One from our blog, one from theirs)

The first project for today is this one by Glenda!

Glenda is our resident art journaler and she is SUPERB. She's used the lovely Angel weeping over pillar stamp, the Row of stars stamp, the 6 Hexagon background stamp, the Crime scene tape stamp and the Star pin stamp by Viva Las VegaStamps! as well as the Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive and Decoupage and Craft Paste.
Check out Glenda's blog for a HOW TO!

 Then we have Ellen with this fabulous altered box:

She has used Helmar's Decoupage and Craft Paste to adhere all the paper to the box. She also used VLVS!'s Ultra High Gloss Embossing Powder and the Zebra Painting Stamp. Check out Ellen's blog for a bit more info!

Now check out Helmar's Blog for more inspiration!

Helmar & VLVS! Inspiration {Lea}

It's day three of our inspirational week with Helmar and we sure hope we've inspired you!

Today we've got one beautiful piece to share...

.. and it is heavily loaded with technique and awesomeness! This is by Lea:

Lea has used VLVS!'sTime passes friends stay the same, dotty background, Stain glass mosaic background, Grid washi background and Lines washi background. She's also used 450 Quick Dry by Helmar, a chipboard daisy and arrow from UmWowStudio, Kandi hot melt wax too, tips and melting wax. Take the time to stop by Lea's blog for full details on collaging and waxing this piece together! 

Now, like days past, don't forget to stop by Helmar's Blog and see what they're sharing for the day!! 

Helmar & VLVS! Inspiration {Sheri, Pinky & Kersten}

Hello Folks!! Welcome back for more Helmar and Viva Las VegaStamps!

Our design team is so impressed with the quality and versatility of Helmar adhesives.. just see what they're sharing today! 

First up is Sheri with a superb altered clothespin:

It has tons of materials.. wood, plastic, fabric and more! It's all been held together by the superb quality of Helmar adhesives.

Sheri used the following stamps from Viva Las VegaStamps!: washi chevron background, grid washi background, sun bathing bird, dream big and yes, I'm afraid it's true (item 4081), the following adhesives from Helmar: 450 Quick Dry and Craft and Hobby PVA glue.

She used the following items: Kromecote, clothes pin, gesso, craft paint, Licorice colorbox ink pad, pinkalious colorbox ink pad, denim, book paper, tatter floral die, bling, Inkssentials black and white Enamel accents. Check out more details on Sheri's Blog.

Second up is Pinky and this great card!

She's built flowers with her Helmar 450 Quick Dry and stamped the inside of her card with VLVS's Everyone Likes A Little Ass 3/4X2 1/2 Plate 192 Item 4313, VLVS Miracle Tape 1/2" and Echo Park's Documented 2.

And last for the day is Kersten with Birds of a Feather:

She always uses these intense colors with our stamps, and today we're adding some top notch glue!! VLVS! stamps used:  Feather Silhouette and Mounted Bird Head, Helmar products used: Quick 450 Quick Dry Adhesive and Decoupage and Craft Paste. And there's a great tutorial on this vivid beauty at Kersten's blog.

Now run to see what Helmar has up their sleeves today!

Helmar & VLVS! Inspiration {Judy & Lyneen}

Welcome to our Helmar/VLVS! Inspiration week :) 

Today I'm bringing you two glorious projects!!

The first is by member Judy, and she's got this gorgeous bright altered tomato container!!

Judy has used:

Helmar's Decoupage and Craft Paste and Craft and Hobby PVA Glue 

with Men in Ballon Basket,

Large Bird Flying,

Flying Man,

Nesting Gears,

Destination unknown,

and Time Flies 

by VLVS!

For a full tutorial check out Judy's Blog!

Our second post comes from Lyneen and she's brought us a Whimsical Neighborhood Wall Hanging:

She used: 

Supplies:

VLVS! Plate 910A

Helmar 450 Quick Dry Glue

Helmar Craft & Hobby Glue

Muslin, Black Stazon, Twinkling H2O’s, Alcohol Inks, May Arts Lace & Fringe, Felt RicRak, Bird, Cat and Squirrel buttons, Heat Gun.

  

Stamp images on muslin, paint the images with Twinkling H2O’s and Alcohol Inks, dry with heat gun to keep the colors from running too much, color lace with Alcohol Inks and fringe with Twinkling H2O’s, adhere fibers with Helmar Craft & Hobby Glue, adhere buttons with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Glue. Check out more info on Lyneen's Blog!

Now don't forget to check out what's going on over at Helmar! 

The Early Bird Gets the Worms!

Good morning everyone! I'm sharing with you this fun card front that I've created using the fantastic Kromecote cardstock, alcohol based markers and a wonderful Mary Vogel Lozinak stamp! Kromecote has a shiny finish and makes creating backgrounds with your alcohol inks and pens fun and easy...long strokes can mimic grass and tree bark textures, short tapping can mimic leaves and large swirling can mimic cloud movement. The early bird was stamped and also colored on kromecote and then fussycut and adhered to the foreground. I hope you enjoy my project! Thank you for looking~

For this project

Spectrum Noir Markers

Beacon 3in1

Mix'd Media Inx Black
Kromecote Cardstock

Bird with Worms 

Spring Enchanted

Awwwwwwwwwwww spring is here in Ontario Canada in full bloom and i just love it.

So for the last time i am showcasing the stamp "Enchanted" Its so versatile!

ENCHANTED

The flowers are Peel Stickers, and then I chose three colors that looked great together, blue, yellow and green. I covered my entire paper with water, and then dropped in the different colors.
Letting it completely dry and the place the stickers in the center, stamped "Enchanted" in a monochromatic color and outlined a rectangle to enhance the flowers.

Yum!

Happy Spring my art friends,
L.
ANg

Guest Designer..... DONNA SALAZAR!!

Hi everyone :) Today I have the utmost pleasure (and total dream come true) of introducing our Guest Designer for May ... Donna Salazar!!

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, soon to be grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. She loves Inky-Painty-Glitzy-Grunginess... what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Her style is especially appealing to mixed media artists; however, her love of flowers and all things sparkly appeals to crafters of all types and styles. She currently has licensed products with 5 companies.

A cute story... Donna and her daughter Genna found VLVS! through our most popular stamp.. Blue Police Box:

Genna Salazar is a senior in high school, is planning on being an art major in college and is Donna's daughter. The two have created a mother-daughter-denim-lovin' Etsy shop called "Blue Gene Baby" where they sell reclaimed, repurposed and upcycled denim items.

Links on where to find Donna and Genna:

Blog: http://donnasalazar.typepad.com

Facebook (4): https://www.facebook.com/Donna.Escuadro.Salazar, https://www.facebook.com/DonnaSalazarDesigns, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Distrezz-it-All/197195867045333, https://www.facebook.com/BlueGeneBaby

Twitter: https://twitter.com/donnasalazar

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/donnasalazar

Instagram: http://instagram.com/donnasalazar

Website: http://donnasalazardesigns.ning.com

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/donnaescuadrosalazar

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueGeneBaby?ref=si_shop

And onto the beautiful project Donna has to share today... a layout!

Donna has used our Camera Logo and Dictionary Page on this piece. She's really done a wonderful job stamping in slightly off color inks from the paper base to create a sort of watermark feel.

We'll have one more project from her coming up this month!
Thanks so much Donna for stopping by today!

Sing Your Song

Hello again my lovelies!

Aimee here with a fun tag to share!

 

I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the spring weather.

Time to start sprucing up our outdoor areas and take care of those

household repairs we've been putting off.

 

Here's the tag I have for you today.

Wanna make it?

Yippeeeee!!

Let's go!

 

What you need:

Label embosser with black tape

Distress Inks- Mustard Seed, Black Soot, and some blues

Blending tool with foams

Adirondack ink- Stream

Tiny Attacher or other stapler

White gel pen

Glitter gel pen

Manilla tag

STAMPS: Washi Chevorn Background  & Birds on Wire

 Supplies not pictured: heat gun, water, washi tapes, embellishment,

Dylusions ink spray (blue).

 

1. Lay stencil on tag and spray with Dylusions ink spray. Dry.

2. Ink up tag with multiple shades of blue Distress Ink.

3. Ink tag with Mustard Seed in the center of the tag.

4. Spray a little water in your hand and flick it at the tag. Dry.

5. Ink around edges with Black Soot Distress Ink.

 6. Stamp Chevron Washi in bottom area of tag, using the darkest blue Distress ink.

 Looks AWESOME, don't ya think?

 

7. Slap on some washi tapes.

 

 8. Stamp Birds using the Stream Adirondack ink. Dry well.

9. Stamp the birds again, offset, with Black Soot Distress Ink,

and emboss with the clear Embossing powder.

10. Stamp Washi Chevron near the top of the tag using the dark blue Distress Ink.

11. Use the label maker and create the sentiment. Cut apart, and attach to tag using the Tiny Attacher.

12. Trace around the embossed birds using the glitter pen.

13. Use the white pen to create white dots around the birds.

14. Add an embellishment and you're done!

As always, here's your wiener!

My sweet, adorable little Daisy Dog.



 

My cup of care is empty!

Hi everyone, Glenda here and I made a new ATC using the fabulous Drinking Lady stamp!

How fun is she?? I stamped the image onto cardstock and then used watercolor pencils to color her. I loved her fluffy feathers so I also used a white craft feather and stapled that on for added texture. Here she is:

Supplies used:

Drinking lady stamp

Miracle tape

Versafine ink

Staedtler Watercolor Pencils

Prima flower

Stickles

Tattered Angels Glimmermist

Basic Grey paper

Cardstock

A feather

I also made an art journal page as it's that time again. Yep, the new prompt from the A Year in the Life of an Art Journal has been posted and here it is:

PROMPT: What if?

SHOOTERS: Shoot your mug with one of your what if's.
BOOKERS: Create a page about something you always think "what if" about.... use thought bubbles.

I used one of my favorite lady stamps, the Leaning lady

 as well as the Man and woman symbol

(but I cut the man off and only used the woman! haha) to make this art journal page

Do you ever wonder "what if?" If so hop on over and play along as I would love to know your story!

Supplies used:

Leaning lady stamp
Man and woman symbol stamp
Miracle tape
Various scrapbook papers
Chipboard embellishments
Letter stickers
Paint
Rub ons
Stencils
Glimmer mist
Watercolor pencils
Black ink pen

I hope you enjoyed my projects and until next time,

Glenda

Sailing Away on Bleedthrumanade Seas

Sailing Away on Bleedthrumanade Seas

Front of journal page                                                           Back of journal page

Supplies:
VLVS! Stamps used:
Don't Follow You Dreams-Item 19003 Plate 893
Triple Mast Sailing Ship-Item 19026 Plate 890
Graphometre-Item 19017 Plate 890
Dictionary Page-Item 19015 Plate 890
Nautical Collage-Item 19016 Plate 890
Whitelines Hard Cover A5 Notebook (5.8 x 8.25)
StazOn-Jet black, Saddle Brown
Faber-Castell Stampers Big Brush Pen-White
White Gellyroll Pen
Bic Fine-line Alcohol Markers-Tranquil Teal, Hot Aqua, Lime Sorbet, Marquerita Green, Oceanview Blue, Blue Skies Blue, Polynesian Purple, Petal Pink, Pink Flamingo, Lemon Bliss, Yellow Blaze
Scrap of Silk Tissue Paper (mulberry paper)
Golden Soft Gel

Got Lemons? Make lemonade!  Got marker bleed-thru?  Make Bleedthrumanades!

For a long time, I avoided alcohol markers because the color bleeds through to the back of the page, unless you have really heavy or specially-coated paper.  The rare times that I used them, I avoided using the back of the page.

Then one day I had an epiphany (or something hit me in the head, more likely) and I thought, "Why not just use both sides of the paper?  The color will be the same but I can always do something different on both sides."  And thus, the bleedthrumanade was born, lol.  I get to use the scrumptious brilliant colors that alcohol markers have, provide myself with a challenge, and I only have to color once for two pieces!

I've had Plate 890 for a while, and I just love it, but I hadn't settled on a project to use it with yet.

Then recently, I was creating a bleedthrumanade in one of my notebooks (I usually color first before stamping or drawing).  When I finished, the colors looked rather map-like to me, and Plate 890 popped into my head.

The process went something like this:

I colored the front of the notebook page with the alcohol markers.

Except for the ship, I stamped the images, in brown, on both sides of the page.

I stamped the ship's image on the silk tissue paper, and decoupaged it to the front of the page.  When the gel medium was dry, I used a blue Bic marker to color around the ship.

The stamper's big brush pen was used to lighten the areas around the images and to cover up some of the bleed-thru from the brown ink (the stamper's big brush uses India Ink, which won't bleed-thru).  I decided I didn't want to change much about the back--I liked the way it looked.

With the white gel pen, I added a few highlights to the front and picked out smaller areas of the stamped image.  I didn't try to bring out the entire image on all of them.  I definitely left the graphometre looking like a watermark.

I had to laugh--while tangling, I noticed this strange blob, that made me think of an angel or soldier holding a spear, so I highlighted him a bit.  Do you think he's watching over the ship?

Staying with the white gel pen, I added a few Zentangle® -Inspired patterns around the edge of the page, and then decided to call it a day.

Are these pages done?  They feel done to me right now.  But bleedthrumanades are like most art journaling.  Some pages you keep coming back to and never finish, and others are done in one go.  It all depends on the mood of the day.

Check out the VLVS! Store for all your stamping needs and the  VLVS! Blog for new projects and news every day. Follow VLVS! as the VLVS! Forum - VLVS! FB - VLVS! Pinterest - VLVS! Twitter.