Posted by: Thanh Vo on Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 11:13 pm
Here we are wrapping up November! For our American friends, we hope that you had a great Thanksgiving weekend filled with lots of good food and fun times with family and friends!
We were very lucky to have two guests join us this month, Leeann Markowitz and Chitra Nair. They have both done a fabulous job and I’d like to thank both of them for a wonderful month full of great projects that showcased Your Next Stamp really well.
If you missed out on their introduction posts, you can read about Leeann here and learn all a few things about Chitra here.
Posted by: Thanh Vo on Saturday, November 15, 2014 at 2:29 am
Your Next Stamp (YNS) is looking to add a few new designers to our fabulous and fun team!
Are you a paper crafter who loves stamping?
Do you have a well-maintained blog and love to share your creations with others?
Are you organized and able to meet deadlines?
Would you like to be on a fabulous, friendly, talented and helpful DT?
Would you like to work with adorable, cute and whimsical stamp designs?
If so…YNS is looking for you!
The new term will run from from January through to June 2015. You must be on different social mediums which you would be willing to share your YNS creations each week, be able to take good quality photographs of your work, possess amazing coloring skills, be willing to participate in bi-weekly YNS Challenges and New Releases as well as post to any online galleries you belong to.
We are also looking for a few video designers so please be sure to let us know if this is one of your skills!
This call will remain open from today (November 15, 2014) through midnight EST on November 29th, 2014. New members will be contacted via email within a week of the DT call ending and announced on the YNS blog thereafter.
DT members will receive monthly stamp images as well as an awesome store discount to be used towards any of our YNS stamps and dies.
To apply:
Send an email to ynsdtcall@gmail.com and include ALL of the following:
Your full name
Address
Blog address
3 of your best projects that you’ve created
What is your creative style and how does it differ from others?
What social mediums do you currently use; which one is your favorite and why?
Are you open to learning and growing with YNS; why do you want to join YNS? We are looking for team players who continually want to grow and learn while actively participating in our DT forum.
Please Note: Previous DT experience and/or publication of your work is not necessary to apply. This is an open design team call, so anyone of any age from anywhere can apply!
When we’ve received your email with all the above information, we’ll send you an email confirming receipt of your application. If you don’t hear from us within 5 days of applying, assume we did not receive your application and please re-send it.
Posted by: Thanh Vo on Thursday, November 13, 2014 at 12:01 am
Welcome to Thursday! This post marks the midway point in our current Design Team series of each member’s creative process. All of us are sharing how we design and how to stay organized and on top of things – or at least, as much as we can!
Here’s a list of the Design Team members who have shared their process so far:
Each one of us have a unique style and we also have similarities as well. I encourage you to check out all of the previous posts to see if there are any tips you can pick up!
So what is my process for when I make paper craft projects? Let me show you! I’m going to focus on how I design for Your Next Stamp, but this is also how I design for my own personal projects. You’ll see a mixture of YNS products as well as some other manufacturer’s products as the Holidays are around the corner and I am currently working on both.
The very first tip I want to highlight is to be organized. Yep, we all know that’s what we should be doing, but I can’t stress that enough. Don’t get me wrong, I have my fair share of times when life gets in the way and there’s an assignment I have due. I then resort to panicking because I feel rushed and my creative mojo isn’t there! I have a solution for this (when I’m on top of things). Here’s what I call my Inspiration Station; I have pulled out all of my Holiday stamps and embellishments that I want to work with and placed them in a plastic IKEA Antonius container. I tend to forget what I have when it’s not right in front of me so I save myself the trouble and the time I’ll spend later looking for items by placing them in this container for a quick grab when needed. I think these are also the same baskets used for the infamous IKEA Raskog carts.
When I’m ready to create, I just go to my little Inspiration Station and start pairing things such as colours, papers, embellishments, etc together and I keep the items together in a binder pocket page. I colour in most of my YNS images and when I’m ready to work on a certain image or set of projects, I grab my Copic markers and start colouring the images. It’s so easy – the colour combos are already in front of me so that way, I’m not stuck rushing around later.
I keep a digital calendar as well as a paper planner to write down when assignments are due. That also helps with organization and keeps me on track so I’m not panicking (which still happens sometimes).
Other resources I use to assist me in creating YNS projects are the different challenge and sketch blogs. YNS has our own bi-weekly Sketch and Colour challenge, but I like diversity and trying to bring you the most current happenings. I use Feedly to read all the different blogs I subscribe to and have organized a handful of challenge blogs under that label so that I can refer to them quickly and pull a sketch out to use when creating.
The card I created to share with you is one of my favourite Holiday stamp sets – the Ugly Sweater – that YNS released last year! It cracks me up and is so on trend. My idea was to create a quick and easy card without having to colour any images. I wanted to mimic the ugly sweater look without having to spend too much time on the actual sweater. I love the typography of the sentiment and I wanted to focus on that. I also used the Stitched Line Die to create a border around the sentiment.
Here’s a review of my creative process:
Keep organized by having an inspiration station or make sure that your tools and supplies are in sight
Plan ahead or keep a calendar to stay on task if you have set deadlines
Use resources when creating to aid in making things quick and easy
Hope you enjoyed my take on designing and make sure you come back next week to see what tips and tricks Tracy will give! If you have any questions, please drop them below.
Posted by: Thanh Vo on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 12:01 am
Hey there, Your Next Stamp fans and welcome to Wednesday. I’m back to introduce you to our second November Guest Designer this month. We are very lucky to have two Guests joining us this month and you can read all about our first guest, Leeann, HERE.
I’ve been admiring this designer for the past few weeks; please help me in welcoming Chitra:
Hi, my name is Chitra and I live in Detroit, Michigan. I came into the card-making world in 2012 and started blogging in order to join some awesome challenges and now I am totally loving it.
I love coloring – it doesn’t matter what coloring medium it is, it is simply relaxing for me. I love bright and fun designs and I love trying new techniques and new styles. I am awestruck of all the wonderful blogs that I see and I hope that one day my blog will be up to that level and it is my hope through my blog to inspire others and to keep learning, growing & creating.
Thank you sooo much for this opportunity; love love the super cute images and super excited to be guest designing for YNS….YAYY!!!
Chitra has used Winter Fun Robin and gumdrops to create this fun seasonal card. We hope that you are ready to see lots more of Christmas themed inspiration because Chitra, Leeann and the rest of the Design Team have a plethora of projects to show you this month!
We hope that you are enjoying your week so far. We have a special treat for you this month, not only am I introducing our November Guest Designer today, we actually have two Guest Designers this month! Yes, we are bringing on two new fresh faces to showcase YNS images this month and with the November release less than a week away, these ladies will surely knock your socks off with inspiration! First and foremost, please help me in welcoming our first Guest:
My name is Leeann and I live in a small town SE Pennsylvania, USA. I work in Applications Support by day and am working on my Bachelors Degree at night. I have 3 gorgeous kids and the most perfect 3-year-old grandson.
I’ve been enjoying paper crafting for about four years and there are so many wonderful new things to learn that I will never stop trying new techniques. My favorite method is a mix of traditional and digital scrap-style card making as you can see in many of my creations. I was so happy to have been invited to be a Guest Designer for Your Next Stamp, especially since I got to play with some of the most adorable stamps and stay true to my style. I hope you’ll enjoy using YNS stamps as much as I have!
Posted by: Thanh Vo on Monday, November 3, 2014 at 1:42 am
Hello everyone!!
Our current Design Team Series is all about sharing our personal design process, and today is my turn!
Most of my creating is done for design team assignments, so I keep a calendar of all my deadlines pinned on the wall. I am also an obsessive list maker! I make a new to-do list every morning and stick it up on the side of my craft desk.
Here is a look at my desk. All of my basic crafting necessities are within arms reach. To the right of my desk, I have a closet where I store all of my cardstock and 6×6 paper pads.
I am usually working on several projects at once, so they key for me is staying organized. Everything has a place, and I tidy up as soon as I am done working on anything, even if it’s not completed!
I start with coloring an image… all the fun is in the coloring! Actually creating a card is the challenging part for me! I find it easier to choose papers prior to coloring, rather than trying to match papers after I’ve already colored something. I keep lists as I go of all the Copic colors I use, as well as papers and cardstocks that I intend to use on the card. I clip the colored image, papers, and list of supplies all together, and set them aside. I usually have several little bundles like this on a shelf by my desk, so I can just come back to creating the card later. At the point I’m ready to make the cards, my little kits are ready to go! This way, I can usually assemble several cards at once.
I’ve had this silly donkey from the Funny Farm Crew colored up for a couple of months. I knew I was going to use kraft cardstock with him, along with this greeting from Funny Farm Sentiments. So, I’ve had everything stamped, colored and clipped together just waiting to be used! My cards are typically pretty simple… I like for the colored images to really stand out. Here, I just popped the donkey up on the new Winter Fun Tag Die, and tied a bit of burlap string to the top.
That’s all I have for you, but be sure to come back by next Monday, because Thanh will be sharing her design process with us!!
