TAG/BOOKMARK challenge, and a DRY EMBOSSING winner!

Well gang, we are close to wrapping up another wonderful year, and we, at Humble Pie, have had a wonderful few months in Blogland! We hope you are all ready for the holidays, and happily anticipating a brand new year, and a new decade!

Thank you all SO VERY MUCH for all the wonderful entries in our Dry Embossing Challenge - the submissions were GORGEOUS, and we always love to see such diversity from you crafters!

Of course, we can only have one winner, and this person will be receiving THREE exclusive Winter-themed Humble Pie Stamps (which we hope to see you use on future projects and challenges!), as well as a lovely little assortment of designer papers and embellishments. A big CONGRATULATIONS from the Humble Pie Kitchen, to our randomly chosen winner,

#1 - BENEDICTE!

Benedicte, if you could please leave a comment on Tricia's blog with your email address, she will contact you for details, and we'll be happy to send these goodies your way!

Being Friday, this means ANOTHER challenge from your favorite team in the Kitchen! The Humble Pie Bakers would love to see your TAGS or BOOKMARKS! Stamping is a must, but the use of a Humble Pie image is not mandatory (thought we'd love to see them if you've got them!). Let's take a look at what's been cookin' in our kitchen...

Something sweet from Senior Baker Shelly:


A hint of minty goodness from Senior Baker Kim S:


A fabulous festive goodie from Senior Baker Ann:

This cool concoction from our Senior Baker Janet:


A pair of delectable delights from Baker Melanie:




Another minty marvel from our Senior Baker Katie:


A little smooch under the mistletoe from our Blog Manager Tricia:

Two tantalizing tidbits from our Design Team Coordinator, Kim B:


Some snowy sweetness from me, Blog Manager Leah the Orange:

And a wonderful wreathy treat from our Blog Manager, Maria:


Are you inspired yet? Think you might want to win some Humble Pie Sweetness? How about a Humble Pie exclusive stamp, and some gorgeous designer papers, plus an assortment of embellishments to match? Well get in on it, gang! We're extending the deadline for this challenge to give everyone a chance to ENJOY the holidays, and you'll have until midnight EST on NEW YEAR'S EVE to submit your entry. Leave us a comment below, and please remember to post a link to this project, not to your blog, and be sure to link to us as well! We can't wait to see your tags and bookmarks!

And with that, a little vacation. Happy holidays to you and yours, from the Humble Pie Kitchen! See you in 2010!

Kim's Thursday Post

Hello Baker Fans! Today is my day to post. I like to post inspirational quotes, or the like. I've been trying to come up with something for a couple of days, but, frankly, life has gotten in the way. So, I thought I'd leave you with a quote that best describes my life right now. Oprah Winfrey said this. I truly admire that woman!

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."

That's it for me today. Thank you so much for stopping by. Be sure to check back tomorrow. The Bakers will be posting the last challenge until after Christmas.

A TIMELY CHRISTMAS GIFT BAG TUTORIAL

Good Wintery Wednesday Morning!

Today our CRAFTY BAKER LISA is sharing her GIFT BAG TUTORIAL; a perfect, yet simple creation which may prove very useful with many of us still having presents to wrap and Christmas being just around the corner! I think this sensational seasonally interchangeable gift bag would be an ideal way to deliver a gift of goodies.

ENVELOPE GIFT BAG TUTORIAL:
1. Use a letter sized envelope and seal it shut.

2. Stamp the envelope with a nice pattern with your choice of ink colour. Score the long sides of the envelope 1cm in on each side and score one short side 2cm in or less, whatever you wish. Cut 2cm off the other short end.

3. Open the envelope up, fold the excess on the bottom and glue dot the excess to stay flat.

4. Fold down about 1cm from the top and punch 2 holes side by side through which to put ribbon.

5. This is the completed project using a simple letter size envelope. You've made a wonderful little hostess gift for those unexpected occasions when you need a little something. I fill mine with a mini lotion, nail file and lip balm with some packaged candy.

Many thanks to LISA for a wonderful gift bag tutorial! What a fabulous way to present a little gift!

Just a little reminder of our current Humble Pie Challenge. We are accepting DRY EMBOSSING creations until midnight, Thursday, December 17 (EST). Please click HERE for all the details!

Be sure to check out tomorrow's INSPIRATIONAL post!

TIME FOR TUESDAY TIP #7

It's Tuesday and we have our weekly tip for you today!  Our very talented LEAH is offering-up a way in which to customize ribbon quickly and inexpensively.  I've encountered many instances when I've been on the hunt for just the right ribbon to complete a project.  Have you had similar frustrating experiences?  Without further ado, I am delighted to present our BRILLIANT BAKER, LEAH'S tip, certain to solve some of your ribbon woes.

Customizing your own ribbon is VERY easy!

If you're using a plain satin or thin grosgrain, you can stamp on it (preferably with StazOn as it's not juicy and will not bleed), ink it up, doodle on it, Glimmer Mist it or paint it (just be sure to heat-set if using any of these techniques!)... you can even heat emboss or run it through your embossing folders or crimpers for fun effects!  Keep a spool of plain white, beige/ivory, and black ribbon on hand and you can create beautiful matching accents to your projects that wouldn't be available in stores!

Stay tuned tomorrow when our LOVELY BAKER, LISA provides her tutorial; a perfect solution for wrapping some of those irregular shaped Christmas goodies!

Monday Recap

Good Monday morning fellow crafters! Thanks for stopping by to check on what's new in the Humble Pie Kitchen. We have some wonderful submissions to share with you from our latest Dry Embossing Challenge HERE. You have until midnight on Thursday, December 17 to participate so join us for some fun and the chance to win 3 winter-themed Humble Pie stamps, an assortment of designer papers and coordinating embellishments.

Benedicte

Irit has made three creations for the challenge.

Beverly

Linda

Irit Cohen

Aud

Karen B.

Winner and New Dry Embossing Challenge

Happy Snowy Friday Crafters! Hope your Christmas preparations are going well. Our days are filled with hectic activities and flying by in a blur. And now add the arrival of snow which has been officially staying on the ground for the past 2 days and you know Christmas is just around the corner.

Thank you to last week's wonderful participants in the Lift Challenge. Aud is the winner of the Lift Challenge so please leave Tricia a message on her blog here with your email address so she can contact and send you your goodies.

For this week's challenge, we invite you to create whatever you like as long as it has some dry embossing included on it. Have a look at what the Bakers have cooked up this week and enjoy! We look forward to seeing your creations so relax and get inky! Ooooh almost forgot to tell you what the prize will be.....how about 3 winter themed Humble Pie stamps PLUS an assortment of designer papers and coordinating embellies all just in time for Christmas. Sound yummy?

A few things to remember when participating in the challenge. Please don't forget to post a link to this post on your blog. You are welcome to use any images but if you have Humble Pie images, we'd love to see them. The deadline for the challenge is midnight on Thursday, December 18. Happy Holiday Inking.

Ann


Janet

Kim S


Leah


Lisa


Maria


Melanie


Shelly

Need some Inspiration?

Hello Humble Pie fans! First, I would like to say that this year has been a fabulous year for us, here at Humble Pie Stamps, and The Town Scrapper! Phebe launched a new line of stamps, and its success is unbelievable! Personally, I am thrilled to have been asked to co-ordinate this awesome Design Team, and to work for Phebe. Thank you, Phebe, for this opportunity. Thank you, DT, for all your hard work! I also wanted to thank you...the blog readers out there who have supported us for these last few months! Without you, it wouldn't be so much fun!

Today, I thought I'd inspire you by passing on a tip for downloading FREE images for your cards and layouts! FREE? Yeppers! No cost at all, and it's really easy, too! The images come in the form of a font...so, you can produce images with any program you have that uses fonts (like Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop).

There are many sites out there that provide these freebies. If you type in "free fonts" into your search engine, you'll see what I mean! My most recent find is a "Dingbat" font with a bunch of Christmas images perfect for colouring, and adding to your Christmas cards, tags, etc.! It's called "4YEO XMAS", and it's available from the Yeo site - http://www.4yeo.com/! All you need to do is install the font, open your chosen program, choose this font, and start typing!

Here's a sampling of some of the symbols, which I have typed into a Photoshop document, using 72 pt size, but you can use any size, or colour you wish! So fun!

There you go! The one thing I would caution you about, tho - if you download and install too many fonts, it slows down your computer.

That's all for today! Now, I have to get back to making Christmas cards! I am so late this year!

Wednesday's Watercolor Joy!

Good morning everyone! We're going to start off our day with a tasty little recipe that's going to get the Humble Pie kitchen hopping! Here's our next Terrific Tutorial from the brains behind this whole outfit, our very own Phebe Meeder, proud owner of The Town Scrapper, home of Humble Pie stamps!

Phebe shared with us her process for using watercolor pencils, and we think it's a good one! We're sure you will, too...

Here's what you'll need:

1. Watercolor paper: Phebe prefers to use 140Lb Fabriano watercolor paper
2. Permanent Ink: Phebe chooses black Staz-On from Tsukineko
3. Blending stumps (different sizes depending on the size of the area to cover, and the amount of detail you want for your image)
4. Odourless Mineral Spirits (OMS), in a small dish
5. The stamp of your choice. Phebe opted for a little snowfriend from the new HUMBLE PIE Christmas set, of course!

This is what you're going to do...

Stamp up the image and begin to add color. Because of the tree on the left, that side of the snowman would get the most shade.

Dip your blending stump just enough into the OMS and on your paper, work the stump in circular motions, moving the color from the outside in. You don't have to shade it in all the way; start with an outline, and if you feel it needs more, add small amounts of color and continue to blend until you're happy with the result.













Outline the image with colored pencil.
When watercoloring, you may wish to start with your lightest shade then go darker.













This is one of Phebe's favorite techniques and she's hoping for a 130-piece set of watercolor pencils from Santa! :)

Well we hope so too, because that means we'll get to see more wonderful works of art like this one:













Isn't her shading fantastic? And notice that she has still left some white space on both the snowman AND the tree. Less really is more!

We're so glad Phebe shared this tutorial with us, and with all of you! If there are some techniques you'd like to learn more about, we'd love to hear from you! Just leave a comment under this post (or any, really), and let us know.

Remember, you have until this THURSDAY at midnight, EST, to link up your projects for the CURRENT CHALLENGE, which is to "lift" (or copy) any one of our Design Team Coordinator, Kim B.'s cards. You don't have to use one of the Humble Pie images, but if you've got 'em, we'd love to see 'em! Most importantly, HAVE FUN!

And check out the fantastic sale going on at The Town Scrapper! EVERYTHING in the store is on sale! Buy one item, get the second for equal or lesser value for 50% OFF! Just in time for your holiday shopping!

We'll see you in the kitchen tomorrow morning, when we bring you some more words of inspiration. :)

TUESDAY TIP #6

 Hope you are having a terrific Tuesday!

Today, I thought I would reiterate and further explain a tip I had briefly mentioned in my Watercolouring Tutorial, a few weeks ago. I find that when attempting to match-up watercolours and the colours found in patterned design paper, I waste far too much time. Whether using watercolour pencils or tubes or sheets, the colours indicated on the packaging are often not a true representation of the paint colours inside the pencils, tubes or opposite sides of the sheets. Until last week, I would find colours I thought could be possible matches to patterned paper and then use a scrap paper on which to dab colour and then compare paint to paper. This method did work, however, it wasted time, paint and paper.

A fellow card-making and scrapbooking friend, Joni had shared her colour matching method with me a few years ago. Joni had created index cards with samples of each ink colour she owned. She had inked-up a small stamp repeatedly with each colour she had in her stash and labeled each stamped image with the corresponding colour name. I went home and soon after carried out the same ingenious process with my inks.

Now, some time having passed and my stamping and scrapbooking techniques changed, I finally decided to use the same little tip/trick to provide myself with a colour sample chart for my paints. I have completed a Peerless Transparent Watercolour Sheets sample chart, but have yet to create a chart for my watercolour pencils. Although I do not use my Prisma pencil crayons often, I would also like to create a colour chart to have available for them, when I do pull them out.

I have not worked-up the courage to give Copics a shot, but I'm quite certain that creating a Copic colour sample chart would prove beneficial for all those who use them. If you decide to give this tip a try, drop us a line and let us know if it's worked for you. Do you have another method for organizing the many different shades/tints of colours you own (whether it is paints, pencil crayons, markers, pastels, chalks, etc)?

Here's a pic of the Watercolour Sheets Sample Chart I created last week:

Have a super week! Remember to stayed tuned for tomorrow's Wild Wednesday Tutorial!!

Tricia

Manic Monday's Review of Humble Pie's Latest Challenge

Good Monday Morning!

Today is the day we like to recap our challenge currently underway, and share the submissions we've received in the kitchen to date.

This week we are hosting a delightful LIFT CHALLENGE!  The Bakers are encouraging you to choose one of KIM B.'s (our talented DT Coordinator) cute cards to lift.  Please click HERE for all the challenge details and a taste of the lovely lifts created by the Humble Pie Bakers!

Our FANTASTIC first submission has been baked-up by Terry.  We are ecstatic to see that Terry's card lift features our FAB ELLIE, an adorable member of our Humble Pie Stamp collection!!  Thanks for participating this week Terry!

Terry lifted Kim's the Birthday Boy:

Aud sent in this DARLING soft coloured card featuring this sweet little lady!  Thanks for playing along again this week!














Aud lifted Kim's Christmas Maggie.

We can't wait to see YOUR lift!

We've a Winner of the Monochromatic Challenge and a Lovely Lift Challenge

We Bakers are so very happy to have made it to Friday!  Several of us, like many of you fellow bloggers, thought this week would never end!  The Humble Pie kitchen has been hopping and we're delighted to be able to share our new baking with you today.

First however, as in Humble Pie tradition, we would like to thank all our very wonderful and talented followers for their awe-inspiring creations this past week!  We are very fortunate to have such a consistently crafty crowd that permits us a view of their delicious designs, and the opportunity to share their handiwork with all who stop by the Humble Pie Blog.  Our Monochromatic Mania Challenge has drawn to a close and we are excited to announce that our randomly chosen challenge winner is submission 13, Li-Bee-Ti of  http://creationswithlove-li-bee-ti.blogspot.com/.  Congratulations  Li-Bee-Ti!  Please contact our Head Chef, Phebe at  info@townscrapper.com to arrange for the delivery of your prize package.  Many thanks again to those who submitted their magnificent masterpieces and please continue to play along with Humble Pie!

This week the kitchen is hosting a lovely little LIFT CHALLENGE.  Our Executive Chef, Kim B. has created a multitude of  marvelous cards.  We are challenging YOU to LIFT one of Kim's many fabulous card designs.  The card you choose may be one previously posted here, on our Humble Pie Blog OR a card you have an affinity for, posted on her personal blog, http://kimmerbe.wordpress.com/.

Here's a list of this week's LIFT CHALLENGE submission requirements:

• Submissions must be a  recognizable lift of one of KIM B.'s cards.  Please provide the date and the blog from which the lifted card was posted or a link to the specific card of KIM's you have lifted.
• In order to submit your creation, please leave a comment following this post with a link to your design
• Place a link in your post featuring your submitted creation, back to our HUMBLE PIE BLOG.
• The use of Humble Pie Stamps are NOT MANDATORY (but if you've got them we'd LOVE to see them).
• All submissions must be sent to the HUMBLE PIE kitchen by MIDNIGHT, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10 (EST).  

A challenge participant will be chosen at random, on FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 to win a HUMBLE PIE PRIZE PACKAGE.  THE PRIZE PACKAGE WILL INCLUDE A VARIETY OF PATTERNED DESIGN PAPER, MATCHING CARDSTOCK, AN ASSORTMENT OF EMBELLISHMENTS AND A WONDERFUL WINTER THEMED HUMBLE PIE STAMP!!

Now, here's a nibble of the delectable LIFTED goodies prepared just for YOU in the Humble Pie kitchen.

ANN:  A Lift of Kim's Christmas at Maggie's

KATIE:  A lift of Kim's Wish U Happiness

TRICIA:  A Lift of Kim's Wish U Happiness (above)

KIM S.:  A lift of Kim's So Batty 4 U

 

LEAH:  A lift of Kim's So Berry Sweet

                

JANET:  A lift of Kim's So Berry Sweet (above)

LISA:  A lift of Kim's Christmas Maggie

PHEBE:  A lift of Kim's Christmas Maggie (above)

SHELLY:  A lift of Kim's The Birthday Boy

Thank you to our Bakers for their inspirational lifts.  We can't wait to see what YOU'LL whip-up for us!!

Wishing everyone a very up-LIFTING weekend!

P.S. Don't forget to grab our Humble Pie BLINKIE for YOUR blog!