Featured Artists 1

Featured Artists I

Mary Shaffer
Here are some beautiful renderings of the Blessed Are cards (these are the ones Mary tucked in to her bead-and-tile-decorated Altoid tin. See more of Mary's work below.

This card uses an image from the Alphabetika plate as a background to se off the woman from My Honey.

Fran Saperstein
Fran created some great projects and then hosted a Stampsmith live chat about them via Dueling Modems - it was great!

Fran's place setting ingeniously uses the Round Playing Cards as a holder for Ophelia, left, and as an ornament.

Below, boxes Fran adorned, one using China Ink and an Ophelia one.

Also, check out Fran's old-time journal using a central image from the My Honey plate. Click here.

Elaine Akers

That's Maude and Love Under the Stars by Elaine.

This is a beaded box that Elaine made from an Altoid mints tin!
Elaine's instructions: Cover tin with a sheet of Wonder Tape and dip in a bead mixture. Cover bottom with sticky-backed felt. Apply to the top a shrink plastic Imogen over gold card stock, and add clock and heart (buttons with the shank cut off). Add charms - keys, flower and rhinestone. Dazzle your friends!

Above are two wonderful puzzle pins that Elaine made using stamps from the Australian plates. Elaine taught this class at Stampaway and it was a real hit!

Elaine does amazing things to mini Altoid tins! She transforms them into necklaces, collaged works of art.

Karen Lawton
Karen has been "egging" for about three years, spending hours making these divine, sparkly creations. Here she used Cressida, Titania and Ophelia in a project called "Bard's Babes meet Faberge."

Sondra Long

A trio of Isabelles, the Shakespeare Heroine, from Sondra.
Sondra has an eye for the Surreal, as you can see in more of her work, below.

Above left, a charming diorama that Sondra made from Whitman's chocolate boxes! Sondra stamped a background on paper and then added a stamped frame (Claudine Hellmuth/Stampington) around the front, embellishing with beads and shrink plastic, adding three knobs for legs on the bottom. Middle: Sondra put Princess Katherine in the foreground, creating an intriguing collage with a cork background, a charm, corner punches and coloring. Right: "Looking Towards the Future," with Lady Percy in a Surreal fashion.

Linda Rosenberg
Two different effects using Shakespeare Heroines from Linda:

Above, Juliet, left, is ethereal on glossy cardstock with a bright and layered background. Linda explains that she used Tria inks, along with a Krylon gold leafing pen to get the vibrant colors, applying the inks with felt. Before it dried, she used an eyedropper to dip alcohol to the right side of the cardstock, which caused a kind of 'clearing' in the coloration. And that's where Linda stamped Juliet.
Above, right, Linda stamped Isabella, positioning her to make it look as though she's strolling in ancient Egypt. Linda's report on how she made this card: "I created a background of dunes by sponging color across torn paper as a stencil. I overstamped with other images, touching up with colored pencils for highlights and definition. I stamped the heroine on translucent vellum, my favorite. I colored from the back using colored pencils and mounted onto the card. The grasses were done the same way."

Elle Barry
Here is an incredible tag book that Elle made using images from the China Ink plate on black tags and Bit O' Boss beads.

The book shows off Elle's intricate beadwork, at which Elle is super talented! Elle says she chose black tags to let the foil stand out and that she made the envelopes out of a variety of materials, including a coffee dyed one, cork paper and "cool papers" from her ever-growing collection.

Lyn Avedikian

Lyn applied her talents to make these beautiful piece from the Art Nouveau 1 ~ L'amour plate.

Above left, Lyn used dye inks, pencils and Lumiere paint. Right, the direct-to-paper technique was used on the background and the central image embossed.

Lyn embossed and used chalks and glitter
glue in the top card of the masked woman.
The near top card of the couple in the woods
uses the direct-to-paper technique and dye inks.

Lyn did the polished stone background for the Easter Ad card and then followed up with markers. The Nouveau woman above has dye inks, pencils, glitter glue and chalks.

Maria Loomis
Maria Loomis is a talented artist and stamping teacher who made these beautiful pieces with our Shakespeare Heroines:

Robin D. Beam

Robin, an artist who works for Ranger Ink, has been doing wild things with Posh Inkabilities, kits of intense color that come with ink bottles and dense sponges. For this card, Robin swiped a sponge loaded with Posh Metallic Inkabilities onto black linen cardstock. She then stamped the image of the woman from Art Nouveau 1 ~ L'Amour over the metallic colors with black ColorIt pigment ink and embossed with Ranger black embossing powder.

Talk about vibrant! For this number, Robin dragged her Inkabilities- soaked sponge across glossy paper in criss-cross patterns for the background and then overstamped the Art Nouveau 1 image in black.

For this nifty pin, Robin sponged Posh Metallics Inkabilities on one side of clear shrink plastic, then stamped another Art Nouveau 1 gal with black DecorIt ink, cut and then shrank the plastic with her heat tool. She mounted it onto black plastic that had been trimmed and punched with holes (before shrinking) from which she dangled cool beads 'n things.

Lea Everse
Anyone picking up any stamping magazine is familiar with the stunning work of Lea Everse. Here, Lea used some of the images from the Art Nouveau 1 plate of stamps to dazzling effect.

Lea explains how to make this card. Ready? Stamp image with original black Memories ink on buff Classic Crest cardstock. Color with Lyra colored pencils. Trim. Stamp Nouveau border four times on plum cardstock and emboss with violet pearl and silver powder. Cut out. Apply around the central images using bits of tape on the backside to adhere. Run entire thing through a Xyron and apply high-tack adhesive. Remove backing and apply the sticky piece to a 4 1/4 x 6 1/2 inch piece of plum cardstock.
Trim corners using Fiskars Regal Corner Edger scissors. Mount to silver cardstock and trim as above. Mount to a slightly larger piece of red cardstock and trim corners using Fiskars Summit Corner Edger scissors. Mount to burgundy cardstock and punch corners using Marvy Uchida Southwest corner punch.
Mount to silver cardstock and finally to a folded plum card. Use Plaid Fashion Fabric Paint in # 25254 Silver Sterling to apply tiny dots around the border of stamped image. Let dry overnight. Protect with slick paper if you mail, so paint dots don't stick to envelope.

Stamp image on heat-resistant acetate using the old-style Memories pad (the new one bleeds and turns bluish!). Heat set to dry. Run through Xyron and apply high-tack adhesive to the stamped side of the acetate. Cover with variegated brass leaf and remove excess leaf with a soft brush. Run back through Xyron and apply adhesive to the leafed side.
Mount to cardstock and trim using deckle scissors. Mount to terracotta and then gold cardstock and deckle edges.
String beads onto copper wire. Attach to the back of the acetate panel using hot glue. Let cool.
Mount orange decorative paper to cardstock with Xyron and trim to size. Punch corners using Marvy Southwestern punch. Wramp with gold thread. Mount to gold cardstock and deckle. Mount to a folded terracotta card. Attach the acetate panel using black double-stick foam cushion.

Carol Heppner
Carol is a nationally renowned stamp artist whose creations have graced many a cover of a stamp magazine.
Here, Carol used the Italian Playing Cards in a dazzling, colorful variety of ways. Below, she explains her technique.

Carol explained that she loves using color and for these pieces she stamped the images on glossy cardstock and then used markers to color in, often adding many layers of color to get a striking effect.
She's a big fan of using parts of images, as you can see above, saying that, "After, all, most stampers want to know that they can use a stamp over and over."

Carol used the little girl playing an old-fashioned game from the Genesis plate for this piece.

Sandi Schmidt
Sandi used the China Ink plate to make a variety of lovely cards and tags.

A tag book open, above, and closed, below.

Sandi added a dragon from The Stamping Ground along with the coil around the stick to make this piece special.
You can see more of Sandi's beautiful work on her website.

Linda Reid
Linda's creations spring from the Italian Playing Cards plate of stamps. She uses lots of dimensional extras to make her pieces sculptural in feel.

Above, Linda used some of the text that comes with the plate (Italian Playing Cards ~ Carte da Giuoco) and added collage pieces of other cards.

The octagonal tile above is a bathroom floor tile covered with Ultra Thick Embossing powder and stamped.

Here, the mask lends a theatrical air to the piece. Linda made it from Sculpey clay and then stained it with ColorBox sepia black ink.

Sandy Lemons
Sandy, who owns Powdered Pearls, made a marvelous deck of cards in its own little box using the Italian Playing Cards.

The front of the box The back of the box, open

Above, the faces of the cards and below, the backs. Scroll to the bottom to read Sandy's report on how she created these!