Most of you know that we changed up our website a couple of months ago. But I bet you don’t know about all the amazing things that are on the site…today is the day to find out about it! Today is not a day for projects, I know, I hear you sniffling in sadness but WAIT ’til I tour you around the site for some things that you might not have realized were there. Oh, and I’ll still probably share a few images (I can’t resist).

So, open a new window or file tab with the homepage, maybe I can help you out with that: SpellbindersPaperArts.com. It should have opened in a new window, so you can go back and forth if you need to…go to the very bottom of the homepage where you see the following:

• About Us
• Customer Service
• Press
• Retailers

• Site Map
• Search Terms
• Advanced Search
• Contact Us

Wow, can you believe we’ve been going strong for 14 days and we are not done yet?  Keep your gloves and hat on, its still cold in the Midwest, and we’re going to Iowa to visit Donya Shroeder.

Donya has loved paper arts since she first realized what paper was. “As a kid I collected stickers (remember scratch and sniff?) and still do. Now I try to actually use them instead of just owning them,” she says. In kindergarten, she wanted to learn how to write in cursive because it looked so cool (She is still fond of the cursive e). In high school, she started a stationery and card company, designing event invitations and gift certificates for her family’s bed and breakfast and the local arts council.  Currently she is purveyor and instructor for her paper and glue habit, a.k.a. co-owner of a paper arts store. She loves getting to play all day in the paper, paint, and glue, demonstrating to customers, and getting them as excited about the new tools as she is. She says, “I have a really broad range of tastes and that shows up in my work, from clean and simple to wouldn’t that look better if I drove my car over it distressed. I’ve had a fantastic time with the Wizard dies. They are some of the coolest and most versatile dies on the market.”

Well Donya, I wouldn’t drive my car over these, they look great just the way they are!

So drive, walk, or bike…or in today’s case hop on a snowmobile and head over to Donya’s blog, Puckish.  And you better bring a trailor, that prize package is getting pretty big!  Be sure to enter the contest when you get there!

We travel to Utah for today’s 5 Year Anniversary host Wendy Weixler, a stamper, crafter, wife, mother and bundle of energy!

Wendy remembers loving paper crafting and art projects since she was a little girl, creating masterpieces for the refrigerator door. No medium escaped her notice, from paint-by-number to mod podge and wood wonders! She has been a digital designer for over twenty years, working as an administrative assistant, intranet webpage coordinator and office guru during that time. She began scrapbooking in earnest over 10 years ago when she bought her first pair of decorative scissors. She was hooked. (She still has those scissors even though they don’t get used!). “A good friend introduced me to stamping and card making in 2003, and my creative juices have been on overdrive since,” she says. She loves to create handmade gifts for friends and family, and very few items that have potential for “alterability” go untouched! “I feel I am learning something new almost weekly. I enjoy the challenge of incorporating new techniques and ideas into all of my projects.” Wendy has been married to Ron for 23 years. They have three children, the lights of her life—Devan, Garrett and Amelia.

Here are 2 cards Wendy wanted to share here today.

Now visit Wendy’s blog, Wickedly Wonderful Creations and see what wonderful dies she’s creating with today, and maybe you could be the lucky winner of all the dies revealed through today!

Today we travel to Arizona to visit Jeni Calkins, host of Day 9’s 5th Anniversary Celebration.  Jeni is a mixed media artist, wife, and stay at home mom of 3.

“I have a passion for teaching art, whether it’s in the classroom or through writing,” she says. Some of what brought her to where she is now were her days of studying studio art at the University of California, San Diego. With her ability to use a wide range of materials, and her love for inspiring others, she is currently a senior designer for Altered Arts Magazine and has had many articles published there. Jeni uses Spellbinder’s products to the nth degree applying them to her areas of expertise: book making, jewelry designing, collage, assemblage, scrapbooking and card making.

I can’t wait to see what Jeni has to show us today, I’m heading over to Studio Jeni, I’ll meet you there!

Please welcome our host of Day 7, Jennifer Ellefson of Virginia!  She’s a wife and busy mom of 2 boys.

Jennifer says, “I have been creating all my life. My quest for the perfect craft was over when I found scrapbooking and stamping in 2002!”  A lifelong lover of all things stationery and paper, she is excited to be designing with Spellbinders. A consummate professional within her field, Jennifer’s work has been published in many paper crafting magazines, including Paper Crafts, Woman’s Day, CARDS and Stampington.  Jennifer believes her strengths are using paper in new ways, which is why she is so happy to be working with the incredibly innovative team at Spellbinders.

Please visit Jennifer’s blog today  for another new die template and see what she’s Created from Paper.  Please remember to check your email, that’s how we’re contacting the winners.  Good luck and have a wonderful day!                     

Day 5 takes us to Embellished Dreams, hosted by Heidi Blankenship.

Heidi hails from Minnesota and has been crafting for as long as she can remember beginning with making doll dresses with her grandmother. In 1988, Heidi discovered stamping when her parents gave her some supplies. “That is when my love and passion for paper crafting began and I have been hooked ever since,” she says. She is always looking for more products and new techniques that can inspire and challenge her. That is one of the reasons she loves working with Spellbinders dies, they offer so many possibilities.

She has been teaching stamping classes locally for several years and feels that one of the best ways to get people involved is to inspire them. “Although stamping is my art of choice, I also enjoy painting, floral design, jewelry making and photography,” she says. Heidi’s husband Eric is very supportive of her passion. Currently, she stays at home with two wonderful boys Dusty and Evan. When she is not in her craft room, she can be found with family and friends or on the net.

You can visit with Heidi on her blog, Embellished Dreams, and see the new release there today! Don’t forget to enter to win all 5 of the newly revealed die templates!

A housekeeping note to start off today, we will be announcing winners of the daily contests as soon as we have made contact with them.  Watch your email!

Do you love learning more about the designers?  Stay tuned to this blog for complete spotlights on the 2008-2009 Design Team, coming in February and March.  Our talented designers have a lot more to share with us, and I love learning more about them and their creative processes.

Today’s hostess and designer is Holly Craft, and yes, her real last name is Craft!  Holly was on the original design team in 2005 and has joined us again for 2008-2009.  Holly is a wife, and mother in her real life, and enjoys papercrafting, scrapbooking, photography, travel and sewing. Her latest hobby is knitting.  Holly has always enjoyed coloring and working with paper and was always drawing and making cards as a child. She majored in art in college and enjoyed doing watercolor and all types of crafting.

She began scrapbooking in the early nineties, before it was “cool” and then discovered rubber stamping in ‘99. “Life has not been the same since for her…or her husband, or her house,” she says! Within 6 months of her discovering stamping, she was published in Rubber Stamper. Since then, she has been published in Legacy, Memory Makers Magazine and others. Holly’s work has been on the websites of many companies, including Inkadinkadoo, Serendipity Stamps, Scor-it, Websters Pages and Craf-T.

In addition to crafting, Holly enjoys photography and travel and now has time for that since her two children are married and away from home. She enjoys teaching classes and has represented several companies at conventions.

Here is one example of Holly’s creative mind.  Thank you so much Holly!

Subscribe to Spellbinder’s Blog (on the upper left hand side of this screen) so you don’t miss the tutorials, designer spotlights and creative inspiration we have planned.  Don’t forget to visit Holly’s blog, Today’s Creations to see todays product reveal and to enter to win the dies from days 1,2, 3!

Spellbinders™ Celebrates 5^th Anniversary with a World Wide Blog Party!

Two-week Anniversary Celebration!

When: January 5 to January 20, 2009

Where: Spellbinders™ Designer Blogs

You, our favorite crafters, do NOT want to miss any of our Bloggers’ new Spellbinders™ Die Template releases during our Fifth Anniversary Blog Party. We are celebrating FIVE incredible years of changing the die cutting industry and YOU get the presents with daily sneak peeks, incredible prizes and amazing projects. Many of the new die templates debut during the Winter Craft and Hobby Association Show (CHA) in Anaheim, California, January 25-28, 2009, at Spellbinders™ booth #4873.

Beginning Monday, January 5^th and continuing through January 20^th, a different Spellbinders™ Designer (schedule below) will preview at least one of more than two dozen new die templates set to debut at Winter CHA. These exclusive sneak peeks will be available ONLY through Spellbinders™ Designers’ Blogs!

In addition to getting the first look at these new die templates, you’ll find innovative project ideas and can sign up during specified times for a chance to win daily prizes, as well as become eligible to win the Grand Prize … a complete set of all new release die templates valued at more than $600!

For more information … and to be sure you don’t miss a minute of Spellbinders’ 5^th Anniversary Celebration … visit these blogs on the following dates!

• JANUARY 5: Thinking Inking by Debbie Olson
• JANUARY 6: Mish Mash by Michelle Wooderson
• JANUARY 7: Today’s Creations by Holly Craft
• JANUARY 8: Walkin’ on the BAD side by Sherry Cheever
• JANUARY 9: Embellished Dreams by Heidi Blankenship
• JANUARY 10: Amazing Paper Grace by Becca Feeken
• JANUARY 11: Created from Paper by Jennifer Ellefson


This Die Template will be revealed in full view... soon.

• JANUARY 12: PaperFection by Sharon Harnist
• JANUARY 13: Mixed Media Madness by Jeni Calkins
• JANUARY 14: Wickedly Wonderful Creations by Wendy Weixler
• JANUARY 15: Cookies for Breakfast by Beth Pingry
• JANUARY 16: Pink Lemonade by Keri Lee Sereika (link is all better now)
• JANUARY 17: Inky Heart by Sally Lynn MacDonald
• JANUARY 18: Donya Schroeder by Donya Schroeder
• JANUARY 19: Linda’s Works of Heart by Linda Duke
• JANUARY 20: Follow Your Bliss by Trudee Sauer

We can’t wait to see you there: Beth and Eli

Now that you are heart rate has come down to a normal level (after reading about our next Design Team Contest…OH. MY. GOSH…)

We want to sweeten the deal by adding some, you guessed it…

Blog Candy: Win one of these…

Labels 2

Labels Large

If you post the link (found below) from our design team contest on your blog, we’ll enter you to win one of our awesome labels dies, such as: Labels 1, Labels 2 or Labels Large (depending on stock on-hand.) Then post to us here in the comment section–

–with a link back to your blog. If it all checks out, we’ll enter  you to win one of our seriously popular Labels Die Templates.

We’ll give you until Monday, December 22, midnight CST. On Tuesday, we’ll share the love here…

Can’t wait to see you spread the news.  Eli

Thanks for your participation, we have selected a winner, see post on December 22!

Beth