Seasonal Greetings

Sometimes a stamp set just speaks to you and you have to have it - and for me that happened this week with the Seasonal Border stamp from Concord and 9th - I love all 3 borders but particularly the dotted one as it will be brilliant for creating quick backgrounds.  Today however I made 3 cards featuring the other two borders and the Season of Cheer die which co-ordinates brilliantly with them.

First off I reached for that stunning leaf border and I wanted to fill a card with it.  I stamped it several times onto kraft using distress oxide inks starting with yellows working through orange, reds and browns.   I've found if you layer these inks over each other whilst they are still wet your get a gentle oxide effect which works well for autumn leaves.  Once dry I just added a simple bold sentiment over the top - I went with birthday but I think autumn leaves would make good sympathy cards too.

Onto my next "season" and I went full out Christmas - I think I will be making lots of these cards as they would be great to knock out production line style (particularly using a stamping platform)

I just stamped the pine border in 3 shades of MFT green ink at the top and bottom of the card to get a lush green border and then used the complimentary die in red mirri card for a spot of seasonal sparkle on the sentiment.

Finally I moved onto my third "season" and made a New Year card.  I always make a few of these so I can send one to those people who weren't on my Christmas Card list but from whom I get an unexpected Christmas card - that way you can include them without them thinking they've been forgotten.

Here I paired the sentiments from the Season of Cheer set die cut from gold glitter card with the fireworks die from Lawn Fawn on a black card.  The fireworks die embosses the lines and dotted lines rather than actually "cutting" an image you can add to other cards so I just added a few and then used a metallic silver marker from Kuretake to draw over the lines and some liquid pearls to add colour to the centres and over the dotted lines.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

This week we will have new arrivals from:

• Lil' Inker Designs
• Echo Park
• Hero Arts (the September kit add-ons)
• Winnie & Walter
• Wplus9

There may be a day this week that the store is offline for a time.  Following the issues we had over the bank holiday weekend where the servers went down, we have put in a plan to move to a more secure environment where that won't happen again.  To move the store though necessitates a period of closure to allow the transfer to take place.  We will keep it to a minimum and will give you as much notice as possible but obviously with a number of outside people involved and their schedules to take into account, the exact timings may move a slightly.  We are aiming for Thursday this week at the moment and will confirm exact timings once they are fully agreed.

Don't forget today is the last day to enter our challenge this month too - you've got until 10pm tonight so get crafting!!!!

Tara