Let it Snow!

Hey!

It's Bev here today. I can't believe I have done two months of DT posts here and that we are less than a month away till the BIG day! Who else is on full on Christmas mode? Mild panic is starting to set in with all the cards I still need to make and all the other Christmas creativity ;)

So, I'm back today with some more Christmas cards to share with you. You've probably got to know me a little by now and some of my favourite things. 

Snowflakes! I love snow flakes and all things snow. They make me so happy and inspire me to create, especially when I feel under pressure or my mojo is lacking a little. Do you have a theme or something that inspires you?

For my snowflake duo I used Flora & Fauna Mini Snowflakes, this cute set is a bargain at £3.95 and my favourite Altenew ink colour collection, Sweet Dreams. 

For this first card I wanted to replicate a snowflake flurry and used the three lightest shade of inks to stamp the snowflakes. The sentiment is from another of my current favourite sentiment stamp sets, Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages.

You can just about see that I added a little detail to the snowflakes using a white gel pen. It wasn't particularly necessary, but I was inspired to do it! 

For my second card I was inspired by the current sketch over at CAS Colours & Sketches seen HERE and below.

This time I used all the stamps from the Flora & Fauna Mini Snowflakes clear stamp set, even the cute little 'let it snow' sentiment.

As I already had the colours out on my desk, it seemed practical to use them again on this second card. I used some foam adhesive to raise the sentiment panel up and create more of a focal point.

That's all I have to share with you today. I hope I have given you a little more inspiration with your Christmas card making. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends & those who celebrate.

Have a wonderful day & see you back here next week!

Crafty Hugs 

Bev

Ho, Ho, Ho - Merry Christmas!

Hey!

It's Bev here today. I am really getting into the Christmas spirit now and I have a trio of Christmas cards to share with you using the recently released Winter Stencil Strips from MFT.

I didn't think I would really get into using stencils, but they are really good fun and there are so many techniques you can use them with. Plus they are really good value too, especially this one at £5.50 and a choice of 4 designs in one!

For my first card today, I couldn't wait to try out the MFT Merry Christmas Blend stamp and give it a rainbow look! 

Choosing to stamp it in a rainbow of colours was quite time consuming and required some masking while inking up. But with the use of a stamping tool it was pretty easy and straight forward. I used Altenew inks in Ruby Red, Orange Cream, Fresh Lemon, Parrot, Ultramarine, Azurite & Ultraviolet.

After I had stamped the sentiment, I went and added the snowflake stencil in Altenew Silver Lake ink and added some sparkly liquid adhesive to the snowflake centres. With the stencil having four designs in one, you need to use a scrap piece of paper to mask the designs off that you don't want to ink!

Next I used the same snowflake design to create a lovely background using Altenew Dew Drop ink.

I added gloss white liquid adhesive to the snowflake centres and this time finished the design with a trio of snowflakes and the 'Let it Snow' banner sentiment from Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages Stamp Set.

The sentiment and snowflakes are adhered to the card using foam adhesive so that they stand out from the background. I used Altenew Aqualicious and Teal Cave ink colours.

Lastly for today I have a super quick clean and simple card using the HO, HO, HO design on the stencil.

I used Altenew Ruby Red ink for the stencilling and I added the 'Believe' sentiment, also from Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages stamped in VersaFine Onyx Black ink onto a scrap of white card & adhered using foam adhesive.

So much fun with one stencil and a couple of stamp sets. I hope I have inspired your Christmas card making a little. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Bev 

Altenew Ink colours used can be found HERE in the Seven Hills Crafts Store and all the colour families I have used are currently in stock :)

Lapis Lazuli 

Enchanted Garden

Gentlemans Gray

Sweet Dreams

Pocketful of Sunshine

Tropical Forest

Warm & Cozy

Red Cosmos

Fun with Geometrics

Happy Thursday!

It's Bev here today with a FUN geometric and masculine birthday card. It's my Dad's birthday at the weekend, and so I needed to make a card for him.

I was looking though my supplies to make my card and with limited masculine themed products, I was inspired to use the Waffle Flower Color Combos For Inkpads stamp set. As I've not got round to my intended purpose for using these stamps (swatching all my ink pads), it was nice to ink them up to create this fun background. 

I decided to use the Altenew Lapis Lazuli collection which features two bright blues and two softer shades creating a fun combination. I used my stamping tool to stamp all of the shapes, this was to ensure I achieved even coverage with them being solid and new stamps. 

The 'Happiest Birthday' sentiment is from Concord & 9th Confetti Turnabout stamp set and the DAD is die cut using the My Favourite Things Impact Alphabet dies and adhered to the card using foam adhesive for a little dimension.

This card would look great in all kinds of colour combinations, for women and all different occasions. Geometrics are my 'go to' for masculine cards and they come in all types of products too, not just stamps. 

I hope I have inspired you today & I hope to share more masculine makes with you soon. Until next week, thanks for stopping by today.

Crafty Hugs

Bev

Products Used...

Bricks and Windows

Hope you're all having a good weekend.   I've been getting textural this weekend with the new emboss and cut folders from Sizzix - I really like the idea -  not only do you get some great embossed texture but with the inbuilt dies you get a window cut in the perfect position every time!

I opted to use the Window Box version today, but there is also a great church window which would be fab for wedding cards.

I started with some vanilla malt cardstock trimmed to US size A2 and ran that through the folder.  To get the colour on the bricks I used brown and yellow ink from Altenew  with make up blending brushes to get some soft colour on the stones.   The brushes allow you to concentrate the colour on the raised areas so the areas between the bricks remain paler.

To give the bricks a more realistic finish, I used distress crayons in brown, white, beige and grey to add some craggy bits - just going in directly with the crayons in random areas, then blending out with my fingers.   The flat top to the crayons makes is really easy to just apply them to the raised areas so they are a great way to colour any embossed image.

The flowers and leaves for the window box also come with this embossing folder set.  I just cut those from white card and coloured them with markers before arranging them and adding some random dots of liquid pearls around them to suggest buds.   I do love the super cute little bee too!

I coloured both the front and back of the window frames with a dark grey marker so that when the windows are open you can see the same colour inside.

To turn it into a card I just blended some grey on the base card where the window would be, stamped a happy birthday (altenew birthday builder) at the top and then adhered the panel on top.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will have the following in store this week:

• MFT's new release 
• Newton's Nook's new release (Friday)

We're still waiting for the following to ship:

• Waffle Flower's new release
• Stamping Bella's latest release

We are also working on bringing you something new and exciting and we'll be the first UK store to get it - watch this space for news in the next couple of weeks!

Catch you next week

Tara

Spirograph Flowers

I've still got an original 1960's Spirograph that belonged to my cousin and was my favourite toy growing up, I covered everything in spirals!  So I was really pleased that Concord and 9th produced a mini turnabout stamp that creates spirograph patterns and had to have a play!

I just went for something really simple and created 3 flowers using 3 shades of grey and one deep yellow (all Altenew inks) and because it's a really simple turnabout I just lined them all up free hand without using a stamping platform or the alignment guide which means its easier to place them all over the front of a card.   I did a couple of flowers with 4 turns as the alignment guide suggests but did 6 turns on the middle flower to get a different look.   I used the same inks to colour strips of card to make it all match before embossing my sentiment onto the middle and finishing with some enamel dots.

If you've never tried a turnabout, this is a really easy one to begin with.   If you don't have a platform it is possible to use the bigger ones too and line them up by eye.  I've actually had a play with a few of the bigger turnabouts and it is entirely possible to line them up just following the guides and marking the sides so you know which way to turn- I actually found it easier to do it that way for some!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We currently have a sale in store - you must be logged in to use the code - it will not work on guest accounts.   The discount will not be applied on items with a "new" flag on them, nor on gift card purchases.

We will have the new Lawn Fawn release in store on Thursday morning

We hope to get the Sugar Pea Designs release at some point this week too.

That's all folks.

Tara

Party Decorations

I love to do "non card" projects with my paper crafting supplies - and making your own party decorations is a really good way to get more out of your stash.  I had my girlfriends round for the first time since we moved on Friday for a girly dinner and cocktail party so I got busy with my stash to get the room looking pretty.

Firstly I made a fun wreath inspired by cocktails for the door to the dinning room to set the mood for the evening (we did get through quite a lot of cocktails!)

It's a really quick and easy make - take one polystyrene wreath base, one pack of paper cocktail umbrellas - chop the sticks a bit shorter and shove them in all over til you cover the whole wreath.  I then got my Martini Fancy Die from Hero Arts and die cut a load of glasses in shades of card to co-ordinate with the umbrellas and tucked a few in under the umbrellas and glued a few on top.  I added a few flamingo cocktail stirrers to up the kitsch factor to 11 ;-)

We have a big wooden fire surround in the dinning room that was ripe for decoration so I wanted to make a banner using the simply gorgeous Monogram Alphabet stamp and die set from Concord and 9th.

I spelt out "girls night" for my banner and stamped all the letters with versamark ink and embossed them all with Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder.   I die cut them all with the co-ordinating die and then set about stamping all the floral elements using the same colours throughout.

I used coral bliss, aqualicious, parrot and evergreen from the AlteNew cube inks and then used a couple of markers in yellow and lilac to add some more detail to the smaller elements that have no stamps (they are designed to be left white but are easy to colour by hand too for a different look).  To turn it into a hanging banner I die cut the hanging tab (the bit that looks like an I in the die set) from co-ordinating shades of card, glued them back and front just where they touch the card so you can thread cord through the top.  I used Lawn Fawn's Gold Glitter twine to match the gold embossing and add extra sparkle.

As you have the whole alphabet plus and heart and an ampersand to play with you can make endless banners - names, Mr & Mrs for weddings or engagement parties, spell out number for big birthdays etc  and they are surprisingly quick to come together.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• Tomorrow there is a fabulous new release from Lil' Inker Designs which should be in store mid- to late-afternoon.
• We have received 6 HUGE boxes of restocks from Lawn Fawn, so will get those online asap.
• We also have some new items from Hero Arts and Echo Park so will get those processed as quickly as we can too.
• We're still waiting for the remaining items from Art Impressions to ship from the new distributor.  We've been waiting over 8 weeks so are already working on another "new" way to get them more efficiently.

Catch you next week

Tara

Sweet Cupcakes

The Altenew Way Too Sweet stamp set is one of my favourites. I wanted to make a card featuring the cake images from this set, as I haven't used them as much as the ice cream and lollipop images.

I used a border stamp and Altenew inks to create stripes on a piece of watercolour card. To give them a loose watercolour look, I spritzed the stamp with water before stamping onto the card.

I used a heat tool to dry the stripes, then stamped the cakes and a heart image over the background. I chose Altenew Lava Rock ink as thought black would look too harsh.

I created the sentiment from two different stamps, selectively stamping the words I wanted to create my own greeting. I heat embossed it in gold on vellum, and die cut it into a tag. I added it to the card with liquid glue, and added a few clear sequins around it.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Add caption

Altenew Red Cosmos Inks

Altenew Warm Grey Inks 

Altenew Sea Shore Inks

Altenew Way Too Sweet

Mama Elephant Basic Borders

Hero Arts Gold Embossing powder

Pretty Monochromatic Roses

Hi there everyone, Lydia here! And today I'm sharing a very classy monochromatic card.

I used Altenew Vintage Roses to create that classy vintage background, I love the fact that you could create this a big as you wanted for any project you have in mind. I stamped all of the base images randomly all over my card base using Limestone from the Altenew Rock Collection of Crisp Ink. I then took Silver Stone for the second layers and Industrial Diamond for the third, I have to say I do love how pretty these images look in grey.

As I didn't want to take ant focus from the background I added a simple sentiment panel, the sentiment is from Floral Frame and was stamped onto black card and heat set in white.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I'll see you again next week!

Hugs, Lydia xxx