Grateful Twice!

 Hello! Hope you're having a lovely day. I'm just back for a guest post and as I love floral stamps, this Concord and 9th 'Grateful For Everything' set seemed a good candidate to be inked up. There's a great matching die set if you're not a fan of cutting out too

I thought I'd create using two different mediums and started off with a watercolour pen. You can get the same look using Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and an AlteNew waterbrush. Stamp and and heat emboss with white embossing powder first

The set has these beautiful mini spatters that really soften the look around your image and also an image (that I've not used yet) to perfectly match up around the outside so you can have a watercolour-esque band of colour around your image. I decided to try a different look using pencils on black cardstock

Black cardstock isn't as straightforward to colour on without adding a white or light layer of pencil first. I did a shortcut and added a light wash of white acrylic paint which really sped the process up!

Using pencils is all about adding layer upon layer of different colour to get the dimensional look. I'm still learning using them, but love the softness they bring to a project. You could start off your journey with these Prima watercolour pencils and use them with or without water

I finished off the card with a few sequins and a little paint splatter from some white acrylic paint. You can see my mistake here as I was colouring at night and picked up a blue pencil instead of white for colouring around the outside!

I truly love this stamp set as there are so many looks you can get from it! The sentiments focusing on being grateful are wonderful too!

Thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you again sometime!

Keren xx

A Floral Birthday (if your name is January!)

Hello there! I've popped back for a quick visit whilst Lydia is having her brief break.

It's lovely to be back with you all, and today I wanted to combine two Concord & 9th sets to create a bloom filled birthday greeting.

First up, the newer 'All Year Long' set

Don't dismiss this set as one for planner people or just Birthdays; there are some lovely flowers that are incredibly versatile. Granted , this card might only be suitable for people called January ;-) but the sentiments are perfect for lots of occasions and the contrast in fonts is really beautiful.

I decided to pair it with another set; Flourish

To add colour to the flowers and leaves I used some of the Hero Arts Ombre inks

 I've secured most of the fussy cut stems to the reverse of the die cut circle although I did have to use a little extra acetate 'scaffolding' in a curved shape. Granted it may not fit in a standard envelope but with the dreary January days, we all need a riot of colour, right?!

Thanks for joining me today, hope you enjoyed seeing how gloriously these two sets combine!

Keren xx

Clean and Simple shaker card for autumn or fall

Hi everyone, it's Esther here with a Clean and Simple shaker card for autumn or fall. 

Don't you love this time of year? I'm lucky to live right next to woodland. When I get out to walk the dogs there on an afternoon, the sky is a wonderful clear pale blue, the air is sharp, and the leaves crunch under our feet. Perfect!

I wanted to capture these sensations in a card, and thought I'd also show some of the steps for anyone who might find that helpful. 

Here's my card:

I used four products for this card. The front panel is cut using the Concord & 9th Grateful Leaf Dies. The sentiment is from the matching Concord & 9th Lace Leaf set. I've been so impressed with this stamp set - did you see my Christmas card that used the small leaf? This is a really versatile set for every season and I'm going to get a lot of use out of it. 

The inner layer of the card uses Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens for the background, the grey shading on the birch trees and the colouring on the leaves. These pens are another absolute win. I got the 24 pen set to test them out, but the bigger 60 pen set quickly went onto the wishlist! A massive bonus is that these pens don't bleed through decent quality card stock, so you can colour images on one layer cards with no leakage through to the other side. (Obviously don't use water with them unless it's watercolour card stock!)

Finally, those beautiful birch trees are from Mama Elephant Birch Trees Creative Cuts.

I used leaves as the shaker element of this card instead of sequins so that they would have the right matt texture and would "stick" in the tree branches when the card is shaken. I'm thrilled with how that worked; it produced exactly the effect I was aiming for.

Just get your Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and shade from dark to light on the front and back of a scrap piece of card using each lighter colour to blend over the darker colour next to it. From the left, I used 062 Dark Brown, 060 Brown, 070 Orange, 052 Bright Yellow and 050 Yellow. Then die cut multiple leaves using the various sizes of leaf die in your Mama Elephant Birch Trees Creative Cuts.

To get the loose watercolour background, take your Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and scribble them onto an acrylic stamping block, slightly overlapping each colour with the previous, then mist lightly with water so the colour beads up. I find I get a softer edge if I then take a sheet of kitchen paper and lightly tap excess ink away from the edges of the block. Then press your base panel over the acrylic block, lift away and either dry with a heat tool or leave to dry naturally. I repeated this step twice to get the coverage I wanted. From the top, I used 092 Blue Gray, 031 Cobalt Blue, 043 Olive Green, 072 Beige and 062 Dark Brown.

Finally, the sentiment! I love that long sentiment strip from the Concord & 9th Lace Leaf set with its descriptive autumn/fall phrases. Here's how to shape it perfectly for the edge of the negative leaf shape on the front panel if you're using a MISTI.

Place your die cut front card panel into the MISTI, use the magnets to hold it down and close the lid. Use a dark colour of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen to draw on the top of the lid along the right hand edge of the leaf. Remember, Zigs are waterbased pens so it will wipe right off when you're done with a baby wipe or damp tissue. 

Then open the lid and press the sentiment into place on the underneath of the lid, a short distance from the line you've drawn. 

Keep closing the lid to check you have the placement right on the card panel in real life. When you're happy with the placement, ink up the sentiment and stamp it onto the card panel. You can then clean up the stamp as usual and wipe the Zig off your lid.

Final tip - always give the acetate on your shaker cards a quick wipe with an anti-static pad before adhering everything together. That way, your shaker filling won't stick to the acetate but will instead move freely.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks

Hello.

Today as well as a card to share I have some news. 

I am taking a break from Seven hills crafts. 

Real life has gotten in the way of making but  you still have the most awesome talented design team.

Back to the important stuff ...Today's card features Concord and 9th.

I love clean and simple and today Ive gone for a one layer card.

I have stamped all of the images with distress inks but any water based inks will work and spritzed with water.

This gives a very different look. 

 If done with water colour card it works very well and gives a more water colour effect.

The small dots were stamped in versamark and then dusted with gold powder.

Then not being able to resist the gold water colours i splashed some gold gansai tambi paint over.

The sentiment was then stamped in black archival ink.

I love making thank you cards and I'd like to say thanks to Tara and to everyone that leaves comments.

Thanks for looking.

Hello friend

Hello.

I have  a simple water colour card for today featuring Concord and 9th and the Gansai Tambi starry water colours.

I had die cut a piece of water colour card and then added some of the blue gold water colour paint.

Once dry I added some splashes of teal ink. 

The same ink was used to colour the die cut flower.

I then stamped the sentiment from the flourish set in black archival ink.

The starry water colours  have an amazing shine to them so I didn't add any extra embellishment.

 

Thanks for looking.

Not Just For Christmas?!

Hey!

Don't worry, you can breathe again. I'm not doing Christmas. Not at all!

Concord & 9th brought out a fun set of dies especially to create a 3D Christmas tree. I made one or two and had plans to create non-Christmas projects, but they've only just come back into the store. If you use them like they're designed, you can create this type of thing

                                     

 But, enough of that (unless you are getting organised already!).

With it being the Olympics in Rio, my mind wandered over to laurel wreaths for the olympian victors. The little 'berries' are part of the die set too!

Granted, its pine not laurel, but I reckon no-one would notice! To make them, you first need the Take A Bough set and simply snip off the middle sections, cutting in a curved direction so they look more natural.

I thought I'd create a more summery wreath, this time, die-cutting from white cardstock and colouring in the centre areas with Zig Clean Color Markers

I stacked them around a circle (to help get an even wreath) and then added some small flowers from the Flourish set

I hope this gives you an idea of the scope of this set of dies. They're a lot of fun to play with.

See you next week!

Keren xx

1 Step Stamping!!

I love multi-step stamping. Those sets which give wonderful dimension. Some people find them tricky to line up, and if you're just starting out stamping, you might feel a little nervous about using them.

Thing is, you can treat them as one step stamps too!

I wanted to make a really simple card. The hardest bit is fussy cutting- which you don't need to do necessarily, you could simply stamp a one layer background.

I've used two products from Concord & 9th;

Flourish stamp set

and this amazing die 'Friend Like You'

Do notice that it cuts the black lines- so it is a solid die with the brackets being detachable from the main die. You can't die cut a 'friend' aperture by itself although if you positioned a piece of thin paper across where those letters are, you could die-cut one single word. You obviously have the middle bits of the negative letter shape that you could add in, but I liked the look of it without.

 Simply stamp the background and stamp the outer flower a few times, cut out and add to the card using foam pads. I backed the sentiment which a nice contrasting colour and added it to the front.
I obviously had letters left and thought I'd make a quick tag.

This time I stamped two of the 3-step flowers separately and trimmed them out. The idea with the set is that you start with the largest flower shape with the lighter colour, stamp the next sized down shape in a darker colour and then over those two, stamp the smallest image with the darkest colour.

These outline shapes are perfect for no-line copic/watercolour techniques.Add in detail with pen or pencil and really kickstart your creativity. I die cut one of the brackets from the tag and it gives a lovely aperture to back with another colour (as well as cutting out some bracket shapes to play with too).

I've had great fun with this set- do have a go too!

See you soon,

Keren xx

Incredible birthday

Hello.

My card for today uses stamps and dies from Concord & 9th and is inspired by the new Hugs card die.

I don't have that die,but I like the gate fold style and the sentiment across the front.

Here it is closed so you can see the front.

I started by making my background using distress inks.

I flicked water onto the ink then lifted the colour with a paper towel.

I then stamped the flowers from the flourish stamp set in black archival ink.

Once the ink was dry i went over the black with a black wink of stella pen.

For the inside I stamped birthday using both the upper case and lower case sophisticated script stamps.

Then I added some of the flourish stamps is light colours.

To finish i i added some sequins.

Thanks for looking.