Inspired by the Movies

I'm taking you to the cinema with my cards today - firstly we're off to see the wizard with the amazing new Halloween set from Colorado Craft Company - Witch's Monkeys...

If you've looked at that set and wondered where we get to the Wizard of Oz - then take a closer look at her crystal ball and you'll see Dorothy and a couple of her friends in it!     I was going to try and do the whole window scene from the film and pop a monkey in the window, but to be honest, I ran out of time this weekend (hence another late blog post!)  So I took the image I'd coloured ready to add the background to and just cut it out so I could make a more simple background - I've gone with just some patterned paper to look like wallpaper.  I simply coloured her with pencils - such fun colouring her stripey tights.  I added glossy accents to her glass and crystal ball and stamped the sentiment onto purple to tie it all together.

For my next card I did create a little scene and this time we're off to Hogwarts...

I started on some grey multi-media paper (it's my cardstock of choice at the moment for pencil, inking and watercolour as long as you don't over saturate it) and stamped the teacher from MFT's Favorite Teacher set. I did some selective inking as I didn't want him to be smiling nor did I want the book so I just wiped the ink off the elements I didn't want to stamp with a damp cotton bud before stamping him.  I coloured him with pencils in house colours and added in his scar and glasses and some lines to fill in the shirt where I removed the book and then tried to give him an determined mouth but it came out a bit wonky!   I covered him with masking paper and then drew some faint lines to create the lake and then stamped trees from Newton's Nooks Serene Silhouettes all over the background using a dark grey ink and allowed it to fully dry.  I then stamped the stag from the same set in unicorn white ink and embossed it with detail white powder and then repeated the process to get it good and thick.  I then stamped again but deliberately smudged it a little and used Lawn Fawn's Glow in the Dark powder to give the stag his ethereal glow and then stamped once more and added some sparkly snow glitter powder from WOW.

I used pencils to shade the beach and the hills and then stamped some stones onto the beach used the "snow spots" stamp in the serene silhouettes stamp set.  To create the lake I did a soft wash using the white paint from the Starry Colours paint set whilst the figure was still covered by the masking paper so I could just "swipe" straight across using a wide water colour brush.  I added some frosted lace stickles to the waters edge to add detail.

For the "patronus" coming from his wand, I just brushed on some unicorn ink with a watercolour brush and sued the sparkly snow glitter powder again to give it that glowy effect and then I hand wrote the spell with my Sketching Pen which will write over most colouring mediums so is great for filling in lost details as well as drawing and writing.

It's always fun when you can twist your stamps into something other than they were meant to be - I'm quite pleased with how my movie scene turned out - hope you'll give it a try!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We've got some fun new products coming to store this week that should help turn your projects into gifts - watch the store for news.

• We have the latest release and lots of restocks from Altenew in transit so they should be here this week.

• The latest release from Reverse Confetti is also due this week.

• The August Hero Arts Kit will be here this week too.

• Our order for the Concord and 9th release which will go live in the States tomorrow is in, but they don't usually ship wholesale orders until a few days after they release so we're always about a week behind their release but it will be live as soon as we get it!

• The big new release from Mama Elephant is next Sunday - we have it already so it will be live as soon as it goes live in the USA (assuming it's not whilst we're asleep, in which case as soon as we get up on Sunday morning!)

• We have the latest releases from Flora and Fauna coming too - they are just waiting on delivery of a few items and hope to ship to us this week.

• There are new releases from Sugar Pea Designs and Stamping Bella this month too - orders are in and they will be here later this month.

There is essential maintenance on the store this Friday so it will be off-line from 6pm and come back at some point on Saturday morning.

That's all I can think of for now.

Happy Crafting!

Tara

Going For Gold,

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm going for gold!

Using My Favourite Things Chevron Grid Background as my main element, and smothering it in all things gold!

I started by stamping out the, brand new and beautiful, Chevron Grid Background from My Favourite Things onto some watercolour card and covered in gold embossing powder.  I didn't want it to cover my entire card panel so, using a soft cloth, gently brushed away the gold embossing powder from the edges, leaving an interesting shape, and heat set.  I then took the (truly beautiful) Gansai Tambi Starry Watercolours and, using one of the lighter more transparent colours, painted in every other chevron.  I then took the light grey colour from the Zig Clean Colour Brush Pens, added a teeny amount of ink to every other chevron, and painted out with water.  Once that was all dry, I went back to my Starry Colours and added a few flicks and splatters of gold across my background.

I then heat embossed another piece of card in the same gold powder, and cut my 'Celebrate' by Sugar Pea Designs sentiment from it, along with the hearts & arrow from Paper Smooches Tiny Hearts die (hands down the most value for money die I have ever purchased).  Once cut, I then added another layer of gold embossing powder to my pieces to give them a nice finish.

I wanted some form of vellum to go behind my sentiment to anchor everything in place without taking away from the beautiful Chevron design and shimmery paint, so opted to cut My Favourite Things Fringe Dienamic to add to my background (it didn't show up too great in the photos, but worked just as I wanted it too in 'real life'!).

I added a twirl of gold twine to the back of my card, and built all my elements upon it.

I added a scattering of clear sequins from Neat and Tangled to help tie my design together and, after mounting onto an Avery Elle  Silver Fox Notecard, left it at that.

I really hope you like it, as always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

 

Hello Autumn

Hello.

As the weather starts to cool and the evenings get darker I was inspired to make an autumnal style card.

I have used Winnie and Walters In Bloom: Renee's leaves stamp set.

To start I stamped and heat embossed some of the leaf images in red and gold embossing powers.

I then die cut the card with the scalloped rectangles from Lawn fawn and distressed the edges.

 And then I splashed lots of the gold gansai tambi water colours on the panel before die cutting again with the stitched rectangles.

I then water coloured a panel with more gold , while that was drying i die cut the hello.

the gold panel was placed behind the hello and then I added some red twin from Lawn fawn before adhering with foam tape. 

I didn't want to added to much embellishment as the gold embossing powder has a sparkle to it.

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.

In Bloom: Renee's Leaves Watercolour wonder

Hello.

Today I have a card featuring Winnie and Walter's  In bloom:Renee's leaves stamp set.

To start I stamped the image onto water colour card with versamark and then heat embossed in platinum.

Then using the Gansai tambi water colours I coloured the images really loosely.

I let it all dry then added splashes of the white gold from the starry colours set.

The panel was die cut with Lawn fawns stitched rectangles and also a smaller rectangle of vellum.

For the sentiment I used Lawn fawns scripty thanks die. 

Its cut from water colour card and then coloured with the white gold water colour.

I adhered to the vellum and then added the same adhesive on the reverse of the vellum so nothing shows through once everything is put together.

To finish I added more splashes of the white gold.

 

Thanks for looking.

Smile and shimmer with textured Starry Watercolour.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm shimmering up some texture paste...

...using the ever giving, Gansai Tambi Starry Colours Watercolour set.

This beautiful watercolour set's talents seem to know no bounds, so I was excited to see how they would react with some transparent texture paste, whether the gorgeous shimmer would shine through, and boy oh boy was I thrilled with the results.

Those bad boys shone through like the twinkling magic stardust they are!

I started with a quick watercolour wash (I know, shock horror!), across my background and set to dry.  I then got my Starry Watercolours pan set nice and wet, and added a good amount of product to my craft mat.  I then added a nice dollop of some clear texture paste to it, and mixed it up well.  I used the Hearts Stencil from Echo Park, and smooshed my starry shimmery texture paste over the top using a palette knife making sure not to cover the whole thing, I wanted to cover a corner and kind of fade off leaving some nice white space.

I then cut my 'Smile' sentiment from Lawn Fawn and gave it a couple of coats of gold embossing powder for even more dimension.  I finished my sentiment with this 'it's your birthday' from Lawn Fawn's Year Six, an awesome little cute set worth the money for this sentiment alone - so handy in finishing messages off!  I stamped it onto vellum and, after adding a twirl of metallic thread underneath and the addition of a grey piece of card to ground everything, adhered onto my card front.

I matted onto some patterned paper from my stash, and mounted onto a grey card base, keeping everything up in the corner to help balance my elements out.

I added a wee little black enamel heart to tie everything together and there you have it.

It's hard to show in pictures just how shimmery the Gansai Tambi Starry Watercolours are, but when they catch the light, they really are just utterly stunning, and being able to use them along side so much of your crafty stash just makes them even more worthy of a space in your craft room!

As always, everything I have used is linked below so be sure to go check it out.

See you next week.

Jillx

     

   

     

Rainbows , unicorns and glitter

Hello.

I have something magical to share today, in the shape of My favourite things magical unicorns.

I started my card by water colouring my die cut panel with some water colour paints. 

Once it was dry I splashed some of the gold starry colours water colours.

Next i stamped the images and coloured quite simply with copics.

They were then fussy cut and added to the water colour panel.

The sentiment was stamped directly onto the panel.

To finish I added some clear sequins.

Thanks for looking.