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

Getting my Hero on

Some super cool products I'd been itching to play with arrived from Hero Arts this week so I couldn't wait to get playing with them this weekend.

I started with the party confetti fancy die which is a really fun die for backgrounds but could be used in sooo many ways I've barely scratched the surface with my first two plays with it.  As well as using it for backgrounds, the streamers would make great accents on their own and could also be used in shakers, you could also use it to create your own stencil - some tonic mousse spread through would make a brilliant shimmering backdrop to a celebratory project.  I'll be having a go at that next!

I just went for a couple of different backgrounds first.  I used some super thick 300gsm navy card stock and ran it through the machine lightly so I could keep all the "bits" in the card and stick it straight on to the card.  Its a sort of like flat embossing that way and the texture alone with no colour looks fab for a classy card.

I added a simple white frame using a couple of stitched rectangle dies and created a focal image using the large Martini die also from Hero Arts - it comes with lots of different garnishes (cherry, olive, citrus peel and slice as well as bubbles and cocktail stick) so you can get creative and make any cocktail you fancy!  I went with a cosmo for this one and finished with a complimentary glittery cheers sentiment.

For my second card I used the same die but cut it twice - once from the blue (this time I ran it through twice to make sure it cut through) and once from white.   I popped out all the little bits and one the white card coloured the streamers using zig colour clean pens.  I then simply pieced the coloured streamers into the blue background for a colourful fun card.

I wanted the background to be as much the star as the rest of the card so just went with a simple white embossed sentiment (brushstroke birthday greetings from MFT) on some vellum with a single die cut party balloon using Lawn Fawn's Party Balloons.   I just traced the back of the word using a glue pen to adhere the vellum and folded a thin edge to tuck behind the blue panel on either side.

For my final project I switch to a different die as I've been waiting for the new You're a Fungi stamps to come in to stock to pair with it.   The Branch Wreath Fancy Die is a large die and because it's a nice plain twiggy version can be used all year round - just add your seasonal embellishment of choice and it works from Spring through to Winter (I also think if you cut it from grey it could pass for barbed wire too for a more masculine look)

I had lots of fun colouring the fungi - there is something quite relaxing about colouring mushrooms, I went for something approaching realism but you could equally go fantasy and pair them with some fairies!

I coloured them with zig color clean markers and a water brush so I used the pens like water colour paints (scribble them onto the back of any acrylic block and pick up the colour with the water brush - that way you can get more shades of colour from the one pen.)   Once coloured I just cut them out with scissors and arranged them in the twiggy frame - the idea was to create a sort of window into the fairy dell.  I added one of the super cute little snails and one of the fun sentiments from the same stamp set.  Simple quick and easy guy card!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We've just received our delivery of the latest release from Stamping Bella  - there is ALOT of it - so it may take a few days before I can get it all added to the store (I always do orders first to get them out to you all, and work on adding stock once that's done each day)
• We have an order for the new release from Concord and 9th in but that won't ship until later this week (we always get their releases but they don't ship until after they've released themselves each month)
• Our restock order from Lawn Fawn shipped on Friday so we should get that early this week too.
• We have ordered the latest release from Altenew (with the double dies) and are waiting for it to ship.  It usually takes them a couple of weeks to process and ship orders so we expect that towards the end of the month.