Happy New Year!

Yeah I know I'm a bit early, but I already missed the Christmas posting date for Australia, so I'm sending a new year card instead in the hopes that it will arrive in time for that!

I used the new Lunar Sayings from Mama Elephant for the main sentiment - I really love the chubby balloon letters they used.  I stamped it all over my square base card in grey, twisting it to be more of a general patterned background.


I stamped it again and coloured with altenew markers and then cut it out with scissors and my finger knife so I could pop it up using pinflair gel onto the party background circle.

To create the background I embossed the MFT Fireworks set (sorry that's currently sold out but there is a mini firework from Altenew you could use instead) and then ink blended some dark blue, black and purple inks over top, buffing the ink off the fireworks.   I added some splatters of extra sparkle using the Altenew Metallic Watercolor Paints.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We have received all but one of the final deliveries we expect before we close on Friday for Christmas and the store update.

• Colorado Craft Company - restocks are on - I will be adding the new release this morning.
• Waffle Flower Crafts - both the binder release, restocks and the latest release will be added today too.
• Sugar Pea Design - the latest release and a few restocks will be in store tomorrow.
• Altenew - the ink release and lots of restocks were finally shipped on Friday - they arrived at East Midlands today so fingers crossed they will arrive tomorrow and I will get them added as quickly as my fingers can type!

The store will then close on Friday and there will be no more daily posts on this blog after Friday either - I may do a couple of update posts over Christmas whist we're working on the new website, but when we reopen in early January, the blog will be getting a makeover too and will be "in" the store and should hopefully be easier for you to comment on without the dreaded blogger issues!

Right - I'd best get to work as we still have to decorate the house for Christmas today too!

Tara

Birthday Wishes with Small Images

Happy Tuesday!

For my card today, I’m using some images included in the MFT Happy Hippos stamp set. These smaller images are fun to use around a birthday sentiment. You could of course add a hippo or bird too, but I wanted to keep the card simple and focus on the sentiment.

I began by stamping the images and colouring them in with copics. I then cut them out and added some clear glitter and white gel pen accents.

I cut a piece of white card to be the same size as my card base. You could work directly on a card base, but when heat embossing, I prefer to work on a separate piece of card then adhere it to my card base. By doing it that way, the card base isn’t warped from the heat.

I heat embossed a greeting in gold from the MFT Handwritten Happiness stamp set. I then temporarily arranged the images around the card, to help me work out where the spaces were, before embossing in silver and gold, some firework and star images from the MFT Fireworks stamp set. 

I adhered the panel to my card base with liquid glue, then added the images with foam tape and some embellishments to finish.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Firework Cheers

Today I have a fireworks card to share. I kept the colour scheme minimal for a classic look.

I began by inking a piece of card with distress oxides in black soot, faded jeans and hickory smoke. I put this aside to dry whilst I worked on the sentiment.

Using the MFT Cheers word die, I die cut it three times - twice from black card and one from blue glitter card. I had adhered stick-it adhesive behind each before die cutting, to make it easier to stick them together.

Back to the inked panel, I stamped the MFT Fireworks images and stars, heat embossing them with silver and white embossing powders.

I added the panel to a card base, then the die cut stacked sentiment in the centre. I flicked the card with water for some distress details. To finish, I added some embellishments and rounded two of the corners for interest.

Thanks for joining me today,
Gemma