Showing posts with label Mama Elephant Ella and Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mama Elephant Ella and Friends. Show all posts

Friday, 6 July 2018

Saying Goodbye with my ‘Ride or dies’.

Hi everybody, 

Jill here, and this week, well, this week the time has come to say goodbye.  This will be my last post as a regular DT member for the awesome, incredible, off-the-scale amazing, Seven Hills Crafts, and I thought the only way to go out was with a mash-up of my all time fave, my ‘Ride or Die’, the one, the only....


Mama Elephant!


I’ve also thrown in a sneaky nod to my first ever post for Seven Hills Crafts and recreated the same background using one of my all-time favourite techniques with one of my all-time favourite mediums: die-inlay and watercolour. 
So like I say, I simply had to showcase Mama Elephant in my farewell post.  They’ve been my favourite stamping company for so long.  I simply adore their characters, bursting with personality through their sweet, whimsical illustrations, always accompanied by some meaningful sentiments in some beautiful font.  I love em!  Always have, always will.  So I thought it would be quite fun, and only fitting, to grab a few of my absolute faves, and create a sweet little scene to wish all of you, all the happiness in the world.

I started by taking a panel of watercolour card and, using Mama Elephant’s Landscape Trio, cut my background into pieces.  I then cut Mama Elephants ‘Happy Script Die’ a ton of times and built on top of each other.  I then coloured each piece of my background, and the top piece of my ‘Happy’ sentiment using Distress Inks mixed with water, and set aside to dry.
I then stamped out my gorgeous Mama Elephant friends from various sets.  The rabbit is Lunar Animals, the hedgehog and cutest mouse in the universe (now see, this is what I mean with Mama Elephant, the teeniest tiniest image can turn my heart to mush and make me NEEEED an entire set!) are from Ella and Friends, and my cool dude doggy riding his skateboard is from Little Dog Agenda.  I coloured all my friends using, of course, my all-time favourite colour medium...my ever faithful trusty Zigs, and fussy-cut leaving a wee white edge.  
I finished off my sentiment by stamping onto black card and white heat-embossing, then built up my scene adhering everything in place.  



So there you have it, a feast of faves all in one place!  I really hope you like it and of course, everything I used is linked below. 

So all that’s left is for me to say ‘Goodbye’.  I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read, comment, or simply look at my posts week after week; your time and kindness is so very much appreciated.  And of course to my Design Team members, and to the fantastic Mr & Mrs Seven Hills Crafts themselves, Tara and Rick.  I thank you with all my heart for such an incredible opportunity to play a part in such an amazing company and community, it has been an absolute honour and I have loved every second of it! 


My face will hopefully still pop up here and there from time to time, but from me to you, take care of yourselves and I wish you all, Happy Everything xxx

Landscape Trio Creative Cuts Image 1 Happy Script Creative Cut Image 1

Lunar Animals Image 1 Ella & Friends Image 1

Little Dog Agenda Happy Everything Image 1

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen (24 piece set)

Saturday, 23 January 2016

Rainbows and Elephants

Howdy, crafters! My card was inspired by two cards I saw online by Francine Vuilleme and Debra James. Now, I have tried to create water colored rainbow cards in the past and I failed miserably. I ended up with an unattractive mess of brown patches and a high frustration level. This time, I put my brain to use before I started and dragged up the old color theory I was taught in school. You know what the trick is? Follow the color wheel!


Even though I used two different types of watercolor markers, you can easily just use one type of watercolor medium. I am totally afraid of using wet or fluid colors (like picking up color with my brush from the Gansai Tambi color pans) so using markers is my preferred way of working with watercolor. You could also use your Distress Markers or your ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers. As long as you follow the colors in the color wheel, you will achieve the same effect.


After I had mounted the elephant on my card base, I used a Mini Mister filled with water into which I had mixed Perfect Pearls to add a lot of sparkle and shine to the elephant. It really looks gorgeous in real life. Since you are using watercolor, be careful when you spray your colored image. The water in the mist will reactivate your watercolors and maybe make them run.


This sentiment is of course from the wonderful stamp set designed by Jennifer McGuire and is just perfect for the person that I'm sending it to.

I hope you got inspired and you will give the rainbow water coloring a try. It's definitely not an easy technique, but I think a little bit of practice will let you master it quickly and you will get breathtaking results.

If you want to actually watch me create this card, head on over to my blog (link in the sidebar to your right) and watch the video! Catch you again soon and have a wonderful weekend!