October Monthly Planner Pages

Hello, It's Liz here today. Paper planners may seem old fashioned in this digital age but they are a great way to stay organised with space for to do lists, notes and ideas as well as all those important dates and appointments.

Here are my planner top tips -

• Have a regular daily planning session, I do five or ten minutes every evening.
• Have a weekly planning session, I usually do this on a Sunday for the week ahead. I note up all the routine tasks that don't change from week to week.
• Use the monthly section, this is what I am sharing today. It's a brief overview of the whole month.
• Finally, and most importantly, keep your planner handy! It will not fulfil it's purpose if it's tidied away on a shelf.

There is also a creative crossover between planning and crafting. I use stamps, stickers and washi tape to have fun decorating the pages of my planner. The stamp sets I have used on my October monthly section are as follows -

Birdie Brown Alphabet and Numbers by My Favorite Things

Sticky Note by Mama Elephant

Little Dog Agenda by Mama Elephant

Stay Focused by Waffle Flower

The blank refill monthly pages are by Waffle Flower. These are perfect for creative planning as the paper is thick and smooth. You can find them in the shop here. And as a finishing touch I always add Washi to the edges of the pages. I have used the gingham from the Spring Farmhouse set which you can find here.

Thanks for stopping by today, happy crafting (and happy planning)! 

80th Agenda

I needed an 80th birthday card this weekend but wasn't sure what to make so I had a browse around instagram and was inspired by a cute 10th birthday card on @thetinybluebutterfly's feed and created a card featuring lots of little agenda characters celebrating the big birthday.

I selected some of the "party related" characters from the following little agenda sets from Mama Elephant:

Monkey
Bunny
Dogs
Cats

I decided to keep all the animals in shades of grey to keep a coherent design and just used pink, yellow and green for all the accents.

The 80 itself came courtesy of Concord and 9th's Notable Numbers Die cut from glitter paper from their summer glitter pack which I used to edge the strip of navy card I mounted the scene on.

Quick and easy card and there are so many characters in the range you can get them doing all sorts of things to match your needs.

 NEWS FROM THE STORE

• Just a reminder than we are "closing" shipping at 3pm on Friday.   The store will remain open over Christmas but we are taking a break so orders placed after 3pm on Friday will not be processed until we start work again on the 2nd January.   We will not be blogging, answering emails or Facebook questions either during that time as we need a proper break so thank you in advance for your patience.

 Before we close, we will still have a few new arrivals:

• MFT card kit stamps and dies - from this month onwards MFT are allowing us to have the stamps and dies from the card kits AT THE SAME TIME as they release the kits rather than making us wait 3 months as they did before.  WE CANNOT GET THE WHOLE KIT - if you want that, as always you have to go direct as the kits are exclusive to MFT Stamps.

• Hero Arts November Kit Add-ons will be here this week.  Again, we can't get the kits themselves they are exclusive to Hero Arts.

• AlteNew - the new stamps, dies, pens and embellishments are hopefully arriving by Tuesday.

 

I'll catch you on Friday for our final blog post of 2018!

Tara

Little Agenda Frame Border

Today I’m sharing a happy Mama Elephant Little Agenda card.

I wanted to use the Little Agenda Frames to create a border edge on a card. I began by stamping the frames and some of the cute Little Agenda animals within them. I masked the edges of the frame when stamping the animals, so they look like photos inside the frames. I coloured the images with alcohol markers, then die cut the frames with the coordinating dies.

I arranged the frames on a card base so they spanned the height of a card, then temporarily adhered them together at the front with some post-it note tape. I flipped the frames over and added some Lawn Fawn glue tube adhesive to adhere them together properly where they overlap. Once dry, I removed the post-it tape.

On the card base, I added a strip of patterned paper on the right hand edge. I then got another piece of white card, narrower than my card base. I stamped a greeting from the Little Agenda Frames stamp set, then adhered the frames along the edge.

To finish, I added this piece to the card base with foam sheet. This gives some dimension from the background, helping the frames edge to stand out.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Little Cat Agenda

Little Agenda Frame dies

Little Dog Agenda

Little Bunny Agenda

Little Agenda Frames stamp set

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

 

 

 

Little Agenda Hooray

Happy Saturday! I’ve swapped days with Anni, so I have another card to share with you today.

As many of you may know, I’m a fan of a cover die. Especially ones as versatile as the Mama Elephant Grid Window. What I love about this one is the possibilities for different looks, just by cutting it and making larger windows within the frame. 

For my card today, I've combined it with the Mama Elephant Little Agendas as they fit perfectly in the windows. 

I started by die cutting two frames from white card, then adhering them together. This gives some dimension without making the card too bulky. I then cut out part of the frame to make a larger window in the middle. I’ll use this for my sentiment.

For the background, I blended ink directly onto a card base, adding water droplet details. I then adhered the frame on top of the card base.

I chose some images from the Little Agenda Cats and Dogs, colouring them with an assortment of rainbow colours. Then I added these to the card with foam tape.

I chose a large die cut gold glitter 'hooray' to go across the card, layering it for dimension. To finish, I stamped an accompanying sentiment on the frame underneath.

Thanks for joining me today. Have a lovely weekend,

Gemma

Mama Elephant Grid Window

Mama Elephant Hooray Script

Mama Elephant Little Cat Agenda

Mama Elephant Little Dog Agenda

W&W Sentimental Birthday

Little Doggy Noisy Birthday Jam.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I've got a little doggy parade making a whole load of birthday noise...

...using Mama Elephant's, off the scale adorable, Little Dog Agenda.

Now it's no secret I am absolutely, unashamedly, unabashedly dog obsessed.  I'm that girl who will cross a road if it means a quick kiss off a puppy.  So when this set was released, my eyes were on beanstalks and I fell instantly in love!  I mean what's better than a dog?  Well I'll tell you what's better...twenty dogs!  Twenty cute, adorable, fun little puppies all packed on to one sheet of stamps!  Amazing.

So anytime I get a set like this I look through all the images and look for a story.  I try to find images that link together to help me create a scene in my head...and I think it's pretty indicative of who I am that the loud noisy birthday band parade is what leapt out to me!

I started my card by stamping out my cute pooches (and the bottom half of my sentiment) onto my card panel and clear heat embossing.  I then added, freehand, some little sprigs of grass to ground my parade.  I wanted to create a sweet and simple scene for my card but I also knew I wanted to add a little extra interest by adding a background stamp to my, well, background (:/), so I masked off my images and sentiment then took My Favourite Things Sketched Chevron Background and stamped it across my panel, not taking too much care around the edges so it gently faded out.  I then set about colouring my images using Zig Real Brush Markers, (I apologise that I use these all the time but I am 100% hooked on them, they're just so easy to use and incredibly effective!).  Once my images were dry I moved on to colouring my background, again, using my Zigs, taking care to leave a space around my sentiment.  

I then finished up my sentiment, which is from Mama Elephant's Monster Jam and works perfect with my scene, by stamping the first line out onto black card and white heat embossing.  I also did this with the little 'Rock On' speech bubble from Mama Elephant's Rock and Paws and added both pieces to my scene using foam tape.

I finished by covering my scene and sentiment and adding a few flicks of ink across my background and there you have it.

I really hope you like it.  

As always everything I used is linked below so be sure to have a peek.

See you next week.

Jillx