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

 

 

 

Year of the Dog

I’m ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year with my card today. 2018 is the Year of the Dog, so I got out the cute dog from the Mama Elephant Lunar Animals set, ready for some colouring.

I seem to be reaching for my Zig clean colour real brush pens more lately, as I’m enjoying watercolouring. I stamped the Dog with MFT Extreme Black ink, which is fine for watercolour. I can also recommend their black hybrid ink for using with your zig pens too.

I chose just three colours of markers - beige 72, dark brown 62, and light pink 26. I added a little of the beige colour first, blending out with water. I then dried the image with a heat tool and repeated this step 3 or 4 times to get a nice buildup and blend of colour. I then added a thin line of the dark brown around the edge, blending out with water again. Finally, I added some light pink to the cheeks and blended out with water to soften.

Once the image was dry, I added some black gel pen to the eyes, and some white gel pens dots to the cheeks.

For the background, I die cut a rounded rectangle from red cardstock. I used the MFT chevron stencil with versamark ink, then embossed the chevrons with clear embossing powder. I love the texture and shine this gives to the background. I added this to a white card base.

I stamped, in versamark ink, three of the lanterns from the Avery Elle Bunting stamp set. I embossed these with gold embossing powder. I used coordinating dies to die cut the strings and bows from gold metallic card. Unfortunately, the dies are out of stock currently, but the stamp set does come with string and bow stamps. By stamping and embossing these in gold on the background, it would give a similar look. Alternatively, some gold twine would look lovely too.

The year is die cut from gold metallic card, using the C&9th Double Cut Numbers. 

I added everything to the card, using either foam tape or liquid glue. To help ground the dog on the card, I added a grey oval shadow beneath him.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Avery Elle Bunting

Mama Elephant Lunar Animals

C&9th Double Cut Numbers

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens

MFT Oval Shadows Dienamics

MFT Chevron Grid Stencil

Lunar Animals Gift Boxes

Hey stampers, Anni here!

I am very excited because today I get crafty guests! We will have so much fun colouring, stamping, die cutting and chatting away!
For a little present for the guests I created these two boxes.

I am really in love with all kind of gift box dies but this one called Goodie Bag by Lawn Fawn is one of my favorites - it is so cute! I die cut it twice from patterned paper.

To decorate the boxes I stamped a few animals of  Mama Elephant's Lunar Animals. I coloured the critters with alcohol markers and added some highlights with a white gel pen.

For the sentiments I chose a few of the tiny speech bubbles of the set Small Talk by Mama Elephant. There are so many sentiments in this set - for every occassion and they are super sweet with these small speech bubbles.

To decorate the boxes even more I added a die cut border to each of them. It is from a set called Valentine Border by Lawn Fawn.

I hope my guests will like their little gifts.


Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.
Anni

         

Spreading a little lunar love.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week I've got some sweet little Lunar Animals...

...spreading a little love from My Favourite Things Peek-a-boo Windows Dienamic.

I have eyed this die up for soooo long, but wasn't sure I 'needed' it, (I've been trying to be a good girl...to avail), but eventually bit the bullet and treat myself...and now I can't put it down!  It is so simple yet so effective, I absolutely love it and can see me getting so much use from it!  Awesome buy :)

I started by cutting the fabulous Peek-a-boo die and doing a little ink blending on the back card in the areas which would 'peek' through.  I then took the adorable, and one of my all time favourites, Mama Elephant's Lunar Animals and stamped out onto some watercolour card.  I coloured all my images using Zig Real Brush Clean Colour Pens and fussy cut, leaving a neat white border.  I then placed my little Lunar Animals behind the Peek-a-boo die and adhered in place.  

My sentiment and little speech bubbles are from Mama Elephant's Everyday Greetings and are stamped in pale grey ink to keep the card light and bright.  I finished by adding a little heart balloon from Lawn Fawn's Hello Sunshine which is stamped using Zig Pens, and to which I added a piece of thread as the balloon string for a little added cuteness.

 I adhered my top panel over my background using foam tape to add some nice dimension and finished by adding a cute enamel heart.

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

See you next week.

Jillx

Going For Gold!

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I am going ga-ga for gold!

Using the incredibly beautiful new Gansai Tambi Starry Colours Watercolour pan set.

And oh my goodness are they beautiful?  They are so shimmery and easy to use!

So me being me, the first thing I wanted to with them was, of course, a background wash.  I wanted to see how they would react with my Distress Inks and to see if the pretty shimmer would remain when mixed with another medium, and boy oh boy, it definitely did.

I started with a piece of watercolour card and stamped out this huge 'Happy Birthday' sentiment from Mama Elephant's Birthday Wishes set, in black Versafine, and clear heat embossed.  I then stamped out this cute little bunny from Mama Elephant's Lunar Animals, and the little balloon from Mama Elephant's Woodland Gifts, and again, clear heat embossed.  I then masked  off my little bunny with 'drawing gum', (if you haven't already got some - get some - it makes masking soooo much easier, especially with watercolour).  Then for the fun part...  So the Gansia Tambi Starry Colours set includes 6 different pans of different golds, all absolutely beautiful, and in varying degrees of intensity.  I had already tested out my colours on a piece of scrap card, and chose which golds I wanted to use.  I went for the more intense colours as I knew I wanted to us it along some Distress Inks, and wanted the gold to stand out.  I used them in exactly the same way I would any other watercolour, and just went in to create a wash over my sentiment, sploshing and swooshing the colours around wherever I saw fit.  I then introduced my Distress Ink, a variety of pinks as I thought the gold and pink would look so pretty, and again, swooshed them over by background, then set aside to dry.

I was not let down with the shimmer once dried, it is gorgeous, although blumming hard to photograph!  I removed the drawing gum from my bunny and balloon, and coloured them both using my Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Pens, another incredible product new to the store!

I matted my panel onto a piece of paper from My Favourite Things Off The Grid paper pad, (which I LOVE and am going to re-purchase so I NEVER run of of haha), mounted onto a dark grey card base, added a coat of Glossy accents to the balloon, a scattering of sequins to embellish, and there you have it.

I really hope you like it.  

As always, everything I have used is linked below, so be sure to take a look.

See you next week.

Jillx