Lil' Baby Story Time

Hi everybody,

Jill here and this week I've got a sweet and simple story for you...

...using Mama Elephant's Lil Painters to help tell the tale.

I don't know about you, but when I get a new stamp set, I like to lavish attention on it as soon as I have it in my hands.  You know, hold it, stare at it, drool over it etc etc...in any case...I was fawning over the adorable Lil Painters from Mama Elephant,when these sweet little images popped out at me as a little story of brand new life that would make a perfect 'new baby' card.

Now I'm not sure if they were intended for this use, but I'm totally claiming the idea as mine haha.

I started by stamping out these three separate images in row, masking them off and adding a few little sprigs of grass.  I  then coloured them using my Zig Real Brush Markers.  Once dry, I masked them off again and stamped Lawn Fawn's Gingham Backdrop set over top in a bright, vibrant bubble-gum pink ink.

I took my sentiment from Mama Elephant's New Family, as it worked perfectly for my card and the font and style worked perfectly with my design, and stamped it out in black ink.

I finished by matting onto a piece of kraft card and mounted the whole thing onto a white card base.

I loved the crisp, cool, CAS design of my card so skipped on embellishments and left it there.

I really hope you like it, and enjoyed my little story time.  I really love it when a stamp set takes you in a totally different direction to what is first apparent!

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

See you next week.

Jillx

  

Getting Organised!

Hi! How are you?

Well the organising part is the second project. This project came out of the first one because I had lots of sets lying out whilst I was trying to choose one. I love this Wanderlust set.

I wanted to use the background stamp to onto acetate

Maybe I had Smarties on the brain, but it does look a little like sweets!

                                       

Anyway, on to the organisation. For those of you anticipating the back to school uniform buying, it can be a hassle and as I have several to buy for, I thought I'd make the buying a little more pleasant and make myself a proper list so I don't forget anything.

I started off with the Mama Elephant New Family set

This set and the coordinating Creative Cuts are on special offer now- so do grab a bargain here!

I created the tag using Embellished Tag Creative Cuts

I added a strip of stamped stars so I could colour each one as I buy them

I put the tags together with a D ring and added some seam binding to decorate. 

This would make a perfect record of your family 'measurements' for shoes and collar sizes etc that you can slip in your bag or add in room sizings or curtain measurements. Just the thing for when you spot a bargain!

Hope you are inspired to get organised.
(just wish I could get organised in other areas)

See you next week
xx

Make some noise!

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm making some real monster noise!

Using the cutest little monsters I ever did see from Mama Elephant's Monster Jam.

This set is from Mama Elephant's latest release, and is like nothing I already owned, so I just had to have it.  There's a few little monsters in the set, all doing something different, with a bunch of sentiments to go alongside them.  Sooooo cute!

I started by lightly pencilling a grid onto my watercolour card as a guide to stamp my monsters, I then took the wee little cutie, who is just kind of standing, and repeatedly stamped him out in all but two of my grid spaces.  I then took this awesome little monster, who's clearly the fun guy in the pack, and stamped him out in my spare space.  I love this repeated image kind of design as it's really simple but looks pretty modern and still packs a punch.

I coloured my images using Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Pens with water, making sure my main noisy little dude really stood out in bright colours.  My sentiment is built up form the same Monster Jam set, and is white heat embossed on black card, then simply cut into strips and added to my card using foam adhesive.  I didn't want to knock the balance of my design off, so skipped any embellishments and left it there.

I enjoyed this design so much, I made another card in the exact same way, using Mama Elephant's New Family, and a sentiment from My Favourite Things Some Bunny, so thought I would quickly share that here too....

I really hope you like them.

As always, everything used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

  

  

Hello, new baby.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week I've got some simple Spring watercolour...

...to welcome a new arrival to this world.

I used Mama Elephant's gorgeous 'New Family' set to make my card.  It is such a beautiful and sweet set, full of soft and gentle images.

I started with a piece of watercolour card and, using a mix of Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick Distress Ink, brushed some simple stripes across my card.  I wanted it to look really loose, relaxed and laid back so did it free hand, I wanted to embrace the imperfections.

I then stamped out all my New Family images and coloured them, again intentionally keeping them soft and not over-thought, using my Zig Clean Colour Brush Pens, then fussy cut.  I die-cut a small circle from my front panel, and created a little scalloped edge border using a die from my stash, to create a little aperture from which to build my scene.  I then took a separate piece of card and stamped out the amazing Sketched Chevrons background from MFT, heat embossed in white and washed over it in blue - I wanted a simple but pretty background for my scene.

My sentiment is from the same gorgeous New Family set, and is simply stamped in black and clear heat embossed.

I built up my sweet little scene behind my aperture, adhered the whole thing in place and added my main panel over the top using foam adhesive to give my aperture scene some dimension.  I then mounted the whole thing onto a piece of light grey card, added a scattering of clear sequins, and there you have it.

I really hope you like it.

As always, everything is linked below, and I shall see you all next week 

Jillxxx

Wheeeeeeeee!

 Wheeeeeeeeee.
It's one of those days where a high degree of fun is required.
Those days where you might even climb UP a slide rather than down one.
These little animals are just having a ton of fun

I'm all for having fun with sets too.

Yes, this Mama Elephant 'New Family' is a baby themed set.

But don't let that restrict you

It's a really fun set. 

You just need to start not with the set, but with your imagination.

Just think of any scene and plonk the characters into it. I thought they'd have a laugh on a slide, so I simply googled a slide image, sketched it, coloured it in, cut it out and then took a long hard look at the set.

I could see that the animals could be turned in different directions and realised that to 'hide' some of the animals slightly behind the slide rim, I'd need a top layer raised with foam pads to keep the story believable ( ha ha!).

Once I'd positioned them on the slide, I looked again, saw the swags of foliage and thought it would soften the look plus give the idea of a more woodland playground.

Having been reading 'The Faraway Tree' (by Enid Blyton) yesterday, I don't reckon this scene would look out of place!

I masked off half of one of the sentiments, so this set becomes even more adaptable. 

Hope you like my whimsical take on an animal playground. Go and have fun yourself; if you see a slide today I dare you to go up it the wrong way, or even just slide down it!

See you next week,

Keren xx

Unicorn Merry-go-round!

Hi! Fancy a spin? 

There's something incredibly nostalgic about fairs and I love seeing those ornately beautiful Carousels. That's where I got the inspiration for this card..plus I wanted to combine two fabulous Mama Elephant sets.

and mixing it up with 'New Family'

So I started out with the whole idea of adding the New Family animals on the back of the horses. I needed the unicorns to look more like carousel horses so I masked off the manes as below and used the moon in the set to act as a saddle.

The 'pole' things- were created using the little dashes and star and stamping opposite ways. Once you start with a theme and work out what you actually need to complete the picture, you can find similar shapes if you look hard enough!

It's also a useful example of 'suggestion'. I was trying to work out how to add the top and bottom and make it look realistically like 'flying Jennies' (another name for the Merry Go Round) but once I'd connected the riders and horses and poles, it was enough. The imagery is strong enough to suggest the scene- plus it's less work for me too!!

Hope you're day is a fun one, and you don't feel like you're going round in circles!
See you next week,

Keren xx