Sending All My Love Floral Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

With Summer finally in bloom in the UK I've been loving all the flowers that are around! In particular roses seem to be everywhere, and they really do remind me of childhood summers at home.

The Hero Arts Floral Rose Stem stamp set features a stunning rose image that resembles an intricate ink pen drawing. It was just begging me to give it the monochrome treatment, so how could I say no?

I love how pretty this is!

I stamped the rose image three times, with the tiniest bit of masking to give a cleaner look!

The Mama Elephant Occasional Labels stamp set is such a great all-rounder that every stamper needs! I love the look of all these smaller-scale sentiments, and this one makes for a great multi-purpose card.

Some black ink splatter finished the pen and ink look perfectly!

I'd love to hear what you think of this card. Is there someone you know who'd love to receive it? Thanks for stopping by!

Dream Big Fireworks Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

I just love fireworks. Watching them always fills me with wonder and excitement, and I always look forward to Guy Fawkes Night and New Year's Eve just to see the them!

There are some awesome fireworks stamp sets out there, but the My Favorite Things Fireworks stamp set is a real winner with me for its simple, uncomplicated style - and the host of little companion images that really help you build a scene! I couldn't wait to play with it:

How awesome is that?!

I stamped the fireworks with Versamark ink and then heat embossed them with a variety of metallic embossing powders. Then the magic really happened when I blended several inks over the scene to create that stunning sky!

The SugaPea Designs ParisScape Die is just so intricate and gorgeous, so of course it had to make an appearance here! And the sentiment from the Mama Elephant Occasional Labels stamp set nestles so perfectly between two of the buildings and just looks like it belongs!

Some water and mist splatters finished this card perfectly. It really does transport me to a fireworks-filled scene!

I'd love to hear what you think of this card. Is there someone you know who'd love to receive it? Thanks for stopping by!

Dragonflies and ink blending

There was only one thing to play with for today's post - Distress Oxides!  I've had the first two sets since they came out and used them so much that I decided we really needed to stock them in store as all the DT love them too.  For me they make the tricky art of ink blending a breeze - they really do go on so well that I have dreams of finally achieving something like the Laura Bassen backgrounds I always drool over!

For today I just went with something bold and beautiful using the stunning Hero Arts Dragonfly Fancy Die.

I blended the background directly onto my 6x4 card front (masking the back off to avoid getting it inky) starting with the darker shade blueprint sketch in the middle and blending that into mermaid lagoon at the edges.  I used the splatter brush just with water to get the oxide splatters.  I do think you can get more control with the brush than a spray and you can get bigger splatters with this than a normal paint brush as well as tiny dots.  I was trying to make it look like the dragonfly was skimming the top of the water as they do when laying their eggs.

For the dragonfly itself I used squeezed lemonade, fossilised amber and twisted citron and loosely blended them on the paper in the area where I wanted the colour to end up before die cutting.  A green strip for the body, lemonade for the wings and a little amber to blend where the two join.

Once it was die cut I used the waste as a template on a sheet of acetate and filled the area with glossy accents before sticking in the die cut and then sprinkling over Prisma Glitter from Lawn Fawn to get that transparent look to the wings.

I finished with a simple Happy Birthday sentiment from Occasional Labels by Mama Elephant.  I stamped it in black over a scrap of card with the lemonade distress oxide on it to tie it into the dragonfly.  Both of which were popped up on foam pads (just under the body on the dragonfly to show off the wings)

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We are expecting the following in store this week, but they may be delayed by the bank holiday:

AlteNew March stamp and die release
MFT release
Waffle Flower Crafts release

Our customer VIP group on Facebook has proved really popular and people are already making lots of connections.  Do come on over and join us, but please note it is for customers only so you have to have ordered from Seven Hills Crafts to be allowed in (MTDS orders are not valid).

Enjoy the rest of your Easter weekend and hats off to those of you who are working through it.

Tara
x

Sending All My Love Floral Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

Sometimes, Clean And Simple is best, particularly when you want the recipient to focus more on the sentiment behind a design rather than being distracted by many shiny things (some literal, some metaphorical).

After my last card featured the Reverse Confetti Something Wonderful stamp set as a subtle background detail, I decided this time to have the stamp be the star of the show, albeit with a soft and subtle way itself:

Pretty, right? The subtlety of this design really lets the sentiment stand out!

I started by stamping the floral spray in the bottom corner of my card and heat embossing it with white embossing powder. I then softly blended some ink over the design to help bring it out.

For some added glam I stamped the spray again onto vellum and heat embossed with a sparkly metallic embossing powder. I trimmed out the image and adhered to my card using dimensional glue gel. The sentiment from the Mama Elephant Occasional Labels stamp set and some Nuvo Drops finished everything off perfectly!

I'd love to hear what you think of this card. Is there someone you know who'd love to receive it? Thanks for stopping by!

Getting Geometric

Masculine cards are often something crafters shy away from, and it must be said that companies don't tend to provide enough masculine themed supplies, but I quite like making masculine cards and needed to refill my stash so I've been playing with geometry this weekend to make some.  Geometric shapes are always a safe bet for guy cards, particularly if you pair them with masculine colours.  I've been using the great new Trigonometry stamp set from AlteNew and their complimentary Shattered Triangle dies.

For this one I die cut the triangles from the shattered triangles set from white card and then coloured them ombre style in shades of green and layered them across a strip of navy card stock.  I used the Happy Birthday from the trigonometry stamp and repeat stamped it in parrot ink from their tropical forest cube pack.

Then for the second card I wanted to layer up the shapes - sometimes geometrical shapes force you into regimented lines, but you can go more random and make it work too.

I used different triangles from the trigonometry set and  just stamped a random pattern until I was happy with how it filled the card.  I used all the inks from two of the new colour packs Sweet Dreams (the blues) and Green Meadows (the greens).   The sentiment is from occasional labels from Mama Elephant in this instance - the bold background colour makes it pop right out amongst all the shapes.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

It may be a difficult week in the store again - today we are faced with more snow and freezing fog with really poor visibility so we can barely see the end of the drive.  The forecast is better for the rest of the week we hope but there could be an issue with stock arriving as the airports have been closed so there will be lots of cargo waiting to get on flights.   This may well affect the MFT release on Wednesday as it is not yet in the UK.   We will do our best as always.  We have lots of orders in and are waiting for them to ship.  As always we will keep you updated on our Facebook page with the latest news so that's the best place to check each day for what has arrived and for "weather updates"

Catch you next week

Tara

The Dog's Woof's Wicked Party!

Hi everybody,

Jill here and this week, I’ve got a rad doggy party for you...

Using the utterly incredible, The Dog’s Woof, from Mama Elephant.

These kind of ‘group shot’ designs that Mama Elephant have come out with recently are just beyond brilliant. They make colouring so fun, coming up with different designs and personalities for each one of the ‘gang’, and being able to change the look so easily with your colouring. Just brilliant.

I started by stamping out my doggy crew and heat embossing in clear to make life easier when it came to colouring. I then coloured using my Zigs with water.

I stamped out the balloons from Mama Elephant’s Up And Away, created a mask, and stamped out again and again creating a whole cluster of balloons, which I then coloured in lovely bright colours using my Zigs again. I also created a quick background wash with the help of my magnificent Zigs once more, and adding a few flicks of white for added interest.

My sentiment is from Mama Elephant’s Occasional Labels and is stamped out, clear heat embossed, and fussy cut.

I then cut around all of my elements and adhered in place using foam tape, adding some silver thread behind as the balloon strings and using the foam tape to keep them in place.

I am a dog obsessive - no joke - I recently even landed my dream job of working a rehoming centre, so this set was an absolute ‘must-have’ for me and I LOVE it! I actually can’t wait to use it again...and again and again and again...

I hope you like the dog crew party!

As always, everything I used is linked below.

see you next week.

Jillx

    

Modern Coffee

Hi there, Jenny here on a Monday morning and I'm on the coffee again!!!

Yes I'm drinking it and also re-visiting the Coffee Date stamp set from MFT. 

Last time my card was retro and.... erm... quite bright!! This design is still colourful but has more of an abstract/modern  

edge to it and I was totally inspired by this picture on Pinterest...

 Those solid shapes of colour have such an impact and I knew I wanted to try 

it with this set straight away.

I arranged the images in my stamp press and used Memento ink to stamp them, that way I knew 

the black wouldn't smudge when I added the colour on top. I used strips of masking tape to make

 the random shapes and daubed on distress inks.

I had left the stamps mounted in the stamp press so I returned the panel of card to the exact same position 

and re-stamped the images in black Versafine ink to give a deeper black line.

The Mama Elephant Occasional Labels has a great choice of sentiments and they were perfectly sized to fit 

the space left. I stamped them on a scrap of white card and trimmed around them with a craft knife

 and ruler.... that way they look more like Dymo labels.

  

Thanks for stopping By :)

Jenny x