A Swell Background

I'm all at sea today with a couple of cards using the Swell stamp set from Avery Elle.

I love that this stamp is such a large background but I decided to make it much 

more versatile by carefully snipping the little boats out of the wavy scene.... it's easy to do 

with a sharp craft knife or scissors and you can always add the boats 

back into the design if you want to..

With the boats separate, you can ink them in different colours as I've done here.

I've used a circle die to cut a central aperture then layered a smaller aperture 

under the front panel to give a blue border to the design.

I've used part of the sentiment from the same set and added 'Birthday' on a banner 

with Swinging Borders and Lots of Letters by Mama Elephant.

Another fun thing you can do with the boats removed from this background 

is add different images in their space... like this seagull from Beside the Sea.

The waves and birds are embossed in white and I've cut a circle aperture again 

and used the die cut to make a recessed window..

The seagulls in the Peek a Boo Summer Pals was the perfect fit for this card so I've 

paper pieced them and tucked them into the window... one of them had to be 

the Birthday Gull so it has a party hat!!

It may seem scary chopping into photo polymer stamps but as long as you're 

careful it can really make those supplies stretch that bit further with your creativity.

This is what my stamp looks like now... and I can just pop the boats back into 

the holes and still use it as intended.

Just to note that some of the stamp sets I've used have now sold out in store due to the 

very popular sale over the weekend, please use the notification system for when they 

come back in stock if you'd like to purchase them.. thank you

  

  

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Birthday Monkeys

Hello! Tallie here with a break from the festive cards. Today I have some cheeky little Birthday Monkeys from Mama Elephant!

I started out by stamping out the three monkeys, the cake and a birthday hat from the Mama Elephant Birthday Monkeys onto some blending cardstock using some MFT Extreme Black Ink. I coloured these in with my alcohol markers, sticking to a simple colour scheme of red, gold and blue with some brown for the monkeys. I cut these out with the coordinating dies.

On a white, top folding A6 card base I stamped out the flags from the Mama Elephant Swinging Borders set, arranging them across the top of the card. With a black marker, I added the 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' letters inside the flags and then coloured these in with the same markers as the monkeys and cake.

I popped the monkeys and cake up on some foam tape and used a light blue marker to add some grounding.

A bright and colourful birthday card for any cheeky little monkey!

Thanks for reading, catch you next week!

Tallie

  

Monkey Business

I have a small troop of monkeys having some fun on my card today, swinging and dangling from vines made from twine....

I finally got around to colouring up these adorable little monkeys from Mama Elephant and to change things up I stamped them on Kraft coloured card. I've not really tried colouring on Kraft card and brown monkeys seemed to be an easy start point! I had already chosen the sentiment from Reverse Confetti's Monkey Business and stamped it on the card panel, then coloured and used the dies to cut five of the little guys out...

To make the vines I have used green hemp twine from my stash and coated it with Multi Matte Medium glue which helps you to train the twine into the curves and shapes you want. I adhered the loops of twine to the card with the same glue. To make green vines you can easily colour natural coloured hemp twine with ink or paint and leave it to dry thoroughly before using.

To make the leaves, I stamped out the vine from Swinging borders onto Kraft card and coloured the leaves with Polychrome pencils as well. Yes I did cut out all those leaves, not as fiddly as you'd think and they are quite simple shapes too.

It was fun building the scene, adding the monkeys and leaves to the vines using a combination of foam dimensionals and glue. I then layered the panel onto another piece of kraft card with a narrow border and then onto a cream card base. 

The images below are clickable links to the products I've used for this card..

                                    

                                        

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x