Thelma and Louise

Now the new Stamping Bella release is on our store I couldn't wait to ink up my favourite stamp from the entire release - Thelma and Louise is one of my favourite films and I have all the uptown girls so this set was screaming me, me, me!

This may look like a complex card but it really wasn't difficult to do.  It is all coloured just with pencils and blending solution.   I stamped the image first onto white card, coloured it whilst watching TV (took about 20 minutes) and then fussy cut it out (there is a matching die if you aren't a fan of scissors but for the "look" of my card I didn't want the white border).

For the scene (yes I know they can't be driving the car like that, it's the bit where they pick up Brad Pitt so they're doing a quick photo before he drives them on!) I just googled an image of a "US highway sunset" and adapted it to fit the perspective of the car.  Its just a case of drawing a light horizon line and then two straight lines wide enough to fit the car at the bottom left, getting closer together at top right.  A wobbly line for the mountains with a gap for the sun and away you go.  I used shades of blue pink and purple for the sunset sky, ochres for the sand and browns for the mountains. Blending stumps dipped in blending solution break down the pencils so you get a nice smooth finish - I find them easier to create backgrounds with than alcohol markers personally but you could use those or ink and blending pads too or even cut scraps of card to build up your scene - whatever floats your boat.   I scribbled a few cacti shapes in the foreground as they were on my inspiration photo.  Glue on the car and add the sentiment to finish.

If you want to have a go at creating a scene but aren't confident of sketching your own, then stamping bella have brought out a few background scene designs in this release - you can find the whole release here 

 

NEWS FROM THE STORE

Lil' Inker Designs have a brand new release on 1st August which we have just received so will have it in store for release day.

We've had lots of enquiries about Lawn Fawn's new release - although they have shown images of it all, it will not be released until 24th August so cannot be purchased yet.  WE DO NOT DO PRE-ORDERS - we only ever sell stock we have physically available to ship immediately.   We ordered as soon as it was released to stores a couple of weeks ago so we will have it for release day (barring customs clearance issues)

Altenew - we have two orders pending with Altenew.  We ordered restocks a month ago but sadly they shipped using the wrong method and without completing any customs paperwork.  As a result it has been sitting in customs for almost 3 weeks and we are having to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops to prove it is a legitimate import.  I still have NO IDEA when (or if) it will be cleared - there is a slim chance it could be returned to the USA if they don't accept our paperwork now.

Our order for their new release has now shipped, using the correct method, so hopefully we will get that by the end of the week.

We will also have our BRAND NEW TO THE UK  brand in store this week so I can finally reveal that is is FLORA AND FAUNA which I know will please a lot of you!  For those of you who haven't heard of them - take a peak at their instagram feed to see all the goodness coming your way - here's a little peek at some of it.....

Catch you next week

Tara

A Classic Vintage!

I have just one card to share this week and I hope it all schedules as we are away celebrating with the recipient on this BIG birthday!

I made an exploding box card which I think is a great card for a special birthday as it gives you lots of opportunities to have things jumping out like a jack-in-a-box.

I started with a A4 sheet of white card and scored it at 4, 14, 18 and 28cms across the landscape edge and at 12cm across the portrait.  This gives you the "box shape" plus a 2ish cm tab to stick it together with.  You then simply cut down to your 12 cm score line and fold one of the 10cm flaps and both of the 4cm ones to create the drop down flaps.   I covered the flaps with papers from Lawn Fawns' Perfectly Plaid paper pad   The main focus and sentiment come from Neat and Tangled's For the Record stamp set which was coloured with alcohol markers and fussy cut before being popped up on one of the centre struts of the box card.   This was emphasised by making some paper records using circle dies with an embossing mat to create the "rings" in the vinyl and using the same dies to cut a coloured centre before hand lettering the songs at the top of the charts in April 1967 as a personal touch.

The 50's were die cut from Lawn Fawn's Chili Pepper cardstock using MFT's Big Numbers Die-namics - these dies are the perfect size to make a bold statement for a special birthday!  To make them jump out of the box I added a couple of strips of thick acetate and overlapped them slightly.   The Happy Birthday die cut one the side panels is also by MFT and is currently out of stock but will be back with their new release this week.

NEWS FORM THE STORE:

• The new release from My Favorite Things is in transit and should be live in store on Wednesday morning.
• We have restocks of the lovely gold paint from Kuretake plus some water brushes to go with them which will be with us on Tuesday or Wednesday.   We have the normal gansai paints and more zig clean color pens and some NEW items on back order and they are due in May.
• We are waiting on some more restocks from Altenew to ship and hope to have them this week at some point fingers crossed.
• We have more of our felt sample packs on order and hope to have them in store this week.

Flowers and Bunnies

I have a couple of projects to share today.   Firstly a really quick make using the adorable new Bunny Hugger Die & Stamp set from Lil' Inker Designs.   These dies are perfect for quick little gifts for Easter (or anytime really) but you do need to pick the right size gifts to pop into his hugging arms.

You can see with the cream egg for scale, that you need a fairly small egg.  I found some Lindt "bugs" which are flat backed "half eggs" and they are the perfect fit. Fun size bars would fit too if you want to do non-Easter gifting.

If you want to be more generous you can double them up like I did!  The individually wrapped eggs in bags are a great fit - I got 8 caramel eggs for £1 so ideal classroom gifts for kids too.

I just stuck two bunnies back to back and then they kinda stand up too.   You could even use them as place card holders on your Easter table and wedge a place name card between his ears ;-)

For my second project today I have a watercoloured floral card that I made for my best friends birthday using the stunning new Floral Frame set from Avery Elle.  From the very first peek I got at this set I could see the decoupage possibilities and had lots of fun putting this together.

I stamped the frame twice in versamark on watercolour paper and embossed with Hero Arts White Satin Pearl powder before colouring using Gansei Tambi paints.  I stamped the individual flowers that come with the frame set and embossed and coloured them to match before fussy cutting (the dies would do it for you but I wanted a tighter finish with no white outlines) and layering them up using pinflair gel as my glue for real dimension.  I love to colour like this - the embossing means that anyone can watercolour - just drop in the colour and the embossing holds it all in place for you!  I scattered around a few dots of perfect pearls to hint at more buds.

For my sentiment I combined a Mama Elephant friend word die cut with a sentiment from Reverse Confetti's Lots to Say stamp set.  I set it off on a pink base card for added impact from Avery Elle's Sugar Rush collection.

Catch you next week

Tara



NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We had Altenew restocks this weekend.   We won't get the new release for a few weeks as a certain shopping channel gets exclusivity these days but we will buy it just as soon as we can!
• This week we will have the new releases from Reverse Confetti, Mama Elephant and Newton's Nook and fingers crossed the Neat and Tangled release but that may slip into the week after.
• We are waiting on the latest release plus restocks of Stamping Bella to ship and we will also be getting the dies to match the new release :-)
• We also have an order waiting to ship for restocks plus some new items from Art Impressions and foil restocks (including some new colours) from Thermoweb but that will be a couple of weeks yet.
• We will also soon be stocking Ranger, starting very small with the newly released Distress Crayon packs although we are on a wait list for them right now!

Happy New Year!

No, I've not gone back in time or forgotten the date - today I'm sharing a New Year Card Chinese style!   Chinese New Year falls on 8th February and this year we are entering the year of the monkey so I put a couple of new sets together from different brands and came up with this.

I combined Mama Elephant's Lunar Extras with My Favorite Things Cheeky Monkey and Mini Note Die with lots of red and gold which are the colours of Chinese New Year as they are thought to bring prosperity.   The traditional gift is a red envelope full of money so I made a mini note envelope from red card and embossed the "Happy  New Year" in gold on it.   I coloured the monkey with copics and stamped a few gold coins from the Lunar set and popped those in his hand.  I had him poking out of the envelope like a proper cheeky monkey!   An extra sentiment, a strip of card and some gold washi add interest to the plain background.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We've had the new release from SugarPea Designs this week - you can find that in our new arrivals section 
• The new release from Concord and 9th will be here this week
• We are hoping to get the new release from Altenew before the end of the month but as DHL's hub on the east coast may be hit by the storm, there is likely to be a delay in shipments whilst flights catch up etc.
• The new mini release from Reverse Confetti sold out before we could get it.  We will order it when it comes back into stock but we may not be able to get the bags and matching dies as they are exclusive to them.
• We will have some Hero Arts restocks next week - the new CHA release has not yet hit the UK distributor so that will be a little while yet.  
• We will have the new papers from My Minds Eye shortly and have massive orders from Echo Park for some amazing papers and co-ordinating dies coming in February and March.
• The remaining CHA releases (Lawn Fawn, Avery Elle etc) will arrive towards the end of February.

Don't forget to join in our monthly challenge - we'll have one final inspiration post for you on that this afternoon!

Tara