A Whole Lotta Foiling Going On

Good morning, hope you had a wonderful summer - today is officially the first day of meteorological autumn, my favourite season, particularly for the abundance of my favourite foods and the fact that its not too hot to walk around but still pleasant.  Love it.   It's also when thoughts drift towards Christmas so today I have 4 Christmas cards to share - all featuring foiling (without the need for a foiling machine) and lots of new items from the Hero Arts Winter Catalogue that is now live in store.

Firstly I have a crisp snow themed card - quite a quick one to make and could be sped up even more if you didn't ink blend the background (just switch out that technique for some blue cardstock and splatter some white paint to get a similar effect)

I used 3 shades of blue oxides and after blending out from the centre from the darkest to lightest shades and sprayed with water and blotted off with a paper towel to get a soft snowstorm effect.  My foiling on this card is very subtle, but it does add a nice touch which shows up better irl.  I used stick-it glue over teal cardstock and then rubbed aqua foil onto it before die cutting the Altenew Crystal Frame Die from it.   The snowflake cluster die from Hero Arts was cut from Lawn Fawn Pearlescent Vellum (again shows up more shimmery irl but is impossible to photograph) which was glued to white card with more stick-it (then you don't see any of the glue!    Finished with a white embossed sentiment also from Hero Arts and a few teal gems.


Next up, I took the die cut foiling technique to the next level with the new Poinsettia Ornament die from Hero Arts and with the aid of stick-it, gave it a full-on two-tone foil finish which I just love and its really easy and fun to do!

I started with cranberry card from Hero Arts and covered it with a layer of stick-it - and after running it through the die cutting machine with the stick-it side up DID NOT REMOVE the release paper - this is the key to this two colour technique.  I took my craft knife and carefully trimmed through the release paper where the bits I wanted in gold joined the bits I wanted in red.  Removing them one at a time, I could then gold foil the berries and flower centres whilst the release paper was still in place on the red areas.  (see the top two photos below)

Once all the gold is foiled, remove the "waste" areas and then removed the release paper from all the remaining areas and then pop a piece of red foil over the top and rub the foil over with your finger (or a bone folder is a great tool for this technique too) and then you get a perfectly foiled ornament!  Simply added to a card with a heat embossed sentiment from Hero Arts Winter Holiday Messages (tip  - I stamped with the ornament in place but NOT adhered, then removed it before applying heat so I didn't damage the foiling, that way the sentiment is where I wanted it and its easy to just adhere the ornament around it afterwards)  I drew a border with a fine liner to finish.

Next I did some tiny bits of foiling just using wet glue - it you apply a really thin layer of glue and wait until it's tacky but NOT wet, then you can apply foil that way too!  I used it as accents within the new Layering Snow Globe die from Hero Arts.

I used the same technique as from the snowflake to layer the pearlescent vellum onto white card so I could cut each "layer" and know my glue wouldn't show through.  I then applied wet glue to the trees, house roof, snowman and applied the foil once tacky.  Perfect little highlights of foil.  The missnow globe itself I cut from silver mirri card and the background in the globe is from Lawn Fawn's Snow Day Remix paper pad which is my all time favourite pad for Christmas backgrounds so I am so glad they brought it back as I used my old one up!   The sentiment again comes from Winter Holiday Messages.

I have one final card to share, which had a couple of mishaps, but I managed to rescue it enough that I could still share it even if it could be better (will make sure I do better on the next version!)   For this one I used a brand new stencil from Simple Stories with Altenew Embossing Paste as that is another easy way to get foiling without a machine!

I started with a piece of navy card stock and applied a thin layer of paste through the stencil, lifted it off and washed the stencil straight away so the paste didn't dry on it and ruin it.   This is where my error came - as the stencil has solid letter centres, the paste in those letters wasn't as thin as it should have been, so even though I left my foil to dry over night, when I lifted it off this morning, the centres were still wet and therefore the foil hadn't stuck there.   The technique is to lay the foil gently onto the paste, leave it for about 30 mins so it starts to dry a little, and then gently rub it over the paste so it catches the edges, then leave it overnight to fully dry.

So rather than bin it, I took craft knife and carved out the centres, there is a little white edge of paste showing, but I can live with that for this one, and on the next one I know to make sure to check the paste is thinner in those larger areas (or to remove it if you want the letter centres to not be there)

The starry background is from another new stencil which will be in store tomorrow, check out the Echo Park section to find it and lots of new Autumn/Christmas themed papers, stencils, embossing folders and washi tapes.

Hopefully that gives you a few ideas of how to work with foil as its definitely the season for it!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

As I said above, we'll have a few new collections from Echo Park/Carta Bella in store tomorrow

We will have the new MFT release on Tuesday when it goes live in the USA

The new Waffle Flower release is in transit and will go live on release day or as soon as we get it.

We've got the collaborative Hero Arts stamps on order and expect them at some point this month.

We have a new collection from Colorado Craft Company in transit with a fun spooky theme, and that will be in store as soon as we get it after they release it on Tuesday.

We have new Sugar Pea Designs, Concord and 9th and Altenew releases on order, all due mid-September or earlier customs willing.

We have a very large Lawn Fawn restock order in, but we are waiting to see what they have available from the new release and have asked to wait til they get it back before it ships if it is out of stock but we've not heard back form them as yet.  A few items that were on back order (like the notebooks) have already been shipped to us but they went USPS by mistake so will take a couple of weeks to arrive.

We are bringing Flora and Fauna back for their Christmas release, and have added a small quantity of the releases from this year we missed to go with them.  We are waiting on them to ship.

As Neat & Tangled are now only releasing 3 products a month, we are still going to carry them, but will only order every couple of months to make ordering cost effective so the latest release will be coming later this month with their September release.

Our servers are being moved to a new facility by our hosts this month - we have influence over the date so please note that the store will not be online at all from 6pm on 13th September until the early hours of 14th September (there is no finish time as it will just happen as quickly as possible) but if you can't see the store during that time, that's why and it will hopefully reappear on Saturday morning without issue.

That's all for today - catch you later.

Tara

Mess Free Christmas Crafting with Kids

We had my great-nieces visit last weekend and they were very excited to play in Auntie Ra-Ra's craftroom.  The problem with that is which is actually the office too at the minute and there isn't room for 3 kids and 2 grown ups, so I decided we'd be better in our newly carpeted dinning room.....   So here is how I put my mess free krafting plan into action with a little forward planning to make up some "sticker style" card kits that were easy for all to make (from 2  years upwards)

I used a couple of Mama Elephant dies that were designed to go with their favor bag die but they work brilliantly on cards as well - one die gives two different characters too so lots of fun for your money.   I used Santa/Elf and Snow/Deer and just picked one of each design to make (you can tweak the elements and make 3 different snowmen, deer, Santa's etc depending on how you place the elements)

To make them mess free (ie no glue!) I simply covered my card with stick-it sheet glue before die cutting all the elements and thereby creating "stickers" for the kids to just peel off and stick onto their cards.

We added rosy cheeks with the aid of a blending tool and replaced die cut eyes with googly eyes for some of the characters.

I used hints of glitter paper for some of the elements to add some mess free sparkle and added more fun kid-friendly embellishments like a sparkly pompom nose and a pipe-cleaner collar complete with added jingle bell.  

To give all the characters a body I just die cut semi-circles using a circle die.   As the snowman card was lacking colour we added a stamped sentiment to him using a wooden Season's Greetings stamp by Hero Arts - wooden stamps are easier for kids to handle as they are thicker and easier to hold than an acrylic block.

We crafted for a couple of hours and each kid made all four cards and we also finished with a wreath for each of their bedroom doors.

This was made using a foam wreath (I bought a pack from the Range but you could just use a green die cut card circle instead cut using two dies so you get a hole in the middle) and LOTS of die cut holly leaves.   Now you may think of my that's too many leaves to cut, but there is a little trick - I cut them all in just a few passes by using crepe and tissue paper folded over so you cut a lot in one pass.  I used Reverse Confetti's Holly Die as you get two different sized leaves but but are a good size for wreath making.  I did a few in copy paper weight too to be the base layer but again folded the paper to but a few in one pass.   The thing to note is that cutting many layers of thin paper at once works fine, but your papers become compressed within the die - so you'll need to spend a little time "peeling" the layers apart after (took me an episode of Corrie to peel about 20 different die cuts but that gave me enough to make 6 wreaths at least)

We (as in the adults in the room) simply randomly added dots of wet glue (Lawn Fawn of Ranger Multi Medium would be perfect) all over the wreaths and let the kids stick the holly on.  More glue for the next layer and repeat until the whole wreath is covered in multi-coloured layers of green.  Finished with red tinsel pompoms and a big gold bow with a tinsel pipe cleaner centre - the bow is die cut from gold pearl paper using Lil' Inker Designs Large Bow Die (a fold in the base layer provides the dangly tails rather than a straight across line)

15 kids projects made and the only thing that ended up on the new carpet was a lunchtime yoghurt ;-)

Hope this inspires you to get crafting with the kids if you don't already.

Catch you on Sunday with some more Christmas crafting.

Tara

Champagne Shaker

Happy Valentines Day!

Today I'm sharing a card that I think would work for many different occasions - valentines, engagement, wedding, anniversary, even a special birthday.

I'm using the new Wine Service and Cheers die-namics from MFT. I love all the wine related items from the February MFT release. They work so well together with the wine bottle tag, but also look great on cards.

I die cut two of the largest Stitched Traditional tags, set one aside and from the other I die cut the two wine glasses.

I added acetate behind the tag and a double layer of foam tape around the die cut windows and over the back of the tag. Before adding my gold sequins, I dusted on some talc around the edges of the foam tape. This removes some of the adhesive, meaning your sequins are less likely to stick and can move more freely. I used some sequins I found in my stash, but I've linked below to a pretty store option that I like.

Once I'd added the sequins, I stuck down the other die cut tag at the back to create a shaker tag. If you wanted to make just a tag to use on a present, don't forget to add a punched hole to both tags before putting it together. That way you can add some twine or ribbon.

To add some detail to the card base, I used the Basic Stitch Lines die-namics across the middle. I then added my shaker tag at a slight angle on the card.

On the positive die cuts of the wine glasses, I added some pink ink before trimming them down to just the stems. I added these stems back on the card, then added some gold glitter bows to the glasses.

I die cut a gold glitter 'Cheers' - the font is so pretty! I used stick-it adhesive at the back so it was very easy to attach to the card.

To finish, I added some gold glitter and pink sequin hearts above the wine glasses.

Have a wonderful day,
Gemma

MFT Wine Service

MFT Cheers

MFT Stitched Traditional Tags

MFT Basic Stitch Lines

Stick-It Adhesive

Pixie Dust Sequins

Avery Elle Bunting

Crazy colour & camouflage die-cut

Hi everybody, 

Jill here, and this week I am going crazy with colour...

...creating an explosion of butterflies and camouflaging my message.

I was looking at my Instagram feed the other day and realised I was in dire need of some colour, so that's what inspired today's card.

I used Brusho's to create my background (if you haven't heard of them already - Google/You Tube them - amaaaazing product!), but of course you could use anything; inks, Zig Clean Colour Pens, Watercolour, basically whatever your preferred medium is.  I simply sprinkled them on my background, spritzed with water & POW, an explosion of colour.  I then added a whole load of flicks and splashes using Kuretake Starry Colours & Zig Pens mixed with water.  I coloured a separate piece of card in the same way at the same time and used this piece to cut a load of Waffle Flower Teeny Wings butterflies from.  I also cut a load of the same Teeny Wings from plain white card too.

I then took Lawn Fawn's Scripty Wishes, and die-cut from the front of my card.  I added a layer of foam to the back, and in-laid the whole thing back in.  I wanted my die to remain 'camouflaged' into the background, but I didn't want to lose it completely, so I added a layer of vellum, again cut from the same die, and adhered over the top using Stick-It to give it a different finish to the rest of the card.

I then added my scattering of Teeny Wing butterflies, fluttering out from my die and colour explosion, and adhered them in place.

I white heat embossed 'Happy' from Lawn Fawn's Hello Baby onto black card, cut into a little flag and added to my card front to finish off my sentiment.

I then matted my panel onto black card, mounted the whole thing to a card base, and there you have it.

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

See you next week.

Jillx

      

Otterly in love.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week I am going 'otterly nuts'...

...for the brand spanking new Otterly Adorable from Mama Elephant.

I love otters, they are one of my particular favourite animals, the way they swim on their backs holding hands...gaaaah!  They are just such beautiful, gorgeous creatures.  So seeing them take centre stage in this new set...oh be still my beating heart!

I started by colouring a few different sheets of vellum using Distress Inks, (I only learnt yesterday this would work.  HOW did I not know?!).  In any case, I coloured my vellum in various blue/greens, and also covered a sheet in white pigment ink.  I then cut them, at varying heights, into waves using the cloud border from Mama Elephant's Landscape Trio Dies, by simply turning the die upside down.

I then cut a frame from a piece of card using Lawn Fawn's Cross Stitched Rectangles and layered up my vellum waves behind.

I stamped out and coloured my favourite image in the set, which is obviously the little guys on their backs, and the little heart also included, then fussy cut everything.

I cut Mama Elephant's Friend word die from a piece of black card adhered to some black foam using Stick it, and began to build my scene. adding the little heart to my sweet swimming otters.

I finished off my sentiment by stamping straight onto the vellum along the bottom of my scene, and clear heat embossing.

I cut the smallest rectangle that makes up my frame, from my card blank to allow the light to shine through, and mounted my panel onto it using foam tape.

I embellished with a scattering of clear sequins and there you have it.

I really hope you like it, and hope you love the new Mama Elephant release as much as I do!

As always, everything I have used is linked below so be sure to check it out.

See you next week.

Jillx