Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

It's the start of the Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Blog Hop today and I'm playing along with a card as the store is one of the Super Sponsors again so there is a £25 store voucher up for grabs - head on over to the start of the Blog Hop and find out how to win!

Plus we have a spot prize - everyone who leaves a comment on my blog post by noon (GMT) on Friday 8th will be put in a prize draw and one randomly selected commenter will win an Echo Park Coffee Cup Enamel Pin badge.

I've gone with a wintry theme to my card - sending a warm hug in a mug full of cocoa and topped with cream and marshmallows.   I had tonnes of fun making my hugging hands card!

 To create the hug I used the fab Holiday Hugs die set from Waffle Flower crafts and cut two sets of arms from both white card stock and some patterned paper the Holly Jolly pad from Simple Stories.   I used the mitten dies that come in the same set to create some felt mittens for that added chilly winter feeling.  If you find felt hard to glue, then try backing it with sitck-it before die cutting it sticks perfectly then and the backing helps get a clear die cut too!   I crossed the hands over and then measured them against more white card so I could create the right width pack panel so the hands could be holding a mug  (22cm wide x 11 cm tall)  I used a couple of distress oxide inks to blend the background and added more of the patterned paper down the center so it looked like the yoke on a coat and added some decorative dots to act as buttons.

For the all important mug of chocolate I turned to the MFT Hot Cocoa Dies and set about building my mug in layers so I could make the hand hold it.   If you want to recreate it then you need to die cut two mugs with the handle facing the same way (you can put it in either hand just make sure whichever you pick you cut two of the same) from coloured cardstock;  two sets of whipped cream, one set of mini marshmallows, one oval and one heart from white cardstock.  Take one mug and glue the oval coloured to look like cocoa in place.  Colour the mini marshmallows - I went with pink for contrast.  Take one set of whipped cream and add some shading with grey markers.   Take a craft knife and cut 3 tiny slits into the whipped cream and slot the marshmallows in - you can just glue them on top if you don't want to do the slits but it makes them look more realistic if they look like they are sinking into the cream, add a little glue behind each where they sit on top of the cream and then glue the cream onto the cocoa.   Take the second whipped cream and glue it behind - this covers the slits.   Colour the heart and add it to the mug - I added glossy accents for some shine too.  Now you need to cut the bottom of the handle away from the mug so you can slot the mug over the mitten - see the image here which shows the mug and mitten from behind.

Add a little glue on top of the felt mitten to hold the mug in place then flip over and glue the second mug behind - this hides the cut handle but also makes it neat and tidy as the back is seen when you open the card.

I added some of the steam curls to the back and used parts of an MFT Christmas sentiment to create a more generic sentiment so it could be for any wintry occasion.  I just took my scissors to the Warm Holiday Wishes stamp to make it into 3 separate words - don't worry about scissor surgery on stamps - you don't damage them as long as you cut carefully with sharp scissors and its easy to put them back together on an acrylic block so you can use them the way they were intended too - this way they just become more versatile.  I double stamped it first in oxide (peacock feathers) and then on top with versafine clair (warm breeze) to get a shadow effect.

I hope you've enjoyed my project and are having fun hopping around all the blogs with some suitable steamy liquid in your mugs whilst you browse.   Happy Hopping!

Tara

Warhol Pop Art Retro Telephone Hello Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Friday!

I'm a big fan of vintage/retro stuff, and a big fan of Pop Art! So when I saw the Altenew It's For You stamp set with that awesome vintage phone I just knew what I had to do:

Awesome, right?!

I started my trimming my card base out and dividing the space into quarters. I stamped my detail stamp first using Versafine Clair inks, then overstamped with a paler, water-based colour.

I overstamped the phones with Versamark ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I then masked off each square in turn and swiped the background colours on using a water-based ink! Because the embossing powder resists the ink I was able to use a slightly damp tissue to buff the colour off the phones to retain their colours!

I wanted a retro style sentiment so I reached for a fan favourite - the SugarPea Designs You're My Type stamp set! I stamped my sentiment in the centre using Versafine Onyx Black ink and I was all done!

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!

Customisable Coffee Cup Sentiments Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Friday!

Coffee culture. There's no avoiding it. Whether you're a fan of the black stuff or can't stand the taste of it, we all almost certainly known someone who's a coffee fan. Personally it's far too bitter for my sweet tooth, but I love the smell of it, and of course the scientist in me loves the whole science of coffee making.

The Waffle Flower Crafts Coffee Cup Sentiments stamp set is the perfect salute for the coffee lover in your life. I love the idea of customising your sentiment by ticking the various options on the cup! I couldn't wait to put this set to use:

I love how this turned out! Pretty cool, right?!

I started by stamping the sentiment part of the design using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I added my ticks using the same ink but also tapping my stamp into the Versafine Clair Ink in the colour Twilight for a bit more of an 'inky' pen look!

I wanted the card to resemble a 'close-up' of the cup, or at least it being seen from a side angle, so I stamped the circle partially off the edge of my card for a fun detail!

I wanted to show how easy it is to create the look of a coffee cup without needing any dies. So I trimmed a few strips of black cardstock, adhered them together to resemble a lid, then adhered that to the top of my base to finish off the look! There's a lot of white space between the sentiment and the 'lid' because it's a large cup. *smile*

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!

We Go Together Like Movies and Popcorn Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Friday!

Movies and popcorn, is there a better pairing? In my opinion it's not a 'real' trip to the cinema if you don't have some, and a movie night at home just isn't the same if you aren't snuggled up together on the sofa sharing a big box of freshly made popcorn!

The Popcorn Stencil from Newton's Nook is a perfect design for the movie buff (or popcorn lover)! I've had an idea in my head since I laid eyes on it, and couldn't wait to give it a go:

I love how this turned out! Looks almost good enough to eat, right?!

I started by building up a few layers of popcorn with my stencil, using ink, mist, and even a Nuvo Jewel Drop to add different colours and interest. I rotated the stencil each time so each layer could peek through. This was only the background part and was pretty much covered up by the top layers but it still added some interest to what would otherwise be a plain white base!

Next came the actual idea itself - embossing paste! I started with adding a drop of yellow reinker to some paste and mixing it to a lovely cream, then laying down my first dimensional layer of popcorn. Now comes the trick - applying heat with a heat gun or heat tool puffs the paste up so it looks just like popcorn! I sprinkled a little gold glitter over some of the popcorn for added texture and interest!

I added my second layer in the same way, adding white popcorn this time. I added some fine splatter from a brown reinker to add a little attitude, before starting on my sentiment.

I used the sentiment from the Newton's Movie Night stamp set, stamping the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black ink. I trimmed the sentiment into a movie ticket shape - so cool! I added red stripes to the the layer of cardstock behind the ticket - I used some skinny washi tape to mask the stripes then swiped the Versafine Clair ink in the Glamorous colourway to create the stripes! Both pieces were added to the card base using dimensional glue gel for some variable height from the base.

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!

For The Record Vinyl Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Friday!

I've been gone for quite a while (my not-so-new job was taking over my life) - but things are finally a bit more settled now so I'm back! Did you miss me? *wink*

With Father's Day just around the corner I thought a masculine card was in order! I love the recent trend of vinyl record stamp sets and dies and as soon as I saw the Avery Elle For The Record stamp set I knew I had to add it to my collection and put it to use today!

So awesome! I love how this turned out!

I started by stamping the vinyl record a few times with different colours of Versafine ink. Some of the colours I used are out of stock at the moment but there are loads of other awesomely vibrant colours still up for grabs! The vinyl record stamp has the 'you're' word as a part of the record but I didn't want that for my design so I performed a little 'stamp surgery' to remove it. No stamps were harmed in the making of this card though, promise! *wink*

I stamped the main sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black ink and the accompanying record sentiments with the coloured inks but alternated the colours between the records and also stamped off once for a less vibrant finish. A little splattering of mist and I was all done!

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!

Inking and Floral Gifting

We've had lots of questions about our new pigment inks this week - Versafine Clair from Tsukineko - and what to use them for.  If you've not used a versafine pigment ink pad before, then let me introduce you to fine detail perfection!  I've used Versafine Onxy Black for my sentiment stamping for years - I really don't think you can beat it for solid colour and detail, so when they brought out this new range of "Clair" pads in 24 gorgeous colours, I knew they were coming to store as I wanted ALL the colours!

So today I've picked 6 colours in a rough rainbow so play with to make a set of floral cards to make a little gift set.  I think it can be fun to theme a set of cards if you're making them as sets - here the one floral stamp - Vintage Flowers from Concord and 9th has been used in a variety of ways and just paired with different sentiments to bring the set together.   I picked this floral because well, its beautiful, but also because it has lots of fine line detail and I wanted to show how Clair picks that out with one single impression.

I used the Hero Arts side fold A2 cards and matching envelopes so I could easily make a set of 6 cards to tie in a nice bow to make a good little gift pack for a friend - packs like this with mixed sentiments are great gifts as then non-card makers have cards on hand when they need them.

For my rainbow I selected Versafine Clair in Glamorous, Summertime, Golden Meadown, Verdant, Shady Lane and Warm Breeze.

For my first card I went with Glamorous, a dark pink, and simply stamped the flower in the top corner and stamped a sentiment in the same colour at the bottom.   The second card I used Summertime which is a peachy-orange and this time I just repeat stamped the flower in all four corners leaving a deliberate white space in the middle for the sentiment which was stamped in onyx black.

The sentiment  for both cards comes from MFT's Anything But Basic Encouragement stamp set.

Next came Golden Meadow and I went with a single bloom again but paired with some stitched detail using the Just Stitching Double Rectangles from the new Lawn Fawn Release.   I wanted a get well card in the set, but didn't want anything too mushy so paired the floral image with a snarky sentiment from Lil' Inker Designs Sassy Pants stamp set.

For the birthday card I stamped the flower twice in opposite corners using Verdant ink.   One of my favourite things to do with pigment inks is to use the straight to paper technique to get exact match card stock strips for adding sentiments to.  I just cut a strip of white to the width I wanted but longer than I needed so I could hold a clean bit and then just stroked the ink pad across til I got a wide enough length to fit across the card.  I stamped the sentiment from Anything But Basic Birthday Wishes on top using another Clair Ink in Shady Lanes.

I wanted to include more birthday cards in my set as they are the ones we send the most.  As much as I love floral images though, floral cards aren't for everyone, so I wanted to go sassy again and make a bold statement.  I used Hero Arts wooden stamp - Snarky Birthday stamped onto some Hero Arts card stock this time and once I had that I marked off where it would sit in the middle of the card and masked off the area so I could stamp the floral image at top and bottom and not have the leaves crossing over each other.   I used Shady Lane ink on this one (the bottom image has a spot in the middle that's not crisp - that was because my mask creased so I didn't get a good impression and I didn't want to risk lining it up again so left it slightly imperfect!)

Finally I went with the gorgeous teal (who me lol!) that is Warm Breeze and similar to the orange filled the whole card but this time without any gaps.  I used the leaves and buds to fill in the edges.   The sentiment is another from Anything But Basic Birthday Wishes stamped onto more Hero Arts card stock which does co-ordinate well with the tones of the inks.

The details on the inks say they are perfect for using with pencils and watercolour but do not mention copics so lots of you asked if they could be used with copics.   Normally the answer is a resounding no, but ever the maverick, I wanted to give it a try (let me ruin my stuff so you don't have to!)

Here I used Golden Meadow Versafine Clair and LEFT IT TO DRY OVERNIGHT.  I do not know what the drying time is for the inks.  If you want to try this I would leave them for a least 3-4 hours or heat set them and test before doing a full on colour.   However after 24 hours I found NO ISSUES at all using my copics - I deliberately used some 00 colours to see if the inks damaged the tips but there was no bleeding of the ink and no colour transfer.   PLEASE CHECK YOUR MATERIALS FIRST though - I used a papermania ready made 300gsm card to stamp on.  Other papers may affect the ink.   TEST, TEST, TEST - but I think as long as it is FULLY DRY, there shouldn't be an issue.

Versafine inks would be good for solid stamps too - they would be great on Turnabouts - crisp detail, solid pattern stamps, as colour under clear embossing.  Anything where you want a really bold strong colour - they're your ink!

Hope that answered all of your questions but leave me a comment below if you want me to try out something else for you with them.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

This week we will have the May stamp and die release from Altenew in store

The big summer release from Avery Elle is on Thursday and we hope to have it in store for release day customs willing.

We will be ordering the latest release from Lil' Inker Designs too so should have that this week or next.

Catch you later

Tara