Butterfly Mandalas

I love butterfly stamps, I love mandala stamps, so when Wplus9 released a butterfly mandala stamp I couldn't wait to get it inky so I had some inky fun last night and came up with 4 fun ways to use it.

Firstly I went with a really simple treatment, just stamping and embossing the whole mandala, water colouring it in autumnal shades, and cutting it out with the co-ordinating die.  Mounted on a black base card for a dramatic touch and finished with die cut and stamped birthday sentiment.

I also thought the mandala was screaming out to be a sun catcher so I had a go at making one which was easier than you might think.

I stamped the whole mandala onto HEAT RESISTANT acetate using platinum embossing powder as it's close in colour to what you find on a leaded stained glass window.  Then it was simply a case of colouring with alcohol markers.  You only get one chance with this technique - you can't layer up colour - the second layer just lifts off the first!  So to get get a really strong bold colour that will shine through the window, I coloured both the front and back to get a bolder layer (alcohol inks would give you a stronger stain but I don't have enough colours in those for what I wanted)   You can see the colours a little clearer in the "before the window" shot below.

I just finished it with 2 die cut rings using two extra large circle dies with extra heavy weight card stock to sandwich the acetate between.

The other element that really spoke to me in this set was the Hello sentiment.  Dawn's handwriting style is just awesome and this is a sentiment to celebrate as the focal point of a card.  I stuck with kraft as I'm feeling autumnal, and went with reds and browns in pencil again.  Just one butterfly is all that was needed to finish it off.

I drew the red lines with a ruler and for the oval drew around the outer edge of the die I'd used to die cut the brown oval to  pop the hello on.

Finally as a pattern freak, I wanted to play with the extra pieces you get in the stamp which you could use to extend the mandala to be even larger or to create your own unique pattern.   I took just the one element which looks a little like ears of corn and made a border direct onto a kraft base case and coloured it with pencils.

I emphasised the border details by making a double sentiment border using Reverse Confetti's Birthday Wishes set.

That's all the inspiration I have for today - see you on Sunday!

Tara

Life is Happy Floral Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

I always love playing with stamp sets in unusual ways. Not only does it help stretch those supplies but you also get to use some of those smaller images that may not have had their day to shine and have them take centre stage for a change!

I especially love doing this with floral images. The smaller florals can often be difficult to incorporate without getting lost. Well fear not little guys - your time has come!

I decided to pull out the Flora & Fauna Terrarium Bird stamp set and use just one of the floral images for a modern design.

I love how this turned out! Black with pops of colour is totally me!

I repeatedly stamped my floral image with black ink, then took one of the flowerhead stamps from the set. Instead of stamping the design I flipped the stamp upside down and inked up that side to stamp with. It gives them some great pops of colour that are uneven in shape - just what I was going for!

I heat embossed the sentiment onto black cardstock and trimmed it out. I incorporated the pops of colour again by inking up a piece of cardstock with the coloured inks I'd used and trimmed some irregular quadrilaterals to back my sentiment! I adhered the strips and sentiment with dimensional glue gel for some variable dimension off the base. I love the fun little detail this adds!

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!

Hmmmmm..

Hello, it's Tallie here. I've been waiting to share this card for a while and the good news is that the Hero Arts Hummingbirds set is now back in stock! My Nan loves hummingbirds so this was a special card designed for her. It's such a versatile set for any medium!

I started off by stamping out a bunch of the hummingbirds from the Hero Arts Hummingbirds set in some Versafine Black Onyx ink onto some watercolour card. After heat setting the ink to make sure it was dry, I used my watercolours (Gansai Tambi) to colour them in. I had to use several layers to build up the depth of colour, making sure there were no water blooms in odd places. I set this aside to dry naturally before cutting them out with my Scan N Cut, though there are coordinating dies available.

On a separate A6 panel of watercolour card that I taped down to a board, I created a simple burst of colour using three shades of blue. I added some more layers and a few ink splatters to give more interest. Once dry, I cut the panel down so I could mount it on a black top-folding A6 card base. I then used some foam tape to mount the birds and flowers onto the background panel.

I kept the sentiment simple, clear heat embossing the 'hmmmmmm...' sentiment I stamped in black ink in the bottom right corner.

I had so much fun making this that I made another one in some warmer colours. It's interesting how the colours pop!

Change up the sentiment and you have a card for all occasions.

Thanks for reading, catch you next week.

Tallie

Wishing Ewe

Today I’m sharing a fun window scene birthday card.

I began with a piece of white card cut to the same size as my card base. I scored some lines into the card to add interest, then die cut a rectangle window from it. The rectangle die I used is unfortunately out of stock, but the new Lawn Fawn Reverse Rectangle die set would be a lovely alternative.  

On the card base below, I used the MFT Radiating Rays stencil with some MFT cube dye inks to add a sunrise effect, which will show through the rectangle window. 

I stamped, coloured and die cut some images from the MFT Ewe and Me Forever stamp set. I layered a grassy hill behind the window, with some of the flowers tucked behind that. I then adhered the panel onto my card base with foam tape.

I added the sheep next to the window scene, then a sentiment from the same set on a banner above. The Lawn Fawn Speech Bubble dies would work well here. 

I love the clean and simple look of this card, with the window scene adding a pop of colour.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma 

Birthday Crown

Hello hello, Jenny here and I have a very girly card for you today!

I needed to make a 40th birthday card for a friend and I thought the Crown die and

 Queen for the Day stamps by MFT would be perfect to use...

I had been playing with a few of the pink shades of distress oxide inks on card so I used the piece to die cut a pink crown and added a few extra layers for dimension. I had a strip of Marabou trim which was a bit too fluffy to use as is, so I gave it a hair cut and adhered the trimmings to the base of the crown with wet glue.... talk about Tar and Feathers!!! Next time I'll use adhesive tape 😉

Now for the background!! I felt the Bitty Burst background would suit and used four different colours of ink plus some die cut star embellishments in silver glitter card. Unfortunately the Bitty Burst turnabout is currently out of stock but will hopefully be back the middle of September, you could get a similar effect using the speckled background in Wplus9's And Many More stamp set.

Love the sentiments in this set... perfect for making the recipient feel important on her day... definitely a very girly card  :)

   

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Dreaming of Snowflakes

It's been another hot and humid weekend here with unseasonably high temperatures and as we are the house of lurgy too, I've sitting dreaming of a cold snap to kill off all the germs!   So I decided to play with some new Hero Arts products with a snowflake theme.

My first 3 cards use the same Snowflakes and Ornaments dies which is the most delicate and gorgeous thing but cuts beautifully.  First off I went really simple with just the die cut from glitter paper and a sentiment and few more snowflakes stamped into it in, no surprise, teal!

The sentiment is from The Wonder and Magic of Christmas and the snowflake from Sending Warm Hogs.

Next I stuck with the piggies and die cut the bauble in pink and sat the little piggie with this pink hat (see I can do something not teal sometimes!) in the middle.  To give my sentiment a little extra weight I stamped it twice in 2 shades of pink, off-setting it just a teeny-tiny bit to the darker shades makes it look 3D.

Then I wanted to use it as frame rather than a bauble which is very easy.  I just chopped off the bauble loop and sat it inside a circular frame so I could colour blend the background into a polar scene onto which I could sit my little baby polar bear.  I cut the sentiment from the same Polar Greetings set in half so I could stamp it above and below the frame to give it balance.   The icy snowflake frame really makes the card feel frosty.

Finally I switched from circular snowflakes to borders of them with the new Snowflake Edge Fancy Die.  I thought it would be the perfect thing for the deer in The Wonder and Magic of Christmas to leap over.   I went monochrome with silver glitter paper for the die and silver embossing for the deer and the matching sentiment.

Hope you're feeling nice and chilly now!

Tara

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• My Favorite Things have moved their releases back a little so release is now 10am EDT which is 3pm in the UK on British Summer Time (2pm) when the clocks go back in a few weeks.   So that will be your regular UK release time to keep an eye out for.   We only get to order a few days in advance, so this sometimes means parcels don't clear customs in time for us to open, process and load the delivery.  This month we should be on time.

• Wplus9 have a new release - it shipped on Friday so we should have it mid-week.

• Waffle Flower's latest release shipped on Friday - again should be here mid-week.

• Reverse Confetti have a release next week - we have our order in and just waiting a shipping date.

•  Neat and Tangle also have a release pending, again we're waiting on it to ship. 

• Stamping Bella's awesome new release is on order, again pending a shipping date.

• Concord and 9th have another corking release on the 9th.  That brand never ships before release so we normally expect it around the 15th of each month.

• Mama Elephant's Christmas release will be in store on the 15th.

• We'll have Lawn Fawn restocks in September too - no date yet - watch this space.

• We're hoping to try and fit in ordering some other brands this month too but it all takes time so we'll update if and when we manage to do anything outside of the normal monthly cycle which is already very difficult for me to manage time wise.  We're increasing staff hours to free me up a little to do this but delegation requires training time and that is hard to fit in too!

Beary Special Birthday

Hey stampers, Anni here!

Now and then we all need a quick card for a birthday that takes us by surprise. For that occassions I always have some already coloured images on hand.

This time I needed a birthday card so I chose this super cute bear in cake coma from My Favorite Things' Beary Special Birthday. I stamped it (a long time ago) in black on bristol paper and coloured it with coloured pencils. Then I added some details and highlights with gel pens and fussy cut the image.

For the background I die cut a frame from Mama Elephant's Framed Tags Madison Avenue from watercolour cardstock. For the next step I only used the "inside" of the frame and smooched some ink mixed with water onto the rectangle. Is that the right term for the technique where you add ink and water on a piece of acetate and then press it onto some cardstock?

The sentiment came together from two sets: The speechbubble is from Lawn Fawn's Say What? Christmas Critters and the Happy Birthday from Lawn Fawn's Tiny Tag Sayings: Birthday. I stamped both on craft cardstock and heat embossed it in white.

Then I adhered all on a kraft cardbase.

Thanks you so much for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni