A Heap of Cakes

I've moved away from Christmas today as I needed to top up my birthday card stash and I'm trying to avoid eating sugar my mind naturally went to cake!  So I have lots of cake on my cards thanks to Concord and 9th's Top It Off stamp set which gives you lots of ways to combine a cake

For my first one I went off the edge to give the impression of a huge cake and layered it up with the 3 cake layer stamps but repeating the striped layer - because I went off the edge this gives me the opportunity to get more layers but still get the stepped look.  I went with pinks and greys and stamped the fun sentiments directly into the cake as the cake itself fills the card.  A few dots of Oyster Grey Nuvo drops give the look of icing to finish it off.

For the second card I went with a more autumnal colour scheme of orange and browns and this time added the candles to the top.  Finishing with liquid pearl icing highlights and a couple of sentiments from MFT's Anything But Basic Birthday Wishes as finding sentiments from other sets is a great way to get variety from your stamps and this sentiment goes perfectly with cake cards!   I used inks from Warm and Cozy and Summer Afternoon from AlteNew.

I made one more card with a more weddingy theme whilst I had the stamps out and this time just used one of the cake layers but masked it off for the top two tiers to get the stepped up look just using one stamp.   I used tea party, warm gray, and red sunset inks and finished with "icing" in oyster grey and liquid mercury.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will get the latest release from Lil Inkers in store later today or tomorrow - last week was a difficult week and we fell behind on store admin and are still playing catch up.

The latest release from MFT is in transit but it did ship late due to a PayPal issue so it may not be here in time for release day but we'll get it live as soon as we can.

The latest release from Concord and 9th is ordered but they never ship until around the 10th or 11th once they've got over their retail rush.  We therefore normally get that release around a week after release.

AlteNew have a stamp and die release on the 11th October - we are waiting for it to ship so are not yet sure if we will have it for release day or  not.  The new brush markers will come with that release as will the new build-a-flower.  As that brand are pretty much doing weekly releases, it is just impossible to keep up-to-date so we are trying to get them to ship everything that is released in a month ahead of time so we can release when they do but it's not proving possible at the moment. 

Mama Elephant have another release on the 15th which is gorgeous again and we will have that for release day along with whatever restocks on the last release they have available.

Neat and Tangled have just sent their new release details to us so that will be ordered this week.

We should also be able to order the new Hero Arts monthly add-ons this week (kits only available direct from them)

That's all for this week

Tara

Happy Birthday, Foxy!

Hey stampers, Anni here!

Sometimes I buy stamp sets just for one image! Please tell me I am not the only one. It was the case with My Favorite Things' Woodland Friends. Don't get me wrong all the critters in the set are super cute but the fox is the one that made me buy it. I fell in love - instantly and head over heels.

So when I made a card of course I had t use the fox and I wanted him to be the star of the show. That's why I decided to go with a simple layout for my card.

I started by die cutting one of My Favorite Things' Inside and Out Stitched Square dies from dark grey cardstock. The image was stamped with My Favorite Things' Extreme Black Hybrid ink and coloured with coloured pencils. To make the colours more vibrant I first lay down a layer of a light colour and do then the rest of the colouring.

For that certain something I add some highlights with a white gel pen and to deepen the eyes I use a black one.

For the sentiment I went with one of my favourite sets: Lawn Fawn's Reveal Wheel Sentiments. I like this set because it has a lot of small classic sentiments in it and it doesn't work just with the reveal wheel. I stamped it on a stripe of turqoise cardstock and cut it into a banner. The same cardstock I used for the cardbase.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni

           

What a deer face!

Sometimes a product comes along that just makes you smile - the new "deer face" die from Flora and Fauna did exactly that.  It is SUCH a fun idea for a die and I LOVE it and better still the card I had in my head translated exactly to paper which doesn't always happen!!!

The face of deer is all one piece and then the eyelashes cut separately.  I just die cut the whole thing from kraft added a touch of shading to the head then coloured the mouth and eyelashes with a black marker and added glitter drops for the nose (2 layers to get a nice big shiny nose!) and antlers.

To make the card I simply die cut a window using the super-useful MFT Jumbo Peek-A-Boo circle die set from a sheet of paper from the Lawn Fawn Really Rainbow Christmas pad.  I emphasised the dotted details of the die by adding red glitter drops all the way around and finished with my favourite sentiment for Christmas this year from Hero Arts Wonder and Magic of Christmas set which I think fits perfectly as the deer looks as though they have their eyes closed in a wish!

If Flora and Fauna is a new brand to you (they've only been around a couple of years and are hard to get in the UK) then do check out their brand page in our store as they have really fun and quirky designs that may have passed you by.  Flora and Fauna Brand Page at Seven Hills Crafts Limited

Catch you Sunday

Tara

Thinking of You Washi Floral Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

I love when crafty products make life easier for you. Let's face it - crafters often live busy lives, balancing work and play time. We don't always have time to spend hours on a design.

So when a product comes along that makes all the design and detail work easy it can be a godsend - and the Altenew washi tapes definitely fit that bill! I've been loving and coveting the designs from the latest release in particular, and just had to give the Glitter Flurries Washi Tape a try as soon as I could!

Gorgeous, right?! I love how this turned out!

I adhered the washi tape over the entirety of my card front to create a stunning background in just one step! I burnished the tape down with my bone folder to make sure it was properly adhered to the card.

When you have a background that's the star of the show it only needs a simple sentiment to finish it off. I opted for a sentiment from the Flora And Fauna Glass Dome stamp set, heat embossing it a few times on black cardstock and trimming out the individual words before adhering them with dimensional glue gel. This is probably the quickest card I've ever made!

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!

Accenting With Gold

Hello, Tallie here and a happy Wednesday to you!

Today I have a couple of cards that use gold accents to brighten up an otherwise clean and simple card design. I posted a couple of weeks ago using this Grateful for Everything set from Concord & 9th, but it really is fast becoming one of my favourites for a whole host of card designs.

The first set is a thank you card for a very kind and generous lady, and uses the main sentiment from the set. I love the mix of handwritten and typewriter fonts. I started out by masking off a strip along the top section of the card panel and stamping the main floral arrangement from the Grateful for Everything set. I then used the coordinating background stamps to stamp out the background in some Broken China Distress Oxide inks. This gave me a good base to colour with my alcohol markers.

I used a strip of gold mirror board to adhere along the bottom of the panel, stamping out the sentiment towards the bottom right corner. A gold gel pen helped to accent the colouring and tie in the gold strip.

As I was making this card I received the sad news that one of my family members passed away so my next card is a sympathy card. I followed the same process, only colouring in the flowers with yellows and oranges. Again, I used the gold strip at the bottom of the coloured panel and stamped out the 'WITH SYMPATHY' sentiment from the MFT Essential Sentiments set.

This design is really versatile, especially if you are limited on time and do not want to colour a whole panel. The background stamps really help to speed up the colouring process!

Thanks for reading!

Tallie

 

Birthday Wishes with Small Images

Happy Tuesday!

For my card today, I’m using some images included in the MFT Happy Hippos stamp set. These smaller images are fun to use around a birthday sentiment. You could of course add a hippo or bird too, but I wanted to keep the card simple and focus on the sentiment.

I began by stamping the images and colouring them in with copics. I then cut them out and added some clear glitter and white gel pen accents.

I cut a piece of white card to be the same size as my card base. You could work directly on a card base, but when heat embossing, I prefer to work on a separate piece of card then adhere it to my card base. By doing it that way, the card base isn’t warped from the heat.

I heat embossed a greeting in gold from the MFT Handwritten Happiness stamp set. I then temporarily arranged the images around the card, to help me work out where the spaces were, before embossing in silver and gold, some firework and star images from the MFT Fireworks stamp set. 

I adhered the panel to my card base with liquid glue, then added the images with foam tape and some embellishments to finish.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

21st Birthday Fireworks Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Monday!

I had a 21st birthday card to make for a special someone. What else would be appropriate than a shaped card and to break out the fireworks!

Awesome, right?! I love how this turned out!

I drew the shape of the card and fussy cut it. The card is double the size of a normal American A2 card so I cut some 'flaps' on the back piece to adhere the front of the card to it.

Then it was time to dress this baby up! I broke out the My Favorite Things Fireworks stamp set and stamped and heat embossed the fireworks and stars with a mix of white, gold and sparkly gold embossing powders!

I blended some navy and turquoise inks over the heat embossing then spritzed over some iridescent gold Glimmer Mist. I spritzed on some water to lessen the intensity of the mist, then ink blended again. The end result is shimmery when looking at an angle and catching the light, but a wonderful multi-layered depth of colour overall!

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!