Enchanting Washes

My card today features some beautiful patterned paper. Patterned papers are great for when you need a card quickly but don’t have time to make your own background.

The patterned paper I chose is from the Altenew Enchanting Washes paper pad. I cut a piece to fit my card base, adhering it with liquid glue. 

To add extra interest, I flicked the background with gold perfect pearls. Any gold paint would work well for this.

Next, I stamped a sentiment from the Altenew Birthday Builder stamp set. I layered this over some vellum, then adhered to the card.

I finished by adding some gold enamel dots around the sentiment.

Have a lovely day,
Gemma

Happy Birds

Despite the cool weather this weekend Spring is with us and the season for 

weddings too so I had this MFT Birds of a Feather die set in mind to 

use with two birdie's as a symbolic couple...

I wanted to keep the die cuts white and use a window panel over an ink blended

area on the card base. I started by cutting the smallest A2 Rectangle frame and adhering 

the birds to the outside. I cut a few leaf fronds and arranged them into the aperture from behind

 the frame and glued them in place.. adding a few flowers too.

I cut and stacked two more frames behind the piece to sandwich the

 leaves to give strength and dimension before trimming off the excess foliage . 

The little heart was given the glitter treatment and a sentiment

 added from Wplus9 Strictly Sentiments 2

It's quite a clean & simple design which can be changed up by using a different colour behind 

the birds and would work equally well as an engagement card too :)

 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

A Tunnel of Trees

I've just finished adding the latest (April) add-ons to the Hero Arts My Monthly Card Kit and it's one I've been longing to arrive as I love it all, but in particular I wanted to create an alley of trees with the gorgeous new Tree Arch Fancy Die.

To get the most from these dies I wanted to layer them up so I cut 3 from 3 shades of green card (starting with my darkest and getting paler as I go back for natural perspective) and coloured the trunks in shades of brown again getting paler as I went back.  I also did some random inking on the one that would be at the front to provide some variegation to the leaves.   The trick to getting a fully layered look and perspective is to then chop the trunks from the leaves as this allows you to alter how you layer them.

I made a base card from white card and ink blended some blue over most of it, but putting a triangle of grey at the bottom - this was so I could extend the path I cut using the other new European Village Die which I carefully cut so I kept all the pieces in place and then also inked with greys and black.   The triangle again adds perspective and suggests the path continues by providing a central vanishing point.

I then stacked up the trees, putting the palest leaves at the top of the card, then adding the middle shade 1cm below and finally the "joined" trees 1cm below that, and then stacked the loose trunks behind moving each slightly towards the centre as they went backwards (hard to explain but I think the picture is self explanatory)   I trimmed off the leaves to the top of the "joined" trees so you don't have odd "flat" bits where they wouldn't be naturally.

The focal element fountain comes from the other new die in this release - European Plaza and I just cut it from white card and coloured with 3 grey pencils to get some roundness to the stone and then used a couple of shades of blue for the water - making "down" strokes with the darker shade emphasise the falling water.  I then went over all the water with crystal stickles and used icicle stickles which has thicker glitter to create the "splashes" which makes it come alive.

The sentiment is also from Hero Arts from their super useful "Occasions" mini stamp set.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

Despite it being the Bank Holiday, we will be working a little to catch up as we have lots of new stock that needs to be added to the store.

• Today there is a new Waffle Flower Crafts release and we will try and get that on later today if we can.
• We have now received the new Sugar Pea Designs release and again will get that added asap.
• We have more Echo Park/Carta Bella items to add.
• We have some new and restocked Ranger Alcohol inks which we will add in the coming week
• MFT have a new release on Wednesday which should be here if the bank holiday doesn't slow it down in customs.
• We have a new release from Reverse Confetti in transit which should be here by the end of the week but it depends how well we catch up as to when we manage to get it added to store.
• The washi tape and paste release from Altenew is also now in transit along with some restocks and their new Build-A-Flower.

We have ordered the upcoming releases from Concord and 9th, Hero Arts May Kit and 45th Anniversary release, Avery Elle and Lawn Fawn.  All due later this month.

Right lots to do so best get too it!

Tara

We Herd it is Your Birthday

Hey stampers, Anni here!

Sometimes I see a stamp set and fall immediately in love! That happened to me when I saw Waffle Flower's super cute We Herd stamp set. I knew of a friend that she is a big sheep friend. But when another crafty friend mentioned that she loves sheeps aswell I knew I hadto buy the stamp set.
It was the birthday of this crafty friend  and of course I used the stamp set to make a card for her.

I started by stamping the sheeps onto alcohool marker friendly paper with black ink. During the colouring progress I made some mistakes - I chose different shades of grey (warm and cold). That didn't turned out as I wanted to. Lucky for me that happened to the sheeps in the second row. I fussy cut the sheeps that I liked, stamped the sheeps a second time and coloured them in a colour sccheme I liked more. For the whole group of sheeps there are coodinating dies available, of course.

For the background I added a very soft inkblending to a piece of white cardstock. Then I applied another layer of ink, this time through a stencil called Birthday Confetti by Echo Park.
For the sentiment I stamped one of Mama Elephant's Birthday Messages on a stripe of grey cardstock and heat embossed it in white.

To finish up the card I added the biggest of Avery Elle's Wonky Scalloped Frames to my card and adhered the whole scene to a light grey card base.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni

   

Coffee Lovers Spring/Summer Blog Hop

We're one of the sponsors on the blog hop again so do hope you're going to play along and ink up your coffee or tea themed craft supplies!   You can find the hop here http://coffeelovingcardmakers.com/10300

For my make I decided to use the Lovely Legs - Coffee and Friends set from Colorado Craft Company.  This is a new brand within our store and we're the only place in the UK you can find it right now.   I have to say I am loving them - they are such fun designs all focusing on the "legs" and we have their brand new release in store today!   They are such fun to colour and for this one, to emphasise the theme of the blog hop, I've painted it with actual coffee!

 
I stamped it with Adirondack ink in coffee colour onto a Hero Arts Sand top fold card and then made up a tiny pot of thick coffee (one teaspoon of instant coffee with half a teaspoon of water) and then used that with varying amounts of extra water to get my "shades of coffee"  to paint it sort of sepia water colour style.   It worked out really well and smells delicious too!

Hope I've inspired you to get your brushes out - just don't dip them in the coffee you're actually drinking!    Make a cuppa now and head on back to the rest of the hop as there are prizes to be won! http://coffeelovingcardmakers.com/10300

 Tara

Found on Friday (on Thursday)

I had a second edition planned for tomorrow, but we will be taking part in the Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop as a super sponsor again tomorrow, so hence we're having a weird Thursday edition of Found on Friday!

We've got quite a animal theme to this edition - starting with this card from Sylvia full of happy piggies!  We love how she coloured Piggy Pebbles from MFT Stamps to represent different breeds of pigs - they don't have to be pink!

Liz featured another MFT set in her cards - Picture Perfect - and we loved how they look so different by changing up the colour of the photo frame she used.  Little tricks like that are handy if you're making multiple cards featuring the same or similar images.

Claire is taking us under water with her fun birthday card featuring Mama Elephant's Marine Friends and Big Happy Birthday Die.  We really loved the watery effect she achieved in the background with the use of a stencil.

And talking of stencils - we loved the multi-coloured cloud background Ushi used on her sweet card - just makes you think of dream sequences in animated movies!  Fab no-line colouring on the Wish Upon A Star set also by Mama Elephant.   We'll have both sets back in stock on the 15th May along with their new release btw.

We're finishing this issue with a couple of floral designs - we loved Karen's fabulous Hibiscus Florals die cuts from Altenew - they really accentuate the big bold numerals to perfection and make a bold statement birthday card.

And last but by no means least, we loved the stunning colouring on Anna's Wallpaper Art flowers also by Altenew (and will be back in stock in a couple of weeks along with their new washi tape release)   The little flecks of gold detail give the whole card a wonderful antique feel.

Hope you've been inspired by our talented customers and their gorgeous projects.  If you want to join in and maybe get spotted for a future edition, then you need to be part of our customer only VIP group on Facebook  answer the  questions when prompted to gain entry (you need a valid order number to prove you are a customer)

Come back tomorrow for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop for a chance to win prizes all over blogland!

Tara

Lovely Legs Get Well Soon: Part 1

Hello there, Tallie here.

I'm celebrating the new to SHC brand, Colorado Craft Company, with a two-part post featuring the Lovely Legs Get Well Soon stamp set. This week I'm using watercolours and next week I'll be using my alcohol markers. These lovely legs stamps are perfect for practicing your colouring in any medium and create some simple but gorgeous cards!

I have two different cards for you today, though both started off with me stamping out the sofa scene from the Lovely Legs Get Well Soon stamp set onto some watercolour cardstock using some MFT Extreme Black Ink.

You may have seen from my last few cards that I'm trying to experiment and find my style with watercolours, so I tried out two different techniques for the cards. The first is more detailed, with me controlling the paint (or trying to!) more like I would with alcohol markers. The second is more lose, with me building up layers of washes to get the depth of colour.

I stuck to a simple, bright colour scheme to help cheer up a recipient that is feeling under the weather. When the paint was dry, I stamped out two different sentiments from the set above the scenes.

One I adhered directly to a card base, the other I used a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle to cut out the panel and mount on a kraft card base.

Catch me next week for a different take on the scene with my alcohol markers.

Tallie