New Year - New Website - New Blog!

We launched a brand new website in January 2020 and that has an "in-house" blog facility so we have moved the Seven Hills Crafts Blog to the website.   Click the link below to find it and do remember to update your newsfeed apps with the new address!

Seven Hills Crafts Blog can now be found at

www.sevenhillscrafts.co.uk

Joyful Winter Skies Christmas Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Friday! Only a few more sleeps until Christmas!

I love the sky at night in Winter! Apart from Christmas, it's probably the best thing about this season. If it's a clear night the Winter constellations are easy to identify, and are amongst my favourites to gaze at - whilst wrapped up warm of course!

It was probably all that I had in mind when I was putting together the final card for the blog this year, reaching for the Lawn Fawn Winter Skies stamp set to create a festive card fit for the season:

Stunning, right?!

I started by stamping my cute fox couple using Versafine Onyx Black ink, so I could get the position for the other elements. I then tore a strip of washi tape and placed that on my card base to form a mask for my craggy snowy landscape. I blended a number of different inks to create my night sky then splattered on water droplets and some mists to create my starry backdrop.

I coloured my foxes using colouring pencils. No fancy blending this time, but I think that adds to the charm of the scene! I wanted my cute couple to catch a glimpse of something magical in the night sky, so I stamped Santa and his reindeer-pulled sleigh using Versafine Onyx Black ink.

Finally, I heat embossed my sentiment, stamping it using my Versamark inkpad. My sentiment comes from the Mice On Ice stamp set which is currently out of stock (dotted the 'j' with one of the stars from the Winter Skies set though!), but the Lawn Fawn Winter Scripty Sentiments stamp set is still on the shelves and has a lot of great alternatives in that same whimsical font!


That about wraps it up for the blog this year, and Seven Hills Crafts will be back in 202 with loads of awesome goodies and inspiration for you all to enjoy! For me though, this marks my final card for the Design Team as I'm stepping down and away from the crafty side of life. I've had the most amazing time representing Seven Hills Crafts and would like to thank Tara and the team for all their support and love while I've been on the team. I'll continue to remain a loyal customer though as really where else can you go to that is so awesome for all your crafty needs?!

Finally, thank you to all those that visit the blog and have commented on my creations over the years. I've cherished every comment more than you can know. So, for the final time...  I'd love to hear what you think of this creation. Is there someone you know who'd love to receive it?

Thanks for stopping by, and wishing you all the best for a wonderful Christmas and New Year,

Taheerah x

BIG, BOLD & Beautiful

Hey!

When I saw that the Colorado Craft Company Big & Bold - Winter Wishes Snowflake was back in-stock over HERE on the website, I had to share a trio of colourful cards that I had whipped up. I was in need of three cards for my twin boys to write & give to their reception teacher and teaching assistants. This stamp set was perfect, quick to use and makes my snowflake loving heart happy! 

With the snowflake being so large, I do recommend using a stamping tool when stamping with it. This will ensure that you can repeat stamp to get a perfect stamped image.

I was running low on precious white card, so I decided to reach for my colourful Hero Hues card instead. I used Azalea, Paradise and Amethyst and the colours look stunning with Lawn Fawn Gold Embossing Powder.

I created a 12.5 cm square card base from each of the colours of card. I decided to keep the layout the same for quickness, but switched up where I placed the sentiment. The sentiment also from the stamp set is embossed onto a small strip of card and adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

I love how these turned out and how quick they came together too, so I'll be definitely making a few more as I am a few Christmas cards short and time is running out! 

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to sharing more crafty inspiration with you all in the New Year! 

Crafty Hugs

Bev

Other Products Used:

Hero Hues Card, Azalea, Paradise and Amethyst

Lawn Fawn Gold Embossing Powder

VersaMark Ink

Hap-pea Merry Little Christmas!

Hello, Tallie here. The big day is almost here so I thought I'd end this year with a non-traditional punny Christmas card design I sent to some of my closest friends this year. It's a great one for using non-holiday themed stamps in a festive design. I used the Lawn Fawn Be Hap-pea stamp set, Lawn Fawn Say What? Christmas Critters stamp set and some stitched star dies (these or these would be good).

As usual, I started out by stamping the peas and their pod from the Lawn Fawn Be Hap-pea stamp set in some MFT Extreme Black Ink onto some blending cardstock. I also stamped out some of the small hats from the Lawn Fawn Yeti or Not set to dress up the peas. I used some bright greens and reds to colour in the images and cut them out with the coordinating dies.

On a top-folding A6 card base I blended on some Distress Oxide Ink in Broken China, focusing most of the ink in the centre of the card. On another panel, I blended on some Distress Inks in Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey and Squeezed Lemonade and die cut with a stitched star die. With a gold gel pen, I added some dot detail to the star and adhered it centrally to the card base.

Some foam tape helped pop the peas and their pod up onto the star. For the sentiment, I stamped out the 'hap-pea' sentiment from the Lawn Fawn Be Hap-pea stamp set and the 'merry little christmas' from the Lawn Fawn Say What? Christmas Critters stamp set in some Candied Apple Distress Oxide ink. I prefer to stamp bright colours in Oxide ink as they don't stain the stamps like dye inks do in the brighter colours. I adhered the sentiments underneath the peas.

I made two different designs with the two different pod stamps from the Lawn Fawn Be Hap-pea stamp set. A few final touches with a white pen finish it off.

Thanks for reading and I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a wonderfully successful new year 2020!

Tallie

 

Warm Wishes

Hello, it's Liz here today. I have a card to share that would be perfect for a winter birthday. I used my Winter Sparrow stamp set by Wplus9 to stamp the sparrow and foliage (matching dies are here).

I love that the stamps are all individual parts of the image meaning you can totally change things up. I decided on a sparrow this time but you could do a robin, a bluetit, a chaffinch or a brightly coloured bird from your imagination!

I made a circle frame using two dies from the Stitched Circle Stax set by My Favourite Things to mount the stamped images on to. Everything was attached to the base card using foam squares.

Well, that's it from me for 2019. I hope you all have a great Christmas and all the best in 2020!

Festive Cocktails

Hello, well it's my last blog post before Christmas and I've just got one more card to share...

perfect for that friend who loves a festive tipple.... we all have one of those 😉

I've used the Newtons Nook Cocktail Mixer stamp set and chose three of the drinks to colour 

and die cut. The three windows are made using the Triple Peek-a-Boo windows die which

 is unfortunately out of stock but any shape could be substituted here.

Behind the windows on the card base I blended blue ink and added a wavy snow bank too.

The sentiment, which gave me the idea for the card, is from MFT's Sassy Pants Holiday, 

I stamped it over a brushstroke just for a different look... works quite well I think 😊

I added a touch of glitter, a couple of holly sprigs along with some falling 

snow and called it done... pretty pleased how it turned out.

   

So that's all from me for 2019 

Wishing all our crafty readers a happy Christmas 

and all the best for 2020

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Happy New Year!

Yeah I know I'm a bit early, but I already missed the Christmas posting date for Australia, so I'm sending a new year card instead in the hopes that it will arrive in time for that!

I used the new Lunar Sayings from Mama Elephant for the main sentiment - I really love the chubby balloon letters they used.  I stamped it all over my square base card in grey, twisting it to be more of a general patterned background.


I stamped it again and coloured with altenew markers and then cut it out with scissors and my finger knife so I could pop it up using pinflair gel onto the party background circle.

To create the background I embossed the MFT Fireworks set (sorry that's currently sold out but there is a mini firework from Altenew you could use instead) and then ink blended some dark blue, black and purple inks over top, buffing the ink off the fireworks.   I added some splatters of extra sparkle using the Altenew Metallic Watercolor Paints.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We have received all but one of the final deliveries we expect before we close on Friday for Christmas and the store update.

• Colorado Craft Company - restocks are on - I will be adding the new release this morning.
• Waffle Flower Crafts - both the binder release, restocks and the latest release will be added today too.
• Sugar Pea Design - the latest release and a few restocks will be in store tomorrow.
• Altenew - the ink release and lots of restocks were finally shipped on Friday - they arrived at East Midlands today so fingers crossed they will arrive tomorrow and I will get them added as quickly as my fingers can type!

The store will then close on Friday and there will be no more daily posts on this blog after Friday either - I may do a couple of update posts over Christmas whist we're working on the new website, but when we reopen in early January, the blog will be getting a makeover too and will be "in" the store and should hopefully be easier for you to comment on without the dreaded blogger issues!

Right - I'd best get to work as we still have to decorate the house for Christmas today too!

Tara