July Challenge Winners

Wow - it seems you all really liked our fruity colour combos this month.  You are all making such great projects every month now, we're loving how everyone is having fun and joining in and making the challenge grow!   We had some AWESOME cards and it was almost impossible to pick a winner. 

However, this fun last minute entry really caught our eye - all those great vibrant speech bubbles make such a bold statement and really showed off the colours in the scheme - so for this month our winner is Molt Craft!   Congrats - drop me a line via the store and I'll sort out your prize code.

We could have picked so many runners up this month so I decided to double it from our normal 2 to 4 as it was really  hard to narrow it down.

 We loved the colourful floral details and soft background stamping on Al Handmade's cute Cat card. 

 

 The cool grey background really makes the fruit pop and Sabina's card and clever layering is a brilliant added detail to her happy card.

The soft watercolour background is a brilliant contrast to the bold gold embossed motifs on Crafty Rats's card which is sure to brighten any friends day!

 

And we loved how Caroline used the colours in a really fun way to brighten up the uniforms on her rabbit marching band

So - that's our winners for July - what do you think?  Stunning cards we're sure you'll all agree.  If you didn't win this month - don't despair - we'll be back tomorrow afternoon with a brand new challenge for August and we have a really fun and easy theme for you all to play with!

Happy Crafting!

Hipster Birthday

Isn't it funny how words appear in our language seemingly out of nowhere?  A couple of years ago I had no idea what a hipster was and now I can't seem to avoid them!   So today I have quick card perfect to celebrate a birthday for the hipster dudes in your life.

I started with a kraft panel and used a black pigment ink and a sponge dauber to ink through the mustache stencil from Echo Park.   I then used the funky new Happy Birthday Border die from Lil' Inker Designs to die cut a double border from both teal and gold card, layering them up with a little off-set for a 3D look.  I cut the panel down and layered up the sentiments over a black background.

I die cut a mustache using a Paper Smooches die from gold cardstock to make focal point - I was taking inspiration from Blackpool illuminations (or Vegas) the sort of bright neon signs that run up lamp posts so a strip of the teal card with Hipster spelt out using Owen's ABCs from Lawn Fawn added a bold statement front and centre.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

August is set to be a BUMPER month for stock arrivals with lots of brands bringing their seasonal offerings to the market.

• We have brand new paper collections from My Minds Eye in stock with some beautiful designs for Christmas and all year round.
• The August release from My Favorite Things which features lots of fun products for Halloween as well as lots of other fun items will be in store on Wednesday
• We have our order in to Concord and 9th for their 1st Birthday release which has some gorgeous new products (including a follow up to the super popular Hugs die "wink") which will hopefully be in store for 9th August (or very soon thereafter)
• We ordered the entire new release from Altenew plus masses of restocks yesterday (within seconds of the new release going on sale to retailers)  We hope to have that by mid-August but Altenew are always busy so it takes them a little while to ship to us.
• Both Lawn Fawn and Avery Elle have HUGE releases this month including Christmas and Halloween products and both will be in store at the same time as they are released in the USA (towards the end of the month) as our orders are already in.
• Mama Elephant took July off but will be back on 15th of August with a great new release.
• We are still waiting for the new Hero Arts products to arrive - the UK distributor has updated that to be "expected mid-August" so watch this space.

The final bit of news is that we are taking a mini-break next weekend to go and see a gig on Friday night so although the store will remain open orders received after 5pm on Thursday will start to ship on Monday 8th August and it may take us a couple of days to catch up on packing so please bear with us if you don't get a shipment notification quite as quickly as you're used to!

Happy Ink Splotches

Hey crafters! Today's card is not an original design – I want to say that upfront. I have seen variations of this design across the interwebz many times, but never really  got around to try it myself. Well, with my new(ish) My Favorite Things Distressed Patterns stamp set, creating a design like this has become super easy.

I started out by figuring out which colors would work great together. As I keep saying (my apologies if you are getting tired of this) you need to work in the order of the color wheel if you want to avoid getting color mixes that are unpleasant to the eye (unless you are going for contrast, of course). I grabbed the inks that I thought would work great here and my stamping mat, since the stamp is fairly solid and I wanted to make sure I would get a great impression the first time.

The sentiment was stamped with Versafine ink using Wplus9 stamps. I just love the mix of handwritten and typed fonts, and black is a great contrast to the colorful splats of color. Of course I had to add a few sequins for additional sparkle.

The Wplus9 Hand Lettered Hello can be easily substitute with other stamps, even though it's great to have. For example, the Hand Lettered Thank You, also by Wplus9, would also work great as would the Brushstroke Birthday by MFT or the Scripty Sayings by Paper Smooches.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope these bright colors made you smile!

Distressed Patterns

Hand Lettered Hello

Tide Pool Shadow Ink

Soft Stone Shadow Ink

Soft Purple Shadow Ink

InLinkz.com

A quick cute rock out!

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I've got a quick & cute card suitable for any budding rockstars...

Using Mama Elephant's Rocks and Paws.

I started by die-cutting a circle from masking paper, and ink blending through it, in yellow, to create my 'spotlight'.  I then stamped out this awesome little puppy and a couple of speakers, coloured them using colour pencils, and fussy-cut.  I'm pretty obsessed with my little doggy, so used him as inspiration :) 

This set is so much fun.  You get six different doggies, all of which are sooooo cute...and even this little David Bowie inspired lightening bolt to add on to them if you so wish, which of course...I do!  

I added a semi-circle of black card, and a strip of silver to build up a stage and adhered in place.

I decided to use a sentiment built-up from Mama Elephant's Monster Jam set as it just fit so perfectly, so stamped that straight onto my card in black.  I added a few little splatters of watered down black ink across my panel, and popped my little scene on top using foam tape.  

I finished by embellishing with a scattering of gems coz you know...rockstar haha!

I really hope you like, as always, everything used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

      

Mixed Blooms Bouquet

Hi there everyone and happy Thursday! Lydia here with you today with a fresh one layer floral card.

Today I wanted to use stylised and fun floral images. To get the look I was after I mixed two MFT stamp sets, Fall Florals and Desert Bouquet. As I mixed two different sets it gave me more looks I could achieve by playing around with the many floral layers.

I used a colour combo that was new to me that I had found on Pinterest, I do love the warm feel to it.

After stamping all of my flowers and leaves I stamped my sentiment in a black ink, partially stamping over my images to pull the card together. This beautiful sentiment is from Neat & Tangled 'Gardenia Bloom Journaling Card'.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I do hope you like my card.

Hugs, Lydia x

My Favorite Things- Fall Florals Stamp Set (SHC)

My Favorite Things- Desert Bouquet Stamp Set

Neat & Tangled- Gardenia Blooms Journaling Card (SHC)

InLinkz.com

Tropical Anniversary

I have a bright and sunny card to share today that I made to celebrate a friend's anniversary.  They got married in the Caribbean so the new hibiscus die from Newton's Nook is the perfect reminder for them.

I die cut all the elements from white card and simply coloured them with markers - we always tend to go for plain card stock for die cuts but they can be coloured just the same way as stamps which adds interest and realism.  For the pollen I used some old brown flock powder and finished with a sentiment from Avery Elle's So Happy  A yellow base card adds to the tropical feel.


I missed this die, along with a few that matched the stamps in the latest release, from my pre-order but they are all now in stock.

See you Sunday ;-)

Tara

A Musical Birthday!

Ta-dah! Birthdays are always accompanied with music; whether it's whilst blowing out the candles or dancing!

I recently got two Avery Elle sets and thought they combined perfectly to make a pretty birthday scene.

I die cut a circular portion off the card blank by slotting the card into the centre of a circular die so only the bottom edge of the card is touching the die. Make sure the back half of the card is lying flat or you'll die cut that too.

Then add an acetate bottom to the card. I love doing these as they really add more of a focal point to the card elements.

I've added the cut out floral element onto the card with foam pads. It helps make the scene look more dimensional and gives depth to the images.

I've added lots of little gel pen dots to the images- it makes them seem less 'flat' and adds more detail.

I've trimmed all of these animals out, but you could use the Band Camp Elle-ment dies to make your life a whole lot easier!

Hope my little musical interlude has inspired you to combine your stamp sets. 

Am off to sing in an opera right now.

Not.

Would love a voice to be able to do that. I'll live vicariously through the band camp stamp set instead ;-)

See you next week

xx

Birthday Polaroid

Hello and happy Monday morning :)

It's been a hot week in the craftroom and Mr Mojo has obviously been off enjoying the summer this week too so I have a simple CAS card for you....

I needed a birthday card for someone who loves photography, although to be fair not with a Polaroid camera but this way I can have an interactive element on the card *wink* 

I love this simple sketched camera from Avery Elle and I wanted to use patterned paper but have it off set with the image. To do this I first stamped the image on scrap white copy paper and trimmed it out roughly then used it like a dressmakers pattern by lying it on the patterned paper and cutting around it. I was quite carefree with the scissors so as not to get an exact shape copy. After attaching the spotty paper to the card I stamped the image over the top making sure it was offset then did the same with the extra buttons and lens ring too...

The Polaroid is quite easy to make by cutting a slit in the front panel and posting the card through... I've shaped the card so it can't be pulled out the whole way and added a piece of foam tape to the back of the panel to stop it from disappearing back into the card too!! The sentiments are both made from Waffleflower stamp sets.... I kept the Polaroid quite simple and drew some burst lines around the phrase.

        

Thanks for stopping by... see you next week :)

Jenny x

Scratch n Sniff and Dory

I have a couple of cards to share today both based on a brand new background die from Lil' Inker Designs that will be in store TOMORROW - this one really is hot off the press and it's gorgeous!  It's called Quilted Stitched Spirals.

Firstly I have a card inspired by Finding Dory as we can't wait to go and see it next week.  I guess my card is more inspired by Finding Nemo - as soon as I saw the turtles in Waffle Flower's Shellabrate stamp it made me think of the dude turtle in Finding Nemo when they're riding the EAC so I recreated the scene using the die to create the swirls of the current.

The addition of some embossed circles, the sentiment from the set and a tiny fish for Nemo's dad finish off the card.

For my second card I used the background just to add interest to my plain white background and the focus for this one is not related.  For this one I pulled out an old but fun technique with Newton's Nooks new Party Pops and created some scratch and sniff ice-pops!

This is a really easy technique when you know how and its a great one for kids cards as they will love the interactivity when they receive it.  All you need is clear embossing powder and some SUGAR FREE Jelly powder.  The sugar free is important - the sugary ones burn too quickly when you heat them and give a bitter burnt smell.  Just grab an empty pot and add your chosen jelly and clear embossing powder with a ratio of 50/50, pop on the lid and give it a good shake.  [The jelly settles so its important to shake before each application]

Stamp your base lolly (the solid image) and allow to dry.  Stamp your patterned lolly over the top in a different colour and then if you used die inks as I did (Hero Arts butter bar, royal red and orange soda) stamp over the top again with versamark before generously sprinkling over your jelly embossing mix.  Heat as normal but take care not to get too close.  Here's an in progress shot so you can see how it looks before its embossed.  The finish is more grainy than normal but that's the scratchy part.

I added them to the card with the treat sentiment - would be a great card for hiding a gift card inside.  I made a note on the inside telling the recipient to scratch and sniff.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We had restocks from Kuretake in store on Friday so if you're waiting for the clean color markers we have them back now in both sizes as well as the gold tambi paints.
• We'll have the new release from Lil' Inker Designs live as soon as it goes live in the USA tomorrow.
• We have some restocks from Hero Arts which will be in store tomorrow.  Our order for the new inks and stamps in the Color Layering Brochure is still not her sadly.  They were due to the distributor by early July but have still not arrived from Hero Arts who are notoriously bad at shipping outside of the USA.  The items in the new Winter catalogue are not due until the end of August (so likely to actually arrive in September!)
• We have some restocks from MFT in transit which should be here by the end of the week.
• You may have spied some new goodies from Altenew on a certain shopping channel this week - they get a bit of an exclusive period but they should be available for me to order next week ;-)  This means we will have them by the end of August as Altenew take around 2-4 weeks to process and ship orders generally.