Holiday Hugs

Hey stampers, Anni here!

Here is my last post on the Seven Hills Crafts blog for 2017. The shop closed yesterday until 27th of December.
And my last card for this year is - surprise, surprise -  a Christmas card.

I kept the colour scheme pretty monochromatic and went with shades of turquoise and grey - cool colours for a cool season.

I started by stamping, colouring with coloured pencils and fussy cutting the super cute bear hugging a girl from W Plus 9' Holiday Hugs.

To create the background I die cut a rectangle using Waffle Flower's Lacy Layers. I added some ink blending in aqua and some splotches of pink ink. I also created splotches of glitter. By accident I discovered that this works great with the Varnsih Marker. It is a liquid that is easy to spill. Then you can sprinkle glitter on it and it will glue to it.

For the sentiment I used Mama Elephant's Puffy Holiday Greetings. I heat embossed it in grey on a scrap of white cardstock.
Then I assembled the card using  grey cardbase.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2018!
Anni

         

'Tis The Season...

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I’ve got the last of my Xmas cards for this year...

...using the beautiful Festive Wreath from Avery Elle.

This set includes a large wreath and all the sprigs and baubles and lovely stuff you would use to make a wreath in real life...but no no, that’s not hard enough work for me haha, so I decided I wanted to make a CAS card using the little sprig to make a smaller wreath - so ultimately - you’re getting two wreaths for the price of one! Good stuff!

I started by lightly mapping out a small circle in pencil, and creating many masks using the smallest sprig, candy canes, stars and baubles. I then stamped all my stars and decorations around the circles, covered in their masks, and went over top with sprigs, making sure each over-lapped the last.

I then coloured the whole thing using my Zigs. I normally always use them with water and this was one of the first times I used them just as they are and ‘woah’ they are so intense and bright, Utterly amazing!

I stamped my sentiment over the wreath and heat embossed in gold. I added a simple bow from gold twine and finished by coating my decorations in Glossy Accents.

If you set up a wee production line and do each step on multiple cards, I think these could be produced uber quick - so if you’re cutting it close and are still to get started - I hope these give you a little inspiration on what you could do.

As always, everything I used is linked below.

Well folks, all that’s left is for me to wish you all the merriest of all Christmas', and the happiest of all new years! See you next year!

Love always, Jillx

   

Santa’s Coming to Town!

Hello crafters! This is Julia, and I’m just filling in today for Taheera. I wanted to share two easy to make, happy holiday cards with you. You know, just in case you might still need to make a few. Also, a quick note that Seven Hills Crafts goes on a short holiday break starting December 16, so if you want to grab these Santas or maybe some other supplies as a gift to yourself or for a crafty friend, hurry up!

What I love most about these cards (apart from this hilarious and very agile Santa) is their simplicity. I love coloring, but doing a few dozen full blown coloring projects for Christmas cards is something I simply don’t have time for. But coloring in Santa a few times, that I can do! I kept it very simple: just a blend from very dark red to a much brighter tone to give him some dimension, three shades of dark grey for his belt and boots, and two shades of light grey for his beard and the trimming of his hat. This is absolutely basic Copic coloring that even a beginner can do!

These Santa’s would look great on white card stock as well if you want to go with a more classic look, but I just love how the white border that was left after die-cutting adds additional contrast on kraft card stock. In addition, that gave me the option to add a few white "snowflakes" with my white Sharpie pen and of course heat emboss the sentiment in white.

If you do the coloring in one go, maybe with a nice Hallmark christmas movie running the background ;) you’ll be done in no time and putting together the rest is easy. So, if you’re still short on holiday cards, this is a design that you can still crank out and send out on the weekend.

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone, and a great start into the new year!

Supply List

Cheeky Little Elf

Hello and happy Wednesday!

We've definitely seen the wintry weather here this week so I have one more Christmas card to share with you this year. My card today features this cheeky little elf from the Avery Elle Elf-Tacular set (which just so happens to be on sale now if you want to grab yourself a bargin)! If any of you still are in that last minute panic, this might be a good design to reproduce multiples of. It's also a good design to give to a male relation, friend or colleague.

I started out with an A6 white card base and stamped the MFT Bold Diagonal Stripes Background using some Lawn Fawn Jalapeno ink. This is a wonderfully festive bright green and I love the texture when I stamp on my slightly rougher card stock.

Setting aside to dry, I stamped out the cheeky little elf hiding in his present from the Elf-Tacular set in some MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink so I could colour him in with my alcohol markers. I stuck to festive shades of green and red, with some light browns for the box. I then cut him out with the coordinating dies.

I chose one of the MFT Inside & Out Stitched Circles that centered the elf perfectly. and cut it out of some Chilli Pepper cardstock. I also trimmed down a thin strip of Black Licorice cardstock so I would have something to mount the circle to the background. A little bit of foam tape helped the little elf pop in the centre of the card.

Don't you just wish you could find a cute little helper elf in one of your presents on Christmas Day?

Thanks for reading along. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I'll see you back in the New Year!

Tallie

    

Cheers to the New Year

This year seems to have gone by so fast! Hard to believe we'll be in 2018 in a few short weeks. With that in mind, I have a New Years card to share today. 

I began with a square card base, then die cut a zig-zag square to go on the top. From that, I die cut a stitched star peek-a-boo window. You could easily turn this into a shaker card, using one of the fabulous MFT shaker pouches.

Next, I reached for one of my favourite stamp sets - Avery Elle Bunting. This was actually the first stamp set I bought when I started making cards again in 2015! I am still finding new ways to use it, too.

I reached for the stars, circles and starburst shapes from this set, and heat embossed them around the star with gold embossing powder.

Before adding the zig-zag square to the card base, I layered a piece of black card behind the star.

I added a gold glitter 'Cheers' word die over the top of the star. The black background really helps it stand out. If I made this again, though, I think I’d layer a few of the word die cuts for some more dimension.

To finish, I added some sequins for extra sparkle.

Thanks for joining me today and throughout the year. 

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Gemma

MFT Stitched Star Peek-a-boo Window

MFT Cheers

Avery Elle Bunting

Lawn Fawn Zig Zag Squares

Pop the Bubbly!!

Hi there, Jenny here with a final card for you before Christmas and the New year so I thought I'd showcase this brilliant Champagne Pop die from Waffleflower which is ideal for any celebratory card including seeing in the New Year...

I chose a shimmery green card scrap to cut the bottle with and then kept to the traditional red and gold trimmings.... I love the little extra dies in the set to make a highlight and give the rim of the bottle top some dimension too. The top of the bottle has a slit in it so you can insert the cork or allow the champagne to flow out... I'm sure there's scope for an interactive card there somehow!!

I have used the Neat & Tangled Falling Circles cover plate to emboss a wite background panel, the circles resembled bubbles to me :) I also cut a Zig Zag circle aperture to make a focal point for the bottle and to allow the sparkly white 'Cheers' to stand out. I don't usually send New Years cards so I thought I'd add a simple 'to you' under the sentiment so this card could be used for any occasion :)

Well that's all from me now before Christmas so I'd like to wish you all a Happy and Peaceful Christmas and I'll be back again in the New Year :)

Jenny x

                                       
                                     

Advent Calendar Extravaganza with Taheerah Atchia

I have something a little different today as I am one of the guests and sponsors for our fabulous DT member Taheerah's Advent Calendar Extravaganza which is a pretty enormous task that Taheerah undertakes every year so I had to make sure we were part of it to support her.

Advent Calendar Extravaganza is -the- festive event of the season! This ‘hop with a twist’ was dreamed up by Taheerah Atchia and features surprise destinations each day! Joining in the fun with Taheerah are ONE HUNDRED special guests - each serving up some fantastic Christmas inspiration! Just like an Advent Calendar, you’ll never know where you’re going to be visiting next until you ‘open the door’!

And that’s not all! With 25 *amazing* sponsors taking part as guests as well, your crafty wish list is bound to get a boost with a chance to win a prize EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

Join in the fun every day at taheerah-atchia.com to see what special surprises await behind the door!

For my project I'm sharing some gift tags with a hint of humour from Sugar Pea Designs.  I love Wendy's sense of humour and she's done it again this year with this fabulous Christmas Tag Greetings set with a co-ordinating die.  I will be making lots of these to add to my parcels.  I like wrapping in kraft and often stick to classic red, white and green accessories to go with it so have done my tags in that theme.

There are lots of options with this set and all the pieces and sentiments perfectly co-ordinate so you can mix and match to your hearts content!

Now, it’s not a party without a prize - and with prizes every day there are several chances to win as part of the extravaganza! Today’s prize is supplied by me so you’ll definitely want to win! Simply leave a comment on this post - then head back to taheerah-atchia.com and leave a comment there too! You must leave a comment on Taheerah’s blog as well as mine in order to be eligible to win! Don’t forget to grab the other surprise destinations from Taheerah’s blog and head over to them to leave comments there as well to improve your odds even more! You have until 23:59 EST on 31st December 2017 to enter.

Don’t forget Advent Calendar Extravaganza runs from 1st-25th December inclusive so make sure you visit taheerah-atchia.com every day for fabulous inspiration and amazing prizes every single time! Merry Christmas!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

That's it for the extravaganza part of my post - now we have my regular weekly news round up for what will be happening at Seven Hills Crafts this week.

We close at MIDNIGHT ON FRIDAY 15th DECEMBER for our move and for Christmas and will not re-open for orders until the 28th so don't hang around for any last minute purchase requirements  (You can still buy gift vouchers if you need a last minute gift after Friday but you can't spend any you receive until we re-open)

We will have the following new releases in store this week just before we close:

• Concord and 9th December release probably on Tuesday or Wednesday
• The Lawn Fawn release will be in store on Thursday

 We have some other orders coming but they will not be here before we close so look out for the following when we re-open and into early to mid-January:

• Hero Arts December Kit Add-ons
• Avery Elle's latest release
• Altenew's latest release
• Flora and Fauna's latest release
• Waffle Flower latest release
• Winnie and Walter's latest release

The blog will also close on Friday to give the Design Team a well deserved break - I'll have the odd update whilst we're closed but otherwise we'll be back with your daily dose of artistic inspiration on 2nd January.

Tara
x

Merry Christmas From All Of Us

Hey stampers, Anni here!

I have another set of cards for you in the categorie: Easy and fast to make!
This time I wasn't in the mood to colour so I decided to go with dies. I chose W Plus 9's Stitched Holiday Icons - what a great set. I love the stitched details and how versatile this set is.

For this card I started with something I normally do last: Stamping the sentiment. I set up a sentiment in my stamping tool and stamped five cardbases (three from white cardstock, and two from shimmer carddstock, one silver and one gold) at once. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things' Merry Everything.

Then I die cut the snowman and the tree of the Stitched Holiday Icons from white, grey and silver cardstock.

I decorated the snowman and the trees with various things: On the one hand I die cut different shapes with Mama Elephant's Confetti Creative Cuts from mirror and glitter cardstock in silver and gold.

And on the other hand I used pearls and rhinestones.
I tried to spread them randomly and not to create an even pattern. In my opinion it looks more intresting this way.

For a final touch I cut by hand a snowman nose for most of the cards.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni

      

Adorable Arctic Penguin Parade

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week I’ve got a group of Mama elephant’s adorable Arctic Penguins...

playfully slipping and sliding down an icy slope, struggling to stay upright on their little sweet skates!

I LOVE these precious little penguins, in real life and in magical Mama Elephant land. Penguins are pretty amazing animals. As if the whole ‘partners for life’, thing isn’t the most endearing quality in the universe  you only have to watch their little waddle to fall head over heals in love with them, and I think these Mama Elephant illustrations capture their playful personalities perfectly.

And to top it all...the images are black & white so anything you do with them saves you a TON of time on colouring and means you can whip up your designs in next to no time!

I wanted my card to look like a slippery snow covered slope with all the little penguins skating down it. You get so many different designs of penguins all doing different things in different directions I thought it would look really cute - like they are all battling to keep their balance as they have their fun.

I started by stamping out my penguins and fussy cutting, adding a wee dash of red to their skates and orange to their beaks for the teeniest splash of colour. I made my slopes by cutting Mama Elephant’s Landscape Trio Border Dies and lightly ink blending blue ink behind. I used foam tape to elevate my slopes and adhered my party of penguins behind. I added a slick of glitter across the edges of my die cuts to add a little sparkle to my snow. My sentiment is from Mama Elephant’s Polar Pals and is stamped straight onto my card.

I finished by adding a scattering of sparky sequins and cutting my panel using Lawn Fawn’s Cross Stitched Rectangle, mounting onto a card blank, and there you have it!

A very quick easy peasy parade of precious penguins!

I really hope you like it.

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx