A trio of Wreaths

Given my penchant for all things teal it probably comes as no surprise that the Eucalyptus Wreath from the latest Sugar Pea Designs release really spoke to me as it gives me an excuse to get my teal stuff out to play with!  So here I have 3 variations on a teal wreath:

First off I started with a really simple technique - this stamp has a real vintage style and lots of fine detail so the ink and water technique is a perfect way to treat it.

I just stamped it onto water colour card stock in Galactic Stream from Altenew's Sweet Dreams inks and then used a plain water brush to drag out some of the ink colour for a soft water colour feel.   I mounted it with a little glitter paper and finished with a friends sentiment over the middle as wreaths aren't just for Christmas!

Next I switched to water colouring proper using the new AlteNew paints for the first time and I have to say I think they are really good.  Super creamy and really intense pigments, you can get an almost gouache effect if you use them thick!

This time I embossed the wreath in silver and used just two colours of the paints to add shading to the leaves.  Finished with more glitter and a matching Merry Christmas sentiment and a few drops of pearls in a variety of greens and whites for berries (not that Eucalyptus has berries but in my world it can!)

Finally I decided to have a go at a vintage water colour feel to match the stamp.  I am NOT the worlds best with watercolour, but I am reasonably happy with the results.

I embossed in a teal powder this time and then sprayed my whole paper to get it very wet and then I used a mix of grey and teal to flood the background and in between the leaves (it is clearer irl but hard to photograph as its a bit dull here today)   I allowed that to dry then added more water to the leaves and did a softer looser version of my previous painting allowing the colours to run.  It needed a bit more contrast so I went back in with a darker greeny-teal in places.   I finished this time with some glitter berries and a sentiment stamped in the middle from Sugar Pea's Tinsel in a Tangle set.

Hope that inspires you to get your wreath on.

Catch you Sunday

Tara

It's Summer! Seashells Card

Hi everyone, Taheerah here wishing you a happy Thursday!

Summer seems to be on its way out unfortunately. We've had some amazingly hot days in the UK over the past few months - just the way that Summer should be! But the one thing I didn't get a chance to do to enjoy our warmer climes was to hit the beach.

I'm totally spoiled when it comes to beaches. With my parents coming from Mauritius, my childhood holidays were filled with trips to visit my grandparents and enjoy the amazing beaches at the same time. Some of my fondest memories include collecting hundreds upon hundreds of shells from various visits and building up my own collection. Memories!

I definitely had those memories in mind when I pulled out the Newton's Nook Seashells stencil and the Newton's Nook Newton's Summer Treats stamp set - time for me to hit the beach!

I can almost hear the waves gently lapping on the shore, can't you?!

I started by dry embossing the stencil by running it through my die cutting machine with some impression mats. I then watercoloured over the scene and sprinkled on some salt to lift the colour - so fun!

I then placed the stencil back on the card when my watercolouring was dry then dabbed some white acrylic paint through to bring out the design. Some splatters of Glimmer Mist really added a sunkissed touch!

I wanted to add a more nautical touch to the card, so I roughly knotted some twine and stapled it to my card front. I love the rustic touch it adds!

The sentiment from Newton's Summer Treats was the perfect finishing touch for this card. I stamped it onto some white cardstock and adhered it with dimensional glue gel to complete my card!

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!

Peek-a-Boo!

Hello, Tallie here. This week I'm bringing you some cheeky little animals playing peek-a-boo. That little sloth is definitely my favourite! These cards can be customised for any colour theme and depending upon the sentiment used, can be used for a variety of occasions. I'm looking forward to doing a Christmassy version with the Polar set from the new release!

I started out by stamping out multiple of the critters from the Avery Elle Peek-A-Boo Pals set in some MFT Extreme Black Hybrid Ink on some blending card stock. I coloured these in with my Copic markers using a variety of colours, making sure to use at least three markers to bring the critters alive. I cut these out with my Scan N Cut, though there are coordinating dies available.

I then took three white A6 card panels and cut four circular apertures using the Avery Elle Circle Frames die. You can do this manually with a stitched/pierced circle die, but using this die means only one pass through the machine. Plus, the circles are lined up and this makes me happy!

On some top-folding A6 card bases, I blended on some Distress Oxide Inks in Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry and Wilted Violet in the areas where the apertures were. I then used some foam tape to pop up the white panels and more to arrange my critters peeking through.

I also used the coordinating colours to create some sentiment strips, which I then white heat embossed the 'just wanted to say' sentiment from the Peek-A-Boo Pals set. I added three white dots with my gel pen so the greeting could continue on inside. I also mounted this on some foam tape and positioned it to the left of the critters.

You could add some sequins (I only added a couple of stars I coloured in from the set) but I think these are beautifully clean and simple as they are. I'm sharing three colour combinations today - blue, purple and pink - though any colour would help highlight these cute little pals!

 

Jawsome Day

Today I’m sharing a fun underwater card, featuring the Lawn Fawn Duh-Nuh stamp set. The star of the show is definitely that gorgeous Avery Elle Waves Cover die, though.

I began by blending distress oxides on to a piece of white card. I used peacock feathers, salty ocean and broken china. I flicked it with water to create the water droplets, then put it aside to dry.

Next, I stamped, coloured and cut out the shark and fish from Lawn Fawn Duh-Nuh stamp set.

Going back to my distress ink panel, I added some stick it adhesive to the reverse, then die cut a circle from it. I ran the circle through my die cutting machine again, this time with the Avery Elle Waves Elle-meant cover die. The stick it adhesive kept the pieces together when I removed it from the cover die.

I used two more circle dies to cut a frame from my distress inked panel. I adhered this to a white card base. I then took the pieces from the circle die cut and adhered them within the frame. I used every other piece of the die cut, to allow the white card base to show in between and the pattern to be more obvious.

Below the wave circle, I stamped a sentiment - a combination of the sentiment in Duh-Nuh and a sentiment from the Reveal Wheel sentiments stamp set.

I added the shark and fish to the circle with foam tape, then embellished the card with a few clear droplets to finish.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Avery Elle Waves

Lawn Fawn Duh-Nuh

Lawn Fawn Reveal Wheel Sentiments

Hero Arts Circle Infinity dies

Uncork and Unwind, Pop up Card!

Hello, Jenny here wishing you all a lovely Bank Holiday Monday :)

I am sharing a little 'vino love' on the blog today, although it looks like the bottle is empty now!!

I was inspired by Jennifer McGuires video on how to make a sliding Pop-up card.  I thought I could get the same look using the large die in Blueprints 28  and I'm all for stretching those supplies ;) 

When you pull up the slider you uncover the hidden message....

I started by covering a piece of card with patterned paper before using the die to cut the panel with opening flap. I then added two score lines as shown in the photo below and used a small circle die to make a thumb notch in the top....

Because this die has a thumb notch at the door opening, you have to trim that semi-circle away on the outer frame.

From now on I pretty much follow the instructions in the video by adding a strip of card stock across the base of the slider which not only strengthens the edge of the flap, but covers up the notch in the case of this die cut. I also added a piece of card that's slightly wider and longer than the opening to become the pull tab for the mechanism...

The rest is down to decoration and assembly.... I used MFT's Wine Service Dienamics and Uncorked stamp set to decorate the panel for the front and the sentiment under the flap which is basically the front of the card base you adhere the whole mechanism too. The wine ring is from an Altenew set called Coffee Ring...... Coffee, Wine.... same 'need' just different times of the day 😉

I'm really pleased with how this came out and chuffed I can use my dies

 for a fun interactive design too.

  

 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Getting Ahead for Christmas

So as you know, we have friends staying this weekend, so I had to make sure I had my projects made ahead of time this week as I won't be in the craft room this weekend - I'll be flying kites and playing football golf instead!

So whilst I had the Avery Elle Christmas release on my desk the other week I went ahead and made a couple more cards in my effort to not be making Christmas cards on Christmas eve this year!

Firstly I was itching to get the two part greenery and sentiment set Peaceful Pines inked up, you've probably picked by now that for me Christmas cards have to be quick to make and I generally don't have time to "colour" images so I do love a quick stamp and go set that has lots of impact and this set does it for me!

I stamped it with a dark green ink directly onto a white 6x4 card leaving a little space to add some patterned paper (from the new Merry and Bright pad from Simple Stories which is simply divine but I forced myself to actually cut it up!) above and below.  I then used a slightly lighter marker and did some quick flick strokes over the top to give the pines some extra depth and then went to town with some double embossing on the sentiment and berries.  I embossed them first in a standard red powder for colour and then stamped and embossed them again on top with red glitter powder.  I find you get more impact that way as the glitter powders don't have enough solid colour for my taste.  You could just stamp in red first then add the glitter embossing on top but I like the depth you get from double embossing.   A couple of tiny strips of red glitter then tie the whole card together.

For my second card I went for something even quicker!  One of the trees from Quirky Christmas as a focal point over an ink blended stripe.

I was inspired by the sentiment in the set and wanted that to be the focus so trimmed the tree with scissors the white border I got from die cutting didn't look right when I wrapped my "tinsel" around the tree.  The tinsel in this case is actually a glittery pipe cleaner which you can find quite inexpensively in most kids craft departments or on that big online store that used to only sell books ;-)  I used some gel glue to stick it to the card then stamped the sentiment up close to finish.

Hope that gives you some more ideas for quick and easy Christmas cards that have a big impact.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• This week we will have a very large delivery from Hero Arts with the entire Winter catalogue available.
• We will have the latest release from Sugar Pea Designs too.
•  Stamping Bella's winter release is coming shortly and our order is in so watch this space for that in a few weeks - fans of the new odd balls will not be disappointed with the new winter characters!

Enjoy the rest of your bank holiday weekend.

Tara

Personalized Birthday Card

Hey stampers, Anni here!

Today's card was inspired by the amazing Kelly Latevola. The technique called watercolour bleaching I learned from her.

I started by stamping the beautiful flowers from Altenew`s Adore You on a piece of water colour cardstock (with a little bit of masking) and heat embossed them in white. Then I added some ink blending to the flowers, to the leaves and to the whole background. For the bleaching you add water to the flowers and leaves and dabb it away. This way you take away some of the colour.
Then you add some shadows with alcohol markers.

I made this card for a special friend and wanted to personalize it. So I added the name. I die cut the letters that I needed from the background I created. For this I used Altenew`s Caps Bold Alphabet. Unfortunately they are out of stock at the moment (but will be back in stock mid-September) but the lower caps would work just as well for this technique and are in stock now: Altenew's Bold Alphabet Die.

I also die cut it from white cardstock and from vellum. I stacked up the white die cuts, on top I added the ones I die cut from the background and then the vellum ones. I didn't want to cover too much from the background but on the other hand I wanted to make the letters to stand out.

For a birthday sentiment I stamped one from Altenew's Birthday Builder on black cardstock and heat embossed it in white. Then I assembled the card.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni

         

City Welcome

We've got friends staying this weekend and I wanted to give the spare bedroom a B&B feel so have made a little welcome card which can hide wifi passwords and instructions on how to work the not-so-obvious shower...   I've done that by creating a little tri-fold card using the gorgeous City Stacks Stamps and co-ordinating Dies from Concord and 9th.

As I wanted a taller card than my die cutting machine would allow if I made the card as a whole piece, I made it in 3 sections.  I stamped the house and tree lines from the stamp set onto white leaving a 2 cm overhang on the left of the houses and the right of the trees.  I ran them through my die cut machine and then scored down the 2cm line to give me a folded edge.   I cut two panels of moonstone card stock to be the same width as my stamped panels and as tall as I need it so it could be seen above the tree line.

I coloured the houses and trees with pencils and then for speed colour blended the "grass" with ink blending.  Now its just a case of sticking it all together.   Put glue on the folded 2cm edges and adhere them behind a blue panel.  Then use the second blue panel to adhere to the back to hide the white folded edges.

To finish I used the scraps of blue I had left over to die cut the welcome word 3 times and stacked them up for some dimension.   All ready to welcome our friends and give them the information they need for a comfy weekend.

Catch you on Sunday!

Tara