Sentimentally Speaking

I've got a couple of cards to share today, based around the theme of sentiments in speech bubbles using the two new speech bubble background dies from the latest Lawn Fawn release - I had to have both as I really love them.

First off I went with the Stitched Speech Bubble Die which doesn't die cut the shapes, but impresses dotted details to form the speech bubbles all the way across an A2 background.

I die cut it from Dove White card and then stamped the doggy sentiments from the Critter Chats pets using Versafine Onyx Black ink.   Although Lawn Fawn have made pets stamps to go with the sentiments I wanted a bigger and bolder image and the new Walking Woofs from Newton's Nook fits the bill to perfection.  I stamped it on more dove white so that the whites matched perfectly and coloured it with copics.  Now the Hero Arts cardstock is not a blending card like neenah, but actually I found it worked with with copics (this was the first time I'd tried it).   I cut it with the matching die and also die cut another layer of card with the die so I could get some dimension and to make sure the image stood out from the background used a couple of shades of grey markers to add a shadow line around it.   Finished with the translation sentiment from the Critter Chat set stamped onto tonal cardstock to tie it all together.

For my second card I wanted to show that you can get a different look from the other version of the die - the speech bubble backdrop - which actually cuts all the speech bubbles out so you can do lots of different things with it.   I wanted to show that although all Lawn Fawn's examples were with the critter chat, you can use lots of other sentiments with them too.

I've gone for a birthday theme and have used sentiments from Hero Arts Mini Messages and Mama Elephant's Mini Everyday Messages again stamped with Onyx Black.

I die cut it again from Dove White and stuck the frame straight onto a side fold base card so I could pop my speech bubbles in as I worked my way down the card and make sure my rainbow inking was level (ish).  I used oxide inks and a blending tool and just made my way down inking each speech bubble individually in colours of the rainbow for a bright and happy background.  You could leave the bubbles in the frame to do your inking and then just cut a new set to get a clean white frame if you don't want the fuss of doing each one individually, but I'm a Yorkshire lass through and through so didn't want to waste the cardstock!

For my focal image I was inspired by the peekaboo sentiment so opted for the Cactus Baby peeking out of a pot from a recent Stamping Bella release.  I cut it with the matching die and used that to also cut some foam so I could get some real depth to it.

I think these background dies will become perennial favourites as they are such a fun and useful way to get a card full of sentiments.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

It will thankfully be a quieter week for releases although we are hoping the new Hero Arts will be arriving in the UK very soon.

We'll be catching up on adding items that have been waiting a while so some paper and embellishments from Simple Stories and some  stickles from Ranger.

Tara