Persian Happy Birthday

Hey stampers, Anni here!

I tend to use the same colour scheme on every card! I have my go to colours that I feel comfortable with and that I reach to often. But from time to time I want to try something new and then Pinterest is my friend. I search fro colour combos and for this card actually flower colour combos and you get thousands and thousands of beautiful results. That is how I came up with this colour scheme: a dark red, an orangy red and a pink, combined with grey leafes.

I started my card by stamping Altenew's Persian Motifs - the very first Altenew set that I bought! And I still love it. Again I wanted to do some no line colouring. So I stamped with a pale ink. Then I coloured the flowers using watercolours.

For the sentiment I used Concord and 9th's Birthday Die. The birthday part I die cut several times from grey cardstock and stacked the letters up to achieve some dimension. For the word happy I chose some dark red cardstock matching the flowers. I love the combination of printed letters and script in this die set.
I added a layer of vellum under the die cuts to make it stand out more.

All there was left to do was to glue down the panel to the cardbase.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend!
Anni

   

Found on Friday August Part 2

It's time to share more of the fabulous projects made by our customers and shared over in our VIP group over on Facebook.

Kicking us off this time we have this fun interactive card from Silvia Galloni using Lawn Fawn's Be Hap-pea stamps and their Pivot Pop-Up Die.  The two combine to make such a fun card and you get to lots of stamping fun by filling 3 sides of your card rather than just the normal outside front with this design.

Next up we have this really cool summer card from Linda van Wely using the Hey Summer stamps from Sugar Pea Designs - what a great card for all the dudes in your life!

Whilst we are on the summer theme, we have these fun interactive cards from Michele Seifert using Sunshine and Friendship from MFT.  How much fun would these be for kids who I find often show no interest in cards (well when the come with presents who can blame them) but having an element they can play with makes cards so much more interesting!

Next up we have another MFT based card - I love this little hedgie from Mirella Rogan - the sun ray back ground really makes him pop and the panel design is a great device for making a small image into a big feature!   The stamp is from MFT's Happy Hedgehogs and the rays are MFT's Radiating Rays stencil

Next up I wanted to share this fabulous card from Karen Breen - she made this for one of her instagram friends so using the insta-camera die in the background adds a really personal touch and Mama Elephant's Little Panda's are just the perfect accent.  The dies are Mama Elephant's Instalove.

I loved this tone-on-tone leafy stamping from Vanessa Reed Hodgson - the tonal shading around it make for such a classy design - you could do a set in different colours with different sentiments to make a fabulous gift set!   She used Altenew's Leaf Cluster stamp but we have several different leaf sets that could be used in a similar way - just pop "leaf" in the search box ;-)

This floral card also jumped out at me -  just look at all the gorgeous detail Vivien Hodge got into the petals and leaves - looks like a real pressed flower!  The soft striped background picking up the same colours makes for such a coherent design too.  The large flower is from Altenew's Beautiful Day and the other smaller elements from Remember This and the background is their watercolor stencil.

I'll finish this issue with this super cute gift tag from Claudia Emme - how adorable is that little monkey?   The tiny clouds really frame him well and make him stand out from the ink blended backgound too.  The monkey is from Mama Elephant's Little Agenda Monkey set and there are soooo many cute monkeys to choose from (and so many fun Little Agenda sets to mix and match them with!)

If you shop with us, then you too can join our VIP group - just head over to Facebook and provide an order number to gain access to this closed group.  It's a fun place where customers share makes and chat crafts (and get insider gossip on the store too!)   We'll be back with two more Found-on-Friday blog posts in September (and every month thereafter!)

Tara

Live life to the fullest.

Hello lovely people.

 I'm back with another card. This time I'm playing with Flora & Fauna Live Life Wildflowers stamp set.

My first step was to stamp almost all the images from the set on to my watercolour panel with waterproof black ink.
I chose to colour them all with watercolour markers and shimmer pen to add a little bit of interest to this almost one-layer card.

After the colouring was done, I've used Altenew Halftone Circles Nesting Dies to cut out the centre of my card panel. I decided to stamp the sentiment on to my card base.
 Before adhering notecard in place, I went and gold heat embossed along the edges and added shadows behind the flowers.

I decided to use foam tape to adhere my card panel to the card base. I also did make sure that my already stamped greeting was in perfect place inside the circle.
My last step was to add a few Nuvo drops.

Thank you for stopping by.
 Please leave a comment to let us know if you like my card.

See you soon!
Anna

Out of this World Spaceship Scene

Hello all, Tallie here. For today's card I needed something more masculine, spaced themed with a birthday greeting. I've never done a galaxy background with my alcohol markers before so I thought it was time to give it a try!

I started out by stamping the spaceman and a bunch of the planets from the Lawn Fawn Out of this World set in some alcohol marker friendly MFT Extreme Black Ink onto some blending cardstock. I coloured these in with my alcohol markers and cut them out with the coordinating dies.

The foreground spaceship wall scene was easy - just scribble some cool grey markers over and over until a smooth blend is achieved. The galaxy background was a little more work - starting with some deep, dark blues and violets, followed by a light pink and blue-green. A little white, gold and silver gel pen finished off that starry look.

I cut the silver panel with an MFT Inside & Out Stitched Circle die, using two more of the circle dies to create a frame from some bluejay cardstock. I adhered some acetate to the back of the grey panel and popped it up over the galaxy background with some foam tape to make it seem like a porthole looking out into space.

I stamped the sentiment from the Lawn Fawn Out of this World set onto some cream cardstock and adhered it towards the bottom of the main panel.

Thanks for reading, catch you next week.

Tallie

 

Old Friend

Hello, it's Liz here today. I love Waffle Flower stamps, there's something about the quirky style that always makes me smile. This one is 'Plant Kindness', you get the main image and eight mix and match sentiments. The image is fairly big, great for some colouring practice and it fills the space on a larger size card base!

I stamped onto watercolour card using my Versafine ink pad. Then I used my watercolour paints to colour. Once the first layer of paint is dry I like to add a second layer highlighting parts of the image that would be in shadow, like along the top of the cup.

The background white card was diecut using the 'Circle Texture Die' also by Waffle Flower. I use this die alot. It adds subtle texture and pattern when your main image is quite busy. 

Thanks for stopping by today, happy crafting! 

Leafy Spotlight

Hello, hello

I have a summery card for you today using Flora and Fauna stamps...

 it seems a rare match to this unusual hot weather we're having on this 

Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK!

I had these three white rectangles left from another project so I 

had the idea to make a triple spotlight design and this is how I went about it...

First I cut a piece of copy paper to the same size as my card front and added the 

rectangles with re-positionable tape. All I had to do then was stamp the 

same design, using my stamp positioning tool, on both this piece and my 

card front using the pale ink and the green ink...

Final step is to remove the rectangles and adhere them on the card front 

finding there place by matching up the pattern.

I stamped, coloured and trimmed out the extra images to add to the branches.

I love the three focal points surrounded by the subtle background and 

I also love how Flora and Fauna sets just mix and match with each other.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

   

Too much to choose from

It's always hard at this time of year to work out what to play with - there is sooooo much new stock arriving and I have a HUGE pile of yet to be inked stash on my desk already, but I am guilty of going new first every time!    So today I have a couple of cards using the new card kit stamps and dies from MFT and the new tiny box peacock/turkey dies from Lawn Fawn as I couldn't decide what I wanted to play with first!

The new card kit stamps, starburst die, banner dies and stencil from MFT are so perfect to play together so here I used everything to make a bright and happy celebration card.   I used the stencil first and blended a circle with a darker yellow centre to match the banner I die cut and stamped with the sentiment from the stamp set.   I used the die over the circle and then using the same darker yellow ink I inked up HALF of the circle burst patter and stamped it twice - either side of the die cut lines and then flipped it 180 and did the same on the bottom of the burst so I filled the patter with more rays.   I then used some dots of Lawn Fawns new liquid stardust - the idea of this product is to mix it with paint to make it sparkly, but you can use it like glitter glue (although it does take over 24 hours to fully dry if used neat)

For my second card I just couldn't wait to make a peacock - not surprising that something in green and teal would be my first choice right!   Although this die set is an add-one to the tiny box die so has been designed to make little peacock or turkey gift boxes, you can use them for cards too and they come out super cute!

I die cut him from 3 shades of hero arts card stock - pesto for the base of his feathers, Adriatic for his body and wings, and mustard for the rings around the eyes in his feathers - the eyes themselves and the feathers on his head I cut from glitter card from the Concord and 9th Summer Glitter pack.   The sentiment comes from the Lawn Fawn Peacock Before 'n After stamp.  I framed it all with the A2 Frame dies from MFT.   He'd be super cute on a wobbler so he actually shook his tail feathers (why do we always have a great after thought once we glue sometime down lol!)

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will be closed tomorrow for the bank holiday in the UK - the store is open for ordering, but nothing will be processed until Tuesday.

We will add the Hero Arts Winter catalogue this week as well as some papers, and co-ordinating folders, stencils, washi tapes from Echo Park/Carta Bella.   Otherwise it will be a quieter week for new stock and will allow us to work on some restock orders.

Catch you later

Tara

Big Bithday Wishes

Hey stampers, Anni here!

I have the feeling that this summer the companies came up with extra cute summer sets and I want to use all of them that I bought before summer is over! Although I think nothing is wrong with a summer card in winter when we need it the most, isn't it?
And I can't think about Christmas cards yet although I love to make them and all these super cute new Christmas sets are keep popping up. But it's still very warm in Germany and as long as the weather is good I keep making summer cards.
So today I have this card for you featuring Mama Elephant's Summer Splash.

I started by stamping all the images I wanted to use and coloured them with coloured pencils. To cut them out you can get coordinating dies.

To create the background I teared a piece of masking paper to get a rough edge. I used both parts of the torn piece, one to mask off the sky, the other for the beach. I added ink blending in beige/yellow for the beach and a mix of pinks and lilacs for the sky. At first I went with shades of turquoise for the sky but the elephant got lost on it wearing a turquoise swimsuit. So I decided to start a new background in different colours.

I die cut the background using the big frame from Mama Elephant's Framed Tags Madison Avenue. I thought I would use the frame as well but decided that it took too much attention from the scene. So I used only the inner part.

Again to tone down the background I added a layer of vellum. I die cut a circle using My Favorite Things' Jumbo Peek-a-Boo Circle Window as it had just the right size.

For the sentiment I chose one of Mama Elephant's Birthday Messages. I stamped it with Versamark on a stripe of matching cardstock and heat embossed it in white. And that finished up my card.

Are you still in summer card mode or are you preparing for Christmas or Halloween cards? Let me know.

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty weekend.
Anni