Bold Sentiments

Now if you know me, you know I love 3 things come Christmas card making - something fast to make, anything with a Christmas tree and big bold sentiments - so the new sentiment stamp in the shape of a Christmas tree that fills a whole card on its own from MFT had my name all over it!   I've got a couple of cards to share with it today.

For my first I have gone super simple - so if you wanted to knock out a load of these you can do them super quick!   I started with a piece of paper from the Simple Stories Country Christmas pad - a beautiful soft blue with hints of red which drove my inking choices.   I simply stamped it using Candied Apple Distress Oxide Ink and used stickles on the star and around it to add some shimmer!

For the second version I did a shadow stamping technique.  I stamped and embossed it first in copper embossing powder and then stamped on top and just to the left using pine distress oxide just over the words leaving the star just in copper.  I then buffed the green ink off the sentiment and gently smudged it around the shape to give a soft green hue in the shape of a tree.   I used stickles again to make the star shine.

Whilst I was playing with sentiments, I also wanted to play with the Merry Christmas Blend Stamps and Dies. 

For this one, I just made the sentiment the star.   If you had the birthday version and found it hard to line up the stamps and dies, then I have a few tips to share.   If you are going to die cut, I find it easier to die cut the shapes first, use a bit of repositionable glue to hold them to some scrap paper and then stamp on top.  That makes it easier to see where to put the letters - I found the other way around I kept cutting into the letters as I had them too far over or too far apart.   I popped it up on a few extra die cut layers and created a background using the Ho Ho Ho Background stamp.

Whilst I had the stamps out I thought I'd play around with some more ideas in contemporary colour schemes.  They are so big and bold they can easily be the focal point of a card on their own.

Here I stamped it in Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers on a piece of white card and then used the Lawn Fawn Door Die to cut a door from the middle of the sentiment.   This gives you the option to have a fun character peeking out from inside.

I used the cute little reindeer from MFT's Festive Friends stamp set and used the same colours but in pencils to tie the inside to the outside.

I did make one final card, as I wanted to use just the "Merry" so I could make a portrait card (Christmas is too wide to fit on a standard card in that orientation but would fit on a 5x7), however, the Elf is now out of stock - sorry - but it will be back as soon as we can get it and I wanted to show that you can ink up the stamps without the frames to get a "non-selfie" look from them.

That's all the inspiration I have to share today.   Hope it gives you a few ideas to have a go at.

 NEWS FROM THE STORE

We're working on adding the deliveries we've had this week so should have the following online later today or tomorrow:

• Hero Arts September Kit Add-Ons
• Altenew's latest stamp, die, stencil and washi tape releases

We also expect the following to be delivered this week:

• Concord and 9th latest release
• Mama Elephant will be in store on the 15th along with some restocks from last month, but some were out of stock so are expected to follow in a couple of weeks.
• Newton's Nook have a new release on Friday and fingers crossed that should be here by then too.

Catch you later

Tara

Unexpected Trees

I'm back on Christmas cards again today and I have a couple of "unexpected" trees to share which give you ways to get more from your dies.

Firstly I really wanted to play with the Hero Arts Very Merry Tree Fancy Die and to show you an alternative way to use it.  The die is designed to be used as a panel front design leaving the "tree" as negative space.  Here I've done a quick example of how to use it traditionally and quickly - you could make batch cards with this and get all your cards done in minutes!

However, you can do more with it - instead of cutting it from green card as I have done here, you could cut it again from patterned paper and glue the words on top so the words become like tinsel on your tree. 

If you didn't want to faff wit the extra layer of die cutting - cut the tree from white, place it on a coloured background and use markers to colour the words to get the same effect ;-)

What I wanted to do though was to not be forced to use it as a panel but to have the tree shape as a focal point on my card.

So here  I die cut it from green glitter cardstock from the Concord and 9th pack and then I just cut around the tree shape with scissors to "remove" it from the panel concept.  I wanted more green but as I'm a tight Yorkshire woman, I didn't want to waste all that glitter under the white so I cut thin strips and cut the ends diagonally to form a frame around the white giving a matt look with a 10th of the paper ;-)

For my final card, I was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's recent video where she made a pop up cat tree using the new Mama Elephant stamp and die inside her card using the inside arch die to make the tree pop up on opening.  I thought I could do that with another of my favourite trees from last years Christmas release from Lil' Inker Designs the Christmas Word Tree.

As this die has lots of "space" around the words, I wanted the pop up to be near invisible so I die cut the small arch from acetate and glued the tree to it.  It's nigh on impossible to see in the photo but the arch goes from the R to the M in Christmas.

I just glued it down with Lawn Fawn glue which is super strong but dries clear and used the same on the tabs.  I folded it in half, slotted it into the card, closed it and opened it and it then finds the right place to sit for the pop up to work.

For the front I decided against another tree and went instead with the fun new Ho Ho Ho die from MFT cut from white cardstock covered with Red Ombre Washi Tape from AlteNew.

The "extra" bits the die cuts are designed to make layers so you can do two-coloured words, but they work well as exclamation points too!  I used the inner bit from the biggest Ho to add a sparkle detail to the first one and finished with a couple of crystals.

I hope these give you some inspiration for unexpected trees!