Festive Friday!

Hey!

It's Bev here (again). I'm stepping if for Tara this week as she gets some important accounting done and she promises to be back in a couple of weeks with a bumper issue of Found on Friday.

Did you see the NEW MFT Release this week? If you didn't you must have been hiding under a rock or you are avoiding Christmas OR you are so scared your bank balance will be wiped out in an instant that you daren't look!

Well, I looked and caved for more than I intended! Isn't that always the case?! My goodies arrived on Thursday (my selfie day) and I couldn't wait to ink up the new Christmas sELFies clear stamp set...

Now, I'm not big lover of cute, I've never been one of those types of girls. But this set is just my style of fun and cute. Plus I have a thing for polaroid photos!

This first card was pretty quick to make. I used colour pencils to colour the image and when I am excited about a new stamp, I opt for quick flat colouring with minimal fuss and shading. Which is exactly what I have done with this image.

Next, I had a fun layering design in my head in which I was able to use all of the sELFie images from the set.

This was so fun to make and the masking was super quick too, with the images being square. Again some quick simple, flat colouring and one of the sentiments from the set & I was done.

That's all I had time to make yesterday using this set, but I am sure I will be reaching for it again soon!

Now if you've had your eye on this set, you might want to snag one quickly HERE before the stock Tara ordered in of this one has gone, it's going FAST!

Thanks for stopping by & have a wonderful day!

Bev

Thank You For Being So Kind

Hello, it's Liz here today. When a stamp has a larger area to colour I like to paper piece, for two reasons. Firstly, I don't need to worry about getting all the colouring and shading right on a large area and secondly I think it looks really cool to match the stamped image perfectly with the background!

I stamped the little girl from the 'Bring Out The Sunshine' set by My Favorite Things onto white cardstock and then onto the two patterned papers from the 'Vintage Botanicals'  pad by Simple Stories. The matching die set for this stamp set is available here.

Then I carefully cut around the dress, shorts and hat. Before I adhere the pieces to the main image I coloured the rest of it using marker pens. I also coloured a quick outline where the dress will go just in case my cutting is a little bit off! The large sentiment from the 'So Kind' set by Avery Elle is the perfect size for the white space left on the card.

Thanks for stopping by today, happy crafting!
 

Polar Pals

Hey stampers, Anni here!

I swapped days with sweet Gemma, that's why you see me posting here on a Tuesday!
Today I have a set of four cards for you! Sometimes when I have an idea in mind that is easy to realize then I make more than one card.

For this set I started to create backgrounds using my alcohol inks. When they were dry I die cut stitched squares using My Favorite Things' Inside And Out Stitched Square STAX.

I stamped all the animals except the narwhal (he was a little bit to smal for my square) from the set Polar Pals by My Favorite Things, coloured them with alcohol marker and fussy cut them (of course there are coordinating dies available). I added some shading with coloured pencils.
For all crittes I stamped an ice floe, too, so they have something to sit on.

For the sentiments I chose Lawn Fawn's Tiny Tag Sayings. I really love the size and the fonts in this set - so cute!
I die cut speech bubbles from Lawn Fawn's A Birdie Told Me and a part of one of Mama Elephant's Slim Tags Trio.
For the finishing touches I added some Nuvo drops in different colours.

Do you make set of cards? Or do you always just make one card?

Thanks for stopping by and have a crafty week.
Anni

            

Buildable 3D Bouquets

Hey! How are you?

I've had this set for a little while and never really felt I've done it justice. It's called Build-able Bouquet but I've never made a bouquet with it- just some random flower stem arrangements. I was trying to decide what to create and thought I'd try and fashion a see through 'vase' kinda thing using the set plus some nested dies.

The see-through element gives the impression of a vase. I guess if I'd had more time I could have added some blue coloured vellum to show the 'water'.

You might be wondering how it's constructed.

First up, make a folded card blank and then die-cut one of these Inside & Out Stitched Rounded Rectangle dies onto it, allowing the fold of the card blank to stick up slightly above the shape, so you still have a folded card

 Next I die cut a smaller stitched rectangle into the centre of the folded blank and then backed it with acetate. Next up create a slit into the centre fold

This is how you're going to slot the flower stems into the card which then gives the stability without having to put an acetate structure behind the back of the blank.

Simply slot the taller stems in, and pretend you're actually flower arranging! Ha!

Once I was happy with the largest 6 stems, I added some PVA type glue onto the front of the stems (only a tiny amount) and then pressed the acetate front onto them. Granted, you'll get a tiny bit of glue spreading, but if you've been sparing with the glue, you should be fine, and you can hide any splodges with the extra flowers.

I did use the matching dies for the stamp set, which when using so many flowers and stems saved me a heap of time with fussy cutting!

I coloured most of the blooms using the Zig Clean color markers. The secret with blending these pens is to add water to your cardstock first and then its easy to pull out colour from the 'scribble' you make with them if you're using a water brush.

You can see the 'vase' effect and the places I've 'hidden' the glue! Always leave room to cover your mistakes ;-)

It's slim enough to fit into a DL envelope, which is something I get asked about a lot with these non-standard projects!

See you next week xx

Maypoles in May!

Hey! How are you?

Enjoying May?

As I had a brief  thought about about what to create, I got my Forest Friends set out and looked at it blankly. I then remembered it was May.

May led me to thinking about what happens in May...and hey presto... Maypoles!

For any of you unfamiliar with the English tradition (well, to be fair, it's often classed as English but there are different European forms of this tradition), it was to do with celebrating and a May Pageant and this type of maypole that I've depicted was popularised in the 1880s.

I have slightly uncomfortable memories of learning how to do maypole dancing for a primary school celebration and it consisted of many hours, often holding hands with boys with very sweaty hands. I guess we might have looked a little like this

 Anyhow- you've come to see a card and not have a history lesson.. so here's my ode to the Maypole

 I've used this My Favorite Things set Forest Friends, which is a set with a whole lot of cuteness going on.

I mean, any set that can transform itself into a Star Wars battle and then a historically unprecise sceen has to be worth a punt!

I stamped then coloured them in with alcohol markers. Some of mine are running out and I've got my eye on the new Kuratake Kurecolor markers

Wrapping the thin slithers of cardstock was easier than I imagined oddl therapeutic. Ideally, I should have given them knotted handkerchiefs on their heads and made them into Morris Dancers too- but perhaps the whole Morris thing is for another week ;-)

See you soon... 

Keren xx