Squad Goals!

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm celebrating some of the best things in life...girlfriends!

Using the adorable, and oh-so handy, Mama Elephant's 'Girlfrineds' set.

I am incredibly lucky to have the best friends in the world so this set was a must-have for me when it was released.  I especially love any set that you can personalise to fit in with your life and this is so perfect for that, you just need to colour the girlfriends' hair and outfits accordingly to match your own mates, and et voila, personalised pals ready to go!

I started by stamping out my girlfriends and colouring them in alcohol markers, like I say, to fit in with my 'squad' and fussy-cut.  I die-cut a heart from my card panel to use as a frame, and gently ink blended behind to give my girlfriends a backdrop.  I die-cut Paper Smooches Awesome from plain white card to use as my main element in a statement sentiment.

I completed my sentiment by stamping onto vellum and clear heat embossing, and built up my scene adhering everything in place using foam tape.  I embellished with a scattering of matching sequins and there you have it.

I especially enjoyed this project as it feels so personal, and I just know my gal pals are going to love it!

I really hope you like it.  As always, everything I have used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

  

Felty Fun!

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm playing with the newest addition to the store, by getting my fun on with some felt!

Tara has brought to us some gorgeous quality felt, in some beautiful shades, and it is just so much fun to play with!

One of my favourite techniques of all time is in-laid die-cutting, and I couldn't wait to see how it would look using felt, so thought I'd give it a blast.

I started by selecting the colours I wanted to work with, there's so many gorgeous shades to choose from, and at such an awesome price.  I wanted to test how well the felt cut intricate dies, with wee little fiddly bits, so opted for the Dainty Flowers die from Paper Smooches.  I cut the outline from grey, and opted for a bright teal and pink for my pretty flower petals, bright yellow for my flower centre, and a lush green for my leaves.  I didn't want to waste the tiniest scrap of my felt, so only cut tiny pieces over the small parts I needed.  I'm not gonna lie, it was a little fiddly, and took a little more patience than when using card and the pieces just pop out, but the texture and just the joy of using a different material made it well worth the little bit of extra time it took.

I used Stick-it on my most of my pieces as I thought it would help stabilise the material, but cut it without also and found the results pretty equal.  When cutting the felt, I made sure to run it back and forth through my machine a few times to flatten the fibres, and I definitely think that helps.

Once I had 'in-laid' all my gorgeous flowers back into my card panel, I cut Paper Smooches Awesome word die right across the front of my scene, exactly like I would with card, and cut the same die from black felt.  And here's where my daft head took over - I had added Stick-it to my piece of black felt, but accidentally cut the die from the wrong side, so the stick-it was on the front.  'Well I'm not wasting it', I thought, so in-laid it back in to my panel using a piece of clear tape across the back, and give it a gentle sprinkling of glitter to take advantage of the sticky front!

I used Mama Elephant's Index Card Creative Cuts to cut a grey mat, and used a piece of patterned paper from Lawn Fawn's Perfectly Plaid 6x6 pad as a back drop.  I added a couple of heart enamel dots to embellish, and there you have it!

It's a massive thumbs up from me for the felt, I absolutely love it!  So much fun to use, and so lovely to be able to add such fabulous texture to your card!

As always, everything I used is linked below so I hope you have time to pop along and take a look for yourself.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next week.

Jillx