Mother's Day Cards

Hey stampers, Anni here.
Overhere in Germany Mother's Day is just a few days away. So I decided to make not only one (for my mother) but two (for the mother of a friend) Mother's Day cards.

Flowers are always a good choice for my mum so I went with the absolutly beautiful set Adore You by Altenew.

I stamped all the flowers and leaves in the set twice with Versamark on watercolour paper and embossed them in white. For the colouring I used my ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens because I love flowers in watercolours. And the ZIGs are so bright and cheerful.

For one card I chose yellow, orange and red shades and combined them, for the second card I went with pinks and violetts and added a little bit of yellow, too.
What I really like about the ZIGs is how easily you can blend colours  - even if they are not so close. I add a darker colour for example a red) where I want to be my shadows. And then I use a lighter colour (for example a yellow) for the lighter areas and blend both colours with my water brush. The highlights I leave without colour till the blending. It is a really easy and you don't have to be an artist to achieve beautiful results.

After colouring all the flowers and leaves I fussy cut them. I didn't want a white border around my images but if you don't like fussy cutting there are coordinating dies available, too.

I wanted a German sentiment on my card that says For Mother's Day. As I don't have such a sentiment I decided to go with alphabet stamps. Lawn Fawn's Milo's ABC's is very elegant and easy to stamp. I spelled out the sentiment and embossed it in white on brown cardstock for both cards.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend.
Anni

        

Are you ready for this jelly?

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I don't think you're ready for this jelly ;) ...

...as I bring you a whole load of nice and bright jellyfish using Lawn Fawn's So Jelly set.

I love Lawn Fawn's little mini sets, it never ceases to amaze me how you can make such big scenes with these tiny little sets that, let's face it, cost so little.  Just amazing.

I started by making up a load of masks for the jellyfish and one for the starfish so they were ready to go.  I then went to town on my stamping.  I started with the starfish in the middle, then stamped a ton of jellyfish all around and behind him, heat embossing each one as I went which, yes, was a little fiddly and time consuming, but:  

a)It stops the risk of getting ink all over, and 

b)I knew I wanted to watercolour my images and I find it much easier when the lines are embossed.

Once all my stamping was complete and embossed, I went to town with the colouring using Distress Ink as waterolour.  Once my shoal of cuteness was coloured, I took a few different blues and coloured my back ground,  I really wanted my main images to 'pop' so summoned my inner Kelly Latevola and outlined my images with a grey marker to intensify the shading.

I finished my background by adding a few flicks and splashes for added interest.  I then stamped out, coloured and fussy-cut another starfish image, and added over the top of my scene using foam tape to help it jump from the shoal and the rest of the card.

My sentiment is from the same adorable So Jelly set and is stamped onto vellum and heat embossed in white.  I wrapped my vellum panel around the card so it could be adhered at the back.

I then mounted my piece onto a grey card blank, embellished with a scattering of sequins, and there you have it.

I really hope you like it.

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

Making a House a...... Church!!

Hello again, Jenny here :).... popping back for a Thursday blog post.

I've been playing around with the MFT Home Sweet Home dies because the tall narrow house put me in mind of a church tower. After some trimming and jigging around of shapes from the set, I came up with this cute little church design which I've made into a wedding card....

To make the rest of the church building I used one of the other houses and reduced it in height so the window spaces where not included in the die cut.... I kept the little white rectangles though to use as windows on this piece....

I cut both the rooves in brown textured card along with the tall house so I could use the rounded top window as a door...... there are doors in the die set but because I had changed the scale of the building they were too big to use. I did the same trick with the tree top and trunk, it was easier to turn the tree canopy and slice off some of the shape before tucking it behind the church.

I've used a narrow strip of card to ground the building and added a small hedge to balance the design... this is the topiary bush which I've cut in half. I kept the colours and layout simple, just adding a double thickness scalloped frame and a sentiment from a Paper Smooches set :)

          

This die set is such a good collection of shapes to have fun with.... almost like building blocks!!
I'm sure they're are lots more designs you could make with these dies.

Thanks for stopping by today :)
Jenny x

Sea life card - have a "fintastic" birthday!

Hi everyone, it's Esther here with a sea life card using Paper Smooches Briny Blue stamps. This is such a fun set with its cartoon feel and goggle-eyed fish!

I wanted to make a really dimensional card, so the elements in the card not directly on the base are raised on 1, 2 or 3 foam pads to create depth.

The ocean was created with water based dye ink, splattered with water and mopped up, and then splattered again with dark blue at the bottom and white at the top.

The layered frames are Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Frames, three deep with foam pads between. The sea creatures are coloured with alcohol markers. The sentiment is stamped onto one of the flag shapes from My Favorite Things Blueprints 29. 

That's all from me for today. Thanks for looking!

      

Waving Hello

Today I have an under the sea present shaker card to share.

I began by die cutting four squares from a piece of white card. On the reverse side, I added a piece of acetate behind the windows. Then I layered foam tape to create upper and lower shaker sections to the present. 

I put more foam tape all over the back of the card, then added some Neat & Tangled Mermaid Tail sequins in the shaker areas. To seal the shaker, I used a piece of blue watercolour paper.

I added the shaker to a white card base. To create the look of a present, I used some twine between the shaker windows and a twine bow at the top.

Finally, I coloured and cut out some images from the Lawn Fawn Mermaid For You stamp set. I added these to the card, along with a sentiment from the same set.

Thanks for joining me today.

Gemma

N&T Mermaid Tail Sequin Mix

Lawn Fawn Mermaid For You

MFT Watercolour Wash Paper Pack

Lawn Fawn Stitched Squares

Lawn Fawn Blue Jay Twine

May Colour Challenge Week 1

We've got a colour challenge for you again this month - and the colours all come from florals with pastel shades.  You don't need to use florals on your project - just at least 3 colours from one of the 3 schemes below. 

As with all our challenges, you must use at least one product from those we sell in store (if it is not the main focus of your card, please make sure you identify it!) and the winner will get a £20 voucher to spend in store!   You can combine with other challenges (5 max) and enter as many times as you like.   Just link up on our challenge page by 10pm on Friday 26th May.

Here's a couple of our DT entries to kick start your ideas.

Jenny
I chose the middle colour scheme and used MFT's Kitschy Kitchen for the main image along with elements from these sets from other companies... Flower Circles, Background Blocks, Stay Tuned and Spare Me

Tara

Using Stamping Bella's Susie the Succulent and MFT's Kraft Collection Paper Pad with the first colour scheme

The rest of our DT will be back over the next couple of weeks with their entries and reminders.

Cute Laundry

Hello there and Happy Bank Holiday Monday... I won't mention the weather!!

Jenny here and I'm keeping with the baby theme from last week ... yep you guessed, baby has arrived and both her and mum are doing well :)  Yay... time to make a New Baby card and I knew just which stamps to reach for ....

I just love all the sentiments in MFT's New Baby set but this has to be the best. I wanted to keep it a really simple design so I used Lawn Fawns Little Bundle stamp set to arrange the super cute laundry on the line!!

I used grey ink rather than black so the overall look was softer and chose a toning shade of mauve to add colour to the clothes. The babygrow is coloured by sponging ink through a negative mask, made with a post it note, I then stamped the spotty Background Block whilst the mask was still in place. 

The onsie has been patterned using a small flower stamp from the same set.... adorable :)

                                 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x