Sweet & Swift Good Luck Card

Sometimes I need to rustle up a quick card to send off to a friend - I must admit that I'm one of those people that remembers birthdays and special occasions at the last minute. Other times I'll send a little something for those occasions that can't be planned, like when I hear that someone has an interview for a new job. 

 This cute little card I made over the weekend needed to be sweet, but swift, so I delved into my stamps and settled on the two that I use the most - Lawn Fawn's Blissful Botanicals and Sophie's Sentiments.

I love using a background stamp in an ink that's only subtly different from my cardstock - it reminds me a little of embossing. Then just a little bit of black ink and a co-ordinating flower to finish off. It might not be a work of art, but is does remind someone that you're thinking of them. And sometimes, that's all you need!

You're a Natural

I've been playing with my Dylusions inks again and have a tag to share with you today using stamps from Unity's store kit "Naturally You" available in the shop here.

I stamped both the tree and tortoise on to dyed card before cutting them out and fixing to the tag which had been randomly stamped with the leafy stamp. The sentiment was stamped striaght on to the tag.

Materials used:

scrap cardstock

Dylusions inks, blsck Archival ink, Ranger pumice stone distress ink

Unity stamps (as above)

metal clip, Vintaj patina ink

ribbon, black pen, staples

Thanks for visiting

Jo xx

Graphically Inspired

Good Morning on this rather damp Saturday, what better weather is there to stay at home and craft  :0)

Today I thought I'd show you how patterns and designs on the high street can inspire you in the craft room... I'm sure you've come across the eye-catching fabrics and household items bearing the gorgeous patterns of  Orla Kiely.... well she was the inspiration for my card

I've used the Spunky Nature stamp set from My Cute Stamp because the designs are all bold and whimsical in style, great for this sort of pattern :0)
I have stamped out the leaves on the cream panel and then stamped the flowers out twice in burgundy and spice so I could cut them out and assemble them to look like they have been selectively inked.
The sentiment is from 'Simply Said' by Paper Smooches, I thought the fun whimsy font suited the card perfectly.

I hope this inspires you to try some designer based stamping, what better reason for a bit of window shopping..... although I'd wait for the sunny weather first though :0)

Hope you have a great weekend
Jenny x

Simply said, Congratulations

Hello.

Today's card uses two of the latest sets from Paper smooches.

Pretty momma

Simply said.

I stamped the flower image in black onto the card base.

Then stamped  an extra one on scrap card before colouring with my Pro markers.

Very simple but effective card :0)

Thanks for looking.

Hi there, it's Ruby here again.

Today I have a fun little project creating a ‘Smash Book’.  I had no idea what one of these was and had to google it but basically it’s where you have a little book that you use for jotting down ideas, for inspiration, memories and such like.  I think a lot of us are guilty of making cards and projects for others when actually we buy stamps and crafting supplies because we like them, only to give the projects away.  Enter the smash book, you get to play with your crafty supplies and keep what you make!!!

Stamps used: Lawn Fawn ‘Grand Greetings’ (eek I cut the stamp in half!)

Stamps Used: Lawn Fawn ‘Love ‘n’ Breakfast’ & Lawn Fawn Sally’s ABC’s (left page)

The ‘start every morning’ sentiment was done by adhering the stamp to the block in a wavy line before stamping, the arrow was drawn by hand and the 'A-N-D’.. ‘A’ stamped with the alphabet set, Sally’s ABC’s.

Paper Smooches ‘Eco Friendly’, ‘Sunny Side Up’ & Lawn Fawn ‘Partly Cloudy’ (right page)

The plain cream tag was sprayed with glimmer mist in red and turquoise before adding the paper pieced sun and cloud  and the little envelope was created using an old wooden template from a craft show I got about 15 years ago!  Inside the little envelope is hand written tag with a personal message on for me.

Stamps Used: Lawn Fawn ‘Lunar Lights’

The page on the left is just the reverse of the cream tag covered in papers.  On the right I cut a mini page, rounded the corners and stamped out the sentiment before cutting and edging with an orange Copic pen. The lantern has Stickles added for a bit of sparkle.

Stamps Used: Lawn Fawn ‘Fly Free’, Lawn Fawn Blissful Botanicals’ & Lawn Fawn ‘Judy’s Blooms’

I stamped the little bird onto the tag and then stamped it again on patterned paper, this was so that I wouldn’t lose the little eyelash of the bird.  I stamped and cut out the word ‘smile’.  The right hand page is just a die cut label with a leaf cut out from Blissful Botanicals and a flower cut out from Judy’s Blooms.  The little pocket was very simply made by cutting a wider sheet of paper, folding it back and attaching it with double sided tap on three sides, leaving the top open.  I then cut a circle using a hole punch to create a pocket for my tag.

Stamps Used: Lawn Fawn ‘Lunar Lights’, Lawn Fawn ‘Fly Free’, Lawn Fawn ‘Grand Greetings’ & Lawn Fawn ‘Teeny Tiny Backgrounds’

The last double page that I did used the little lanterns from ‘Lunar Lights’.  Two were stamped on orange paper and Stickles added, the other two were stamped on patterned paper and Glossy Accents was added for some gloss.

The final page uses a couple of stamped words and the little label was just cut out, corners rounded and then I stamped the star background by stamping off once onto scrap paper before stamping onto my tag (I think there’s a technical term for this but I don’t know what it is!)  To get the word ‘Thanks’ I just inked the word only to avoid getting ink on the other words.  I covered a wooden peg with patterned paper and plan to make a few more of these up so that I can just keep adding bits as and when I feel like it.  There are still quite a few pages to 'decorate' but it's been fun doing something just for little ole me!

I hope you will try something different with your stamps today and think about making something just for you instead of making it and giving it away!

Day Trippers, Yeah!

Say Cheese Too! is one of my all time favourite stamp sets from Lawn Fawn because it's absolutely fantastic for scrapbooking. It includes months and numbers - making it perfect for including dates - and it has the most adorable camera stamp I have ever seen!



As soon as I started this layout, I pulled out my stamp set and added one of the sentiment stamps from the set 'A Great Snapshot Warms The Heart'. Couldn't be better for a layout about one of our first dates, right? I also added the little camera to one of my embellishment clusters. I told you it was adorable!

To tie in with the sentiment and the theme of the layout, I also used the teeny, tiny heart stamp from Cruising Through Life. Stamped, coloured and cut-out, it adds a few pops of colour and movement.



Stamps can be something we scrapbookers forget about, so if you're working on some layouts this week, have a little rummage through your Make The Day Special stamps. You might just find the perfect addition!

Tattered Chicken Wire tags

Today I have a couple of tags to share using the fab Tattered Chicken Wire stamp by Christy Tomlinson for Unity Stamps and available in the shop here.

I coloured the tags using Dylusions inks before using the stamp to create the backgrounds.

For the first tag I stamped on to the inked background with water to create the texture and then stamped the quote - an {ippity} stamp:

Materials used:

Dylusions inks, black Versafine ink

Unity/Christy Tomlinson stamp (as above), {ippity} quote stamp

metal brad and charm, Vintaj patina inks

ribbons.

For the second tag I again used the stamp to create the background but this time stamped it using black Versafine ink. The sentiment is from the Unity store kit "Life Becoming" available in the shop here:

Materials used:
Dylusions inks, black Versafine ink
Unity/Christy Tomlinson stamp, Unity sentiment stamp (as above)
image from Lisa's Altered Art
metal flower (from repurposed necklace), Vintaj patina inks
lace


As always, thanks for visiting!
Jo xx

Belated Birthday

Happy Saturday.... again, these weeks are just whizzing by!!!

Today I have a belated birthday card to share with you that uses Lawn Fawn stamps with a few adaptations....

I do like to get the most from my stamps and sometimes just by sitting and looking at them for a while you see how else they can be used.... for instance the green flowering shrub behind the mail box is actually the top of the tree from 'Critters in the Burbs' which has been cut away from the trunk and then cut in half to make it peek out either side of the mail box. 

The turtle is from 'On the Mend' and has been carefully inked so as not to include the poultice on his shell and then I drew in the missing detail and gave him a letter to carry instead.

I've used Promarkers to colour the images and popped them up on foam dots, if you're wondering about the yummy grey chevron pattern paper... it is one of the twelve fun patterns from the 6x6 Lawn Fawn paper pad which will be in stock soon... keep your eyes peeled for it at the shop, because the patterns are just gorgeous :0)

Stamp sets used : You've Got Mail, Critters in the Burbs, Jessie's ABC, On the Mend, Bon Voyage

Thanks for popping by and hope you have a great weekend :0)

Jenny x

Born to fly

Evening everyone! Friday afternoon has allowed some much needed craft time for me and I've had another play with the gorgeous Christy Tomlinson 'She Leaped' stamp. I've teamed it today with a sentiment from the Unity Store Kit 'Life Becoming' and my usual favourite.....lots of stitching!

 Paper: Bird Song by Mindy Terasawa

Thanks for dropping in,

Little lady

 Hello.

Ever wonder how to use those teen tiny stamps?

Well one way is to make teeny tiny pictures like these to fit in keyrings!

 Ive shown both sides.

These little stamps are all from little lady by Paper smooches. 

The set pictured below is full of lovely girly images.

I used the sentiment, diamond, background,flower,ladybug.

Oh and the little clouds are from Party possee

Thanks for looking.

Pretty momma

Hello.

My card for today is using one of the new sets from Paper smooches.

Its called "Pretty momma" and you can find it Here.

Ive used Prima papers I just loved the delicate colours.

 And I thought they would work well with stamping the cameo in black. 

Both sentiments are from the same set but as we are in the UK i have wiped some ink of the "mom" stamp to make it "mum".

Thanks for looking.

Live in Colour

Hi everyone, it’s Ruby.  Just a quick post from me today, it’s been a busy half term so I haven’t had much time to play.  I LOVE colour so this sentiment is just perfect for me!


The stamps I used were from the Paper Smooches Spring Fling set, the little trail on the bumble bee is the swirl from the Easter egg in the set and the images were coloured using Copics.

Remember to live your life in colour!

Have a great day!

Pipper

Hello. 

I wanted to show you one of the stamps from Simply Betty.

I stamped the image with momento and coloured with my long neglected pro markers.

The sentiment is from Paper smooches birthday buddies.

Thanks for looking

Dream Big

Today I'm using the gorgeous Unity/Webster's Pages Itty Bitty stamp "Dream Big" available in the shop here to  make my card.

I stamped the butterflies on to a pale pink patterned paper and then coloured them with Prismacolor pencils blended with Sansodor. I then cut them out and stuck them to the felt frame. I stamped the sentiment on to a die-cut tab before sticking it under the backing paper.

Materials used:

American Crafts cardstock

Pink Paislee papers

Unity stamp (as above), black Archival ink, Prismacolor pencils, Sansodor

Joy Crafts flourish die-cut, Die-namics die-cut

die-cut felt frame.

Thanks for visiting

Jo xx

A Happy Hybrid

Hello everyone...welcome to Saturday and today I want to share a card I've made using Lawn Fawn and Paper Smooches stamps... yay, hybrid heaven :0)

The little paintbrush from Spring Fling was my inspiration and teamed with the skyline from Metropolis makes a fun party invite!!!! Okay so this is a little elaborate to reproduce multiple times but a more simplified version could be made I'm sure :0)

The chevrons are stamped with Versamark to give a subtle pattern on the base and apart from the night sky everything is paper pieced. I added the text in a cartoon strip style and I'm super pleased with the hand-drawn fireworks...oh boy, was I holding my breath when I added them last!!!

Hope this inspires you to mix these two fab companies on your cards, the style of stamp are a perfect match to work together :0)

The Lawn Fawn sets used are: Say Cheese, Chevron Backdrops
The Paper Smooches sets used are: Metropolis, Spring Fling, Alphadot, Sunnyside up

Hope you have a great weekend...Happy Stamping :0)

Jenny x

At Last!!!!!

Hi there....

I am so glad to be back. Thank you Emily for being so understanding on my lack of blog posts...Hopefully I'll be able to share more regularly now.
I have a Card and Tag to show you today....As ever I didn't know quite which one of my few stamps to use..so I just took my box of Unity stamps out and decided to play with the first one I could lay my hands on..Luckily it was one that Emily has in stock, one of my favourites too..
A Unity store kit..'Moments In Bloom'...

My Tag first of all.....Again I thought I'd just reach behind me and chose some ink pads....My Adirondak were there so I picked about 4 colours. I used my Black Versafine (as ever) to stamp the flower and clear embossed. The other 2 leaves were stamped with Adirondak  and also clear embossed. I then just coloured the tag with the other ink colours and water splattered. My little 'flowers' are just 2 sizes of circle punches cut from decorative paper, sprayed with a bit of glitter spray and scrunched. The Butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch.

I wanted to show how the same stamp set can look different so I made a little card..

I used my Distress stains to colour the flower stamp (love how this gives a water colour effect) and a variegated Green ink pad for the sentiment.

Thanks for looking, I hope to be back very soon...

She xx

Enjoy the ride

 Hello.

I have a couple of cards to show today using Lawn fawn stamps.

This card uses new lawn fawn sets Flutterby and Chevron backdrops

They can be found here.

The  sentiment is from Many thanks set. 

The flowers and leaves are coloured with Pro markers.

This card uses The carousel from Admit one.

Again i have coloured the image using Pro markers.

Thanks for looking.

BFF

Happy Tuesday everyone, it’s Ruby here with a picture heavy post!

The sun is shining in my little part of the world today and it’s a lovely crisp morning.  What’s the weather like with you?

Whatever your weather is like these little cutie stamps are sure to brighten anybody’s day!  I have this little banner to share with you that I made with ‘BFF’ on, Best Friends Forever.  I asked my daughter to help me pick out some gorgeous Paper Smooches images and used the gorgeous colourful ‘Alora’ papers from Bo Bunny.


I apologise for the weird pictures.  I couldn’t figure out how to take the photo so that you could see it all without losing some of the detail and I was working against the light when I took them too.  I really need to take a photography class lol

Here’s the line up of each one..

The little bird is from the Chubby Chums set.

This owl is also from the Chubby Chums set.

This little monster is from the Falling For You set.

Isn’t he the cutest?!  (Party Posse set)

and last up, my favourite one…

I just LOVE this little fella, Love Monkey. The actual stamp has him holding balloons but I just cut that part off so that when I hang up the banner I can have him hanging on the twine.

I must make some more of these, they’re great fun to make!

If you like Copics then these are the colours that I used..

R27, R24, R22, Y06,708, YG21, YG23, YG25, E43, E44, E47, YR21, YR23, BG70, BG72 and zero to add some texture to the little characters, although I’m not sure you can see it that well on my pics.

What my daughter doesn’t know is that it’s actually for her, but ssshhh, don’t tell anyone lol

A Little 'Hi!'

I'm a huge fan of sending a little traditional mail every now and then and what's nicer than receiving a handmade card - especially when it's not for a special occasion? That means someone thinks you're special, right?

And luckily for me, my favourite stamps, from Lawn Fawn's Summer 2011 Release, are full of cute phrases and short sentiments, perfect for a general greeting.

I've made this card using the ticket and balloons from Admit One, a cute flower from Blissful Botanicals and a dinky sentiment from Cruising Through Life.

Why not have an afternoon creating some cards so that you have a little stock on hand? And a bit of ink on your fingers?

Embossing in white

I have a couple of quick cards to show you today using the tree stamp from Unity's kit Adventure in Happiness which is available in the shop here in limited quantities at a fab price!!

I stamped the tree using white ink and then heat embossed it using WOW embossing powder for the card on the left and a plain white powder for the card on the right. I then added some shading using Prismacolor pencils before adding a rub-on sentiment....hey presto - quick cards!!!

Materials used:

Bazzill cardstock

Unity stamp (as above), white Versacolor ink, WOW embossing powder

Prismacolor pencils

Basic Grey rub-ons

Thanks for visiting!
Jo xx

Hey there!

Hello :0)

My name is Jenny and I'm a craftaholic...there I've said it now...Lol
Seriously... this is my first post as a member of the Design Team here at Make the Day Special and I'm thrilled to join such a talented bunch of ladies :0)
I like to think I have a clean, simple and fun style which lends itself nicely to my love for Paper Smooches and Lawn Fawn stamps, so without further ado here is my card to share with you....

As you can see I like to mix and match the stamp sets and this uses 'Zoo Crew' and 'Whimsical' with the sentiment from 'Sentiment Sampler', the Paper Smooches stamps lend themselves so well to paper piecing as well as colouring, both of which are fun techniques to do :0)
By lifting the leaves on the tree you can see Mr Giraffe is hiding and the sentiment inside the card reads "....you can't hide, it's your birthday!!"

Doesn't that little giraffe look adorable with those big 'baby' eyes. I'm thinking she could be quite versatile on cards for all ages and occasions :0)

Well that all from me today, I'd like to take this chance to say Thank You to Emily and my fellow Teamies for such a warm welcome..... and I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

Happy easter

Hello.

Not long till Easter now and ive just started my cards.

I have used the paper smooches set " A little lovin' "

And for the sentiment i have used "Alphadot".
You cas find paper smooches stamps here.

Thanks for looking.

Hello!

Hi there!  I’m Ruby (aka Ruby 2 Shoes) and I’m really excited to be joining the Make the Day Special team.  I am a Lawn Fawn and Paper Smooches addict amongst other things so I’m looking forward to sharing some of my creations with you.  Have you seen some of the gorgeous new stamps?  I’m in lurve!!

Here’s my simple card..  As you get to know me you will know I LOVE colour, I hope you do too!

For my card I combined the new Grand Greetings from Lawn Fawn and Friendly Flowers from Paper Smooches.  I coloured the flowers with Copics and added a little bit of doodling using a Copic Multi Liner.

Thank you so much to Emily and the girls for such a warm welcome.  I’m really looking forward to getting to know everyone.

Ciao for now!

Design Team News

Hi Everyone

I am very pleased to share some design team news with you which will mean lots of inspiration will be coming your way soon.

Firstly Clair is coming back to our little team and we are being joined by two new members Ruby and Jennie. I for one am looking forward to the blog getting more active again and seeing all the lovely makes.

I am sure you will join me in welcoming our new ladies and I want to take this opportunity to thank my existing design team for all their hard work while I have been rather preoccupied!

Happy stamping

Emily

Spring Stashbusting Tags

Hello! Hello! It's been a long time, but I'm so pleased to be back with the ladies here at Make The Day Special. I've really missed playing with my lovely stamps - so I was thrilled to have some time this weekend to get stuck in. My fingers are now satisfyingly inky!

First I made a couple of little gift tag backgrounds using some teeny, tiny scraps. It's really simple, just stick them down, then sew them up! I thought the colours would be perfect for spring.

The first tag uses a partial sentiment and balloons from Admit One and a little cloud from Bon Voyage - both sets from Lawn Fawn's Summer 2011 Release. Still one of my favourite stamp collections!



The second tag uses a simple sentiment from Cruising Through Life, another set from Lawn Fawn's Summer 2011 Release, and some pretty stars from Learning Year By Year, one of Unity's Store Kits.



Such super, simple stashbusting projects that will add a little 'something, something' to any gift.

A Baby is......

For a change today I decided to stamp on fabric to make my card.

 I inked the sentiment stamp from Unity's store kit "The Right Words" available in the shop here using my Faber Castell big brush pens and then stamped straight on to the pink gingham fabric. I then sewed around this before fraying the edges and then stuck it on to a thick piece of card as a backing before adding it to the card.

The flower was made from organza and then I added a button to the centre.

Materials used:

American Crafts cardstock

Unity stamp (as above), Faber Castell big brush marker

fabrics, pleated ribbon, organza

Dress me Up button, vintage flower button.

As always, thanks for visiting!!

Jo xx