Love is all you need

Good Morning all - I hope you're enjoying this weird little "twixtmas" period and finding a little time for crafting.  I'm working hard behind the scenes on the shop transfer and hope to get it open again as soon as I can.  Thanks for completing the survey - your insights and requests are really helpful - you can still complete it if you haven't already  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C887KPJ

I managed to squeeze in a little crafting though and I wanted to use one my holiday sets to show that there is versatility beyond Christmas in some sets if you look for it so I decided to play with Strictly Sentiments 3 from WPlus9 and paired it with a matching styled sentiment from Mama Elephant's Smitten set.

Now whilst this set looks aimed squarely at Christmas with it's big sentiments - I was actually more interested in the striped circles that come with it and used those in 5 shades of pink to create a bubbly border down my card.  I then ignored the two Christmassy words and just focused on  LOVE and found another "LOVE" in Smitten which had the same style and another sentiment which paired with love perfectly.  I carefully cut the sentiment apart so I could rearrange the words in the famous song and just embossed all the words in silver.

Thank you

Happy nearly New Years! 

I hope you all had a great Christmas with lots of crafty goodies under the tree :-)

My card today is for the inevitable endless task that always comes after Christmas-the Thank You card. Ever the bane of my childhood,stamping these make things so much more fun ;-)

I used the glorious Flourishes Italian Garden set for this card,stamped onto watercolour paper with archival ink which I heat set. You might need a magnifying glass to paint in some of the leaves on the Rosemary bush! But it looks just gorgeous when watercoloured,don't you think?  Grab your Flourishes sets while you can when the shop re-opens,as they are stopping their wholesale programme,so will only be available from Make The Day Special in limited quantities! 

The sentiment comes from the ultra useful Paper Smooches Salutations set.

Thanks for stopping by!
Lou

Decorating Candles

Helloooo there :0)

As promised I'm back this morning to share the gifts I made for James's teaching staff and it's a technique I hadn't tried before!!!

I had bookmarked this video tutorial from Lawn Fawn DT member Yainea and finally got round to trying my hand at decorating pillar candles too. I've used the lovely Christmas stamp set from Lawn Fawn called 'Let it Snow' and simply stamped the four smallest trees in a variety of green inks onto white tissue paper.

I found it best to cut them out individually and arrange them on the candle using just a small dab of Pritt Stick to hold them in place.

I used a sheet of greaseproof paper to wrap around the candle whislt melting the tissue into the wax.... you really must keep the heat gun moving as it doesn't take long for the magic to work and keep the greaseproof taught and smooth too. I kept it simple and didn't try coloured images or embossing as Yainea did in her video but I was sooo pleased with the technique and may go on to give it a go :0)

I added a few wraps of jute twine and topped the bow off with a wooden star before placing them in cellophane bags (they are from the baking section of Sainsburys and are meant for sweeties but the Ikea candles fit them perfectly!!). The tags carry the woodland theme on and all those browns, greens and twine just make me happy..... yep I was quite chuffed with how they turned out :0)

If you haven't tried it yet I urge you to watch the video and give it a go.... you'll become addicted too..... yep quite a few people are receiving candles this Christmas from us :0)...... these two were very gratefully recieved.

That's all from me now before the big day on Wednesday so I'd like to wish you all a peaceful Christmas with your loved ones and that you stay safe in these horrible storms that are tormenting patrs of the UK!!

Jenny x

Another quick gift

Good morning and Merry almost Christmas.

It's super busy here in Sheffield so I have a very quick post today with another quick gift I made for my SIL that hopefully gives you a little inspiration about the kinds of surfaces you can stamp on ;-)

I found these lacework topped plant pots in Ikea - they are tin painted white - and I thought they would be perfect to hold candles as well as plants.   I used the "be merry" border from Lawn Fawn's Peace-Love-Joy set and stamped it using versamark carefully around the pot and then embossed it in silver.  I added a silver tape border above and below and then hot glued a silver scented candle inside  and job done.

It can be tricky to stamp around a circular object so if you're not confident, you could stamp onto tissue and use studio multi medium  (matte) by Claudine Hellmuth to adhere it and you won't be able to tell the difference!

Right I really must get on so I'll love you and leave you.  Have a very Merry Christmas and I'll see you on the other side.

Tara
x

Pretty Patches!

Hi! This is my last chance to say hello before the big day!  I thought I would use this post to wish everyone a very happy Christmas!   I'm sharing one of the designs I made for my Christmas cards this year - so it had to be simple as I made around 70!

This is a gorgeous little stamp set from WPlus9 called Pretty Patches: Trees.  It also comes with co-coordinating dies for that precision-cut look!   I kept this one simple and just stamped the image. I'm really impressed with how clear the gingham effect is.  This is like the "HD" of stamping!  WPlus9 are such great quality photopolymer.

 

I hope you like it!

Sending festive hugs!

 

Love

Tracyx

Winter Woods

Happy Friday stamp lovers! Can you believe that this is the last Friday before Christmas?!?!? I know and I'm still no where ready ..... I should have learnt by now not to leave everything till last minute but I guess that's just me...lol.

Well I guess that you all know by now the store is on a little break over Christmas but not to worry we will still be here tempting you for when it opens back up in January. 

Today I have a little wintery card to share with you...

I so love this little yeti stamp from the Lawn Fawn set 'Yeti, Set, Go' and I'm a big believe of making holiday sets work throughout the year.... changing the colour of these little cuties will change them from yetis to cute little monsters in an instant. 

Look how happy these little guys are holding hands and running through the woods.. I like the effect that the boy yeti is popping out of the framed scene.

Hope I've inspired you for today.

Hugs Lydia xxx

Customer Survey

As you know, Make the Day Special is taking a little break to allow for the change of ownership that is taking place. I’m sure you’re all sad to see Louise go but will join with me in wishing her all the best whilst she takes the time to concentrate on her family. She’ll still be on the DT too so make sure you follow the blog and facebook pages to keep in touch.

Now that I am taking over the store, there will be a few changes – hopefully all good – and more details will follow in due course once I get my head around all the companies and order processes. However, in the closed period, I’d like to get a little more information from you all to see how you feel and about what we are doing and what you’d like to see us do in the future, so I have put together this short survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B5W3PJP

All you have to do is click the link and complete the questions – it’s totally anonymous so feel free to share anything you’d like!

However, I would like to offer a little incentive to encourage as many customers as possible to complete the survey, so if you are happy to share your details, then complete your name and address in the final question and you will be entered into a draw to win a fabulous prize package from the store.

I aim to open as early as I can in January 2014, but I’ll keep you all up-to-date on how things are going via Facebook so do click the like button on our page if you haven’t already to make sure you’re in the know.

In the meantime, can I take this opportunity to wish you all a Bright and Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Tara
x

Chalkboard Tags!

Good afternoon- wow it's getting scarily closer. I'm so not ready. I've arm knitting and felted soaps and all sorts to make yet. I thought I was organised!! Obviously not.

One thing that we all need tons of are tags. Whether they're being strapped to a present, slung around the neck of a bottle or festooning a gift bag, I never seem to have enough.

I'm using one of my favourite looks- the chalkboard style. I still love it from last year and the trend for it seems not to be abating in a hurry. I haven't even contrasted the white using embossing and normal stamping. There's not even any white shadowing. I've gone for quick and simple.

White stamping.

White smudged ink.

White gel pen picking out highlights.

Easy & fast.

Hope you're getting organised.. I'd love any tips!

See you soon (although I may have to be really organised if I'm going to be posting on Christmas Eve (ha ha)

Happy stamping!

Keren xx

Sweet Treats!!!

Good morning.... I hope you have a minute or two in your busy Christmas schedules to enjoy these little handmade gift packages I've made for my sons classmates.... luckily he is in a small class this year of 5 plus him so only three more to make plus some teacher gifts which I'll show you next week :0)

                                                           

I've used the We R Memory keepers Candy Gift Box and Gift Bag punch board because they make the ideal size packaging to use with the fun Lawn Fawn and Paper Smooches Christmas stamps.

              

This has to be my favourite using the Frosty Friends stamp and dies from Lawn Fawn :0)

Remember the store closes it's doors today and opens again in the New Year under new ownership... please bookmark this blog and like us on Facebook for updates and timings, the team will continue to post our projects on this blog so please remember to stop by during the change-over period :0)

Hope your Christmas preparations are going well.... unlike mine...hence the short and sweet blog post *wink*

See you next week :0)

Jenny x

Last minute gifts

Morning all, if your house is anything like mine at the moment then I'm sure that crafting is pretty low on the agenda of things that must get done.......

However, however much chaos is around me, I usually have a few last minute homemade gifts to make so need a few inexpensive and easy to make ideas up my sleeve and thought I'd share one with you today that you can make in under 5 minutes and costs just pennies which has to be a good thing right?

Now I must admit I've used a set that is not in store - but as the store will be closing down shortly, you might find we keep tempting you with out of stock sets so you have lots of lovely inspiration for when we re-open in January.

I bought these paper blocks for 99p from Waitrose a while ago and one block will actually make two of these little Christmas notelet sets.  I simply clamped them tight (an extra pair of hands is helpful here!) and then stamped the twigs and berries from Woodland Wreaths by Wplus9 and then added one of the greetings to the centre.  A little cellophane and a bit of ribbon and hey presto a perfect little gift for around 60p but looking like it cost a lot more!

I actually bought a lot of note holders in the John Lewis January sales that have been waiting to be turned into Christmas gifts so I added my stamped notes to them (and yes I really could have made them MONTHS ago instead of my usual last minute panic - will I ever learn????)

As I said, the wreath is out of stock, but if you don't have it, you could use just about any stamp set you have from a simple sentiment to some flowers or even fruit and vegetables - just clamp the edges of your paper tight as you stamp on them.

I may well have another last minute idea next weekend so I'll see you then!

Teeny parcels of joy

Hi everyone,

Just a quick post today from me.

I am very very behind with Christmas this year,so thought I had better get a start on!

I made a bundle of pillow boxes using the gorgeous new Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love paper,the metal embellishments and the glorious gold twine. These two are headed for a teacher at the girls school-filled with yummy chocolates :-)

Hope you like them

Lou x

Hanging Letters & Alphabet Stamp Sets!

Good morning everyone! I'm posting an idea rather than stamp set today.
I thought you could try this with this Avery Elle set

or maybe this Paper Smooches one?

or even this Mama Elephant set?

I've just suspended the individual letters on some embroidery thread to spell out the phrase. I used a Lawn Fawn alpha set- but these sets above would be PERFECT!These individual alphabet sets are soo handy. Gone are the days of hunting for sentiments or wasting gazzillions of peel off sheets because you've run outta vowels. Have a go at creating a phrase & presenting it in a different way- be unexpected...it's much more fun ;-)

I'm going to be unexpectedly short & leave you more time to shop ;-)

(not many more days to treat yourself before Christmas!!)

Keren x

Christmas Candles

Helloooo there :0)

I'm probably one of the few that haven't finished my Christmas cards for this year... trouble is all these lovely seasonal stamp sets keep tempting me then I have too many to choose from!!!

One of the few remaining Christmas sets in store from Wplus9 is the Merry and Bright set that Tara showed you yesterday and it really is fun to play with.....

I find the best way to work with these two-step stamp sets is to die cut all the elements and stamp them out before starting a spot of flower arranging.... any pieces you don't use can be stored in with the stamps or dies for another time. They are quite easy to line up but any small error in placement is also forgiving... after all mother nature isn't into carbon copy perfection :0)
The embossed stripes of gold are from the Mama Elephant Basic Borders.... I'm not much into gold but a little at Christmas time is okay with me :0)

I bet most of you have finished your cards now and some even written and sent them!!... I'll plod on until the Christmas Spirit taps me on the shoulder and tells me to get a wiggle on!!!

See you next Monday.... hopefully with gift packaging ideas :0)

Jenny x

Candlelight

I'm playing with one of the only remaining WPlus9 sets still in the store today since everyone had a rush on them last week - Merry and Bright which is a great little set for Christmas cards.

I do love the multi-layer stamps that WPlus9 produce as they are such fun to play with and watch the images grow as you stamp them.  If you've never used them, I thought I'd show you how they work - for example the pine branches I've used on my card come in 3 parts so I've stamped them to show you how they grow.

For my card I used a mixture of the stamps and the matching dies, stamping the lantern twice, first on the card base and then again on vellum to give a subtle glow to the embossed candle.  The pine branches went over the base image and then I used the die cut pine cones and holly leaves to cover up where they showed under the vellum - this allowed me to have the candle higher in the lantern but not have it floating in mid-air as you can't see the bottom of it.  I framed the scene in a die cut circle and stamped the sentiment onto a banner die cut with white embossing and layered it across the circle.

{Rein}deer friend

Hi! Now that we've seen our first glimpse of snow this year.. and all the family birthdays are past.. I can think of Christmas!  My wish list for crafty goodies gets longer and longer but luckily I already have two fabby sets from Unity and Paper Smooches!  I just love this little guy!

I love this combination of blue and brown.. with some silver sparkle and glitter.. and, of course, a sparkly red nose!

The sets used for this card are multi-seasonal.. Deer Friend from Unity, and Gently Seasoned by Paper Smooches.  Two wonderfully versatile sets (Deer Friend comes with a non-Christmas greeting!)

I hope you like it!

 

Tracyx

Festive Tag And Card

Happy Friday one and all!!! .

So I'm posting today and card and tags set inspired by the Monday Mood Board over at Stamp Away With Me and using some not so Christmassy stamps but using festive colours.

I also need to thank Kate from Just Kate Crafting for inspiring me to use this as a festive set. 

I have used to of sets from Wplus9 on these- Fresh Cut Florals and also Heartfelt Holidays. 

How good does that lilac look stamped in red?!?!? I really need to start playing with this set again..... the colour combos are endless.

So happy you popped by !

Check ya later, Lydia xxx

Crazy Critters Go Wild!

Hey! 

Sorry- you've got me again! 

Well- obviously Santa has been raiding Make The Day Special's shelves. Which is fabulous for you guys come Christmas Day but not quite so fun for us poor Design Team who go designing cards and poof- the sets are gone!! Sold out!

On the plus side- the shop is having a BIG restock in January...

But no need to wait until then... this project could easily be done with this set's gnome

Or even this one..you'll have to go direct to the shop to peek- it's a link free post!

Either set would be fun. I wanted to make another one but it red and green and with a tree base- it'd be a really fun Christmas card! 

(In case you hadn't worked it out- that's a bunch of hip and rough penguins doing a motorcycle formation! Except the green one is about to fall off! )

Righto- better scarper. 

If you could tell Santa to leave a couple of sets in the store for my better half that'd be fine and dandy!

Until then- enjoy all your crafty Christmas shopping! 

Love,

Keren x

Reindeers in The Moonlight!

It's December! Wahoooo. So I can post a Christmas card without any of you groaning!!

Today's little card is using the sublimely cute (not words I ever thought I'd hear myself say!) Critters in the Snow!



Whilst this set is out of stock- if you click the picture, it will take you to the Lawn Fawn page where there's plenty more sugar filled cuteness that won't cost you anything at the dentist!

You need to keep an eye on our Facebook page.. very shortly there'll be poll posted for you to tell us what you want more of ..if you haven't liked us yet then run over quick here

 

This card was created using a whole load of masking and using an alphabet to spell out 'ho ho ho' to make the reigns (did you notice that!). .It took lots of fussy cutting & a bit of embossing to create a scene. These stamps are fab if you love creating dimensional cards- so go and clean out the shop before someone else does!

 

Well, better go, have yet to start my Christmas cards..doesn't look like I'll be getting much sleep over the next week or two!

 

See you next Tuesday

 

Keren xx

 

Joy

Hello.

Today i have used the ever so popular Fresh cut florals and matching dies from Wplus9.

I haven't used this set much at all ...totally love what everyone else does just couldn't get it to work out for me lol.

Well i finally have fallen in love with it :)

I wanted a clean and simple Christmas card and found these were prefect for winter berries. 

The dies give the stamped images a really great quality finish.

The sentiment and dies cuts are also from Wplus9 but are currently out of stock. 

We do have lots of the Christmas release here.

Thanks for looking.

Merry Scraps

Sunday is here again - is it just me or does it come around quicker the closer we get to Christmas???

I'm definitely in full on Christmas card mode at the moment, which means I've used a set that's come in and gone out of stock again - Peace, Joy, Love from Lawn Fawn - so I'm sorry if you haven't got it but I hope this is a bit of inspiration if you did manage to snag a set.

I decided to raid my scraps box as it's so full the drawer won't close again!   So I pulled out a selection of scraps in blues, greens and grey and trimmed them to different thicknesses to create my own striped paper.  Once happy with the arrangement they were glued down and the edges trimmed flush.  I then used 4 elements from the set - a single tree stamped in white at the bottom overlapping to create a border, the Be Merry border and fairy lights border were stamped and embossed and then the snowflake border stamped twice at the top.  All that was needed then was a little stickles in lights and hey presto - a card from scraps.

If you're the organised kind who likes to make your Christmas cards all year around, then keep an eye out for this set coming back into store early in 2014....

Happy winter

Hello.

I have been having a play with Into the woods from Lawn Fawn.

This little guy sold out very quickly but this idea will work with almost any lawn fawn stamps.

I started by die cutting the panel using the Stitched journalling card ....i can see this getting a lot of use :) 

I then kept the die on the card once cut and stamped the wood panel from Wood grain backdrops ...you all  snapped that one up super quick too lol.

I stamped in Sahara sand and then sponged some of the same ink around the edges.

I then used some of the new Gold sparkle Lawn trimmings and wrapped it around the card three times and tied a bow.

I stamped the little critter onto Sahara sand card and once cut out sponged the same ink around to give some shading. 

For the ears i used a pink copic pen to add some colour and then a white gel pen added some dots on his back.

The Snow flakes are from Critters in the snow, they are heat embossed in neon blue on vellum and i added a little sparkle for the centres.

Thanks for looking.

Milk And Cookies For Santa

Instead of sharing a card with you today I thought I would mix it up a little and share with you what we will be tying around Santa's glass of milk (or Baily's ;) ) this year. 

This tag is a beautiful mix of Lawn Fawn and Wplus9- two of my main stamping addictions at the moment.

Firstly I die cut Lawn Fawn's Stitched Journaling Card and inked the edges using Antique Linen Disstress Ink. I then used my favourite background stamp 'Woodgrain Backdrop' (sorry currently out of stock) to the bottom of the tag to act as a table and inked this using a blending tool and Tea Dye Disstress Ink. The sky is Tumbled Glass Disstress Ink ..... and although you can't see them very clearly from the photo there are some snowflakes in the sky from Yeti Set Go set. 

For the main image of milk and cookies I used the Wplus9 set bearing that name (Milk And Cookies and dies). 

For the finishing touch I added 'For Santa' using Sally's ABC's and some twine so I can attach it to the big man's drink ;) .

I hope you like this little idea and maybe give it a go yourself!

Hugs Lydia xxx

Lawn Fawn: Woodgrain Backdrops	Lawn Fawn: Yeti Set Go	Wplus9- Milk And Cookies	Wplus9- Milk And Cookies Dies
Lawn Fawn: Stitched Journaling Card

InLinkz.com

Merry Christmas!

Hello.

Another Christmas card ticked of off my list :)

I am having trouble getting good photos at the moment.

Lots and lots of heat embossing here. I heat embossed all the presents in white on watercolour paper before colouring with inktense pencils and water.

The background is distress inks with even more heat embossing using the snow and stars stamp from let it snow.

The presents are form Lawn fawns Bows and holly set.

Thanks for looking.

Mystery Christmas Set!

Morning, morning! I was hunting through my sets and decided to do a Christmas card but using an utterly non seasonal set. Guessed which set?

Milk and Cookies! So which other sets did you use, I hear you ask? None! As soon as I looked carefully at the set., I saw the straw and immediately thought candy canes! Due to the perfect flexible nature of the photopolymer, these babies can be curled & altered. I really took the straw to the max- it only just stayed in that position. Once I curled and stamped to the left, I curled the other way & stamped again.

I trimmed out most of the middle of the milk bottle & around the edge, so we could see the canes showing through.

The wreath? How did I make that? See the closeup...

I used these two elements-

The little circle is the centre of the wreath. The single line (which is normally used as the meniscus) 

I simply curved around a little on my block and put one end on the circle & just systematically moved it around.
Just shows how with a little sneaky thinking you can create something completely unintended from the set.
Go and twist your sets! See what you can come up and PLEASE post a link - we would seriously love to see how you do it too!

Until next Tuesday!

love Keren xx