Hello birthday girl

Hello.

I know i always say it but I've another quick and easy card to show today.

I have been playing with some of the new in store WPlus9 stamps and especially the Limited edition so 80's.

And the gorgeous Hand lettered hello.

These stamps apart from being great designs are also brilliant quality. 

Getting a crisp image means you can simply  just stamp and have a fabulous looking card in no time at all.

I coloured the hello stamp with two colour blues and spritzed with water before stamping and love the effect you can get with such a simple technique.

Thanks for looking.

The Kings New Clothes & Avery Elle

I'm posting something a little risky today. I've been playing..with paint. The reason that I've titled the post 'The Kings New Clothes' is that any moment you'll realise I actually can't paint and I've just made it up!

Once I'd finished moving paint around, I wanted to stamp a sentiment and a border and this set was perfect

I've used the 'Thanks', the dashed line around the edges and in the next pic you might spot the tiny circle that I've used to highlight the circle. It's a brilliantly versatile set that you might have overlooked but would do for tons of occasions.

Well I'll cut and run… do check out the Avery Elle inks here- they're beautiful!

See you soon,

Keren x

Our First Challenge Winners!

Well it seems you all liked the idea of us running a monthly challenge - we had 39 fabulous entries in total and you really gave us a headache when it came to picking a winner!   As I said, the winners will be chosen by the DT and will be awarded on merit not random draws, so we came up with a scoring system and each person awarded a "gold, silver and bronze" to their favourite designs which gives us a fair points based score to work out our winner and runners up.

So without further ado - our winning entry this month was Sarah G with her beautiful CAS rainbow design.  We do all love a rainbow and the subtle way Sarah inked around the edge of a circle to draw the eye into the sentiment was just perfect!   Sarah you win the £15 store voucher which may well come in handy this week as we have lots of lovely new goodies about to clear customs!

Narrowly missing out on the top spot this month is Julia with her 5th entry to our challenge with these amazing cards where she totally rocked the chalkboard technique with the perfect burst of colour against the dramatic black background.  We only award prizes to our top entry each month but you do get a lovely "winners badge" for your blog if you would like it - please save it from the bottom of this post.

And last, but by no means least, our second runner up this month was Jill with this right on trend watercolour background which sets off the gorgeous new sentiment from our newest brand Neat and Tangled.   Again you get to take the badge below to show off the fact that you're a winner.

We'll be back with a brand new challenge on Thursday - from now on challenges will start on the 1st of each month and run for 3 weeks with new inspiration from our talented design team each week to remind you to enter.  There will be a £15 voucher for the winner every month.

Puttin' on a Party.... Shirt!!

Hello there :0)

I'm back again this week using a Paper Smooches set that hasn't seen ink yet  *shame*

This freshly pressed shirt is from Squeaky Clean which has lots of fun small images but I love how this image lends itself to some colourful paper piecing using Lawn Fawn Paper pads....... just a happy accident that I could fit a weeks worth of shirts down the card including the colourful party number  *wink*
I really think the sentiment from Wplus9's Strictly Sentiments 1 set goes perfectly on this card :0)
It's also a great image to use on a Fathers day card......  coming up on the 15th June !!

 

I'm off to have a play and see what else I can make with this set :0)
See ya next week
Jenny x

Throwback...Sunday?!

Hello,hello!

Its Lou here,mixing things up by posting this on a Sunday, with another not-so-retro throwback of Avery Elles-the scrumptious Air Mail set. I know I say this every time (well hey,I DO have a stamp addiction ;-) ) but I really really love this set!

I had lots of penpals when I was younger,so I get very drawn to all the mail type sets out there. This card has a teeny tiny cameo appearance from the Lawn Fawn You've Got Mail set,in the form of  those small squiggles on the 'stamp'. The small pinked square is from the Wplus9 set Pinking Squares.

And a closer look....

Thats all from me for now! Happy Sunday folks :-)

Lou x

Used Today:

Hello Birthday Girl!

Hi! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!  It's a bit dull and overcast here but that's not affected my enthusiasm!  Especially not for all the lovely WPlus9 goodies I got this week!

I've realised two things; I love splodges and splatters, and, you can never have too many butterflies!
My card today is simple.. Ink Splats from WPlus9 stamped in three slightly different shades of blue to create the background design. The Hand Lettered Hello die and stamp set for the greeting.  This die is super - a really clean cut even with the fine detail!  And for the butterfly - Layered Butterfly - this is a 4 part die to give a real flutter to the end result.  I sponged different shades of pink ink onto vellum then layered up the wings.  And four little sequins just to balance the spaces!

 

I hope you like it! 

Here are the supplies I used.

Have a lovely weekend! 

Tracyx

 

Needle Little Love?

Today I have a simple little card using a great little stamp and die set from Avery Elle and since I adored the colours in their latest challenge I used those as my jumping off point for the design  http://aeiheartuchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aeiu-challenge-5color-combo.html

I used the Needle Little Heart Elle-ments die to die cut the heart from the pale blue card and then used embroidery thread in lime green and teal (3 strands of each in the needle at the same time) to stitch the cross-stitch hearts using the holes the die cuts for you.   I used the stitches stamps from the co-ordinating stamp set to create a matching frame and then I cut the large sentiment apart so I could get the needle and the bits of the sentiment I wanted where I wanted them.  If you are careful cutting up stamps needn't be scary - you can get a lot more from your stash that way, and they easily go back together on your acrylic block so you can still stamp them as the designers intended but you get to be your own designer too this way ;-)

We currently have a shipment from Avery Elle in customs clearance so hopefully we should have the new stock early next week :-)

Cheers!

Hello and Happy Thursday! Everything seems better with sunshine and that's exactly what is pouring through the windows as I type. 

Today I'm sharing with you a celebration card that would be fab for either a guy or gal.

For the fabulous funky triangle background I have used Wplus9's 'Just Geometrics:Triangles' . I stamped the large cluster of triangles 3 times up my card in a light grey, then with the three triangles in a line I stamped in some gaps with a dark grey. With the one triangle on it own I stamped in some more of the gaps using a warm grey and bright orange. 

For the sentiment I stamped the large 'cheers' from Avery Elle's 'Cheers' in black and then embossed it with clear powder to give some shine and texture. 

I then thought it would be fun to add the little tick list from the set so I added this with some black ink and put a cross in each of the boxes. 

Thank you so much for popping by!

Hugs Lydia xxx


   

This and that

 Hello.

I've got some different cards to share today using new products

First up is this one using the fabulous sunburst stamp from Neat and tangled. 

I coloured the stamp with various colour pens before stamping.

Then used the banner and sentiments from other neat and tangled  sets.

I had a small vellum heart and coloured that with copics so that it matched the background colours.

Next up is this little set that i made using Party dots stamp set that i made to join in  the neat and tangled challenge blog. They are very simple to make just stamped with distress inks once dry i added glossy accents and the banner was stamped and then coloured with the same distress inks with a blender tool.

Now something else new in store are the fab My guy icon dies from paper smooches. 

They co ordinate with the original my guy stamp set. 

So just perfect for any masculine card you need to make. 

Thanks for looking.

The Ever-Difficult-to-make Man Card!

Hey! Hope you're all ok & not having eaten too much chocolate (is that even possible?!). Today I wanted to do a generic 'Man' card. Granted, a boat doesn't float everyones..well boat!- but you could easily substitute the boat for a couple of buttons, or dare I say even sequins!!

I've used one WPlus9 set & a die set too.

You can see I've simply die cut out one of each word in vanilla cardstock & then one in different coloured cardstock & attached them offsetting them slightly. The boat is coloured with Promarkers & the patterning done with a clear Copic marker. I then embossed the rope stamp in gold & to create the waves I used the tiny 'rope' stamp that is supposed to go over the Lifepreserver. I actually snipped a quarter out ( I wouldn't have separated any more of the stamp as it is in a precise position for laying over the Lifepreserver, but just taking out a quarter means it's easy to fit back in).

I've left a sentiment off- you could add several from the Dockside WPlus9 set- it's a great set particularly for men!

I could do with a rescue today myself- not loving having to be back to work & school runs etc after the lovely long Easter break!

See you next week,

Keren x

My Favorite

Hi - me again - twice in two days - it must be a bank holiday ;-)   Hope you're all ready for work tomorrow....  (no me neither!)

Anyhow I have a couple of super quick projects to share today.   Firstly I made a quick guy card for my hubby using one of the gorgeous new stamps from Neat and Tangled - did you notice we got them - currently we're the only place in the UK that sells them ;-)   We're always looking to bring you the best of the US ahead of the competition.....

I used the classic watercolour technique with distress inks but I used 3 masculine browns rather than the normal bright colours you see the technique used with - I think I ended up with something marble like.  I embossed the sentiment in gold first and then stamped it again with black over the top but off-set to get a shadow effect.  

Secondly I thought I'd share my little Easter gifts - I've used Hunny Bunny - and if you're waiting for it, it's on its way back.   I simply stamped it onto coffee bags and coloured with pencils to make simple bags for my Easter goodies.

We have large shipments coming from Avery Elle, Mama Elephant and Lawn Fawn as well as a couple of new brands - all should be here in a few weeks so watch this space!