March Challenge Winners

You really don't make it easy for us to select our winners for our challenges - we had some really fabulous entries this month and I wish I could make you all winners as it would be so much easier than making a choice!   However, after collating our votes I can reveal that the winner this month was Janey who submitted two stunning entries for two different colour themes.

We loved the vibrant colours of the first entry using the middle scheme and the addition of some hand drawn white lines in the second added some lovely detail and made the colours pop from the first scheme.  A couple of great entries we're sure you will agree!   Congrats Janey - the £15 prize this month will be winging it's way to you shortly :-D


We have 3 runners up this month - I told you it was difficult to narrow it down!

We loved the cool colours and added texture of entry No 2 by Daria G - pure elegance!

Julie's "smooshed" background for the little bunny was a fun way to combine the colours!

Jill's water colouring and layered die cutting was a real show stopper too!

Congratulations to all our runners up - do take your winners badge if you haven't already received one!

We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new challenge and hope you will be back to play along again.....

Slider Pull Plane!

Hey! Hope you've a few minutes to spare- this is a bit of a longer post than usual, but thought I'd show you how to create this card, for those of you who've not made a slider before! Here's what happens when you pull the Congrats bit...

 To start with- grab yourself a few supplies- this fab Avery Elle set

plus for a quick shortcut- this Mama Elephant Slim Tags die set

and lastly this beautiful double sided Avery Elle Everyday Collection paper pack

Here goes the quick tutorial. Cut out a piece of paper & die cut one of the Mama Elephant slim tags from the centre.

Stamp and cut out two clouds and the plane. You need to have a base of something that's wider than the aperture you've created so I created a cloud background.

Next, colour in and punch out two circles- again these have to be slightly bigger than the aperture. Fold each circle in half and add glue to the edges of the two folded sides and press together. Once the glue has dried, open them out carefully to create this 3D shape.

                                       

Now stick the plane onto the 3D circle shape so the glued join is in the centre and you can then ease the back two circle 'flaps' onto the reverse of the aperture. This gives the plane the sideways movement. Hopefully the picture makes more sense!

Add a stamped and trimmed out 'congrats' to the edge of the plane and cut out a strip of card that is wider than the aperture. Stick the plane onto this strip so the end of the 'congrats' matches up to the edge of the card strip & secure with some 3D foam pads at the end

 Next, lay the aperture over the top of a base card  that you've added a cloud effect to and a strip of paper. Position the sentiment stamp over (aren't clear stamps just perfect for aligning easily!).Make sure that when the plane is pushed to the right, you can see the sentiment and when pushed to the left, it hides it. Mark the edges of the aperture lightly to help with lining up at the next stage.

                                      

Now you just need to turn the aperture piece over and run foam tape (or individual pads but it takes an age to place them all down!) along the top and bottom edges (just slightly away from the card pull piece) and on the opposite edge to the pull strip (the right hand side when the piece is turned over on the wrong side).

Remove the tops of the foam tape and position back over the base card, lining up with the pencil markings... and that's it. An easy and fun birthday card!

Why not try making an interactive card- it's easy once you get going!
See you next week!
Keren xx

PS- anyone spot the rookie error in my finished photographs? x

Framed Foliage

Hello there, 

I was so excited to receive my parcel of goodies from the store on Saturday which included the new dies from Altenew to match the Doodle Blooms stamp set.... I had to get them into use :)

The foliage and flowers are stamped in grey ink onto water colour card and I used my Inktense pencils for a change to colour them in.....they've not seen the light of day for a few weeks!! This set is brilliant for building your own floral displays with numerous leafy sprigs and flowers, now it has matching dies you can become an expert flower arranger as well ...Lol :) The dies are really easy to line up and cut with ease, there's also a nice margin depth around the image....not too deep.

I took my inspiration from a couple of challenges and used a Paper Smooches Scalloped Frame to display my climbing flowers in. The linear background was made using a stamp from Mama Elephants Basic Borders, I actually quite like how the lines are a little broken up.... adds a rustic feel, and the sentiment is from Avery Elles Hand Written Notes.

                            
                                               
Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Photo-bombing a Photo bomb!

I know I promised a video showing all the different uses for our new foils, but we had so much new product in store on Thursday night that I have spent the whole weekend packing your orders so the video will have to wait as they do take a while to put together (especially when you're working out how to do them as you go!)

So for today I thought I'd show you an idea I had for the new Photo bomb stamp set from Mama Elephant.   This is a great stamp set and I can see it being used for so many different types of cards - the "from all of us" is a really useful sentiment too.  But my first make with it, I saw something that meant with a little effort you can take it one step further and photo bomb the photo bomb - let me show you what I saw....

Firstly I stamped the large image onto 300gsm cardstock - not brilliant for blending but I managed t get some OK colouring with copics.  I framed it with the polaroid fun die that has frames to fit all the images in this set and turns them into instant old style photos.

What I saw though was the little girl in the middle was kinda photo bombing her own shot and with a little effort I thought we could make her "pop" right out of the photo....

So I did a little selective inking - well actually I inked up the stamp as selectively as I could and then used a damp cotton but to wipe off all the ink below the girl I wanted to pick out.  I did this on the 300 gsm card again for strength for the pop out.  What you have then though is a little girl with two arms and one hand but its a very easy shape to draw the left hand freestyle with a copic liner and then use the pen to extend her dress too.  I coloured her and cut her out and left a long tab of card in the middle of the dress to be the mechanism to have her pop.   The little arrow that comes in the polaroid die helps point out what needs to be done.  To put it together you just need to carefully cut around the hairline of the 3 characters below her with a craft knife and then insert the tab through the slit you made making sure the extra hand is hidden behind the blond boys head.

For the sentiments I used the lovely new smile die from Mama Elephant and then for an extra surprise used the little "Hi!" from the stamp set on the girls dress making sure to stamp it low enough that it's hidden before she pops out.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

•  We have received new releases and restocks from Mama Elephant and Altenew this week.  Quite a few of the Altenew items are already showing as out of stock - many of those were due to the fact that we didn't actually receive any!   Despite having our order in since late January, we have been having HUGE problems getting hold of everything we wanted so I finally gave up waiting and just grabbed what I could.  I will try again for the items we missed when I see they have them in stock themselves.
•  We have some restocks from Waffle Flower - including the very popular Pattern Play which has been out of stock since Jennifer McGuire featured it on her blog last month.  We also got their new release so as soon as it goes live in mid-April you can grab it here too :-)
• The latest release from Neat and Tangled will be in store on Monday.
• We will be getting the new release from Reverse Confetti in the next week or so.
• Paper Smooches latest release and massive die restocks will be here in early April.
• SugarPea Designs have also been having a few issues with their suppliers but I hope that they will finally ship their last release to us in a week or so.  We are hoping to iron out supply issues from their May release onwards so we can get it in store quicker for you!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend - see you next week!
Tara

Create An Easter Card For A Guy

Hi fellow crafters! Julia here!

I don't know about you, but creating a card for a guy usually means I can't make it too cute and I can't use too many embellishments. That's quite a challenge for me, but one I was happy to face since I had the solution at hand: the incredibly cute Three Amigos stamp set by Mama Elephant is perfect if you want a wide range – from neutral to incredibly cute, everything is possible.

I stamped the fox and Copic colored him, then drew the little scene on his paper with a Memento Pen (you just need to use a pen that will not smear with Copics). The fox itself is pretty neutral and my scene just set the mood for the upcoming holiday, so nothing too cutesy here. Thanks to the die set I also stamped the crumpled paper a few times and then die cut it – I'd never have fussy cut this.

I did add some glitter washi tape to the sides. You could use patterned paper or stamp your own background. I just wanted to make sure that I had a stark contrast and a "male" color. Blacks and greys are neutral, so they work perfectly for this.

For the rest of the background, I used a few of the tiny stamps that come in the Avery Elle Storybook set and on the inside, I stamped an easter greeting that was created with the ever so useful Milo's ABC from Lawn Fawn.

Thanks for stopping by! If you want to get a look at how I made the card, you can find a video tutorial on my blog.

Cheers, Julia!

My nod to Warhol

Lydia is off having fun in Rome so I'm filling in again today - sorry you'll be fed up of me now!

I've seen lots of pop art stamping on pinterest recently and I've always been a fan so I thought I'd dig out the Warhol within and see what I could do with it.   I have to say that my colours are a lot more neon irl but the limitations of computer screens mean its impossible to show them and my little kitty bottom right is all pastel which he so isn't!   Anyhow - it's a fun style to play around with and has endless possibilities and is very easy to achieve so I hope you give it a go.

I marked out a piece of white card with a grid big enough to house the kitty from My Lucky Charm and drew light pencil lines to follow for masking.  I stamped the kitty into each rectangle and then made a couple of masks of him (you could do it with 1 or cut 6 to do all at once) and masked off one rectangle at a time with the kitty masked too and then used the straight to paper technique with pigment inkpands in really bright colours until I had the backgrounds for each coloured.  Remove the masks, and repeat with each until all 6 are coloured. 

Once fully dry I coloured each kitty with copics with flat colour - no shading in a Warhol! Using just 2 clashing colours for each.  I wish you could see the true colours as its much more vibrant than this shot!   This was the painting I used as my inspiration.

Once I'd finished with that I added a sentiment using Scripty Sayings and just extended the swirls freehand to split it over the two lines from edge to edge.  A little black panel on the side pulls it all together and highlights the contrasting colours.

We have lots of new stock in store today - Altenew and Mama Elephant and restocks from Waffle Flower.

Tara

Star Signs Trio

Hello!

I have been dying to play with my cute Mama Elephant Cosmic Stars set for ages - I don't really know which sign of the zodiac goes with which month but the images are just too sweet to resist!  So sweet that I made 3 cards to share with you :)

I have watercoloured each of the images and die cut them with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle and Squares dies.  I created different backgrounds using Winnie and Walter's The Big, The Bold and The Happy stamps and Big Bang Confetti.  I found these images really easy to work with and they added to my stash of birthday cards.

Hopefully these stamps will be back in store later today or tomorrow once our crafty superhero, Tara, has had the chance to upload the latest delivery from Mama Elephant!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Sarah x

           

 

Florals in pencil.

Hello.

I have two  cards to share today using flower stamps from Avery Elle.

I saw this pencil technique a few places and gave it a try and i love that its a different look to copics or watercolours.

I used the large bloom flower from Petals and stems for this card.

To start i stamped it in pixie ink and let dry.

I then used coloursoft pencils to colour over the ink.

I used the same technique with this flower from blossoms and blooms.

This time stamping in silver fox ink so that is shows on the coloured card.

Click the images below to go to the products used in today's cards.

 

  

  

Thanks for looking.