Be your own Barista!!

 Hi there :)

I have a couple of cards today bearing gift cards of the beverage kind so I have used a new stamp set from Concord & 9th called Lets Chat.... I love the way you're looking down on the cup and saucer which makes it so different from anything else I've seen from any stamp companies :)

The set comes with some scripty sayings to stamp inside your cup but as Christmas is coming, I thought I'd try to be a creative barista myself and use the Paper Smooches Holly dies to make my own seasonal design on this cappuccino!! I made a stencil using a piece of scrap acetate and inked through it with brown distress ink. To take away the sharp edges I turned the stencil over and gently brushed the inky side against the watercolour card to highlight the texture of the card and make it look more like a dusting of chocolate :) The checked tablecloth is made by inking through this Candy Cane stripe stencil.

The body of the card is made using the really useful MFT Blueprints 16 dies... this set has some great components for gate-fold cards... you can see the MFT video here about this set and how to use the components. I have used two different coloured card bases to make my card and used the MFT Gift card Grooves dies on the inside to hold the gift card in place :)

For my second card I have used the same cup image but I was determined to use one of the circle stamps from the Lots of Blots set by Concord & 9th in my coffee cup!!

The circular blot stamps are smaller than the space in the cup so I found it easier to use a damp brush to add some ink around the rim of the cup before stamping the solid blot. I then over stamped the whole lot with the solid coffee stamp in the Lets Chat set with a light brown ink which takes the stark white lettering away and helps to blend the stamping and water-colouring... I hope that makes sense!!

Inside I've used another die from the gift card grooves set again ...

I love this stamp set and I will have to have a search through my stash to see what else I can use to be a creative barista for other occasions too ;)

                                      
                           

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Concord and 9th

I've been having fun with our new brand this week - I know you all want the trees and we're hoping to get them back again in time for Christmas, but in the meantime, I wanted to highlight some of their stamps which are fabulous quality and have some unusual quirky designs.

I wanted to focus on Love You, Mean It as I adore the wreath base in that set as it is so versatile.  So I have four projects using the wreath as a base.   Two for Christmas and two for all year round.

For the first one, I went as simple as you can with just black stamping, and introduced colour using another one of Concord and 9th's innovative products - "paper route".  These are sheets of newsprint style paper (huge sheets!) with fabulous designs printed on them.  This one is a double sided "washes edition" with lots of interesting patterns - you could cover about 15 cards from a single sheet and you get 4 per pack.

The second one I did back wreath again and used some of the flowers also in black with the  trend of stamping the colour deliberately off centre for the retro look.  I stamped the wreath less times here for a cleaner finish.

For the Christmas versions I added some extra sets.  The card uses the wreath stamped 3 times in brown onto kraft with baubles from Mama Elephant's Jingle Greetings stamped and embossed in red.  The greeting is from Jingle Greetings too.

Then finally - I give lots of bottles of wine at Christmas and hate wine bottle bags so I am always looking for interesting ways to add a gift tag and I thought the wreath would make a fun tag to just sit over the bottle.   Here I started with embossing the gift sentiment from another Concord and 9th set called Lots of Blots in gold, masking it off and then stamped the wreath 4 or 5 times until I had a nice thick circle.  I trimmed the centre with a craft knife and cut the outside with scissors.  To finish I added a sprig of holly using my favourite holly die from Reverse Confetti - its a great size for decorating presents and the dotted fold line gives the leaves lots of extra dimension.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• We have Altenew restocks in transit - should be here this week at some point.
• Avery Elle have a new release on 3rd December - we have it ready to go as soon as they release in the USA.
• Lil' Inker Designs have a new release on 9th December - again we'll have it on release day.
• We have ordered the last two releases from PaperSmooches and hope to receive them this week too.
• There will also be new releases from MFT, Mama Elephant, Lawn Fawn and Wplus9 before we close for Christmas.