More Shared Stamping

Do you remember that challenge we set ourselves as a DT to create different cards using the same stamp set, well that stamp is still doing the rounds amongst the DT and today we have a guest blog from Louise who decided to join in with us too.

Louise went for a genius monochrome look which would be great for those tricky masculine cards.  Using a kraft base and stamping a great background using Neat and Tangled's Sunburst stamp which really highlights the cake.  The stamps are from the Birthday celebration stamp and die set from Echo Park.

If you're wondering where Jenny is - don't panic - she's just up to her eyes in laundry following her family holiday but she will be back next Monday as normal.

Christmas Donuts

We have an old face back for Throwback Thursday today - Louise is making a rare but welcome visit and she's been inspired by our current challenge - only this time she's twisting it the other way around and using non-Christmas stamps to make a Christmas card!

Personally I love the idea of a Christmas donut - much more tasty that Christmas pudding ;-)   Louise used the Donuts die set and the co-ordinating Eat More Donuts stamps both from Lil' Inker designs paired with some Christmas sentiments.

Stamping Contrasts - Scrapbooking

We have an extra special treat on our series today as Louise is back for a visit - and appropriately on her old day so we're having a flash-back Thursday today :-)   Louise is the Queen of project life and scrapbooking so for our Contrast we choose Project Life VS Cards using Scrapbooking stamps.  We opted to play with Bright Lights from Hero Arts and these are our contrasting projects!

Louise

We are showing two different ways to use the Hero Arts set 'Bright Lights'. I am using them for a Project Life layout. They are PERFECT for documenting life, whatever your chosen medium is!
The 'memories' stamp fits perfectly in pre-labeled 3x4's-it is the perfect size.
I went to town a little with the city scape stamp-making a glitter peephole tag for an embellished card-how cute is that stamp?!   And talking of cute - if you build up sequins on the camera stamp it makes the perfect lens!  Take a look at the shot below to see that cute detail.

I hope it gives you some inspiration-this is a really versatile set you NEED in your collection!

Tara

This set has some great sentiments for cards but as the first dance at my wedding was to the You and Me song I was drawn to making a card for my hubby so went down the lurve route.  I die cut a heart from pink paper from the Lawn Fawn Beachside pad and a couple from white card so I could give it some dimension so I could layer them up after embossing the ampersand from the stamp set onto it with white embossing powder.  I stamped the leaf from the set with the Hero Arts Ombre pad 3 times directly onto the base underneath where I wanted to add my heart to create a visual triangle.   I used a little loose watercolour paint to add some splatters to match the heart - just flicking them on with a paintbrush.   I die cut the fabulous arrow from Reverse Confetti and adhered that to the back of heart and stuck the heart down with foam tape for more dimension.  I stamped "You" and "Me" onto white card and trimmed it and stuck that on with foam tape too - the different heights all add interest to a CAS design.  I finished with a strip of grey washi tape in a geometric pattern to tone down the girlyness and a second visual triangle of enamel dots.

Have we inspired you to join in the fun?
If you fancy having a go and challenging yourself to stamp a contrast along with us then link up your entry below - just pick a contrast from any we'll be demonstrating this week and make your own.   You could either make 2 cards to show the contrast or just choose one of ours and make the contrast to match it (so choose Louise's project life page and make a card like I did with whatever scrapbooking style stamps you have - you don't have to replicate the project - just the contrast of using scrapbooking stamps in a different way)   We'll leave the link open for a week after our final post on Saturday so you have time to see all the contrasts before picking one to join in with and then have a full week to play.   You never know, we might even find a prize for the best contrast ;-)

An InLinkz Link-up

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Welcome to another Throwback Thursday here at Make the Day Special Stamp Store! Before we delve into the past,have you SEEN the scrummy new goodness that has been arriving in the shop?! Its very very hard not to blow the food budget and just buy EVERYTHING!!!!

Anyway,back to past releases ;-) Lydia and I decided to try using the same stamp set for different projects. Lydia is a traditional scrapbooker (and has a STUNNING style-pop to her blog and have a peek) and I am an avid Project Lifer,so we chose the cute Mama Elephant Bootastic and got our BOO on :-)

I loved grouping all the little trick n' treaters together on one card-they are super cute! I went with no colour on the images,as my palette for this spread is fairly unaccepting of anything other than orange,grey,black and white-so stamped them on some print cardstock,stamped and stitched the little pumpkins along the top like lanterns.

I did the same for the bats and spiders,stamping,cutting and using stitching to add movement:

Added a little cheesecloth behind the spiders for a web-like look:

Ta-dah!

If you ask her nicely,I'm sure Lydia will show you her gorgeous Scrapbook layout...its boo-tiful!

See you next week-I might have stopped doing Halloween projects by then.....

but then again,I might not have ;-)

Lou x

Colour Week Day 4

Hello!

Wow,colour week is producing some gorgeous cards and great tips isn't it? I hope mine doesn't disappoint as we head towards the weekend. I LOVE Halloween. I tend to go a bit nuts at this time of year with my two most favourite holidays fast approaching. As a result,I have a tendency to buy ALL (and I mean ALL) Halloween and Christmas related stamps. Want to know what (nearly)all Lawn Fawn's Halloween stamp sets look like in one place...? Look no further!

There is a looooot of colouring on this,so maybe grab a coffee and pull up a chair as this is very photo heavy! The sets I used are Lawn Fawn Critters in Costume, Hoppy Halloween, Happy Haunting and So Thankful and their dies. The only sets I didn't use was Trick or Treat and Heebie Jeebies:-)

I use Copic Ciao pens,and I used a white jelly pen to highlight. On the pumpkins I used the white then smudged it straight away to give a more subtle highlight,like this...

This is a bendi fold card,so I guess the easiest way to show it all to you is like a striptease ;-) 

Here is layer one...

Lots of Autumn coloured Copics used in this!

Grey pens,whatever brand you favor,are a great investment. They can be used over other colours to add depth and shading. On the vampire bunny,I used some grey on his cloak where the shadows would be.

On to the next layer! And you can see the white highlights on witches cat :-)

And finally the last photo! This is the card opened up,ta-dah!

My top tip for colouring is to keep a scrap of the same card that you are using beside you and first try colour combos/shading etc on that before committing it to the stamped image,and don't be shy to try seemingly weird combos :-)

I hope all this colouring is inspiring you to try something new-the shops latest challenge is up now and the prize is awesome as ever! Check back in tomorrow for more from:

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Happy nearly weekend day!

Todays card was inspired by 'that' John Lewis advert last year,you know the one-hare and bear? Well as soon as I saw Lawn Fawn's Hello Baby and Love you S'more ,it made me think of those two

They are too cute! I stamped onto watercolour paper with Archival ink,then watercoloured them with distress inks. I gave bunny a 'fluffy' tail using some puff-pen and mounted the card on to script paper 

I wanted to keep the middle of the hill paler so it didn't dominate the card with green.

I am looking forward to this years John Lewis commercial-they always are a tear jerker for me!

Have a great Thursday,see you next week!

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

I did warn you I would be back with more from the fabulous Unity My Dear set if no one bought it,and no one has-so here is another idea to stretch this lovely stamp set. 

With Christmas on its rapid way (don't groan-you have to start thinking about it soon ;-) ) I started thinking about creative gift wrapping. This set makes a perfect old fashioned gift bag

See? How cute is that? Now imagine it spilling goodies out on Christmas day...

Oh now that's my kind Christmas present! 

So all I did for this was use Staz-on to stamp onto a calico bag-simples!

Our new challenge is up-it's a lovely sketch this month,so pop on over and have a peep ;-)

Have a good end of week,

Lou x

Va Va Voom!

Surprise! 

Its Lou here,taking an unusual Saturday-just to keep you on your toes ;-)

Thank you cards. You can never have too many of them knocking around,right? Well today's card is the quickest simplest 'thank you' card ever. EH-VAH! Here it is...

See? Told you ;-) And how CUTE is that little guy?! Bet you don't know which stamp set he is from...Give up? Well,hurry as there is only 1 set left and it wont be coming back,so to get hold of it again will cost you an air fair State side (or some hefty customs ;-) ) He is from Unity's My Dear set,right here,and what a great price for these excellent quality stamps! But hurry! If no one buys this last set,I will be back next week to show you some more ideas on how cute this set is-you have been warned!

 Here he is again...

Hmm,ooh la la! So what other stamps did I use to make this. The shading is from Paper Smooches Positive Strokes (OOS for now,but will be back!) and the sentiment is from the scrummy Mama Elephant Around We Go. Voila! 

I hope you like him. Don't forget our new challenge is coming up in a few days :-)

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Happy nearly weekend :-D

I know some of my posts can dubiously be called 'Throwback',but todays post is TRULY a throwback. I used  the gloriously vintage Paper Smooches Chubby Chum Pals and the not so quite as vintage Think Fast to create a card one of my favourite quotes

I know,I know-its a chicken,but it could be a seagull. If you half squint. And look from a distance ;-)

He and the fries are water coloured and the packet is paper pieced and the sentiment typed with my trusty vintage typewriter. Then a little stitching around the edge in 'fry' colour to finish it off.

Right,thats all from me-Im off to fulfill this cards demand ;-)

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello :-)

Happy Thursday-nearly the weekend-yay!

Todays card is another for one of those frequent August Birthdays,using the super cute,Mama Elephant Bootastic and its matching dies. This doesnt have to be just for Halloween-it can fit a few occasions,including an invite to a movie night,but thats another post ;-)

The speech bubble is from the Avery Elle Oh Yeah die and the Wish List is definitely NOT throwback as its from the scrummy new Altenew Thoughts and Reminders stamp set. I paper pieced the princess after stamping and colouring her Julie Nutting style,over script paper. 

Here's a close up...

I shaded parts of her dress with a pale grey copic to add some depth,and some gold Stickles to her wand and crown. See? Not a wiff of Halloween ;-)

Hope you like it,have a great end of week!

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Its nearly the weekend! Wahoo!

August is a veeeery busy Birthday month for me,so todays card is inevitably a Birthday one ;-)

I used all Mama Elephant products- Cosmic Stars and Starry Nights,(which is currently out of stock) and the scrummy not so throwback Starburst Cover Plate to create this,plus a smattering of Frantage for some extra stars

How cute is that lion?!

The Starburst plate is mounted over some glitter cardstock and raised on pop dots to create a mini shadowbox .

Dont forget to play along with our current challenge-its a beautiful Autumnal colours one this month,and theres plenty of time left to enter :-)

Have a great weekend when it arrives!

Lou x

August Challenge - Week 1

It's time for a new challenge and we're rolling back around to colours this month.  As before we're giving you a choice of 3 schemes and you need only use 3 colours from your chosen scheme.  We've gone for summer into autumn shades....

Here's what we did when we played along  - hope it inspires you to play along too!

Jenny

Louise

Once you've made your projects, link them up on our challenge page http://makethedayspecialcards.blogspot.co.uk/p/challenges.html

The challenge closes at 10pm on Sunday 24th August, and as always you can win £15 to spend in store if your project is the Design Team's favourite!

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Todays card is a wedding card I made for a friends wedding. Wedding cards can be tricky to not make them all about the bride,to add a bit of masculinity to them for the groom too,so I hope I got this balance right. I used WPlus9 Fanciful Feathers and dies. The sentiment is Paper Smooches We Connect,out of stock at the moment,but there are loads of alternatives in stock,have a browse.

One feather is feminine,the other masculine. Heres a closer look

Hope you like it! 

There is a new challenge just around the corner,and as always a £15 store credit for the winner-keep checking in for the details,its going to be a gorgeous one!

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello! 

Cor what a scorching day here today! Is it sunny where you are? The mounting heat and excitement from the children can only mean one thing-end of school is in sight!

This is a busy time for us card makers-trying to make sure every teacher,TA,LA subs etc are catered for and thanked. I use one set for ALL mine. It is super versatile (as are all Lawn Fawn)and can be used for many other occasions-there's still time to grab one and get making! It is,of course, A Good Apple

My card is SUPER simple,quick and easy 

Told you! How cute is that sentiment <3

I cut out a piece of black card to fit the inside of the chalkboard and stamped using the brilliant Avery Elle ink Brilliant White (out of stock right now,but back soon!) and scuffed the edges of the board with the white ink too

You can use this set to make everything you need to thank a teacher for the year-tags,cards even stamp on tissue paper for some great unique wrapping!

Hope you like it and it inspires you. 

Remember,there's still a few more days to play along with our latest challenge of CASEing an older card-its great fun to do and you can win a £15 store voucher if you are picked as winner :-) What have you got to loose?! Challenge closes at 10pm BST on Tuesday 22nd July-good luck! Just go to the top of this page to see the challenges bar and you can see full details and get DT inspiration.

Until next week,

Lou x

Throwback Thursday

Hello!

Hope you are having a lovely week-nearly at the weekend!

In today's post I have started what is turning out to be a massive undertaking (you know those projects-they seem like a good idea at the time,then end up being fairly mammoth? Yup,one of those)

I thought it would be a lovely idea to make my two year old niece a set of flash cards using mostly Lawn Fawn products. 

First I inked up Quinn's ABC's,as these are a great size for this,and have both upper and lower case. Then came the fun part-finding alphabetic critters :-D

(I had to use a Paper Smooches set for the Ee one. Egg would have been super easy,but my niece is highly allergic to egg,so I didn't want to include any egg type thing)

Next came the colouring! Our family uses Montessori as a teaching tool,so I used Montessori alphabet colours for all the alphas,blue for consonants and red for the vowels. I used bold un-fussy colours.

And then backing for the unsightly backs,using Lawn Fawns petite pads

So,this is the first lot. A-i. I think I will laminate them when they are all finished to make them durable.

I hope these inspire you to make some gifts for the little ones in your life!

Lou x