My Favourites of 2015

Wow! What a challenge.
Narrowing my favourite things down just to 3 was pretty much impossible.
But here goes!
First up; the company that got me into flowers again. It's not one set but a couple from Winnie & Walter. Their floral sets are gorgeous without being overstylised. You can create something more simple,watercoloured or life-like.

My second choice is the most perfect unisex set; 'Playful Pups'. I know it's popped out of stock presently but I had to include it! You can do 'what dogs might get up to scenes'

 Turn them into Ninjas...

 Go super simple..

 or have them climbing a balloon ;-)

 Your imagination is your only limit!
 My last choice was more difficult. I, like Jenny, (see yesterday's post), love 'Take A Bough', So I

This die is a 'make whatever you want from it'. You can see a fried egg..

 or maybe the usual doughnut, or just

 a plain iced biscuit!

 Well, I hope you enjoyed my favourites. I'd love to know what the highlights of your crafty year have been!
I'd love to say thankyou for being supportive of this blog. I know all of us DT girls, really appreciate you reading and commenting.
Can I say a big Happy Christmas to you all and look forward to seeing you back in the New Year with an exciting line-up of more gorgeous new supplies!

Keren xx

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Easel-y the Cutest Dog!

Hi! I've been having fun with parquet..or more precisely, pretend parquet! I was looking at the Playful Pups set from Mama Elephant and I somehow had an idea for a room and then the easel card developed from there!

I grabbed this pack of self adhesive wood sheets and trimmed out lengths and cut into tile shapes, then I just arranged them like a wooden floor

To make the mirror, I just cut a rectangle of thin adhesive metal (plumbers tape) and stuck that onto a sheet of wood. It gives the illusion of a framed mirror without all the hassle!

 The easel part is pretty straight forward, just a piece of cardstock, split into 3 not quite equal parts, scored and folded. Hopefully this photo makes more sense!

You're probably wondering how you'd get it into a card? Well, if you get a thin strip of acetate, fold it into a cube shape (4 sides plus a bit extra for adhering) and stick it to the back of the mirror and dog, it will actually fold flat(tish).

I've just used small pieces of left over paper to create the bunting. Stamp the sentiment and add on a little bell to make the dog look like he's playing with it!

Hope you give this type of card a go, its so easy and is something a little different. Trying out a patterned wood floor was good fun too. I wish I could create a real life one on my kitchen floor!

See you next week

Keren xx

Faux Cross Stitch Cutey!

Hi everybody,

It's Jill here, and this week, I've got a little bit of cross stitch for you!

I've been so excited to play with this Neat and Tangled Hoop die for a while now, and it is BACK IN STOCK!  So perfect time to show it some love.

I thought it would be fun to create a little cross stitched scene, using another stamp set, within the little hoop, so chose the Playful Pups set from Mama Elephant.

I found a piece of patterned paper that had a grid on it, so was perfect, but you could definitely create your own, or pick up a cheap pad of grid paper.  I stamped my cute little Playful Pup out, and created a little scene around him using elements from Mama Elephant's 'In My Heart'.  I then coloured my little scene by drawing a tiny little cross in each box, in various colours, exactly like you would 'stitch' in an actual cross stitch.

I cut the Hoop Die from some kraft card, which I had stamped with a wood grain background, so it looks like a real wooden hoop, and cut the screw part from a piece of card I had heat embossed in gold powder.

I wanted my card to look like it had been lifted directly from a wall in a small old cosy cottage, so stamped my background panel using a wallpaper-esque design, and aged using Distress Ink.  My sentiment is from Mama Elephant's Bloomsies set and is stamped onto cream card and fussy cut.  I added a doily and a twirl of twine behind my cross-stitch, and mounted it all onto my background panel, embellishing with a scattering of pearls, and adding the whole thing to a kraft card base. 

I really enjoyed this little project and can only begin to imagine how many possible 'cross stitches' we could all create using our collections!

I hope you like it, and that you give it a go!

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

                   

  

Hanging Out !

This is the set I've used and its due back in this week in store. If you need to be creating a fun canine (or other animal) scene right NOW, I've picked out a few in store for you that you might have missed.

So, back to the card. 

It started with a scrap.

So do many of my cards!

The blue piece I'd cut for something else and plonked it on a card base and started playing around. I'd stamped and coloured the woofers in a watercolour marker and started arranging them sticking out from the piece.

 Then I wanted them to be a little more tied in with the elements. One of the bottom right dogs is stuck behind the piece but the top ones didn't feel right. So I chopped into the shapes to slot them onto the top. You can see in the next photo that i've simply followed the image outline and this meant I could slot and attach them easily.

Unusually, I've added an even number of dogs. I never do this normally, but for some reason, it seems to work. 5 dogs in the lower right space seemed too many. Anyone any idea of why an even number seems to work here, please let me know, I'm all ears (doggy ears!!).

Better go, I've my own scruffy canine to tend!
See you next week,

Keren xx

Doggone Cute!

Hey!
I think most of you will know exactly which set this little dog is from

There's tonnes of cuteness in this set.. and as a new pup is in our family, I had to get it. Easy to make and probably one of the smallest cards I've ever made- only 8.5cm square!

The beauty of this set is that none of the dogs have any markings, so you can really go to town with recreating your own pooches look or just playing around as I did here.

One of the dogs looked like he was looking through something and so I created the idea of one of those play tunnels that agility dogs go through

By using some vellum and alcohol ink, it was easy to get a see-through effect!- and by positioning both the dog and the ball under the tunnel and using a near invisible glue, I could add the glue to the dog and ball (that were already mounted on foam pads) and thus they could be the anchor points for the 'hard-to-invisibly-glue-down' vellum parchment.

So very cute- and there are a really good pile of them left....go...FETCH!!