Jill's favourite things of 2015

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and today it's my turn to bring you my favourite products from the last year...talk about being spoilt for choice!!  

First off, I'm gonna have to go with my all time favourite, Mama Elephant, and specifically, those darling cutie patootie Reindeer from Reindeer Games.

 

These little chaps took our crafting community by storm this year, and have been flying off the shelves ever since!  It is of no surprise however, I mean...look at them! 

Next up, it's going to be Wplus9's 'Going Places'...

       

As soon as I set eyes on this set - I was desperate to have it in my stash.  It's their little faces, they're just divine.  I also love the fact you can use it for so much more than it's intended purpose, and bring the critters to life by placing them in alternate situations.  Just soooo cute.

OK, so finally, I'm gonna give a shout out to a whole company who I think have rocked it this year, and it's gonna be...Paper Smooches! 

       

 For me, it's a little nostalgic, as they were the reason I stumbled upon Make The Day Special, a long time ago, when I first fell in love with stamping.  They were the first 'American' stamp brand I started collecting, and I just loved them.  But, after finding this amazing place, and so many other incredible brands, they fell from the top of my most wanted list, and I hate to say it, I kind of forgot about them.  But my oh my, holy macaroni, I just think this year they have knocked it out the park with their releases!  Their die designs are amongst my favourite's, and most used, of all time.  Hat's off to them, I really think they're back with a bang and doing it in style!

I hope you have all had an amazing 2015 - and here's to our favourite companies keeping us skint throughout 2016 as well ;)

Jillxxx

p.s ...quick shout out to MFT's Sketched Chevron background lol...what a gorgeous massive beauty of a stamp that is...and an equally massive Merry Christmas to you all :)

Spring Blooms in Winter

 Hi everybody,

Jill here, and this week, I'm hoping to bring some Springtime vibes to your day...

With some 'no-line pencil colouring', on kraft.

I used Wplus9's 'Spring Blooms' , and Paper Smooches 'Happy Birthday Words Dies' to create my card.

I started by masking off a border around my panel, and stamping out my design, using a selection of the beautiful blooms and foliage from the Spring Blooms set, in a light ink (I used Antique Linen Distress Ink but you could afford to go a little darker than that as your pencils will cover it - trust  me - it was blumming hard to see where I'd stamped!).  Once I had my design in place, I went in with my pencils.  I used the Spectrum Noir pencils, but use what you have for a similar effect.  I followed the outline of my stamping to give me an idea of where I was going, then blended my pencils in light to dark shades.  Once my colouring was complete, I outlined the whole piece with a white pencil, just to help the images 'pop'.  I then took Paper Smooches 'Happy Words Die' and cut it from the front of my card, over my main design.  Initially, I was going to just build up my die-cut using cream card, and in-lay the piece back in, but it didn't stand out enough, so decided to cut the piece once more from vellum, and add this over the top using 'Stick-it', so no adhesive showed.  I love how this turned out and think it adds a real prettiness and softness to the masculinity of the kraft card, whilst still allowing the design to show through.

I added some white highlights to my blooms and foliage, using a white gel pen, and added a scattering of tiny Glossy Accent dew drops over the whole piece for a little added interest.

And there you have it.

I really hope you like it, as always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

     

A Birthday Fit for A Princess

I had one of those days yesterday where nothing I made seemed to come out as I thought it would so I ended up coming up with a new challenge for the Design Team - we're going to play something similar to Chinese Whispers with stamps.  I picked one of the new stamp and die sets from Echo Park - Birthday Celebration and now I've made my card with it, I will be sending it on to another DT Member to see what they make with it, and then they will pass it on etc etc until everyone has had a go.   So you can expect to see this set a few times in the next few weeks!

For my version, I decided to just focus on the crown in the set and add in a few elements from some of the other goodies we've had in this week.  I stamped 5 crowns in shades of yellow for an ombre effect and cut them with the matching die.  They are layered over a panel embossed using the Quilted Star embossing folder also by Echo Park.

I die cut the new Happy Birthday Words from Papersmooches from grey card and gold foiled card (foils will be back in stock later today) and layered them up offset with each other.  All the crowns were screaming princess so I stamped the word onto white card using the ever useful Milo's ABCs from Lawn Fawn and tucked it into the word die.

As every princess needs a little bling I added a diamond from My Precious highlighting it with some extra shimmer using the Sparkle set both of which are new in from Winnie and Walter.   A little strip of yellow card from the Birthday Wishes Girl paper pad adds a little pop of colour.

 

NEWS FROM THE STORE:


This week we have received new items and restocks from:

• Newton's Nook
• Paper Smooches
• Reverse Confetti
• Sugar Pea Designs
• Winnie & Walter

We have a box of stock still to sort from Art Impressions and Thermoweb (deco foils) which should be in store later today or tomorrow afternoon  if not.

The new release from Neat and Tangled will be shipping soon.

We're waiting on Altenew and WPlus9 to get out of stock items back in stock and then will be placing restock orders with them.