Happy New Year

Just thought I would pop by quickly to say work on the new website is going well and to thank you all for your patience whilst we get all this new shiny technology worked out!

In the meantime I thought I share a quick New Year card I made and wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous slide into 2016!

This came together really quickly - a quick spritz of Hero Arts ink, a layered champagne glass die cut from acetate (the colour comes from inking up the stick-it I used to join the layers together) and some glittery die cut sentiments from Lawn Fawn's scripty cheers and the new stitched number dies from My Favorite Things.

Hope you all raise a glass or two tonight ;-)
Tara
x

Christmas Trees, Elves and Vikings!

So today I have another eclectic mix of projects for you.  A couple of last minute gift ideas plus a card using my new favourite stamp!

Firstly I wanted to share a Christmas decoration idea which is very giftable - I am gifting this one to myself!   It does use the reindeer which are out of stock and won't be back before Christmas - sorry I did try to get them but they are not avaiable on the wholesale site at Mama Elephant.  I have been wanting to share it though and as the tree die is now back in stock I thought I'd go with it as you could use other Christmas stamps in place of the reindeer.

I started with a white box frame (I get mine from The Range for a fiver so they make very inexpensive gifts) and used a sheet of bokeh paper for the background along with some snowy hills using the ever popular Lawn Fawn hillside die.   I made two tiny trees using the snowflakes and smallest bough from the Take A Bough die and stuck them into a couple of blobs of plasticine on the edge of the frame, hiding those with another snowy hill ;-)  I added the reindeer and then the sentiment that was my inspiration for the whole frame - "Its Time to Jingle" from Mama Elephant's Jingle Greetings and then filled the frame with lots of jingle bells (we have some in stock in basic supplies).    You can see I really love the bough dies - my house will be covered in miniature trees this year!

For my second gift idea, I've returned to one of my former craft making skills - I used to do lots of craft fairs selling handmade jewellery and when I saw the Elves by Lia stamp they just screamed earrings to me!

I turned to my friend shrink plastic for these and you can see on the image on the right just how much they shrink!   If you want to play with shrink plastic then you need alcohol inks or markers to colour them.  For these I stamped the image onto the FRONT shiny side and then coloured with copics on the BACK rough side.  You can't do too much shading as you start to lift off ink if you go over it more than once.  I cut these by hand and added a border so there was enough room to punch the hole at the top of the hat before shrinking.  Make sure your hole is big enough as that shrinks too!   Then just add jump rings and earring posts and you're good to go!

Finally this week, I could not wait to play with the new Viking stamp from Avery Elle's new release.  I am a bit obsessed with Vikings at the minute as we are watching the new BBC drama The Last Kingdom.  For my card I wanted to use it for a birthday so didn't want to use the punny sentiment in his beard (although I love that too!) so I carefully trimmed it out using a craft knife - I can put it back in anytime I do want it, but this way I get more use out of a stamp designed for Valentine's ;-)  What's more, I went even further and turned him into a spinner......

I stamped him as normal for the front and coloured him in with copics.  For the back view, I inked up the stamp again but only on the outline (using a momento pen instead of the ink pad) and then I just drew some rough lines to create his trousers, shirt and hair.  Trust me - I am no artist but this was just a few straight and wiggly lines so is very easy!  Colour in the back to match, add some string in the middle and sandwich together and he presto - a spinning Viking!    The sentiment was stamped in white and was spelt out using Milo's ABCs but any alphabet set you have would do.  This link shows you all the alphabets we stock.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We will be getting the new release from My Favorite Things early this week.  We have got all the restocks we could too but a lot of the Christmas items you've been waiting for are STILL out of stock at their end so there will be no more Jingle or Elves before Christmas.  Sorry - I tried but I can only get what they have!
• Both Mama Elephant and Wplus9 have decided not to release in December.  I tried to restock both but Mama Elephant didn't have anything we needed in stock so there will be deliveries from them now until January.  I have some items coming from Wplus9 early this week but again they were out of stock on lots of the things we needed.
• Lil' Inker Designs have a new release on 9th December which will be live here with us that day too.
• Lawn Fawn's mini release is on the 10th and again we have that ready to go.   We have all the restocks we could get from them live in store now.
• After that, there will be NO MORE NEW STOCK UNTIL WE RE-OPEN IN JANUARY.

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.

Floral Delights

I have a simple card to share today and I'm channelling my inner Lydia with my take on florals using one of the new sets from Winnie and Walter.

I've only used 2 of the stamps from the 23 on offer in the gorgeous set called In Bloom:  Anna's Florals.  Some clustering and masking makes those 2 stamps do a lot of work and create a huge impact.  This was my first attempt at colouring using Zig Clean Colour Pens so its a little ropey but whatever your medium of choice there is a bloom for your in this lovely set.   This will be one I turn to regularly.   The sentiment is one of my all time favourites from Wplus9 - its just perfectly sized for cards.   It's from Strictly Sentiments 5 and it has some pretty handy friends in the same set.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We've had restocks this weekend from Lawn Fawn so all the winter sets you've been waiting for are back in time for Christmas.
• We've also had the latest release from Reverse Confetti as well as restocks on the frosted pillow boxes which have been really popular.
• Our first delivery from Concord and 9th is in transit and will be with us early next week.
• The latest release from Altenew is also in transit and will be here later next week.  We've had a surge in Altenew orders today following a certain someones appearance on a certain shopping channel I believe, as lots of new customers have found us, so we've had quite a few sell outs and we'll be getting another order in to restock the older sets asap.
• The new release from Mama Elephant goes live in the USA tomorrow but unfortunately we haven't yet received ours.  We should have it by the middle of next week fingers crossed.

That's all for this week.

I will update you via Facebook as soon as we get a fix for the ongoing issues with Apple and Adroid platforms.

Tara

Prehistoric Birthday

I wanted to highlight one of the new stamps we got this weekend from SugarPea Designs as I am a huge fan of this lesser known brand.  The quality of their stamps is second to none and I always get the best stamped detail from them.   I just totally fell in love with the dinosaurs in Prehistoric Pals as soon as I saw them and used a few to create a little scene.

I started with the lava stamp but just inked up the top of it and then simply drew a couple of wobbly lines to extend it to make it a big volcano in the background.  I masked the blue dinosaur and stamped the tree over the top and then added a little friend for his birthday party.  Another wobbly line created the foreground and I drew a couple of clusters of rocks to add interest (round wobbly lines - I'm great when it comes to drawing but anyone can do a wobbly line!)  

The whole scene was then coloured with distress markers and a little water as this is a one layer card so it was important not to get it too wet but I find that Papermania 300 gsm card blanks can withstand a little water colouring if you are careful.  To add the texture to the volcano I used a scrap of natural sponge to add some texture over the base colour with the same distress colours just less diluted.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• We had new arrivals this weekend from Waffle Flower stamps
• We had restocks on all Mama Elephant stamps, dies and inks
• We have ordered restocks from Lawn Fawn but are waiting for confirmation of a shipping date from them - it can take 2-3 weeks when they are busy.
• We are still having issues with the check out button disappearing from the website - this is due to an upgrade beyond our control - once you refresh your browser it should appear.  Sorry :(  The new website will be much, much better!

Have a great weekend - catch you next week
Tara

Alpine Fun

I spent the day at a gin festival yesterday so you'll have to excuse me today as I'm a little slow starting the day for some reason ;-)

I did have the foresight to make a card before the festival though as I suspected I wouldn't be up to doing one this morning.   I really wanted to do something a little different and with all the Christmas stock arriving there was lots to choose from but one set of dies really stood out for me so I started with the Snow Caps dies from Avery Elle and this is what I ended up with.

This is a 3D box frame card with lots of depth and dimension - it works a little like a cardboard theatre if you remember those from your childhood, but the bonus is, unlike layering up with foam tape, this will still fold flat for posting ;-)  Here's a top shot so you can see how it goes together.

It's very easy to make - start in the middle of an A4  sheet of card and mark the edges of your base card.   Score 5 x 1cm lines at either side and cut a 1cm frame from the centre.  Then you simply fold in a concertina and attach your different layers - one on the base card, one in the middle and finish with the cable cars on string at the front.

This shows you the dimension from another angle.  To attach it to your card, you need strong double-sided tape - start with one edge, attach your inner layers and then attach the opposite edge to your base card.

To create the scene used characters from two of the Avery Elle stamp sets - Snow Much Fun and Penguin Greetings along with the co-ordinating dies to cut them out, popping a couple of them inside the cable cars (or gondolas as they called in the USA apparently).   The snowy background comes from the lovely new paper pad Bokeh in the Snow from Lawn Fawn.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

As well as the Avery Elle release, we also received the new release and restocks from PaperSmooches so all of that is in store now.   I particularly like the Apologies stamp set as I asked Kim to design one as other than 'Sorry for your Loss', I thought sorry sentiments were particularly lacking, and she obliged with this killer set with matching die!

We're not expecting anything else new this coming week - there are new releases pending or just out, but we're playing catch up a little with the big releases.  They will coming soon though.  So we will have the new releases from Lil' Inker Designs, WaffleFlower and Neat and Tangled probably by early next week.

Have a good week - I'll catch you on the flipside.
Tara

September Challenge Week 1

We're back to colours again this month and have some Autumn hues for you to play with along with one of my personal faves of black white and grey with a pop of yellow - a timeless classic!   Just pick a minimum of 3 colours from any one of the 3 images below and make something with it using at least one product we sell in store.   You don't have to make a card - it can be a scrapbook layout, or an off the page project - whatever takes your fancy!

In case you're stuck for a place to start - the DT are playing along too and this week we have used all 3 colour combos to kick things off.

Jenny

I've made a simple Mandala pattern using Garden Flowers by Lia from Hero Arts

Sarah

using Paper Smooches Leafy Greens and Lil Inkers Awesome word die.

Tara

using My Minds Eye My Story Papers and Washi, Wood Veneers, Smile Die
and Family Floral Stencil (used as a stamp)

We hope that's inspired you to play along - once you've made your creation - link it up here http://makethedayspecialcards.blogspot.co.uk/p/challenges.html
You can play along as many times as you like and feel free to combine with other challenges as long as you stick to our rules too!   You have until the 22nd September to play.

Let it snow!

I know in theory it's still summer but it is almost cold and wet enough to snow here today and with the arrival of all the new Lawn Fawn Christmas products this week my thoughts turned to snow and Christmas cards and I have 3 to share with you today.

Firstly, I'm taking the Hero Arts Snowflake background stamp I used last week for another spin and pairing it with the new Let is Snow Border Die from Lawn Fawn.  If you need to make a lot of cards then this is a really quick make - you could knock out loads of these super fast!

Simply stamped in grey onto a silver pearl card with the die cut mounted on a pop of pink (grey and pink is a great contemporary combo but a more traditional Christmas colour would work just as well if pink is not your thing).   I used stick-it on the back of my white card before die cutting to make sticking the fiddly border on a breeze!

I wanted to have a play with the Lawn Fawn Ready Set Snow Shaker dies - it does look a little confusing that they have two die sets to match one stamp - but this die set can be used as a stand alone as well as with the stamp.

Here I used it as a traditional shaker.  Use the smallest dome die to cut the hole from the centre of a piece of white card, poking out all the little bits and keeping them to be your snow in the shaker.  Stamp the snowflake background in blue.   On the base card, stamp the contents of your globe - here I've used the snowman from Mama Elephant's Polar Pals to show that lots of things fit in the globe.  Then there are two outer globe dies that are the same size - one simple outline and one with the base and outline shape together.  Use the simple one to cut your acetate and the other to cut your outer globe - here I chose a dark blue to make my globe stand out.  Fix your card to the front using foam tape ensuring your have no gaps around your globe for your snow to escape.  Use a powder tool to make sure there are no "sticky bit" around the inside for your snow to stick to.  Fill with your snow bits and some sequins and beads.  Fix your acetate over the top and cover with you globe.

You don't necessarily have to make a shaker with this die set though - if you are worried about dimension and postage, you can make really cute flat snow globes too!

Here I die cut the original dome in blue to give a snowy background to the inside of the globe (thanks to Jenny for that idea!)  The snowy hill comes in the set too and I just added the deer from Toboggan Together before covering with acetate and and a holographic globe.   This would pass the Royal Mail thickness test!

 

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Stamping Bella's winter release plus lots of other stamps that are new to us are now in stock
• Lawn Fawn's full release is now available here
• Winnie and Walter restocks are now also available.  They have a new release out at the end of September/early October.
• We received restocks from Hero Arts yesterday and they will be in store this afternoon (including the stamp I used above)   
• We have the latest Christmas collections from My Minds Eye - they will be available this afternoon too in the Paper and Embellishment sections of the store.
• Avery Elle will start showing their new release tomorrow and it is already en-route to us so will be available on Thursday when it is released in the USA.
• We are starting work on our new website - if there is something you really dislike about our current website - do leave a comment to let me know as I want to make the new site as user friendly as possible so your feedback would be really helpful!

That's all for now as I will be back this afternoon with the winners of our current challenge ahead of the new one starting on Tuesday!

Tara
 

Lawn Fawn has arrived!

Sarah is away so I'm filling in with a super-quick card featuring some of the stamps released today by Lawn Fawn.   This little dude is so cute he's hard to resist!

The sheep and sentiment are from Baaah Humbug, simply stamped and coloured with pencils.  I love that you can add wool and have him knitting!   I framed him using the cute little corner stamp from Let's Bokeh using my favourite shade of ink from Mama Elephant - Winter - it's such a great shade for Christmas cards where you want a snowy feel.

Right - back to packing!

See you Sunday for some more inspiration.

Pearly Snowflakes

Quick post today as there is a LOT going on in MTDSSS HQ at the minute.   We have so much new stock that has just arrived or is due in the next 10 days that I'm really not sure where we're going to put it all!   More on that below.

The latest new arrival is the Christmas release from Hero Arts and one of the many things that grabbed my attention was this beautiful hand-drawn snowflake background stamp.  Coupled with the new pearly white embossing powder you have the basis for a couple of quick Christmas cards.....

I stated by embossing the whole stamp onto glossy white cardstock using the new Pearly White powder.  Inking over with Mint Julep, Cornflower and Emerald shadow inks gave a soft verdigris effect so I decided to add copper into the mix too.  The snowflake is die cut using the Lil' Inkers Dies and embossed in the copper powder and the sentiment is stamped over the edge of the panel.  The sentiment is from Big Bold and Seasons by Winnie and Walter.

As I'd cut the stamped snowflake panel in half it meant I could make two cards - for this one I stamped the same sentiment onto a flag panel and used a square card and different snowflake for a different look.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Echo Park's latest co-ordinating collections have just arrived in store.
• Hero Arts Winter release is now in store - some items were not shipped so are listed but showing as out of stock - I am hoping they will follow soon but am waiting for an answer from the distributor.
• Stamping Bella's latest release is shipping next week so should be here soon.
• Lawn Fawn's massive winter release will be live in store on the 27th August - as soon as it is released in the States.
• Avery Elle's winter release has been delayed by a week so that will now be in store on 3rd September, again, as soon as its released in the States.
• Winnie and Walter restocks and the latest releases from Sugar Pea Designs are hopefully shipping soon.
• New releases from Neat and Tangled, Lil' Inker Designs, Paper Smooches, Mama Elephant and My Favorite Things will be ordered in the next week or so and will follow soon after - it's a little like painting the forth bridge around here at the minute!