Awesome Birthday

Hello!

I just wanted to stop by with a card made using Paper Smooches Borderlicious Stamps:

I have had them in my stash for some time and not got round to using them....I'm sure I'm not the only one with more stamps than time :)  When I was looking at them I thought about paper party banners like the ones I used from Altenew's Birthday Bash set the other week.   The stamps can be easily curved on the acrylic block to create different effects.

I stamped them in a range of Mama Elephant inks and combined with a sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Bash (which is 10% off in store at the moment).  I love the sentiments in this set!  I popped the panel up over a strip of black glitter tape and added some enamel dots.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sarah x

           

 

Sparkle and shine

Hello.

I have a very sparkly card for today using neat and tangled stamp sparkle and shine stamp set.

I heat embossed the images  and sentiment in platinum on watercolour card and water coloured  with distress inks.

I've been craving some colour so when is started i thought this was going to be brighter i always forget that watercolour tends to dry lighter.

That said i am very happy with the colours and with them being more muted it shows the sparkle from the embossing and the glitter pen i used even better.

Thanks for looking.

Dreaming is Believing

Keren is taking a little break for a couple of weeks, so we have a special Guest blogger for the next couple of Tuesdays - Jill from Paper Love Buzz who is an awesome supporter of both our store and a regular player in our challenges so I'm sure you've seen her around.   She has a fabulous project to share today!

Hi everybody, Jill here,

Well what can I say, how very very exciting...this is my first ever post as a 'guest designer' for the, always awesome, Make The Day Special blog!  I can't tell you how much I love MTDS, it's like my favourite place on the internet haha, so what an absolute honour!  And I am beyond thrilled to share my card with you, and here it is...

I have used WPlus9's 'Dream Believer' stamp set, and 'Dreamcatcher' die (which are both currently in stock in the store...just click on the links) with a whole lotta Distress Ink as watercolour to create my card.  I love the recent trend with dreamcatchers, there's something just so cool and gentle about them, and that's where I took my inspiration from, to create a kind of floaty, chilled out vibe...if you know what I mean?!  So I cut all the elements from my die out of watercolour card and washed the various bits in different Distress Inks (Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, and Mustard Seed), also partly washing my background panel through the same inks at the same time.  I inked my 'Dream Believer' stamp up, again with the same inks, and misted with water so that it spread all over the background. Once dry, I stamped the same stamp again, right over the top, in Versmark, and heat embossed in a Silver Sparkle powder.  I tried to keep some dimension to my dreamcathcher die when building it up to add to the floaty feel.  I embellished with a few teeny tiny stars that are actually intended for nail art but hey ho, if it works it works, right? And that was pretty much that!  

I really really reeeeally hope you like it, and hope to see you again :)

Thanks so much for looking, and I wish you all a dreamy day!

Jillxxx 

A Touch of Tweed

Good morning ...Jenny here :)

I've gone with a masculine vibe this morning although many ladies wear tweed as well so I shouldn't really say that!!! I can honestly say I was inspired to make this tweed pattern whilst out walking the dog...we happened to be walking behind a young lad and his Mum on their way to school and he had a rather smart tweed jacket on!! :)

The Herringbone pattern is stamped tone on tone using Lawn fawns Interlocking Backdrops then I used white pigment ink and the diagonal strokes stamp from Belinda's Borders to make a large grid pattern over the top. This was all an experiment piece and I didn't expect to use it so I thought I'd add the stitched line from Avery Elle's Bunting set in blue pigment ink to see how it stamped into the pattern :)

I was quite pleased with the result and decided to cut a panel from it to use... the uneven white ink, which annoyed me at first, actually adds to the effect of texture in the tweed :)

Now what to do for a sentiment!!... I used the Just a Note die from Avery Elle along with the pierced rectangle in the same set to make a faux leather effect label. To make the words stand out I layered it over a pale green piece of card and hand-stitched them to the tweed panel ( the sewing machine wasn't going through three layers of card!!)
I'm quite happy with how it turned out especially because it was a practice piece!!

                                

Unfortunately Belinda's Borders and Bunting are OOS at the moment but the same effects can be achieved by using sets like Mama Elephants Basic Borders or Avery Elle's Celebrate and stitching can be added using smaller stamps such as Lawn Fawns Bon Voyage or Winter Gifts..... have a look at your stamps to see what borders and patterns you have :0)

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

February Challenge Week 3

This is your final reminder to enter this month's challenge - you have until 10pm on Sunday the 22nd February to link up your project.

Remember you can change the heart to another shape if you'd prefer - just keep the overall feel of the sketch so we know our challenge inspired you and make sure to use at least one item we sell to be eligible for the £15 prize.

Julia

Lydia

Once you've got your project ready, link it up on our challenge page.

Dear Friend

So we're all done with the slushy cards for another year, but whilst thinking of all those people who don't have a special someone to share Feb 14th with each year, my mind turned to making a card to show a friend you love them to.  So here's my slightly punny take on a "dear" friend card.

I took the fabulous Label Love stamp set from Altenew and selected a few appropriate sentiments from it.  Next I required a rainbow's worth of inkpads - here I used a mixture of Avery Elle and Mama Elephant pigment inks and then just went about building my rainbow brick wall of sentiments!  The deer head is from the stag trio die set from Wplus9, which is oos today, but as the new release and restocks have FINALLY cleared customs it should be in stock late Monday or Tuesday at the latest.   The friend word is a die from Paper Smooches.  A little black makes the rainbow sing even louder.

That's all from me today as we're off to our very first trade show at the NEC in Birmingham to see what exciting new products we can find for you ;-)  Keep an eye on our instagram feed to see what goodies we find and leave us a comment below if there is something you really want us to look out for.

Tara


NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Wplus9 new release (yes those lovely elephants!) and restocks, as I said above, will be here Monday or Tuesday.
• The Lawn Fawn new release will hopefully be here next weekend - just after release in the States.
• The Avery Elle new release is already here so will be available as soon as the release goes live Stateside on the 26th February.
• We have restocks from Mama Elephant in customs clearance that will hopefully be here mid-week this week and the new release has just landed in the UK so should be here early next week.
• Paper Smooches new release is in transit and again will be here next week.
• We've just ordered restocks and the new release from Altenew - Vintage Roses is not coming back yet (sorry) as they are out of stock of it too. 

Make Your Tiny Stamps Shine with Mama Elephant and ECD Glitter

Hello fellow crafters, today I have a card and a technique for you which I hope will excite you as much as it excites me. My main focus is on coloring with a medium you might not have considered so far: Stabilo fibre tip pens. And before you groan at yet another thing to invest in, I'll stop you right here: they are super cheap (your kids might use them already for school or just plain coloring), you can buy them in packs or individually, and if you have water color paper, chances are you can achieve blending effects similar to Copic markers!

The star of today's show is the little fellow from the Mama Elephant Cosmic Stars stamp set. You can color him any way you want, but I used the Stabilo Pens I mentioned. I found that, on water color paper, they blend very nicely. Now, don't get me wrong: you won't get the same quality of blending as with Copics and these cheaper pens are better suites for smaller images, but if you are on a budget, the Stabilo Pens might be worth your consideration.

The photos don't do the coloring justice nor the super sparkly blue background behind the little crab: I used some double sided adhesive sheets to create a sticky surface and then dumped Elizabeth Craft glitter on it. Since that glitter is opaque, I did it right on the grey card stock – as you can see, you can't see any grey, the glitter covers it right up. I wish you could see this for real, it's brilliant (pun intended).

And if you wonder what's up with this 'weird' sentiment – well, I saw the little character from Mama Elephant and he reminded me of a crab. And the crab reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite TV show, 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered', from the Hallmark channel (if you are not in the US, you can grab it via iTunes). It's just a feel-good show, with some darling characters and one of them cheers up another one by telling her that while's she's soft on the inside, she's like a special breed of crabs: she has a tough outer shell that makes her unsquashable :) I thought this would be a great card for someone who needed some cheering up.

I hope you enjoyed the card and you have a great Valentine's Day! Thanks for stopping by!