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 :)

Simple, Subtle, Sweet Decoupage.

Hi everybody,

Jill here, I hope you're all well.  I've got a bit of simple, modern decoupage to share with you today...

I don't think I'm the only one who thinks of decoupage as maybe being a little dated, and it conjuring up images of little quaint cottages etc, but as soon as I saw this gorgeous set from Paper Smooches, I knew I wanted to decoupage this little beauty right up!

...and hopefully put a little modern twist on it with a CAS design

I stamped out my image, from Paper Smooches 'Best Buds', (an amazing set with a fresh modern take on florals - the stamps are almost tattoo like in their design - very cool), several times, and coloured them all the same using my Zig Real Brush Colour Pens and water.  I then worked out which bits would go where, what would be at the back, what would be at the front, (Ok Ok, it's a tiny simple design, it wasn't exactly brain surgary!), and cut out accordingly.  I washed a small section on my card panel in Peacock Feathers and Mustard Seed Distress Ink, and built up my decoupaged banner over the top, using tiny slithers of foam tape to give depth and dimension.

I wanted to keep everything clean and crisp, so matted onto some black card, and that was that.

I really hope you like it, as always, everything is linked up below so be sure to go have peek.

See you next week.

Jillx