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

A good day to be happy

Hello.

I have been having a sort out of all my stamps and thought I would use some of my older sets...they need love too :)

So i am using some Mama Elephant products.

I have used peek a frame dies, Index card dies and up and away stamp set.

I die-cut the panels firsts from white card and some polka dot paper from Lawn fawn.

The peek a frame dies only cut one side so its like a door opening but i turned it around and die-cut it twice so it was a separate piece.

I masked an area just smaller than the peek a frame and coloured it with distress ink and then added some water droplets and glimmer mist, it actually makes a cool bokeh effect. 

The parts of the frame that were left i stamped the three little critters on from up and away in momento ink and coloured with copics.

Then i fussy cut them and added into the frame that i had adhered to the panel.

Then i stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set.

I didnt add any extra embellishments as i wanted a flat card for mailing.

 

Thanks for looking.

Pretend Pencil Sketching.

Hi everybody,

Jill here.  How are you all feeling today?

I was on Instagram the other day, and the guys at Mama Elephant posted this amazing picture to celebrate 'National Elephant Day'.  It was so simple, yet beautiful and brilliant.  It was the 'Ella and friends' set, and it looked like it had been pencil sketched.  I fell in love with it instantly, and knew I had to try something similar...

I don't even know how they did it to be fair, but certainly mine doesn't come close to how awesome theirs looked, haha.  Never mind, practise makes perfect, eh?

I used grey colouring pencils, but I think it would have looked much better using actual pencils.

I used Mama Elephant's 'Woodland Gifts' to create my 'sketch'.  I stamped out my scene using a really pale ink, and followed/sketched over the lines using a dark grey colouring pencil with a lighter grey to blend.  I introduced a touch of colour and some Glossy Accents to the balloon for a little interest.  I stamped the sentiment in grey ink, and matted onto an Avery Elle 'Truffle' note card.   Obviously this technique is all about the simplicity, so I left it there.

*update*

I've had a try with a normal pencil, and a little shading and blending, so thought I'd share where that got me...

...I actually much prefer this as it's a lot darker and a lot more intense.

What a relaxing technique though?!  I really enjoyed it and can't wait to give it a little more time.

I hope you like both efforts, and would love to see if any of you have given this technique a try yet, if so, maybe leave a link below and we can share our findings?

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

  

         

Bright and bold mini mice shakers.

Hi everybody,

Hope you're well.

I've got some bright and bold watercoloured shakers to share with you today...

Which I brought, slightly, back down to earth with the help of some vellum.

And, just for a change, (she jokes), I used all Mama Elephant goodies...I can't help it, I just look at them and I need to play with them!

I started by die cutting three circles from my panel.  I then took the uber cute little mice from the 'Tandem Rides' set, and stamped them out on my leftover circles.  I coloured them using the Zig Clean Colour Pens with water - such vibrant colours!  

I then used the 'Zenith Borders' set;  repeatedly stamping out one of the borders and clear heat embossing, to create my background, ready for some smooshing and washing across with various Distress Inks, (Mermaid Lagoon, Mustard Seed, and Picked Raspberry).  Now I love me some bright and bold colour - but my background ended up resembling a ker-azy tie-dye t-shirt..a bit much, even for me, so I muted it slightly by covering in vellum.

I adhered some acetate behind my windows, surrounded in shaker tape, added all the delicious sequins and glitters I wanted to use, and covered the back with a piece of acetate - it's such an easier way of sealing everything in so you can then line your background up without needing an extra 3 hands!  I cut the 'Friends' die a few times and covered the front in Black Sparkle embossing powder.  I then stamped out the 'Happy Birthday' from the 'Woodland Gifts' set, (love, love, love this font!), and, again, heat embossed in Black Sparkle.  I added the little speech bubble from the 'Tandem Extras' set for a bit of extra fun and lined up my little critters along the back, adhering them to a piece of card, and then putting the whole thing together.  There was quite a lot going on already (understatement of the year!), so I skipped on embellishments!

Oh, I also added a little trim of die cut grass behind each little window - but it kind of got swallowed up by all the mayhem haha. 

As always, everything is linked below, so go check out the cuteness.

See you next week where, I promise, I'll 'step away from the Mama Elpehant'...maybe ;)

Jillx

                                                                                                         

A friend for all weathers.

Hi everybody,

I hope you're doing just fine.

Well, well, well, what suprise, we're in July, the peak of the, not so fabulous, British summer ... and it has rained non-stop up here in Newcastle for the last 3 days!

So I thought this card was particualrly fitting...

I used Mama Elephant's 'Chance Of Rain' set to make my card.  I adore this set...it's the little bear in his little raincoat, he is just beyond adorable, the expression on his face just makes me chuckle!

I started by stamping out all my elements, coloured them using Crafter's Companion's pencils, and fussy cut.  I then used Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon, and Mustard seed Distress Inks to create a watercolour wash background, which, once dry, I added some sparkly raindrops to, using a stencil and some sparkle paste.  I then stamped out my sentiment, into one of the empty cloud shapes that comes in the set, and onto vellum, setting with clear embossing powder,  

Now I love vellum, but there's always the, 'hmmmm, how am I gonna attatch it?', vellum conundrum that comes with it.  Well, I think I may have just found the answer...the wonder pruduct that is 'Stick-it'.  Now excuse me if I'm a little late to this party, and y'all are like, 'erm, yeah Jill, everybody knows that', but I didn't!  I was wondering how to adhere my piece, and thought I'd give it a shot and see how much the Stick-it showed up behind, so stuck to the back and cut down to the same size - and it was all but invisible!  Now, I'm not sure how it would look on, say, plain white card, (I'm gonna have a little play), but it worked an absolute treat here!  

My little characters are all adhered using foam tape for some dimension, and there you have it.

I really hope you like it, and, even if you all already knew the Stick-it/vellum secret...can we at least pretend I made a discovery :)

As always, all products I used are linked below so be sure to click and peek!

See you next week.

Jillx

      

Friends in Tandem

Hi everyone,

Eeeeek, so another awesome Mama Elephant release happened this week, and I couldn't wait to have a play...

It's no secret that I'm in love with all things Mama Elephant, I mean, I'm out and proud...I am an obsessed, massive, huge, megafan!  And this release has knocked my socks off. It is just soooo cute!

I mean...look at the Beaver's little buck teeth!!!  ...look at his teeeeeth!!!  I just wanna squeeeeeze him!

 

I started by stamping out this amazing, massive 'Friend' from the brand new 'Friend Indeed' set.  I love the look a lot of recent sentiment sets have, where the sentiment stretches all the way across the page, so I decided to extend my stamp, either side, with a black pen, to create a similar look.  I then used the matching 'Friend' die to partially die-cut the bottom from the card.  I then stamped this, 'oh my god how can one little critter be so cuuuuuuute' beaver from the 'Tandem Extras' set, masked him off, and gave him his little cute balloon from the same set to hold.  I masked both of these off, and inked up my background, using Cracked Pistachio and Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.  Once my inking was done, I took off my masks, and coloured my characters using alcohol markers.  I took the cloud die from the 'Landscape trio' die set, and cut myself a nice little skyline.  At this point, everything was one layer, but I decided I wanted my balloon to stand off the page, so stamped, coloured, and fussy cut another, and added over the top.  I used the same cloud die to cut a few layers of vellum.  I then added the rest of my sentiment, (the 'Friends Indeed set' is one of those brilliant Mama Elephant sets where you get a load of different options to personalise your sentiment - love it!), by stamping onto the vellum peaking out the bottom, and clear heat embossing.

And there you have it.  My first play with my new Mama Elephant Goodies...and trust me, I can't wait to get going again!

As always, everything I used is linked up below, so go feast your eyes around the amazing new stamps in the release.

See you next week.

Jillx

        

       

Sending smiles

Hello.

I decided to go through my stamps and find a set that i hadn't used in a while.

I came across my mama elephant stash and new what i wanted to create straight away.

I started by die cutting a  stitched rectangle from Lawn fawn and then  i die cut that using the landscape trio creative cuts. 

I die cut randomly but wanted the empty the cuts to all start at one point and fan out. 

I paced the die cut over my card blank and dew roughly were the sequins were to go then set about sticking the sequins on ...double sided tape is a godsend for this type of project.

Once all in place i added the die cut panel on lots of foam tape to hold it in place.

The sentiment was stamped on top the panel with black archival ink. 

The bunny and the balloons from up and away were stamped onto watercolour card and coloured with watercolour pens before being fussy cut and added on to the panel. 

I didn't stamp the balloon strings and have instead used some thread just for an extra detail.

 

Thanks for looking.