Let it Snow!

Hey!

It's Bev here today. I can't believe I have done two months of DT posts here and that we are less than a month away till the BIG day! Who else is on full on Christmas mode? Mild panic is starting to set in with all the cards I still need to make and all the other Christmas creativity ;)

So, I'm back today with some more Christmas cards to share with you. You've probably got to know me a little by now and some of my favourite things. 

Snowflakes! I love snow flakes and all things snow. They make me so happy and inspire me to create, especially when I feel under pressure or my mojo is lacking a little. Do you have a theme or something that inspires you?

For my snowflake duo I used Flora & Fauna Mini Snowflakes, this cute set is a bargain at £3.95 and my favourite Altenew ink colour collection, Sweet Dreams. 

For this first card I wanted to replicate a snowflake flurry and used the three lightest shade of inks to stamp the snowflakes. The sentiment is from another of my current favourite sentiment stamp sets, Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages.

You can just about see that I added a little detail to the snowflakes using a white gel pen. It wasn't particularly necessary, but I was inspired to do it! 

For my second card I was inspired by the current sketch over at CAS Colours & Sketches seen HERE and below.

This time I used all the stamps from the Flora & Fauna Mini Snowflakes clear stamp set, even the cute little 'let it snow' sentiment.

As I already had the colours out on my desk, it seemed practical to use them again on this second card. I used some foam adhesive to raise the sentiment panel up and create more of a focal point.

That's all I have to share with you today. I hope I have given you a little more inspiration with your Christmas card making. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends & those who celebrate.

Have a wonderful day & see you back here next week!

Crafty Hugs 

Bev

Ho, Ho, Ho - Merry Christmas!

Hey!

It's Bev here today. I am really getting into the Christmas spirit now and I have a trio of Christmas cards to share with you using the recently released Winter Stencil Strips from MFT.

I didn't think I would really get into using stencils, but they are really good fun and there are so many techniques you can use them with. Plus they are really good value too, especially this one at £5.50 and a choice of 4 designs in one!

For my first card today, I couldn't wait to try out the MFT Merry Christmas Blend stamp and give it a rainbow look! 

Choosing to stamp it in a rainbow of colours was quite time consuming and required some masking while inking up. But with the use of a stamping tool it was pretty easy and straight forward. I used Altenew inks in Ruby Red, Orange Cream, Fresh Lemon, Parrot, Ultramarine, Azurite & Ultraviolet.

After I had stamped the sentiment, I went and added the snowflake stencil in Altenew Silver Lake ink and added some sparkly liquid adhesive to the snowflake centres. With the stencil having four designs in one, you need to use a scrap piece of paper to mask the designs off that you don't want to ink!

Next I used the same snowflake design to create a lovely background using Altenew Dew Drop ink.

I added gloss white liquid adhesive to the snowflake centres and this time finished the design with a trio of snowflakes and the 'Let it Snow' banner sentiment from Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages Stamp Set.

The sentiment and snowflakes are adhered to the card using foam adhesive so that they stand out from the background. I used Altenew Aqualicious and Teal Cave ink colours.

Lastly for today I have a super quick clean and simple card using the HO, HO, HO design on the stencil.

I used Altenew Ruby Red ink for the stencilling and I added the 'Believe' sentiment, also from Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages stamped in VersaFine Onyx Black ink onto a scrap of white card & adhered using foam adhesive.

So much fun with one stencil and a couple of stamp sets. I hope I have inspired your Christmas card making a little. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Bev 

Altenew Ink colours used can be found HERE in the Seven Hills Crafts Store and all the colour families I have used are currently in stock :)

Lapis Lazuli 

Enchanted Garden

Gentlemans Gray

Sweet Dreams

Pocketful of Sunshine

Tropical Forest

Warm & Cozy

Red Cosmos

Rainbow Wreath

Hey & Happy Thursday!

It's Bev here and today I have something a little bit different to share with you. I don't know about you, but I am always finding creative inspiration on Instagram lately. Recently I saw a beautiful rainbow wreath made from die cuts and it's been on my 'to make' list ever since!

I've also been having a 'treat yo'self' week and ordered lots of new crafting supplies, including the Winter Greenery dies from the recent WPlus9 release. These are designed to match the coordinating stamp set Winter Greenery, but I have just used the leaf sprig die seen on the right of the product image below.

I set to choosing a rainbow of coloured card offcuts from my stash and set to die cutting three of each colour and I have 15 colours as I just love colour and couldn't leave any of my favourites out! 

For the base of the wreath to secure the die cuts to, I used the Wreath Base available from the store and seen below. It is a jute wrapped wire ring and is perfect for adhering card, paper, felt and more.

Before I started adhering the die cut leaves, I added some linen thread to be able to hang the wreath once it was finished. I then started by adding one of each of the colours of leaf to the base using liquid adhesive, similar to this Lawn Fawn Glue Tube.

After adhering one of each colour I went back adding another of each colour, until I had used all three leaves of each colour.

I procrastinated for some time as to how to finish off the wreath and finally settled on the 'With Love' sentiment banner from Concord & 9th Mistletoe Messages stamp set. I've adhered this to the wreath using foam adhesive. 

I also added some adhesive crystals randomly around the wreath for a little added sparkle and interest. I think in all this took me about 3 hours to make from start to finish and it was thoroughly enjoyable. 

I am now thinking of trying a stamped & die cut rainbow version! The leaves in the stamp set are 2 step, so you could really play around with colour layering. I will be sure to share if I do get round to making it.

That's all from me today. I hope you have enjoyed seeing my project as much as I enjoyed making it! Until next time, thanks so much for stopping by.

Crafty Hugs

Bev 

Fun with Geometrics

Happy Thursday!

It's Bev here today with a FUN geometric and masculine birthday card. It's my Dad's birthday at the weekend, and so I needed to make a card for him.

I was looking though my supplies to make my card and with limited masculine themed products, I was inspired to use the Waffle Flower Color Combos For Inkpads stamp set. As I've not got round to my intended purpose for using these stamps (swatching all my ink pads), it was nice to ink them up to create this fun background. 

I decided to use the Altenew Lapis Lazuli collection which features two bright blues and two softer shades creating a fun combination. I used my stamping tool to stamp all of the shapes, this was to ensure I achieved even coverage with them being solid and new stamps. 

The 'Happiest Birthday' sentiment is from Concord & 9th Confetti Turnabout stamp set and the DAD is die cut using the My Favourite Things Impact Alphabet dies and adhered to the card using foam adhesive for a little dimension.

This card would look great in all kinds of colour combinations, for women and all different occasions. Geometrics are my 'go to' for masculine cards and they come in all types of products too, not just stamps. 

I hope I have inspired you today & I hope to share more masculine makes with you soon. Until next week, thanks for stopping by today.

Crafty Hugs

Bev

Products Used...

Share Handmade Kindness

Hey!

I'm here today to Share Handmade Kindness with you all, hopefully it will inspire you to send out some handmade kindness to someone this week :)

This week Jennifer McGuire is celebrating 3 years of sharing handmade kindness and I thought it would be lovely to honour this anniversary too, using the Hero Arts Acts of Kindness clear stamp set and the Share Handmade Kindness fancy die.

I've a trio of cards to share using a combination of the stamps and dies seen above paired with other awesome products.

The Hero Arts Acts of Kindness clear stamp set is mainly sentiments, apart from the few heart accents. With sets like this, it can often be difficult to know how to use the sentiments in a creative way. One thing I love to do, especially with bolder sentiments is shadow stamping.

This is super easy to achieve using a stamping tool, a coloured ink and black ink. Once I stamped the sentiment I felt it needed a beautiful butterfly to accent it, I chose one from WPlus9 Beautiful Butterflies was the perfect choice.

Next, I wanted to use the 'Throw Kindness Round Like Confetti' sentiment, as I had the perfect choice of stamp set to pair it with...

I think this is the first card I have made with one of Concord & 9th turnabout stamp sets *shocked face*. Obviously the best choice was the Confetti Turnabout clear stamp set.

I used a selection of Altenew inks to stamp the confetti and then over stamped the sentiment in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I finished the card with a small hear accent filled with glittery dimensional  drops and also added some to a few of the confetti drops.

Lastly for today I had to use the Share Handmade Kindness fancy die...

This is a wonderful sentiment in a beautiful font and I instantly thought to showcase it with the inlaid die technique. I used Hero Hues Azalea card stock and it looks shockingly pink against black. But I love it! 

I finished this card off with a sparkly embossed heart, fussy cut and adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

All the products I've used can be seen below. I hope you find some creative time today and that you are inspired to share some handmade kindness.

Crafty Hugs

Bev

To The Birthday Girl

Hello, it's Liz here today. When I was little (I'm going to show my age now) I loved playing with those paper dress up dolls. The outfits had little foldover tags to attach them to the cardboard doll, hours of fun! Well this stamp set reminded me of those dolls. It's the Fashion Wear Stamp Set by Concord & 9th. You get two basic face stamps and then you can stamp different hairstyles and accessories. This means you can personalise for the recipient. There's loads of sentiments too!

For my card I used the largest die from the Wonky Stitches set by Avery Elle to cut a piece of watercolour card. I then stamped my girls using Versafine as I used watercolours to colour. The background patterned paper is from the Vintage Botanicals paper pad.

Thanks for stopping by today, happy crafting!

Grateful Twice!

 Hello! Hope you're having a lovely day. I'm just back for a guest post and as I love floral stamps, this Concord and 9th 'Grateful For Everything' set seemed a good candidate to be inked up. There's a great matching die set if you're not a fan of cutting out too

I thought I'd create using two different mediums and started off with a watercolour pen. You can get the same look using Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and an AlteNew waterbrush. Stamp and and heat emboss with white embossing powder first

The set has these beautiful mini spatters that really soften the look around your image and also an image (that I've not used yet) to perfectly match up around the outside so you can have a watercolour-esque band of colour around your image. I decided to try a different look using pencils on black cardstock

Black cardstock isn't as straightforward to colour on without adding a white or light layer of pencil first. I did a shortcut and added a light wash of white acrylic paint which really sped the process up!

Using pencils is all about adding layer upon layer of different colour to get the dimensional look. I'm still learning using them, but love the softness they bring to a project. You could start off your journey with these Prima watercolour pencils and use them with or without water

I finished off the card with a few sequins and a little paint splatter from some white acrylic paint. You can see my mistake here as I was colouring at night and picked up a blue pencil instead of white for colouring around the outside!

I truly love this stamp set as there are so many looks you can get from it! The sentiments focusing on being grateful are wonderful too!

Thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you again sometime!

Keren xx