A friend for all seasons

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 it, 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 product s I used are linked below so be sure to click and peek!

See you next week.

Jillx

      

Rainbow Birds...

Hi everyone,

I made a card for the current Mama Elephant Flickr Challenge, and I like to keep me all in one place, so thought I'd share it here too.  This time round, it's all about the Rainbows, and here's my card...

I started by tracing around a circle, in pencil, on a piece of watercolour card, and stamping out this uber cute little birdie from Mama Elephant's 'Splendid' set, in Black Versafine, and clear heat embossing.  I then coloured each of my little birds in, using everybody's new favourite toys, the Zig Clean Real Brush Pens, following a rainbow of colour around the circle.  I then covered them in Glossy Accents - now, weirdly enough, once my Glossy Accents had dried, the colour from the Zig pens had gone really pale and wishy washy, and in the case of the light blue, had literally completely disappeared and gone a dull grey colour (?), so I actually went back over the top using alcohol markers to bring the vibrancy of the colours back.  Bizarre eh?  It doesn't put me off the pens at all, as they are, without a shadow of a doubt, amazing...just be warned...don't put Glossy Accents over them!  I then stamped out my sentiment form the same 'Splendid' stamp set, again in Black Versafine, and heat embossed in Black Sparkle powder to get a few more 'Rainbow' colours going on.  I was over the moon with how my sentiment fit in the middle of my circle, and think the font intermingles so well with the swirls of the birds.

 

I wanted to stick to a clean and simple look, so simply matted onto black card to really make the rainbow colours 'pop', and that was that.

Follow the link to go check out what everyone else has come up with.

See you next time.

Jillx

Rainbow Vibes...

Hi everybody,

A quick post to share a card I have made for the current Mama Elephant Flickr Challenge, where this time round, it's all about the Rainbow.

And here's my card...

I made my background by repeat stamping one of the borders from the Zennith Borders set, and heat embossed in clear powder.  I then created my rainbow, using Distress Inks as watercolour, and washed them over my embossing, overlapping each colour to create a nice blended effect.  Once dry, I die-cut Mama elephant's 'Happy' die form the centre, added a ton of black layers of the same die cut behind, and in-laid back in.  I built up my sentiment from the Happy Everything set, and heat embossed in Black Sparkle powder.  I embellished with a scattering of sequins in a rainbow of colours, matted onto black card, and then adhered the whole thing onto a kraft card base using foam adhesive.

And there you have it, a Rainbow of happy vibes :)

Hope you like it, follow the link above to see what everyone else came up with.

See you next time.

Jillx

The Boys are back in town...

Hi everyone,

So, this week, it's all about the boys. boys, boys!

I know it's a bit of a 'thing' that we as crafter's all share a dreaded fear of 'men's cards', but honestly, I think that's only because it conjures up visions involving generic images of golfing, fishing, cars, and gardening!  It doesn't have to be that way surely!  

I'm a massive fan of graphic cards, and love nothing more than a cool background with a bold sentiment - so that's what I went for.

I started with one of the cool designs from Mama Elephant's 'Zennith Borders' set, stamped it out three times, and heat embossed it in white powder to use as a resit.  I then washed over using various blue toned Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Broken China, and Salty Ocean - and set aside to dry.  I cut a panel of vellum, slightly thinner than my background, and, built up and stamped out this huge, awesome sentiment from Mama Elephant's 'Happy Everything' set, (still one of my favourite sets...EVER!), and heat embossed in Platinum Sparkle (...even boys deserve a little sparkle in their world!).

The Zennith Borders set includes a bunch of little geometric shapes that work alongside the different borders, so I took the little triangle from the set, stamped it out a load of times, and heat embossed them all, again, in Platinum sparkle.  I then cut the shapes out, and used them to build up the graphic design of the card.  I fixed my vellum panel to my background by adding tiny dots of glue behind each little triangle, so that nothing would show through the front.  

Now granted, this isn't exactly a 'butch/blokey' card, but that's kind of my point - does it really need to be?  I don't think so, and I know that any of the chaps in my life would be happy as Larry to receive a less stereotypical card!

I hope you like it.  As always, all the products I used are linked below, so be sure to go check them out.

See you next week.

Jillx

     

Having a pop at Pop Up...

Hi there,

Well, today has been one of those frustrating days where nothing seems to turn out right!  I wanted to make a card to play along with the current Lawnscaping Challenge, where this time round, the theme is, 'Try A New Technique'.  I love the recent trend that's emerging for cute 'pop up' cards, and hadn't tried my hand at it yet, so thought I'd give it a blast.

And here's where it took me...

I had recently bought the Mama Elephant's 'Pop Up Trio' die, so used that, along with Lawn Fawn's gorgeous 'Whale You Be Mine' set.  I also used the cloud die from Mama Elephant's 'Landscape Trio' set, to create my waves.  

Using the cloud die, I die cut one piece of watercolour card into many sections, (the idea being to create many waves and a sunset) and water colour washed each part in different Distress Inks, cutting and colouring an extra 'wave' at the same time to use as my first layer.  Now I don't know why, I think it may have been due to the wave I wanted to 'Pop Up' as my first layer, but for some reason, everything got a little confusing when I came to die-cutting the 'Pop Up' parts to get it to work.  I had to add little tabs to get my Whales to sit at the height I wanted them, and everything got a little, shall we say, 'testing'!  But hey ho, the challenge was all about trying something new, so I should have expected a bumpy road!  I eventually ended up some where close to what I pictured when the idea for this card popped in my head.  I watercolour washed a scrap of card in Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and cut Lawn Fawn's 'Tiny Hearts' from it to embellish with, and then stamped out my sentiment from the same 'Whale You Be Mine' set in black ink.  I also gave my whole piece a spritz of 'white', and a spritz of 'shine' spray, to make it glisten like water.

I then took another piece of card the same size, as a cover, and washed this piece in Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink to match the sunset on the inside.  I stamped one of Lawn Fawn's 'Flirty Frames' on the cover, adding only dots to it, so that all the excitement is kept hidden inside!

And there you have it, a very not perfect Pop Up card!  ...And if you made it to the end of this post, you deserve a medal! Haha.

I hope you like it.

Jillxxx