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

      

Just Because...

 Hi everybody,

I've got some simple colouring on kraft to share with you today.

I'm a massive fan of kraft card, and I especially love colouring with pencils on it, it creates such an organic look.

I used the, oh so pretty, 'Bejeweled' set from Altenew for today's card.

I started by stamping out the butterfly, twice, once on my card panel, and a second time on a separate piece of kraft card, and heat embossing in white.  I then got out my coloured pencils, (I used Crafter's Companion but obviously any would work), and coloured my second butterfly in, using soft pinks with a splash of yellow to help make the colours pop.  I stamped out my sentiment, again heat embossing in white, and cut around it.  Like I said, I love the organic look and wanted to keep that theme throughout, so wasn't too concerned about perfection.  I also cut a piece of vellum to put behind my sentiment for a bit of extra pretty...coz we all need some extra pretty, right?

I then layered all my pieces on top of one another, adding some gold twine behind the whole thing.  I wanted my butterfly to really stand of from the card, so added some foam tape behind the wings to really make them stand proud.

I finished with a scattering of clear domed gems as I thought they worked perfect with the pretty simplicity I was aiming for.  And there you have it.  I love this set, it's really good for all types of colouring, and I especially love the sentiments in it, the fonts are clean and modern and have really sweet simple messages.  I hope you like it.

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

Soft, Sleepy Sparkle...

Hi everybody,

I'd love to share a card I have made for the, always lovely, Avery Elle I heart U Challenge Blog, where this time round, it's all about the 'Sparkle'.  Ooh Sparkle, who doesn't love a bit of Sparkle?

And here's my card...

I made my card from vellum to create a nice contrast with the 'Sparkle', and kept things pretty sweet and simple.

I used Avery Elle's 'Furry Friends' set, and started by stamping these little cute fish bones all over my vellum card base, and heat embossing in Silver Sparkle powder.  I also covered a separate piece of card in the same powder, and cut my two panels form the Avery Elle 'Custom Panel' dies from it.  I then stamped out this gorgeous, sleepy cat and coloured using Warm Grey Copics.  I did a little 'double embossing', by stamping out my sentiment, from the same Furry Friends set, onto my already heat embossed panel, and embossing once more, in Black Sparkle powder.

I glued all my bits to my card using clear dimensional adhesive tape so it looks neat and tidy from the inside.

And there you have it.  A pretty sweet and simple sparkly card :)

Hope you like it.

See you next time.

Jillxxx

Rainbow Bright...

Hi everybody,

I would love to share a card I have made for the current bright and beautiful 'Photo Inspiration Challenge' going on over at A Blog Named Hero.

Here's the Photo...

And here's my card...

I used the Hero Arts 'Two Way Arrow Stencil' with coloured texture paste to create my card.  There's been a bit of a buzz in Craftland recently about an amazing product called Brushos.  I'm thrilled to see these little pots of magic finally get the recognition they deserve, I've been a fan for a while, so thought I'd use them to colour my texture paste.

I coloured several little dollops of Ranger Texture Paste, and added them over my stencil, onto my card, overlapping each colour slightly to create a nicely blended rainbow.  I added a clear based, sparkly embossing powder over the top, and once the paste was dry, heat set it to give a gorgeous vibrancy.

I die-cut a small heart from my panel, and stamped out my sentiment, from Hero Art's 'It's Your Day' behind the empty space as a little Peek-A-Boo message, directly onto my Navy Blue card base.

I embellished with a scattering of white enamel dots and there you have it.

A sparkly, bright and vibrant rainbow, to celebrate love and equality, everywhere.

Love Always.

Jillxxx

Wild foil...

Hi everybody,

Hope you're all well.

I'm getting in touch with my wild side today...

..by going crazy with leopard print!

So foiling is EVERYWHERE at the moment;  it's the 'trend du jour' for sure, and I'm all for it!  I love the look you get with foiling, and, although it can seem a little scary, and like you need expensive machines etc, that's really need not the case, and with the right tools, the look can be really easy to achieve. (...although blumming hard to photograph!).

I used the genius product 'Stick-it' to help with my foiling.  I added my Stick-It to a piece of card, die-cut my letter's using Lawn Fawn's 'Quinn's abc's, removed the protective sheet and covered in the ridiculously cool and quirky, Thermoweb Gold Leopard Deco foil.  I then ran all my die-cut pieces through my Laminator (a cheap as chips one) so that the foil would adhere to the Stick-it.  I LOVE how my letters turned out - I am a huge fan of leopard print, it just makes me smile, but if you're not, the other colours in the collection are also gorgeous!  

My leopard is actually the cat from Mama Elephant's Three Amigo's set.  Sadly, I can't take credit for the idea to change him into a leopard, I saw someone else do it out there in blog land and just HAD to try it and, well, this was the perfect opportunity! 

To make up my scene, I inked my background, water-colour washed a seperate piece of card to cut Lawn Fawn's Grassy Border from, coloured a few elements from Lawn Fawn's Blissful Botanics and fussy cut.

I put all my elements together using foam adhesive for added dimension and matted onto a piece of card edged with more leopard print foil.  I finished with a tie of twine, and there you have it.  I hope you like my walk on the wild side, it's fun to let your leopard out once in a while :)

See you next week.

Jillx