Teacher Appreciation

 Good Morning! Mollie is getting ready to go back to school next week. summer has passed so quickly and we now have an 8th Grader!

I love to send teachers little cards of thanks throughout the year not just on teacher app reaction day. Maker Forte have some great sets for this so I have made a head start.

I have made a short video explaining the process I used. which you can view here: 

I hope you enjoyed the video and it gave you inspiration for teacher cards. Below is a list of products I have used:

Teach From The Heart

Thanks For Helping Me Grow

British Racing Green Ink

Eclipse Black Ink

Vegas Strip Ink

Red Leicester Ink

Top Folding A2 Card Base

Blue Poppies

 Good morning! How are we mid way through August already - This year is passing way too quickly.

I'm back today with some inspiration for Maker Forte. I have a floral card to show you using Plant Dreams Stamp Set as my main focus. Floral stamps are my favorite to color and to give too!

My design starts with the poppy image from the stamp set. As I am using Copics as my main coloring medium Eclipse Black Ink is perfect. This is a great ink for alcohol markers as it doesn't bleed.

As I said previously, I colored the images with Copic markers. I wanted to achieve more depth with the flowers so I used colored pencils over the top of my marker coloring.

I fussy cut the flowers so they were ready to go on my background. fussy cutting isn't something I do a lot of it, can be tedious, but wanted the flowers to stand out on my background.

On to my background, for this I am using In To The Unknown Stamp Set. I love the swirl of the pattern however it was a little too much detail for my card. A second impression mutes the image making it perfect. I Used Vegas Strip Ink and stamped the image on some scrap cardstock. Without inking the stamp again I then stamped onto Ultra White Cardstock.

As you can see on the scrap cardstock I stamped it twice on there. This was because I hadn't prepped my stamp and the first impression wasn't crisp. Prime Time Stamp Conditioner Is great for this, spray the stamp lightly and leave for 60 seconds. The stamp will stamp perfectly after this.

Next I wanted a sentiment stamping directly on to the background. Again I used Eclipse Black Ink for this. I misread the sentiment and part of it should be spring (also in the stamp set) but that was too big for my design so I will show you how I fix it lower down.

Building my card was simple. I used a Side Fold A2 Card Base and matted this with a dark blue cardstock. My stamped background covered this. The card needed some dimension so I added foam to my poppies giving them lift from the card.

This point is when I realize my sentiment doesn't make sense. To fix this I trimmed the word 'flowers' from another stamp in the set and added it above the one already stamped.

This is the advantage of a stamp set having a number of sentiments to choose from.

You can see the depth I achieved by adding colored pencil over my marker coloring.

Thank you for taking time to read my post and if you use it for inspiration I would love to see your card!

Sucker For You

 Good afternoon!  we are in the middle of a thunder storm so a great day to get some crafting done! 

My card today is using Stamper's Delights Chibi Sucker 4U

The digital stamp includes a cute Chibi Character and 2 sentiments that you can resize to fit your design.

I started my card by resizing my image so she fit on an A2 card base. I placed the sentiment at the side of her and then printed on to stamping card.
She was colored with Copic markers. I have never colored grey hair before so decided to give it a go. It fit with the rest of my design well.
Once colored I trimmed my image to 4x5.25in This is my favorite size as it allows me to add a mat on my card without having too big of border.
I cut my mat 1/8in bigger. To add more detail I used a corner rounder on my mat and image. Both were added to a landscape card base.
Finally I added some little sequin hearts above the sentiment.
I do prefer my cards clean and simple and this one definitely follows that design!

Thank you for popping by. Be sure and check out more DT inspiration and join us at

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Plant Dreams

 Good morning! Kev is away on business the week so Mollie and I are having some girly time. Today we are going to visit the county fair!

My PC died at the end of last week, as a family we use Apple products so so I am switching to a Mac. However programs I use for photo editing only work on pc so I am trying to work around these and find programs that will work for me!

That being said here is my weekly inspiration for Maker Forte. My card design uses their gorgeous stamp set Plant Dreams.

I wanted a delicate look to the card, vellum works for this as it mutes the design. 

To begin the card I chose to stencil a background on my A2 Side Folding Cardbase. The Cobblestone Stencil is a great all over pattern. 

Keeping the card open I masked off the back portion so no ink could get on it. California Love Ink is a bright yellow but under vellum looks paler. I brushed over the stencil covering the whole of the card front.

My card base was placed to one side to allow the ink to dry. 

I then cut an A2 sized piece of Premium Translucent Vellum.This vellum is great for heat embossing due to the thickness of it. It takes the heat well with next to no warping. 

Placing this in my MISTI I dusted over it with an Anti-Static Pad. This stops the embossing powder sticking where you don't want it. 

I love the row of flowers from Plant Dreams using Clear Embossing Glue I stamped it into the bottom middle of my vellum. 

For this technique I usually would use white embossing powder but I love the shine of Moon Dust. I sprinkled this over the image and heated it to melt it.

Embossing powder will ruin the tips of your markers so I turned the image over and colored from behind. This also give you a softer muted effect to your coloring.

Yes I doesn't look great from the rear but when turned over it looks so pretty. I like vellum to have a torn look so using my deckle edge trimmer I cut the piece down to 3.75x5in. 

You can tear vellum too to give a white edge but I wanted an even size with fancy edges.

The stamp set has some great sentiments both in larger format or tiny ones. I chose to use Be Happy. 

The script and size fit perfectly in between the flower stalks. I stamped it in Eclipse Black Ink. 

This dries slower on vellum so I was able to add Clear Embossing Powder to seal it and give it shine.

Vellum is difficult to add to a card as most glues will show through it. I added Tiny Zots (glue dots) to the back of the flowers and leaves. This camouflages the glue but is enough to adhere the vellum to my cardbase.

Embellishments help to draw the eye to the sentiment. As my card design is shiny the embellishments need to be too. Lemon Crown Jewels look so pretty against the muted yellow background, always add in uneven numbers for the best effect. 3 are perfect on my card.

Thank you for taking time to read my card and I hope it gives you inspiration for your own crafting!

Climbing High for Dad's Birthday

 Good Morning! The heatwave continues so I'm spending a lot of time in doors playing with the dogs!

My card today is another masculine card - a birthday card for dad, I have used mainly Maker Forte products for the design.

Aren't these Splat Bears adorable. I have stacked them so they look like baby is climbing on dad! What kid doesn't like to wrestle with their daddy!

I started my decorating my background, I used Bokeh Circle Stencil Set. This is 4 stencil but I just used the 2 smaller circle ones, inked one with Blue Moon Ink and the smallest with Icy Mist Ink. 

I stamped the bears using Eclipse Black Ink this gives a crisp color and is suitable for use with Copic markers which I used to color the bears.

I then fussy cut these cute little guys. I often leave a white border when fussy cutting but didn't with these as I am staking them and they wouldn't look right.

Sentiments are a necessity for me so I used You're Truly Fabulous stamp set for this. The Splat Bears do come with sentiments but as I was making a Birthday card for dad this set fit better. I chose the Dad (of course!) and the Happy Birthday. I was going to die cut my sentiments into speech bubbles and the happy birthday as a strip wouldn't fit so I snipped it in to 2 words. I often do this to make my stamps more useable.

As I said I die cut these into speech bubbles. Maker Forte do Simple Sayings which are preprinted sentiments that can be foiled. They make dies for these called Well Said Dies these include speech b bubbles my sentiments fit perfectly in these.

 

I made an A2 landscape card so used A2 Side Folding Card Base for my base. To bring out the color on my background I added a mat of Welsh Dragon Cardstock in-between my base and my stenciled card.

I added my images with foam squares, which I doubled up on my baby bear so he was raised on his dad.

Last of all I added my speech bubbles, these were also added with foam squares giving the design dimension.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my post. If it's given you inspiration please tag me in your designs!