Cosy Hot Chocolate With Happy Marshmallows

Hello! Happy weekend. we have snow forecast so looking forward to staying in the warm with a cosy blanket and just maybe a hot chocolate.

Have you seen the Stamper's Delights Kawaii Xmas  Coco Digital Stamp - It is so cute! 

I couldn't resist using it for one of my holiday cards. 

I printed it twice do that I could use parts to layer it. The first image I colored it completely with my Copic markers. The second image I colored the bow on the candy cane, the top 4 marshmallows and the holly with the berries. I then fussy cut these from the image.

Using foam squares I layered the different parts onto my fully colored image to give it some dimension. 

I matted a white A2 card base with green mirror cardstock and added my topper. Using sentiment dies I cut Happy Holidays from some red mirror card and added these to my card. 

Finally I chose some 'peppermint' Christmas clay piece and adhered these around my cup.

You can find the Kawaii Xmas Coco image on Stamper's Delights webpage and he comes with or without a face - The choice is yours! 

Be sure and check out more DT inspiration and join us at

Stampers Delights Craft Community.

We'd love for you to connect with us on our Facebook page too:

Stamper's Delight Fan Group.

Thank you for taking time to read my post, I hope it has given you inspiration for your holiday cards.

Christmas Peace

Hello! Fall has finally arrived and I am loving the cooler temperatures, makes being outside so much more enjoyable!

My post today is inspiration for a Christmas card using Maker Forte products.

I have used elements of Modern Christmas Watercolor Stamp Set. First I wanted to achieve a fir branch across my card. Using the branch stamp I stamped it in the top corner of my stamping card with British Racing Green Ink.

To avoid it crossing the previous stamped image I masked the branch end of the stamp with masking paper and repeatedly stamped the branch across the card.

To add some depth to the image I repeated these steps with Lady Liberty Ink.

I used one of the sentiments from the stamp settle gorgeous font is a very fine lettering I love the way it works with the images in this set. As it's a fine detail font it needs to stand out against the dark green. Eclipse Black Ink works well for this.

The card needed more detail so using a red alcohol marker and a white gel pen I drew berries among the branches.

While doing this my hand smudge the green ink. I have happy accidents like this all the time, usually a cleverly placed embellishment covers this. This wouldn't have worked on this card, I pressed my ink pad onto a mat and added lots of water. Then, using a paint brush I splattered ink all over my stamping card. Yes the smudges are still there but they now look like part of the design!

I had planned on matting my card with British Racing Green Cardstock but when I tried this it just didn't pop behind the design. Red is too bright so Eclipse Black Cardstock was used. This is a very dark black so makes the sentiment stand out against the splattered background.

Black is not something you usually see on a Christmas card but I feel it works well with this. Finally I matted the design on to a Side Folding A2 Card Base.

Thank you for taking time to read my post and I hope it gives you motivation to start your holiday cards.

Best Wishes and Margaritas!

 Good Morning! We had temperatures above freezing yesterday for first time in weeks - nothing to get excited about though, we are back to snow today!

I'm here with a cheeky early drink today - well it is 5 O'clock somewhere!

I designed this card using products from Maker Forte.

I started by foiling my sentiment, this is from the set of ephemera Birthday Elements as these are all toner printed I foiled in it green Minc foil.

My base was made from Maker Forte Welsh Dragon Cardstock. folded to give a top folding card. My background was made by stamping Splatter Stamp Style 1 numerous times in green ink. This was adhered to my base with foam tape.

Using the Martini Builder Stamp Set I made a margarita - ok wrong shaped glass but still tastes the same!

I layered the glass and drink stamps up using my Misti from precision stamping and various shades of green ink. The extras were stamped in Eclipse Black ink, the olives and lime where colored with markers and the cocktail brolly with Tiptree ink. All were fussy cut by yours truly!

These were the arranged on my card along with the sentiment. I used a combination of Foam Squares and Crystal Clear Glue to adhere them in place.

Ok I'm off for a cheeky drink - shhhh don't tell Kev!

Christmas Poinsettias

 

Hot Chocolate and Cocoa

 Good afternoon. Are you looking forward to the holiday this week? 

Well before that Crescent Creations has a new release and are doing a blog/you tube hop to celebrate where you could win yourself some goodies. I have used Sweet Christmas for my inspiration:

I resized the cups and placed them together, they are great for building a scene because although they are png images they are solid images so you can layer them without the worry of the back image showing through. The sentiment was added before printing on to stamping cardstock.

The images were colored with Copic markers I then added glaze to the tall glass to make it look more like glass.

I matted an A7 card base with green glitter card, this card is part of the new release and is great because although the glitter shines amazingly it doesn't shed!

My image was added to the glitter card stock I felt the card needed something more so I used the lights from Christmas Gnomies digital stamp set, colored and cut them a few times and strung them along the top of the card.

To take part in the hop you have to stop at each of my teamies blogs/you tube channels and leave us a comment. The winner will be announced on 30th November on the Crescent Creations channel and Instagram. It would be amazing if you could subscribe/follow all the design team's channels as you hop!

You hopped here from Tammi and the next amazing inspiration is Heather's. If you get lost along the way head back to Crescent Creations for the full list!

Thanks for stopping by.

Are You Ready For Secret Santa

 Good afternoon, are you ready for Christmas? No? me neither. I have a few gifts but so many more to get and cards still to make.

It's new release day at Stamper's Delights and I have a cute Anime girl who is great for holiday cards, meet Anime Secret Santa:

She is all dressed up as Santa's Elf ready to hand out those gifts.

I printed the image on to Stamping card and colored her with Copic markers. I then matted an A2card base with red card stock and candy cane digital design paper. My images was also matted onto red card and added to the card. To finish I die cut a sentiment from both red and green cardstock adhering these together to give a shadow before adding to my card.

Head on over to the Stamper's Delights Store to see all of this week’s New Releases.

Why not stop by the Stamper's Delight Facebook page for regular news and inspiration from my Teamies you can also enter the progressive challenge there, no blog needed and if you sign up for the Stamper's Delight Membership you will get free images to enter the challenge with!

All the design team projects are available on the Inspiration blog - hop on over there for more inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by and if you like what you see please leave a comment to let me know!

How Beautiful You Are

 Good morning! Fall has finally arrived, the maple tree in the yard is starting to turn to stunning colors it gives us this time of year

My post today is using another of the gorgeous new release digi stamps from Sunshine Bee at The Little Paper Tree. I have done something different with it this time, it started as an experiment and ended up better than I expected.

I started by taking the Autumn Wreath - Circle into my Silhouette software. This automatically traced the image. Then switching my blade to my Foil Quill I adjusted the settings so it would sketch. I laid my stamping card onto my cutting mat and secured rose gold foil over the top, hit send and let my machine do it's magic.

I repeated this for the Beautiful Sentiment. Leaving my card on the mat I switched the foil to green and added the sentiment to the center of the circle. I colored the images using Copic markers and fine liners. I matted an A7 card base with pink cardstock ready for my image. I wanted to add a ribbon slider but didn't have a coordinating one so I colored the silver heart one with an orange Copic marker. This was slid on to ribbon that coordinated with the pink card and was added under my image before I adhered it to my card.

Finally I added a few pink water droplets to the flower centers and around my ribbon slider.

If you love this image it is part of the new release of Sunshine and Bee Designs there are some other floral designs as well as the cute Halloween ones I shared last week.

 

Thank you for stopping by.

Stockings for Christmas? No Shoes!!

 Good Morning! How is it Monday again???

A couple of weeks ago I was honored to take part in a workshop taught by Lana Taber as part of her final challenge for the AECP program.

She provided an amazing kit for us to work with and we made 3 different Christmas cards. When I say different I not only been they were 3 different designs but they were unusual too! Who has ever made or received a holiday card made with a stiletto shoe stamp?

The first card is a wreath card:

Can you make out the shoes? 

We started by stamping and masking the shoes multiple times to give the wreath. These were then colored with artist markers. The original card was just the shoes but Lana decided we would add greenery to it and it really was effective. I stamped the sentiment in embossing ink and them heated embossed with gold powder. We added the card front onto a white card base, gold gems were adhered to give the look of Christmas baubles. Finally I added a red ribbon bow to the top of the wreath

The next card was a Christmas tree again built with shoes

We started by finding the center on the card and then started stamping and masking the shoes, working down to form the tree shape.

Once the shoes were colored the greenery of the tree was added making sure to fill in all the gaps between the shoes. I decided to put a bow at the top of my tree. I formed the bow in the center of a piece of red ribbon leaving long tails. These were then spiraled down the tree fixing in multiple places with hot glue. 

I heat embossed my sentiment again this time using red and gold powder.

I added the card front to my card base and scattered gold gems around to look like more tree decorations.

My last card was a simple one but is just as effective as a Christmas card:

We started by stamping, coloring and masking the shoes. Then using a stencil and gold pigment ink scattered stars across the card, because the shoes were masked this gave the impression the stars end behind them.

I added my sentiment under my shoes to balance the design and of course a scattering of the gold gems just finished the look!

Lana did an amazing job in first designing these cards and then teaching 5 of us how to make them.

She passed the challenge and is now an educator - a huge congratulations to her!!!!

Altenew Products I Used

Crisp Dye Ink - Jet Black Purchase From: SSS | ALW	Embossing Ink Purchase From: ALW	Red Sunset Artist Markers Purchase From: ALW	Bold Heels Purchase From: ALW
Halftone Holidays Purchase From: ALW	Starry Night Purchase From: ALW	Milky Way Stencil Purchase From: ALW	Antique Gold Embossing Powder Purchase From: ALW

Altenew Educators Certification Program. Level 2 Final Challenge part 2

 Good morning from a rainy Michigan, we had storms last night and lots of rain so it's a bit cooler this morning - I just hope it stays that way.

I'm back today with part 2 of my AECP level 2 challenge. For this I needed to make an altered /upcycled project. I decided to do something that all us crafters use. Whether gifting cards or sending them envelopes are usually required. We put lots of effort and love into making the card but often send it with a plain white or colored envelope.

 As I did for part one I have chosen 3 techniques on this project too. Monochrome for the inside of the envelope from the Polychromatic class, layering from the All  About Layering Class and masking from Masking Unleashed. I love the layered stamp look, I don't do many monochrome designs and masking has opened a whole new designing world for me so that's why I chose these.

I have used Build a Flower Wild Rose (which is the latest build a flower set) with the Envelope Liner die set to upcycle some plain white envelopes.

I decorated 6 envelopes which turned into a mammoth stamping session each envelope has 52 individual stamping components!

I started with the liner, I die cut this from yellow cardstock for all 6 envelopes.

I then chose an ink collection that was same tone as the card stock so I could achieve a monochrome look. using my MISTI, I stamped the roses on to this.

I did initially start with all 4 inks from the Golden Sunset collection. I didn't use the solid stamp layer as the cardstock was the correct color for this, which meant I didn't need the lightest ink. I continued stamping all layers until I has 6 flowers and their layers on each liner.

Setting these to one side I made my masks for the outside of the envelope. I wanted to keep a white section for where the address would be written so I cut a piece of masking paper 3x2in and placed this on the envelope. I then stamped the flower and leaf outline a number of times on to the same masking paper and fussy cut these ready to use.

Now to decorate my envelopes - I started by stamping an outline flower in the darkest ink and placed one of my masks over this. I wanted this to be my top image so masking helps me achieve this - other stamped images will appear to be behind this. I continued stamping the outlines, leaves, small bunch of flowers and a little sprig that is also included with the set. masking elements as I went.

Then the magic of layering started to come to life when I removed the mask off the leaves and stamped their layers followed by the gorgeous roses.

After stamping the first envelope I did change my mind about the color of the small bunch of flowers and stamped these in black.

Next I turned the envelope over and repeated the masking and stamping process on the back. I also colored the small bunches and little sprigs, both back and front with fine line markers.

The Envelope Liner die set comes with word dies too so I chose 'for you' from these and die cut this into the flap of the envelope.

The address section mask was removed on all the envelopes. This masking technique is known as reverse masking - Where a section of the base color (white in this case) doesn't get any ink on it.

Because I had stamped all around and on to the mask it is quite impactful when it's removed.

The last part of my project was to add the liner. I folded the flap section on the embossed line which the die scores and slipped the liner in to the envelope. 

I decided to use an inverted corner punch on the liner flap for 2 reasons, 1 so the corners didn't show when envelope was closed and 2 because I felt it looked more professional.

Making sure I added glue to all the small parts of the die cut letters I adhered the 2 flap sections together. 

I love the way the words allow the yellow liner to show through.

I wanted to demonstrate with this project that you don't need a ton of craft products to make something pretty. I used a six pack of envelopes, some cardstock, one stamp set, a die set and inks for this.

I am going to make matching cards for these and gift them to a friend so I wrapped them up with a nice big bow!

Oh also waste from the envelope masks is so pretty too - I have kept these and may use them on another project - recycle never throw away!

 I said at the start this is part 2 of my challenge if you missed part one you can find it here.

Thank you for taking time to read my post, if this has inspired you to decorate your own envelopes please tag me on Instagram as I would love to see your creations!

Altenew products I used:

Envelope Liner Die Set Purchase From: SSS | ALW	Golden Sunset Crisp Dye Inks Mini Cube Set Purchase From: ALW	Build a Flower Wild Rose Stamp and Die set Purchase From: ALW	Green Fields Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cube Set Purchase From: ALW
All About Layering 1 Purchase From: ALW	Polychromatic Purchase From: ALW	Masking Unleashed Purchase From: ALW	MISTI Original Purchase From: ALW