Long Time No See!!

TAP TAP TAP......hello anybody there?? 

Well it seems my blog has been in lock down too! I'm not the best at keeping it up to date 

but then things have been different (i.e home tutoring/mentoring our 24 year old Autistic lad) 

so hopefully that's a good enough reason.

I have been crafting and, in fact, sharing everything over on my Instagram acct 

(link in the side bar) as well as posting every week on the Seven Hills blog so

 I have a quite a few cards to share here now!!

*************

Let's start with something topical! I was inspired by the fun cards I saw on social media 

for those who had lockdown birthdays, I decided to try an make my own hybrid version for

 a family member and these fun toilet dies from Create a Smile sure helped!!

I do love to mix up all my alpha stamps and dies for these cards, the challenge makes

 the end result more satisfying. I've used new and old fonts... yes I do have quite a collection,

 some are even Quik cutz dies.. remember them?

This next card was inspired by a Jennifer McGuire video, I wanted to try a bridge card to 

use with the Kraken set from Avery Elle...

I love how this turned out and it was fun to colour too. The lighthouse from Shine Bright 

was a perfect size for the scene as well.

Just look at those rough waves!!

 This is how the card looks from above and it just folds flat sideways for posting... 

check out Jennifer's video here

One more project for this blog post and this was a card for my Mum earlier in the year which I framed afterwards, it seemed the perfect piece of wall art for a coffee addict :)

The background stamp was one I picked up at a local craft fair in February... isn't it fab? I over stamped with a woodgrain background too and then added the wording over a square of cream vellum....another rummage through alpha sets for this one too😉

When it came to framing, I used this deep box frame with a piece of dark brown card-stock layered behind the card which is raised away from the background for a floating effect. Mum was chuffed with it and it hangs pretty in her kitchen or 'Coffee HQ' as it's otherwise known :)

Well I think that's all for this time... I don't want to shock blogger!!

I've lots more to share so will be back soon. 

I've listed items I've used as much as I can down below.

Lock down card:

Bella letters - Mama Elephant, Simple Alpha die - Altenew, Mini Well Connected Alphas - MFT

Whimsy Alpha - Mama Elephant, Cool Cuts Potty die and Oh Poo stamps - Create a Smile

Kraken Card:

Legendary, Shine Bright - Avery Elle, Cloud Stencil - MFT, Waves dies - MFT

Coffee Art:

Love of Coffee - Picket Fence Studios, Tall Type - Concord & 9th, Coffee Love - Altenew

Mug and font are older discontinued stash

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Cheers & Beers

It's another inking for the beer bottle this week for a 60th birthday card, I love 

trawling through my alphabet stamps and dies to make up these typography style cards..

Keeping all your alpha stamps and die sets together makes this job a lot easier 

then it's just a case of playing around on scrap paper. Having an image helps as a 

starting point for sizing and layout.

I'm quite pleased how this card turned out :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Bubble Over - Stampin Up

Cheers Die, Mini Well Connected - MFT

Count on it dies- Avery Elle

Jet Alphabet - Heffy Doodle

Journalling Alphas - Neat & Tangled

Lots of Letters - Mama Elephant

Autumn Wreath

Autumn is my favourite season, which I'm sure I've said on here every year, 

so when the seasonal crafting goodies come out I cannot resist!!

This beautiful stamp set by Avery Elle just had to live with me and I really enjoyed 

water-colouring the leaves and fungi... I went with a green leaved version this time 

and will try a more vibrant colour version another day,

The MFT background is a lovely subtle check to add pattern without distraction,

might find it hard to give this card away!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Fall Foliage - Avery Elle

All Lined Up - MFT

A Swell Background

Sometimes you just have to take your scissors to a stamp set and do some

 snipping to make it more versatile!! Come and see what I've done...

I've used the fairly new background stamp called Swell from Avery Elle

and I just had to perform a little stamp surgery to remove the boats from the background.

They can easily fit back in but by doing this it means I can use different colours 

for the boats as I've have for this card.

I've used a circle to cut the centre portion and inset the circular piece to add the 

sentiment to... I felt the Mama Elephant bunting went well with the nautical theme.

With the option of removing the boats means you can add other images instead, like this 

seagull from a smaller beach hut set from Avery Elle...

I've made another inset aperture to accommodate this gaggle 

of gulls, one of which is the birthday 'Gull' !!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Swell, Peek-a-Boo Summer Pals, Beside the Sea - Avery Elle

Swinging Borders, Lots of Letters - Mama Elephant

Seaside Gulls - MFT

Hooray, Yippee

Here's a bunch of happy kids... you can feel their excitement jumping off the card!!

I've used the new big alphabet dies from MFT to give them something to be happy about :)

I can't resist an alphabet die set... and this one is a good size.

I went with a retro colour palette and didn't fuss much with the colouring

There are more details about this card on the Seven Hills Crafts blog HERE

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Impact Alpha & Numbers die - MFT

Yippee Stamp - Waffleflower

Banner Bits - Avery Elle

Ship Lap Stencil - Echo Park

Sound the Alarm!!

I was inspired to try a different card design using the Peek-a-Boo 

pals car stamp...... it just needed a pop up scene to sit in...

I basically searched on You Tube for a guide to making these floating floor cards and found 

them quite simple to do once you've worked out where you want to place the images.

My party-goer is a dinosaur from a coordinating set also from Avery Elle . 

I gave him a city backdrop and an inked road to travel along...

Using acetate for the flashing light lines and balloon strings gives 

an invisible way to add them.

I chose to make my floating scene a bit short of the base and then added a simple 

sentiment with room to add a handwritten one too.

The outside of the card needed a wrap/belly band to help keep it closed so

I used a fun font to add the siren noise to a speech bubble for a simple decoration

to the band... I like the fun, striking colour combo too :)

You can find a few extra details for this card on the Seven Hills Crafts Blog HERE if needed

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Peek-a-boo Pals Car, Peek-a-boo Scary Pals - Avery Elle

City Stacks - Concord & 9th

Speech Bubble dies - Waffleflower

Colour Me Letters - Mama Elephant

Hooray for Summer

Loving the summer release from Avery Elle... in particular this Sea Scene die as its a 

perfect grounding for images on a clean and simple card...... perfect for these

 two having fun on their floaties

I cut two of the sea scenes, one in blue and one in white so I could layer the white waves behind the blue so they stand out more.... that also meant I could tuck the floaties into the waves too.

Well they look like they're enjoying some fun in the sun!

You can find more details for this card on the Seven Hills Crafts Blog HERE

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Sea Scene Die, Pool Party - Avery Elle

Hooray Word die - Neat & Tangled

Word Up - Reverse Confetti

Balloon Strings Background - MFT

Pool Friends

Now this is how to hang out with friends 😉

If you're lucky enough to have a pool!! 

I've revisited this fun set from Avery Elle's summer release last 

year and paired it with a fun sentiment from MFT...

The Neat and Tangled background make s a great ripple effect for the water and by 

cutting the pool outline die cut you can make the swimming pool any 

shape and size you want.... they're just needing a glass of something bubbly in their hands!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash used:

Splash stamps and dies - Avery Elle

Sassy Pants Best Friends - MFT

Receding Background Stamp - Neat and Tangled

A Bearthday!!

Love these bears from Avery Elle, the simplicity in the illustration makes them easy to 

colour and I tried to get a few different bears amongst them...

If you pull on the tab, one of the bears raises a sign to complete the greeting!!

I used the double slider die from MFT to make the pull tab mechanism and I have a few

more details and photos over on the Seven Hills crafts blog here, but this is basically 

what it looks like before adding the bears and frame on top of the pull tab....

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used: 

All of Us - Avery Elle

Double Slider Loops Slot Die,Polar Bear Pals   - MFT

Coffee for Mum

I had to revisit this fab stamp set from Concord & 9th.... it's perfect for a 

Mother's Day card especially for my Mum :)

I love the look of the harsh lines of watercolour layers, I'm just not so good at 

being patient and waiting for the paint to dry so I can achieve it!! 

Well I tried my hardest this time and sat on my hands.... I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Love the hand-drawn lines from Lil Inkers to make a checked tablecloth and we seem to have a 

very clever Barista that has written 'For You' with the steamed milk!! 😃

More details for this card can be found on the Seven Hills Crafts blog HERE.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Lets Chat - Concord & 9th

So Kind stamp set - Avery Elle

Cozy Plaid, Pretty Painted Alpha - Lil Inkers

Ocean Waves bold prints - Hero Arts

Wildflowers for Mum

I love the look of loose watercolour but I'm not good at freestyle watercolour myself so I was excited to see the new Wildflower Stems Sizzix Thinlets by Tim Holtz... all I had to do was add colour...

I die cut them with Bristol card stock and left the cut pieces in the card whilst I 

added the watercolour... this made it much easier as they are quite delicate.

Whilst they were drying I swooshed pale green paint on the card base and added splatters in pinks, greens and purples. After a bit of faffing I managed to arrange the stems how I liked them and then glued them down..... not adding glue to all areas so the raised edges give a bit of dimension.

I love how this turned out :)

You can find more details on my Seven Hills DT blog post here

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash Used:

Wildflower Stems #1 & #2 - Sizzix

So Happy - Avery Elle

Pink Pop

Pink Pop!!! not the drinkable kind I might add.

No this is very much a girly card for a pop princess with it's pink and black combo 

and lashings of glitter...

I love this MFT set and the coordinating spotlight stencil... that makes life a lot easier and I found the Avery Elle die set to be a perfect frame as well. Colouring people is not my thing ... especially hair but using Polychrome pencils helped I think.

You can find more details on my DT post over at the Seven Hills Blog here.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Stash used:

Friendship Rocks - MFT

Spotlight Stencil - MFT

Let it Snow dies - Avery Elle

Hanging Pot Plant

Hanging plants seems to be all the fashion again at the moment.... I don't mean outside, they've always been popular but indoor plants in macrame hangers have come back with the retro vibe.

I've used a few stamp sets to make my own suspended pot plant...

I had to carry out stamp surgery to a border stamp so I could have one string of dots to make the pot holder... oh well I can always put them back together again.

More details and photos on my DT blog post over at Seven Hills crafts.

Stash Used:

Doodle Blooms - Altenew

Indigo - Avery Elle

Spice Garden - Waffleflower

Fuchsia - Avery Elle

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Tropical Bird-Day

Well this card turned out better than I expected, well it's more the ink blending that turned out better than I expected actually and thank goodness for oxide inks which over-stamp beautifully on darker colours!! That swoosh of green really makes those colourful birds stand out and the circle frames die was a good investment too, much easier than positioning a single die four times through the big shot... too much room for error 😉

I used the mirror stamping technique to make one of the parrots face in the other direction, not had a lot of success with that technique in the past but the many 'stamp positioning platforms' on the market make that a lot easier!

If you'd like more details you can find my DT blog on the Seven Hills Crafts blog here

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Stash Used:
Tropical Vibes - Flora & Fauna
Circle Frames Die - Avery Elle
Branches Die Set - Concord & 9th

Ocean Scenes

I challenged myself for these two cards!!
I used the shadow box ocean add-on dies from Lawn Fawn but didn't want to make shadow boxes.... they're quite a versatile set of dies on their own...

The scalloped frame is such a useful die which cuts a lovely aperture in your card front and I've tucked the aquatic leaves and plants behind it. Jaws is swooshing into the scene and that shoal of fish are making their quick escape in the background!!

When it comes to the wave die cuts, you can cut the tabs off to use them flat, but instead I left them on and curved them on the card front for some dimension. I had to shorten one of the waves so they layered together but this is quite easy to do...

I added the stripes to the card base using a stencil and a good dose of glitter pen to the waves for a shimmery sea. That little whale is just so cute and the coral makes the perfect water squirt from his blowhole :)

There are more details on my blog post over at the Seven Hills Crafts blog here.

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Stash Used :
Shadow Box Ocean Add Ons - Lawn Fawn
Tiger and Lily - Waffleflower
Seaprise - Avery Elle
Splash - Avery Elle
Shiplap Stencil - Carta bella