Sneak peek Saturday

Welcome back, today I thought that I would give you a sneak peek at some new product coming soon in the awesome spring/summer seasonal catalogue, which goes live in January, alongside the even more fabulous Saleabration goodies, which you can earn for free!!!.....yes free!!

This is an amazing card that my very talented friend Anne made for my birthday using one of the new stamp sets which will be available in the new seasonal catalogue, I absolutely love butterflies and what I love about this set even more is that it comes with a matching punch which cuts both sizes of butterflies in one punch.  Anne has also used some of the fabulous new papers that are available for free....yes free! when you spend £45 during saleabration. Not only is it a card, but she has added a beautiful book mark in the pocket on the right hand side which makes a gift and card in one.  I will definitely be caseing (copying and sharing) this card Anne! thank you so much for thinking of me on my birthday and taking the time to make this absolutely amazing card, it's really appreciated, as were all of the lovely handmade cards that I was lucky enough to receive on my birthday recently, one of the perks of belonging to a crafty community!
I'm hoping to get some time off over Christmas to play with my new stash, so look out for more samples using new product coming soon.

Jx

Try it out Thursday

I'm back today with a couple of quick ideas for you, these are obviously Christmas cards, yes I'm still madly mass producing last minute cards!, but the ideas are just as useful for cards during the year.

One of the items in my craft stash that I think are probably underused are my Textured Impressions Embossing Folders (or TIEF for short). I love an embossing folder as it gives you a fabulous background very easily with the help of your trusty big shot, and I go through phases of using mine. So on this card there are 3 different folders used, 2 to create a sampler feel to the card and a further one to give a bit of texture to the base card.  I cut my card stock first for the sampler sections and then embossed it to prevent it dragging and tearing or flattening out the pattern when I cut it, this also meant that I was able to run several squares through the big shot at the same time, making it great for mass production!  We have a fabulous selection of embossing folders , so next time you're taking a look through the catalouges, don't forget to have a look at all the amazing folders that we carry, and let me know if you'd like details of the ones I've used on these cards.

 On this card I've used another TIEF, but this time I've used it to create an inked background to make the pattern within it stand out and create depth.  This is an old technique but sometimes I think it's good to re-visit old techniques. For this card I inked the inside of the embossing folder (with the logo on the front) using a brayer to get even coverage with the ink, placed my card stock inside the folder and ran it through the big shot. This pushes the ink to the back and brings the embossed pattern to the foreground.

And for my final 'Try it out Thursday' tip, that deer on the first card is finished off with a Wink of Stella pen to add some shimmer and shine, (unfortunately the camera doesn't do it justice) so imagine my frustration when it ran out half way through 20 cards that i'd just assembled! So...... I unscrewed the pen, took out the insides, added some surgical spirit (rubbing alchol if you're reading this in the USA) gave it a good shake and it finished the other cards easily. Shimmer emergency solved!!!

That's all from me today, check back soon for a sneak peek of some beautiful new product coming soon!

Jx

Top Tips Tuesday

I thought I would share with you some of my top tips for last minute mass production of those all important Christmas cards which we all seem to be making to get into the post as Christmas sneaks up on us at an alarming pace!

This is a card that lends itself to mass production, firstly all the circles were die cut at once, using the circle framelits makes it quick and easy to get a perfect circle, and if you wanted to layer up a scalloped circle behind then there are several different sizes in the set which make it really easy.  I have to say that those circle dies were a great investment as they cover most sizes that you would need to cut.

To make stamping the images easier I turned to my stamparatus, by using one of the pieces that I had cut the circles from (so the waste card) I created myself a jig for the stamparatus, this meant that instead of trying to hold down a circle with a magnet and not get it in the way of the stamping, or trying to judge the distance around the image to stamp first and then cut, I simply reinserted the circle into its hole and stamped, getting a perfectly centered image each time.  This technique works for any die cut shape and speeds mass production up massively.

As I wanted my image to look like it was in a snow globe and we don't carry a snow globe stamp set, I used one of my label punches and simply cut it in half to make the wooden base of the snow globe. I embossed the card base with the softly falling textured impressions embossing folder for some texture.

A bit of coloring with blends (which as our blends color beautifully, I did in front of the TV to sneak some more crafting into important catch up TV time - had to catch up on the bake off!) and some shading and dazzling diamonds glitter and they were done.

I hope that I've given you some ideas to get those last minute cards done and dusted?  and if I find a way to slow down time, I'll be sure to let you know!

Jx

Christmas Decorations

 Its been a busy time at the Crafty Yellow Camper over the last few weeks, with the final classes of 2018 (where did that year go?) happening, so I thought that I would show you what we have been up to. We had a break from making cards as it's getting near to Christmas and instead tried our hand at some home decoration pieces.  There was still plenty of stamping to be done but this time instead of card stock we were stamping on glass and wooden slices.

We used stazon to stamp on the glass, and on the wooden slices we stamped with our normal inks and did some coloring with blends (when coloring with blends we used Momento ink to stamp).
I hope that these projects give you some inspiration for some last minute stamping.

Jx