Happy New Year!

Yeah I know I'm a bit early, but I already missed the Christmas posting date for Australia, so I'm sending a new year card instead in the hopes that it will arrive in time for that!

I used the new Lunar Sayings from Mama Elephant for the main sentiment - I really love the chubby balloon letters they used.  I stamped it all over my square base card in grey, twisting it to be more of a general patterned background.


I stamped it again and coloured with altenew markers and then cut it out with scissors and my finger knife so I could pop it up using pinflair gel onto the party background circle.

To create the background I embossed the MFT Fireworks set (sorry that's currently sold out but there is a mini firework from Altenew you could use instead) and then ink blended some dark blue, black and purple inks over top, buffing the ink off the fireworks.   I added some splatters of extra sparkle using the Altenew Metallic Watercolor Paints.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We have received all but one of the final deliveries we expect before we close on Friday for Christmas and the store update.

• Colorado Craft Company - restocks are on - I will be adding the new release this morning.
• Waffle Flower Crafts - both the binder release, restocks and the latest release will be added today too.
• Sugar Pea Design - the latest release and a few restocks will be in store tomorrow.
• Altenew - the ink release and lots of restocks were finally shipped on Friday - they arrived at East Midlands today so fingers crossed they will arrive tomorrow and I will get them added as quickly as my fingers can type!

The store will then close on Friday and there will be no more daily posts on this blog after Friday either - I may do a couple of update posts over Christmas whist we're working on the new website, but when we reopen in early January, the blog will be getting a makeover too and will be "in" the store and should hopefully be easier for you to comment on without the dreaded blogger issues!

Right - I'd best get to work as we still have to decorate the house for Christmas today too!

Tara

Winter Getaway

It's my brother-in-law's birthday this week, and he loves his caravan, even in winter, so I thought it would be fun to create a winter getaway birthday card for him using the Hero Arts Camper Die as a focal point.

I started with a background blended with blue oxide inks directly on my base card and added some drops of water for a snowy feeling in the sky.  I layered over the Winter Forest die from Mama Elephant in white and added some textured white embossing powder to give a snowy foreground.

I die cut the camper but as it has openings for the windows I drew around the die to create a solid piece to go behind it.  I coloured with areas that would show behind the door and window with dark grey.  I painted the main die cut with the new metallic paints from Altenew in colours to match his caravan and stacked it over the solid piece once dry.

To give it a celebratory feel I strung a string of lights between the trees using the Build-A-House Christmas Add-on from Lawn Fawn.  The sentiment comes from Concord and 9th's Confetti Turnabout stamp.

Fun and easy make and a great way to use Christmas stash for non-holiday cards too!

Liz will be back next week and I'll be back on Sunday.

Tara