When the Waters Get Rough

Like Picasso, I'm in my "blue period" today with a little card full of layers of blue ready for when someone needs their spirits lifted.

I took the Lawn Fawn Smooth Sailing set as my starting point and then added a couple of other elements to build my scene.

The boat and the lighthouse from the stamp set were both stamped onto white card and then again on to several different colours of paper from my all time fave pad - Spiffy Speckles - so I could piece the images together.  The light in the lighthouse is the yellow in the pad but with some stickles on top - and the shape is courtesy of the mini sun die from Lil' Inker Designs which is the perfect fit for size.  I just cut off the 3 top and bottom rays to make it a light ray instead of a full sun.

I also used the same papers for the waves too which just simply die cut using Mama Elephant's Ocean Wave Trio.  They are really useful papers for backgrounds as the pattern is really subtle.

To add some mood to the inked sky background I added a darker inked circle of raindrops using MFT's Rainy Circle Die and a few clouds with inked bottoms to make them rainy using Avery Elle's Cityscape and Picket Fence Dies

Avery Elle also came to the rescue for something to sit the lighthouse on - their Rocky Shores die is perfect to finish the seascape off.  Just cut from a scrap of grey card.

One of the sentiments from the stamp set finishes off the card both on the front and on the inside.

Tara

Felty Park Shadow Box

I've got a fun shadow box card to share today using a few new Lawn Fawn products as well as the original shadow box die to make the basic box to start with.

I really loved the trees and squirrel in the new Park add on die set for the original Shadow Box Die and thought both would look perfect in felt so dug out my scraps of felt and got busy with my big shot.

If you are unsure how to put the shadow box die together - rather than me typing lots of instructions - just watch Lawn Fawn's original video as you'll see its super easy to put together.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcC55zeCXDA  The  Park die also comes with a dome frame you can use to cut out your front panel if you don't want a rectangle or oval - the dome would be fab for Christmas themed "snow globe" box cards too ;-)

I die cut all the elements for the front from white card as well as felt as that gives the felt a little rigidity for the areas where its overhanging open space.  I used a marker to colour the edges to match the felt (ish - doesn't have to per a perfect match but knocking back the white stops it screaming at you) and attached them with wet glue.   For the little acorn - I added it to a scrap of acetate so it could be falling off the tree ready for the squirrel to catch.   He got a little pearl glued into the hole the die cuts for his eye so you can't see through it but you could add black card behind instead to do the same job.

For the inner bits I used card not felt so there wasn't too much thickness on the folds and on the back layer I used one of the super-cute gnomes from the new Oh Gnome! stamp set and fussy cut him out so I didn't get the white border.   I used a sentiment from that too stamped onto speckled paper for the background panel.

I sat my gnome in between a few mushrooms, again cut from felt as it added texture and interest, using the new Mushroom Border die and just snipping off a few mushrooms to use as independent elements rather than a full border.

All you need to do to mail your card is fold it down and it fits in a regular envelop as it folds nice and flat!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We are a little behind our normal fast shipping turnaround times due to the sale and the Lawn Fawn release and we also had to take an unexpected trip to A&E on Friday afternoon as Rick had a weird allergic reaction to something - all good now and he's on the mend but we lost a few hours of work and need the rest and recuperation time this weekend so will do our best to catch up tomorrow.

We've received 22 large boxes from Hero Arts - pretty much the entire new catalogue.  That will take us at least 2 days to open, check and sort and add to the store, maybe a little longer as we always prioritise order packing over stock additions.   We'll announce on Facebook when we have it ready to sell.

We are also expecting the latest release from Altenew to arrive early this week and likewise will get them in store as soon as we can.

We will be re-ordering from Lawn Fawn later this week so hope to have the sold out items back in stock in March if Lawn Fawn still have them available - as always - our out of stock notification system will let you know as soon as something is back in stock.

That's all the news for now.

Laters

Tara

Gate Friends

I've got a fun friendship card to share today using stamps from Newton's Nook and papers from Lawn Fawn, behind a gate from Mama Elephant.

I started with the gates and the background so I could hide the parts of the gate that stick to the card front.  I cut a panel of pretty blue speckled paper from the new lawn fawn spiffy speckles paper pad.

The gates themselves are just cut using the new Mama Elephant gatefold x fence die twice and turning one upside down so you get a left and right gate.

To create the background scene I used more of the papers to add grass using the new mushroom border die also from Lawn Fawn and then added a sun using an older die from Lil' Inker Designs.

For the puppy pals themselves, I just coloured them with alcohol markers - a mix of Altenew (grey dog) and copics for the spotty one, and cut them with the co-ordinating die.

I added a couple of bits of twine so I could close the gates before posting - and as I used card to hide the gates, the card itself can still be opened as normal too for writing inside.

The closed gates hide the surprise inside so it's a fun way to add an extra dimension to your cards.

Catch you on Sunday - I'm off to pack more Lawn Fawn orders now!

Tara