Seven Hills Crafts June Monthly Challenge

Time for my entry for this month's challenge at Seven Hills Crafts, and for June it's a sketch. I haven't had much crafty time this month at all which makes me sad, but I have spent a week by the sea in Cornwall so I can't complain too much. So actually the only card I've made this month is this one, a Father's Day card for my dad. (He's a big fan of donuts, and was even seen in the background of the Greggs TV documentary.)

I've used Lawn Fawn "Donut Worry" and a combination of Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paint and Distress Inks to colour it. And my trusty old typewriter for the tag. I probably wouldn't have added sequins to a Father's Day card, but I had a little ink mark to cover up. Happy accident and all that!

Seven Hills Crafts May Challenge

The Seven Hills Crafts challenge for this month is embossing! I've actually made two cards, one using heat embossing and the other using a die to emboss.

Here's #1. I've used Hero Arts Lia Griffith "Just For You" flower stamps, heat embossed in clear and then Zig Clean Color Real Brushes to watercolour the image. The "happy" and the frame dies are Mama Elephant.

And #2. I used a stencil and a Distress Inks to create the background, the MFT Scallop Cover die to emboss it, and then Mama Elephant Whale Wishes stamps (love these!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Seven Hills Crafts April Challenge

A last-minute entry to the Seven Hills Crafts monthly challenge this month, life seems to be pretty chaotic and exhausting at the moment and I definitely haven't spent enough time in my craft room!

This month is a colour combo challenge, and I've gone with the middle set.

I bought these awesome Mama Elephant whales as soon as they were released, not just because whales are my favourite animal, but I loved the cute sentiments in the set too. The background "sea" is watercoloured with Distress Inks, in Peacock Feathers, Fossilized Amber and Bundled Sage (which seems to have diluted slightly!) The border die is also Mama Elephant.

Seven Hills Crafts March Sketch Challenge

I do love a sketch challenge, although this one head me stumped for a bit and I couldn't work out what I wanted to do with it!

I eventually settled on a Distress Ink blended background with a bear and a rabbit from Mama Elephant Woodland Gifts. The banner stamp is from Mama Elephant Charmed, and the die is Mama Elephant too. I've been building up my Copic collection and switching over from my old Promarkers, so this is actually the first card I've made with Copics only! I'm still practicing my Copic blending technique, but I'm pretty pleased with how the bear came out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Seven Hills Crafts February Challenge

A really interesting monthly challenge for February at Seven Hills Crafts, Fancy Folds - to use more than one fold on your card. This is definitely not something I do very often! After Googling a load of different card fold ideas that didn't jump out at me, I came across a shadow box card which I thought would be pretty effective with my amazing new-favourite Mama Elephant Space Bear stamps!

It was really tricky to photograph the finished card, but I've tried my best holding my daylight lamp with one hand and my phone in the other! Here's a slightly closer up view of the layers.

And one "just in case" to show that there is indeed more than one fold involved here!

The bears and planets are coloured with Promarkers and have Glossy Accents on them. The sentiments are heat embossed. And the background is blended with Distress Ink, with splatters of water and white paint. Here's a pretty similar background I made for a different card last week.

I actually haven't stopped using the Space Bears since they arrived last week, I absolutely love them! I was also pretty pleased with this card, also using a die from Mama Elephant Pizazz Pieces.

*This post dedicated to the awesomeness that is Space Bears!*

Seven Hills Crafts January Challenge

Great to see the Seven Hills Crafts monthly challenges are back, they're always one of my favourite things to do. This month is a colour palette challenge.

I've gone for the middle set. No surprises, when I looked back at my top 9 Instagram posts of 2015, they were all pretty much blue! Perhaps I need to give the other two a whirl as well then! I've used my brand new MFT geometric background stamp, along with a Mama Elephant bunny, Mama Elephant scalloped die and an Avery Elle greeting. The background was heat embossed and coloured with distress inks.

Crafty 2016!

Hello, and happy new year! Here's to a crafty 2016! I definitely have plans to get more painty and inky and messy this year, there's so many things I want to try, like some art journalling and canvasses. Now that my daughter's started nursery school part-time (yes, time has gone by that quickly!) I might get a few hours to myself in the daytime to do these things. Housework is my bottom priority in 2016, sorry to my husband!

So I've been mostly been making cards recently due to Christmas and my current ink/paint obsession, but also some scrapbooking. Another thing the new year does is makes me realise how far behind I am with that. I haven't scrapbooked any photos from the second half of last year, so I've just put in a massive Snapfish order. And here's a couple of pages I've done recently.

(June 2015)

(Christmas 2014)

For Christmas my lovely mum gave me a voucher to spend at Make the Day Special, or as it is now known, Seven Hill Crafts, newly reopened with a smart new website. Here's what I bought with it as soon as it reopened to get my 2016 creatively kick-started. I couldn't resist opening the Altenew flowers to have a go straight away, it's just a shame I now have to work all of this weekend! I just have to keep myself away from the internet as I now want to buy loads of ink colours to stamps flowers with.

Also for Christmas, I asked my husband for these Gansai Tambi watercolours and one of the Mama Elephant die sets (gotta love crafty Christmas presents!). The other I got from Seven Hills Crafts as I was lucky enough to win their November blog challenge, yay!

And finally for this massive blog post, a birthday card I made using the Gansai Tambi paints (and Avery Elle stamps / Lil Inker die). I have to say, I love working with these watercolours, possibly even more so than my Zig Clean Color Brush pens. I just love inks and paints at the moment, can't get enough of them!

Thanks for reading, see you here again soon!