Happy Friday everyone! It’s a big weekend at our house. Our daughter has state championships for dance today and tomorrow. Which brings us to a two-day #tagtimesaturdays starting today and then another one tomorrow. Then I’ll take a break and be back again in the fall with more fun inspiration.
State works differently than regular competitions so there is no gift table and nothing to be sent back to her. So, instead I made this fun bear and coordinating tag for good luck and popped it in her suitcase before she left last night.
Ellen Hutson has this adorable line of stamps and dies that originated with All Inside. It’s a sweet bear, some small images and wonderful sentiments. Then they created a stitching die of bear because he’s just so perfect! I have made so many of these bears in a variety of color schemes, holding different things over the years. They never get old and are so fun to give.
Today I went with a white bear, brown nose and green accents for good luck! The die set comes with one to cut eyes but I really prefer using the flat back beads instead. These are from Trinity Stamps.
For my tags, I cut the square version in the Farmhouse Tags die set from green and white cardstock, then the banner tag in the same set from darker green cardstock. I cut the hole reinforcer for the top tag and glued it in place before stamping my sentiments and bear. I simply drew the ampersand with a black pen and we will write our message on the white tag hidden behind.
For added fun, I glued a mini green heart on his bum too! This was the smallest heart included in the All Inside die set. It makes me giggle but I do this most of the time when I create these fun bears.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!! I hope you have a wonderful day full of love all around! Today I’m sharing one last valentine that I created over the weekend using some new cuteness from Ellen Hutson and my new distress oxide sprays from Christmas! I’m still getting the hang of these but they’re really fun to get messy with!
I started my card purely because I wanted to dress this adorable fox up and color all the things! Isn’t he the cutest!?! Once I chose all the accessories and stamped everything out, I colored with my copics and used the coordinating dies to cut it all out. I used liquid glue to assemble him and set him aside to figure out what else I wanted to do.
The next thing I thought of was the new Ellen Hutson nested heart dies. These are so fun because each one cuts a heart and a frame. So I cut one from teal cardstock and another smaller one from vellum. Then, coordinating my colors – I used distress oxide spray on a 4×5.25 inch background in abandoned coral and cracked pistachio. I glued the heart down and added the images with foam squares. I don’t like how adhesive shows through on vellum so I carefully used my foam squares to adhere the vellum heart frame at the same time.
I added the panel to a white, top fold card base with foam tape and tied twine around the top for some added interest, and it’s just cute!
Full disclosure, it would have been a million times easier to stamp my sentiment before adhering everything but sometimes I just do things that hard way. 🙂 This is when I thought the small sayings from Ellen Hutson would be the perfect addition. So I carefully stamped “LOVE you” in the bottom right corner while holding my breath and crossing my toes. Phew! Looks fabulous!
For finishing touches I added black glaze pen to the fox’s eyes and glossy accents to his nose, heart antennae, lips in the speech bubble and cupcake heart too.
Welcome everyone! This is Amanda from Twiddler’s Nook and I’m very honored and excited to be guest designing for Ellen Hutson’s January Valentine Release! It is packed full of so many amazing products and I have had so much fun creating with them. For the Instagram Release Hop I shared some projects with So Chewsy and Essential Hearts, so today I wanted to share inspiration with another set – Hello, I Love You. This one has super fun images to mix and match that give you an easy way to incorporate your sentiment with the images.
Sometimes I plan a card and get excited about the fun images, forgetting to make a place or even leave room after the fact for a sentiment. While this isn’t a horrible problem to have, it’s also fun and convenient when the sentiments are contained in your images.
To create my card today, I had a layout in mind but wasn’t sure if everything would fit how I wanted. When these occasions arise, I pull out a card base or piece of cardstock the size I’m looking to create on and play with my stamps. This helps decide how many images to stamp, and avoids doing all the work but not being able to accomplish the intended outcome too.
Here, I was hoping the speech bubble would fill the space in front of the mail truck and still keep the general square shape I was hoping to arrange my images in. Also, starting this I thought the mailbox would be enough on its own but it looked really empty until I added the envelopes to go with it. Now it looks like things are going to work great!
When I have limited time, too many options or lots of images I tend to plan out a color palette ahead of time and I make sure to keep it simple. Here I’ve kept to the basic red/yellow/blue primary color trio. To keep from things looking like a kindergarten drawing though, I chose a darker, gold/yellow, lighter pink/red and a bright blue for pop and interest. Then I threw in a light gray for shading and a couple simple colors for things like the tired and truck window. Otherwise, everything is using the same markers shown.
After coloring everything, I used the coordinating dies to cut them all out and arranged them on my white panel. Doing this, I made two decisions. First, I wanted to pop it up on the card base because I really love dimension on my card. So I trimmed it down to 4×5.25 inches to create a little frame when it’s popped up. Then, second, I didn’t like all of the white space. I also really love texture. So I chose a blue ink close to my copic color choice and blended a little blob in the middle. Be forgiving when you do this. Most of it will be covered up. Also, when dye inks dry they even out and look nicer than you think they will.
For extra texture I smooshed the ink pad on an acrylic block, spritzed it with water and used a paintbrush to flick some splatters on the panel too. You could add watercolor or metallic paint at this point for extra shimmer too!
Once the panel was dry, I added it to a white card base with foam tape and then added my images with foam squares too. Another level of dimension. It keeps them from blending in to the background, along with the inking. Then all we have to do is decide on finishing touches.
This might seem like a really small thing but it can absolutely make your card stand out among the rest. This is when I add extra shine and shimmer. Usually Stickles or Glossy Accents, sometimes both depending on the feel of the card. Today I stuck to glossy accents on parts of all of the images. The girl’s shoes and hearts, then the postage stamp and gold details for the mailbox, finally on the truck the window, light, mirror and hubcaps.
I hope you enjoyed today’s project and found something new to try in your cardmaking.
Hello again! I’m back to share that I’m guest designing for Ellen Hutson and the new Essentials by Ellen Valentine release! It’s absolutely incredible and I am having a blast working with it! The release is available now so click HERE to go shop! Then head to Instagram and hop with us for tons of inspiration!
Today I’m sharing a few projects with the new So Chewsy stamps and dies, plus the Essential Heart dies too! I have some simple tags that would be great for gift bags at school or maybe your office and a coordinating card and tag combo that would be perfect for a loved one or friend.
First, I stamped the images and sentiments for these tags with Catherine Pooler inks and then used the coordinating dies to cut them out. I popped the gumball up with a foam square. Then I cut a second gumball machine, punched a small hole through both layers and tied them with twine. This gives room on the black layer for a message and to/from, plus the string is long enough to tie around a goodie bag. Aren’t they so cute?!? I love these sentiments!
Next, I used some brighter Catherine Pooler inks to make a second set of gumball machines. One has a sentiment and the other does not so I could fill the shakers with different elements.
For the card, I cut a couple sizes of Essential Hearts and used the frame of one with the inside of the other to create a base for my gumball shaker. I heat embossed a sentiment on the vellum heart and layered everything on the Nordic Cross cover panel. I thought this gave some fun background texture.
Be sure to head to the Ellen Hutson shop and check out the whole release. It’s got so many different and wonderful products in it! You’re sure to find something wonderful! And be on the lookout next week for another guest post featuring one of the other new sets from the release.
Welcome to my crafty space! I’m so glad you’re here today! I have a (mostly) die cut card to share with you today that is totally adorable and super fun! I used the new Ellen Hutson Sew Cute Deer die set with paper instead of felt stitching. Don’t worry, I’ll be stitching him up in felt very soon too! I just love making those fun ornaments!
Today though, I have this really fun card to share using him as a fabulous focal point on your Christmas cards! I cut all the pieces from various cardsotck colors, using glitter cardstock for the nose. I used liquid glue to adhere all the pieces together and set him aside.
Then I cut a piece of white cardstock from the Pink & Main Plaid cover die and adhered it to a white card base. Next, I stamped the sentiment and used a Pink & Main Mod Stitched Rectangle die to cut it out. Laying the reindeer and sentiment on my card front, I decided on placement. Holding the reindeer in place, I flipped it over and made marks where I would be trimming it off. This helped me keep the foam tape inside those areas to pop him up.
So, then I added the foam tape, adhered the reindeer and trimmed the edges. I used a combination of foam squares and liquid glue to adhere the sentiment rectangle.
Isn’t this just adorable and fun!?! It would be a fun design to mass produce if you have a lot of cards to make but still give great visual texture and interest.
Hello everyone. Thanks for stopping by today. I was able to play with some new things that have been sitting on my desk for a minute this last weekend and I’m excited to start sharing them with you. Today I have a card featuring one of the new amazing sets from Ellen Hutson. It’s a little out of my comfort zone to try stamping in color rather than grabbing my copics and coloring everything in. But I really had a blast playing around and creating this card.
The stamp set is called North Pole Greetings. I used Catherine Pooler inks to stamp the images and Pink & Main embossing powder for the words. I cut everything out with the coordinating dies and liquid glue to adhere the little pieces together.
For my background, I inked up a white panel with the Newton’s Nook Snowfall stencil and more Catherine Pooler ink. Once the stenciling was finished, I used the ink left in my blending brush to add a little color around the edges and take away the stark white. Then I die cut the largest Newton’s Nook Framework die from vellum and heat embossed the rest of my sentiment in black.
I adhered the stamped images to the vellum with foam squares and hid tape runner behind them on the vellum to attach that to the stenciled panel. Then I added the panel to a white card base and my card is all finished.
Isn’t this super cute! I just adore that “greetings from” sentiment for Christmas. I think it’s whimsical and sweet.
Hello friends! Today I have the awesome opportunity to guest design for Ellen Hutson and play with that adorable bear and all his dress up accessories again! I had a hard time choosing but thought it would be fun to add to the thank you card stash with a police bear in the city.
I started my card by choosing and stamping my images. Then I colored them all with copic markers and cut them out with the coordinating dies. That is, except for Mr. Bear. His die is solid so it’s practically impossible to line it up after you’ve stamped. So today, I have a little trick to how I stamp this guy whenever I’m creating with him.
Once upon a time, at the beginning of getting this stamp set, I cut the bear shape from a scrap of cardstock and kept the negative piece in my die packaging for future use. Whenever I stamp this image, I place the negative scrap in my MISTI. Then line the stamp up in that area, use the lid to pick up the stamp and place my blank die cut shape in the void. I ink up the stamp and stamp it down. This also works to re-stamp if you didn’t get a good impression because the space holding your bear didn’t move. It works great! The image you see on the right has been double stamped because his nose didn’t cooperate and was blotchy the first time.
With my images all taken care of, I switched over to my background where I had a fun idea to create a little cityscape. I used the Essentials By Ellen Big City die to cut a border from 2 different gray cardstocks and also black cardstock. I took a white A2 panel and used a Trinity Stamps embossed edge circle stack die to cut a window. Using this window as a guide I adhered the layers of city buildings together and a pencil to mark where I needed to trim off the excess.
Next, I took a white card base and inked up my sky using distress oxide ink in fossilized amber and wild honey. Finally, I used liquid glue to adhere everything together.
I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from Bear Ware Dress Up sentiments on the darker gray cardstock used in my buildings. I added foam strips to these and foam squares to my dressed up bear before popping them all in place on my card front.
For finishing touches I added black glaze pen to Bear’s eyes and glossy accents to his nose, the shield on his hat and car, and the car’s lights too.
Isn’t this such a fun card!?! I’m so happy with how it turned out and had a blast playing with this bear and all of his accessories.
Hello everyone! I’m so glad you stopped by. Today I’m sharing a second card that I created with the new Essentials by Ellen release. It’s so fun and totally cracks me up every time I see it. I love the sentiments in this new set. They are punny to the max and I just adore it all!
Once again you can see that I got nice and inky and boy did I have a blast doing it! The background sun panel is carved pumpkin to squeezed lemonade, the next hill is mowed lawn and lucky clover, the dirt field is gathered twigs and tea dye and the final grassy field is twisted citron and mowed lawn. Phew! That’s a lot of inking but they just look so awesome all layered up and I love it! I spritzed each panel with water and blotted them dry before die cutting the layers with different Lawn Fawn border dies. I’ll list them all in the products below.
I was so excited to create a farm scene that I jumped right in to stamping images from All Inside, Bear Ware and Bear Ware Dress Up. I colored them all with my copic markers and used coordinating dies to cut it all out. I dressed my bear using liquid glue to adhere the elements to him. TOO CUTE!!!
I added all of my elements to the scene with liquid glue with the exception of my sweet bear, the buzzing bee at the top and my sentiment banner.
For finishing touches I added glossy accents to various parts of the images like the bear’s nose, watering can stripe and pitchfork handle. I added black glaze pen to bear’s eyes and unicorn Stickles to the bee’s wings and flowers in the grass.
I can hardly stand the cuteness! It’s like having super adorable bear paper dolls to play with and dress up however you feel like. Haha. It’s so fun!
Hooray!!! It’s release day for Ellen Hutson’s Essentials by Ellen line and they are adding to my favorite line – Bear Ware! I’m obsessed with this bear in all his cute forms and could not wait to play with these new accessories!
I pulled bears from Bear Ware Grand Tour and Sweet surprises and colored them with my copic markers. I used the coordinating dies to cut them out and decided on all the accessories from the new set I was going to use. After playing around a bit I landed on the flight captain’s hat, necktie and airplane. Then I went fishing in Grand Tour for the fun suitcase to finish my little scene off. I colored all of those images the same way and die cut them out as well.
Knowing that I wanted to use the super fun Planet Surface die set, I got out my distress oxide inks and inked up a couple scrap strips of white cardstock. I used mowed lawn and twisted citron for my land pieces and salty ocean and broken china for the water. I left these un-distressed so they really stood apart from my sky. For that panel I inked up blueprint sketch and tumbled glass for a vibrant gradient. I spritzed that panel with water and flicked watered down blueprint sketch ink on it too.
I used liquid glue to adhere my planet and lined the back with foam tape. I adhered it to the sky panel and then popped that up on a white card base. I added foam squares to my images and added them to my scene next.
Then I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from Bear Ware Dress Up Sentiments, trimmed it into as trip with my scissors and added it with a foam strip too.
For finishing touches, I added white gel pen highlights to the images, black glaze pen to the eyes and pops of glossy accents all around too.
I hope you enjoyed today’s card and will stop by to check out the new release from Essentials by Ellen.
Hello crafty friends! Today might be a little bit of a longer post because I have 2 cards and a tag to share with you.
I have been in love with the Ellen Hutson bear by Julie Ebersole since it first came out. I immediately splurged on the stitching dies and have made a billion of those cuties but I recently started adding the stamps to my collection – starting with the World Card Making Day release and I’ve just kept going since then.
Here’s a look at all the projects I have to share with you today. I hope you like them. They were so fun to create!
I’m going to start with the card and tag duo because that’s actually where this whole project started. I couldn’t wait to color that fun stocking and fill it up. I love how the dies cut a slit so you can without any extra work!
Aren’t these just so fun together!?! I started by stamping a bunch of images from the Sweet Surprises stamp set on white cardstock. I use my MISTI to stamp so once the images were stamped, I actually flipped my paper around and stamped a second set on the same piece of copic paper. I used my copic markers to color the images and then cut them out with the coordinating dies. Pretty much everything is colored the same in both sets except the stockings are colored the opposite with the same markers.
I took both stockings and filled them up with their goodies. I used some washi tape on the back side to hold things in place and then liquid glue in between them so things were really secure. I held everything together with my Pink & Main reverse tweezers for a bit to make doubly sure it was all good!
When I first received my order with the Fa La La background stamp, I created a bunch of backgrounds and set the extras aside for another time. Well, this card was just the perfect time for that melon/silver heat embossed background! So I popped it up on a white card base with foam tape. Then I added foam tape to the back of my stocking and popped it up in the center.
For finishing touches, I actually stamped a sentiment and stars from the Holly Jolly Christmas stamp set on the inside (forgot to take a photo, doh!) and then added unicorn Stickles to the package bow and glossy accents to the bear’s nose and the candy cane. I also added black glaze pen to the bear’s eyes to make them stand out more too.
For the tag, I went ahead and die cut a plain white second stocking and used my score board to score a line right around the bottom of the cuff. Then I used liquid glue to adhere everything above the score line. I punched a hole in the stocking hanger area and threaded it with baker’s twine. Voila, tag finished! So cute!
Now, let’s switch gears to the second card for today using All Inside (the original bear stamp set) and Bear Ware 2, which happens to have all my favorite add-ons in it!
I pulled this set out to play with after my other projects were finished and my daughter immediately got excited about the cat of all things. So funny. So I stamped images from both stamp sets and colored them with my copic markers. I used the coordinating dies to cut them out and used liquid glue to adhere all the things in place.
I inked up a strip of cardstock with distress oxide ink in aged mahogany and festive berries and spritzed it with water. I trimmed it down to 4×2 1/4 inches and stamped my sentiment on the bottom right corner. Next, I adhered the panel to a white piece of cardstock that measures 4×5.25 inches and popped up a 1/4 inch strip of light teal cardstock over the seam. Then I added foam squares to my images and popped them up in the center of the card front.
For finishing touches I added glossy accents to the candy canes, bear and cat’s noses and the star on the tree. Last of all I added unicorn Stickles to the bear’s Santa hat and black glaze pen to both critter’s eyes.
Thank you so much for sticking with me today. I hope you found some inspiration to create something wonderful and share it with someone.
twiddlersnook.blog 