Essentials by Ellen

Christmas Card #4 and a Beary Cute Extra

November 13, 2017

Hi there and happy Monday! (Is there such a thing?) Well, I hope my post helps with that.Today I’m sharing a Christmas card I made over the weekend and this adorable matching felt bear ornament. You’re going want to make these stuffed bears!!

I’ll start with details about the card first. I’ve used the Essentials by Ellen All Inside, Bear Ware and Bear Ware 2 stamp sets by Julie Ebersole for EllenHutsonLLC. I really love this stamp set and how versatile it is! I’ve shared this bear recently on a Halloween card and now he’s ready for Christmas.

First, I cut a 3/4″ x 5 1/4″ strip of patterned paper (this is My Favorite Things) and adhered it to my card base. I then cut a piece of white textured cardstock 3 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ and embossed it using a Sizzix Stampin’ Up! snowflake embossing folder. I’m not sure if this is still available, but any snowflake embossing folder would look nice.

Next I die-cut 3 snowflakes from silver glitter paper (this is from a DCWV paper pad) using the My Favorite Things Let it Snowflake Two Die-namics and adhered a couple towards the bottom and one above where I planned on placing the bear.

I die-cut the Merry Christmas sentiment using the My Favorite Things Merry Christmas Circle Frame Die-namics in both the silver glitter paper and black cardstock for a shadow effect. I cut the sentiment in half so I’d just have a half circle surrounding the bear.

Then, I stamped and colored the bear, present and Santa hat with Copics and die-cut them using the coordinating dies. I used Copic W00, W0 and W1 for just a hint of color to the bear to make him match the ornament bear a bit more. I used dimensional adhesive to adhere the bear for a little extra interest.

Now for the details on that adorable ornament!

I used the new Essentials by Ellen Bear Hugs dies designed by Julie Ebersole and these are just genius! They’re designed perfectly for making these stitched and stuffed bears with little holes die-cut around the edge for quick and easy sewing.

I die-cut the bear body 3 times and the arms once from Taylored Expressions Marshmallow felt. The dies cut beautifully through this quality felt with one pass. For the present, I used a silver metallic needlework thread to stitch a ribbon and bow and added the eyes and nose from black felt. You’ll notice I didn’t exactly match the stamped bear’s face. I just really liked the eyes and nose set closer together on the ornament.

To make this an ornament, I cut a piece of white cording and tied a knot with the 2 ends before placing this between the felt layers and sewing.

The talented Karolyn Loncon shared her version of this bear on her blog several weeks ago and added a little pocket in the back to make it a gift card holder. I loved this idea, so I added one also. You’ll need to cut one extra bear body from the felt and then I die-cut the piece in half using a rickrack edge die. A gift card fits inside, but you could also tuck a little cash in there instead.

 

I’ve got a red and white themed Christmas tree this year, so I’ll have to make another one of these for myself! He just makes me smile:)

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

Lawn Fawn

Christmas Card #3

November 8, 2017

Hi again! My third Christmas card for this season features the new Lawn Fawn Here We Go A-Waddling and Winter Village stamp sets. I bought a whole bunch of their Christmas stamp sets this year, but I’ll try to give it a rest for the next few cards. Just had to work with this cute penguin and the little village scene.

I started by die-cutting a piece of white cardstock using the largest die in the Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables set (3 3/4″ x 5″) and I airbrushed a soft sky (could be a winter sunrise?) using Copic Y32 and E11.

I die-cut a few more pieces of white cardstock using that same Rectangle die and then die-cut one piece using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Mountain Borders dies and the other a few times using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillsides dies.

Before I adhered the mountains, I lightly airbrushed the tops of them with Copic E41 and E42 to add just a hint of color under the snow caps. I stamped the sentiment from the Here We Go A-Waddling stamps on the bottom of my largest hillside piece. Then I layered and adhered the hillsides.

I adhered a piece of ribbon around the cardstock above the sentiment and then adhered the whole piece to a patterned paper and the card base.

I stamped and colored all of the images with Copics and die-cut them using the coordinating dies. The little trees in the Winter Village set come with a string of Christmas lights stamp, so I stamped that in Versamark on each tree and heat embossed with a red Zing embossing powder.

The inside of the card has a cute surprise!

I used the Lawn Fawn Gift Card Pop-up die and trimmed it down for the fold line of this card. I love the clever dies they come up with!

Hope you enjoyed my card today and thanks for stopping by!

Lawn Fawn

Christmas Card #2

November 6, 2017

Hi there! Christmas card making season is in full swing around here and I’m starting to panic! There’s only 50 days until Christmas and I have a ton of cards and gift boxes, etc. that I’m really wanting to make this year. I’ve got a decent start and here’s my second card using Lawn Fawn’s new “For You, Deer” stamp set and coordinating dies.

I chose the bear for this one since I wanted to keep it mainly a red and white color scheme and I love the bear peeking out from a cut out in the card front.

I started by die-cutting a red patterned paper with the largest rectangle in the My Favorite Things Blueprints 31 die-namics and adhered this piece to my card base. All of the papers I used on this card are from a super old Recollections paper pad called “Frosty Cabin”. I try to use papers that I already have in  my stash because, quite frankly, I have a TON of paper and really don’t need to buy new.

I die-cut the wood grain paper from the same die and adhered it to the inside of the card.

Next, I taped a Spellbinders circle die that was close to the size of the circular strip die in the Blueprints 31 set face down on the top center of the card and ran the card base through a die-cutting machine, making sure to open the card flat. I had to run it through several times to get a clean cut since it was going through 3 layers.

 

I stamped the sentiment from the Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together stamp set in Versamark and heat embossed with white embossing powder.

I die-cut the circular strip from the Blueprints 31 set and adhered that paper around the hole in the card and then tucked the little bear on the frame. The coordinating dies to this set are really neat as they cut the little arms to slide over the edge.

For the inside, I adhered that adorable bear tush and then reverse stamped the Santa hat using my MISTI and the Paper Smooches Mirror Images stamp set. Those 2 products make reverse stamping really easy!!

 

I die-cut and adhered another woodgrain piece to the inside since this would be visible behind the bear when the card is closed.

To finish, I punched a few pine branches using a Martha Stewart punch and a few small red circles using a 3/16″ hole punch and adhered them to the top of the frame.

Pretty simple and I hope it gets a grin!

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

Lawn Fawn

SHADOW BOX CARD TAKE 1

November 3, 2017

Happy Friday! Now that Halloween is past, it’s time for Christmas everywhere! I really didn’t want to come in this early with Christmas cards, but I plan on making a bunch of them this year and I needed to get on it. This card is my first using the Lawn Fawn Shadow Box card die and I really really love this die! This was so fun to make.

There’s a great video on the Lawn Fawn YouTube channel showing how to assemble the shadow box card and it’s pretty straightforward. I die-cut the box portion from a medium weight gray cardstock and die-cut 3 of the hill inserts from a textured white cardstock.

I adhered a piece of Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Chill paper on the back for the sky and I’ve heat embossed a few snowflakes on it using white embossing powder. You’ll want to adhere any paper to the inside before you fully assemble the shadow box. Much easier this way.

I stamped, colored and die-cut a tree from the Lawn Fawn Snow Day stamp set and added some “snow” to the tree with an embossing pen and white embossing powder. I stamped, colored and die-cut the bears and ice from the Lawn Fawn Beary Happy Holidays stamp set.

For the banner, I stamped an image from the Lawn Fawn Bannerific stamp set on a piece of Lawn Fawn Watercolor Wishes paper, stamped a sentiment from the Beary Happy Holidays set and cut around it with scissors. I added a little die-cut snowflake next to the banner and you can’t see it in the photos, but it’s coated with clear Wink of Stella.

I die-cut and adhered more of the Perfectly Plaid Chill paper to the sides and back and Watercolor Wishes for the frame on the back. I kept this area on the back for a little note to the recipient.

This is a really versatile die for all different types of themes and the best part is the shadow box folded flat fits in an A2 envelope. There’s even room to add fun stuff to the top of the box card as I’ve done with the banner.

Hope you enjoyed my card today and have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Neat and Tangled

YETI OR NOT!

October 30, 2017

Happy Monday! I thought I’d start this week off with a fun yeti card. It’s super cold here this morning, but at least we don’t have snow or yetis outside.Yet.

I’ve used the adorable Get Yeti stamp set from Neat and Tangled and started with the sky background of the card. First, I die-cut a piece of white cardstock using the largest die in the Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables set. This measures 3 3/4″ x 5″. I airbrushed the sky with Copic R20 and R21 and then taped the Neat and Tangled Rice Paddies stencil across the sky, airbrushing over the stencil with YR61. I think this gave the sky a wintry sunset effect. I then adhered this cardstock piece to my gray card base.

Next, I die-cut another piece of white cardstock using the same Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and then die-cut the top of this piece using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Mountain Borders dies. I airbrushed the mountains using Copic E70 and E 71, adhered the snow to the peaks and added a little clear Wink of Stella to the snow for a little sparkle.

I adhered the mountain piece to the sky background piece lining up the bottom edges.

I die-cut one more piece of white cardstock using the same Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and die-cut this piece twice with a My Favorite Things Snow Drifts die-namics die cutting one piece larger than the other. I stamped a sentiment from a My Favorite Things stamp set on the smaller snow drift piece. I then layered the snow drift pieces and adhered them to the mountain piece lining up the bottom edges. I also added clear Wink of Stella to the snow using an edge of the My Favorite Things Drifts and Hills stencil.

I stamped and colored the images with Copics and die-cut them using the coordinating dies to this set.

I adhered the yeti first and then adhered the pennant and penguin using dimensional adhesive.

That cute yeti just makes me smile!

 

Hope you enjoyed my card today!

Stay warm out there and thanks for stopping by!

SugarPea Designs

Thanks a Bunch

October 25, 2017

Hi there! My card today features the “Chunky Monkey” stamps from SugarPea Designs. I’ve been taking a class from Kit and Clowder on coloring animals and decided to play around with creating some fur texture on these little guys. These images are a little small to use the fur technique with, but I invested quite a bit of time coloring them, so I thought they should make an appearance on a card.

I kept the design of the card simple with lots of white space to really make the monkeys the main focus.

I started by die-cutting a piece of white cardstock using the largest Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Stackable. Then, I die-cut this piece using a My Favorite Things Stitched Dome Stax die.

I stamped the sentiment from this stamp set, applied dimensional foam tape to the back of this piece and adhered it to my card base.

I Copic airbrushed the Dome die-cut with Y11, Y15, G20, and G43 and adhered this piece inside the white cardstock on the card base.

 

 

I colored up all of the images and die-cut them using the coordinating dies to this set. I used dimensional adhesive on the areas of the images inside the dome shape and liquid adhesive where they are adhered to the white cardstock.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

Essentials by Ellen

Hocus Pocus

October 20, 2017

Happy Friday! I’ve got another Halloween card to share today and this one was so fun! I love this little bear from the EllenHutson Essentials by Ellen stamp set called “All Inside”. There’s 2 accessory stamp sets that go along with this one with all sorts of fun stuff for bear to hold onto and wear. I’ve used the “Bear Ware 2″ stamp set for all of the Halloween accessories.

I started off by cutting a 3″x 4″ piece of Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock and sponging Black Soot and Wilted Violet distress inks on the rougher side of the cardstock and then spritzed a little water all over.

I then cut a piece of black cardstock 3 3/4″ x 5 1/4” and die-cut a Spellbinders oval Nestabilities die on the right side overlapping the edge.

Next I stamped the Hocus Pocus in Versamark and heat embossed with fine detail white embossing powder. This stamp is a WaltzingMouse stamp no longer in production, sadly.

 

I colored all of the images with Copics and die-cut them using the coordinating dies to these stamp sets. I just love how the bear die cuts around his arms making it easy to tuck things under them!

To assemble, I cut a 1/2″ x 5″ piece of Graphic45 paper from the Happy Haunting collection and adhered it to my kraft card base on the right side. I then adhered the watercolor cardstock to the back of the black cardstock, lining up the right edges and adhered this overlapping the patterned paper.

I added glossy accents to the bubbles and the witch’s brew for an extra creepy effect.

I can’t wait to get bear decked out for Christmas!

Hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Neat and Tangled

Go Wild!

October 18, 2017

Hi there! I’ve got a fun birthday card to share today using the Neat and Tangled Wild Ones stamps. I really love all of the different looks you can get from this set since most of the accessories are individual stamps like the present, birthday hat, etc.

I started this by stamping all of the images on eclipse masking tape (I stamped the balloon twice). Then, I die-cut a piece of white cardstock using the large rectangular die from the My Favorite Things Blueprints 31 die-namics set. I like to figure out my scenes first using the masks of the stamps, so I positioned all of the masked images the way I wanted the final stamped scene to appear.

Next, I die-cut a piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White cardstock using the same die from the Blueprints 31 set. Starting with the most forward image in my scene (the birthday hat), I placed the cardstock with the masked images in my MISTI and positioned the hat stamp over the hat mask and closed the cover to attach the stamp.

I then swapped out the cardstock and placed my Neenah cardstock in the MISTI to stamp the hat image in the perfect position. I pulled the hat mask from the cardstock piece and masked off my stamped image, moving on to the snake image. I followed this same technique until all of the images were stamped and masked.

Before coloring the images with Copics, I airbrushed around them with Copic Y000. I like to do this first before coloring just in case something goes wrong with the airbrushing. I’d hate to spend a ton of time coloring images and then ruin it afterwards. A word of caution though— choose your background color(s) carefully because it makes color selection of the images much harder to create harmony.

To finish the card, I stamped a sentiment from the Neat and Tangled Hooray stamps at the top and a sentiment from the Wild Ones set.

I hope you enjoyed my card today and thanks for stopping by!

Waffle Flower

Trick or Treat!

October 13, 2017

Hi there! Halloween is quickly approaching and Bear’s on a broomstick! I’ve mentioned this before, but I really have a thing for the Bear series of stamps from Waffle Flower. This set is new this season and called “Boo!”

I started by cutting a piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White to 3 3/4″ x 5″ and stamped the bear. To create the moon, I die-cut a circle from cardstock, placed the cardstock overlapping the bear image and traced around the circular die-cut area with a Copic multi liner.

I colored the background with Copics using Y000 for just a hint of yellow on the moon and then BV01 and BV02 and the colorless blender to create a bit of moon glow. For the sky I used BV17 and then colored trees with C9 and C7.

 

To finish the card, I stamped a bat from this set and die-cut it using the coordinating dies. I used a little dimensional adhesive to adhere.

The sentiment is from a Recollections stamp set from Michaels and I stamped it in Versamark and heat embossed with a white detail embossing powder on black cardstock. This is also adhered with dimensional adhesive.

I’ll probably do a few more Halloween cards before the 31st. I didn’t go crazy with buying a bunch of new Halloween stamps this year, but I did go crazy with Christmas so I’m anxious to get to those!

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

My Favorite Things

BITTY BIRTHDAY BEARS

September 29, 2017

Happy Friday! I couldn’t wait to play with this new stamp set from MFT called “Bitty Bears”! These little guys are adorable and I needed to whip up a quick birthday card, so they really helped me out.

First, I cut a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock to 3 3/4″ x 5″ and inked Distress Oxide inks in Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade and Twisted Citron using a blending tool. I splattered a little water all over it and let it air dry.

Then, I placed an MFT stitched Circle Stax die-namics face down on the cardstock and used it to create a debossed effect in my BigShot. The sandwich I used was the multi-purpose platform on tab 2, cutting plate, rubber mat, cardstock (with die) and the second cutting plate. If you want to use the die to create an embossed effect, you would place the cardstock face down with the die on the back of the cardstock.

I colored the bitty bears with Copics and die-cut them using the coordinating dies to this set. I popped up the middle bear with dimensional adhesive to add a little extra interest.

To finish the card, I stamped a sentiment from the MFT Handwritten Happiness stamp set and matted the cardstock on a piece of MFT patterned paper cut to 4″ x 5 1/4″.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!