Ellen Hutson Little Lady

Hi Folks! Yesterday we saw the new Leading Gentleman by Brandi Kincaid for Essentials by Ellen; today we see the other newest member of the Leading family ... Little Lady. What a sweetie!!

This is another set where the accessories are just as special as the main image. I picked the crayon to go with the "it's OK to color outside the lines" sentiment. Love that this little lady is holding her hand high, so she can color her own galaxy! With a blue crayon.

I decided all the color on this card belonged in the galaxy, outside the lines, but then I started having second thoughts ...

Last weekend my cousins came over for a craft day, and Miss Mollie, who was only nine at the time, decided she wanted to recreate my card. Well, in about 15 minutes she whipped up an amazingly creative and well-executed card that I was completely jealous over.

Isn't she ridiculously talented? Sorry for the poor quality camera phone photo in low light, but I'm hoping you can see how Mollie added a few dots of purple to Little Lady's face to represent the mess from creating her painted galaxy. So clever! And I do love how she colored in her lady. So proud to be shown up by her : )

What could be better than crafting all day with six of your cousins/aunts?!

As a recap, here are the cards with the Leading Gentleman and Little Lady, which are available now!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly



Affiliate Links:

Leading Ladies - Leading Gentleman By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Leading Ladies - Leading Gentleman By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Leading Ladies - Little Lady By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Leading Ladies - Little Lady By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies It's A Date By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps It's A Date By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Circle of Stars, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Starry Night, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Star Trail, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Green Tea Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Black Jack My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (6-1/8 X 7)

Now Available - Ellen Hutson Leading Gentleman

Hi Folks! With as popular at the Essentials by Ellen Leading Ladies by Brandi Kincaid have been, you knew it was only a matter of time before a Leading Gentleman came onto the scene! And what a guy he is, with a ton of "guy accessories" to go with him (which, btw, are small enough in scale to go with my favorite All Inside Bear). Just perfect for Father's Day!

Let's talk about his plaid shirt ... I thought for sure there was no way that it would actually work out. And in fact, I left him on my desk overnight and almost threw him out the next morning. But then I had an idea to add shading to his sides even though I had already made the plaid. Right away I noticed that adding a color on top of the plaid helped even things out and look less stark. My next step was to go over the entire shirt with a colorless marker, which gives it a worn, flannel look. Super happy that I was able to save him!

The same could not be said for his pants. I realized that with the dark brown color, all the attention was going to his pants. So to save the plaid shirt, I simply cut off his pants! His top is adhered onto a full, uncolored die cut and I got a second chance to color gray pants for him. I'm realizing I should have probably gone for a third try, as I over-bended the gray and it looks more like he's wearing sweat pants instead of khakis, hahaha! 

But, my point is to think twice about scrapping something until you've tried to save it (like the plaid) or remove it (like the pants).

I don't always think corresponding dies are necessary for a stamp set, but I must say they sure do come in handy for a set like this, where there are a lot of small, different pieces. For the sentiment I split up the two words and popped a fish in-between.

The set also comes with facial hair! : ) I created a little fashion shoot so you can see his transformed looks.

He does look more rugged with the full facial hair. I've seen several mustaches before, but don't recall many stamp sets offering the beard and mustache option. Nice to have!

Finally, I was surprised with how the background turned out, as that is definitely going outside my comfort zone. A couple strokes of grass, a sandy alcove, and pebbles around the perimeter give this fisherman a place to hang out. Seeing everyone's amazing background scenes on Instagram has definitely inspired me to try this out ... my card-making New year's resolution.

This set, along with the Little Lady and all the other January releases, are on sale now!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly


Affiliate Links:

Leading Ladies - Leading Gentleman By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Leading Ladies - Leading Gentleman By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Leading Ladies - Little Lady By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Leading Ladies - Little Lady By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies It's A Date By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps It's A Date By Brandi Kincaid, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Circle of Stars, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Starry Night, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Star Trail, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Green Tea Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Black Jack My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (6-1/8 X 7)

January Guest Designer for Neat and Tangled

Hello folks! Super excited to be the January guest designer for Neat and Tangled! I'll be featuring a different stamp set each week. This week I'm taking a look at the Medallion Flower Builder set. It's simply amazing how many different looks you can get with the different images included in the set.

Here are the highlights ...

Build an artsy flower with leaves.

  Make a design to cover the entire card by repeating elements in a circular pattern.

This design covers the entire card as well, but with more white space between the elements to let them really shine.

Finally, this design is meant to resemble a peacock and her fancy tail. 

When I have more time I think I'm going back to make a few more combinations, it's that addicting! Here's a link to the complete post on the Neat and Tangled blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll be back next week with some ideas for another fun Neat and Tangled stamp set. 

Kelly

Alpine Windows Die Two More Ways

Hello Folks! I'm back with another use for the Ellen Hutson Alpine Windows dies!

After making my first few tri-fold cards from a standard size sheet of paper (like the above card, originally posted here) I was left with smaller 3" x 3 2/3" trifold pieces. I never want to toss anything, so I thought I'd see what I could do with these leftovers.

For the first one I made a smaller see-through card for a gift tag. I used all the same die cuts as I did for the "real" card, and in addition I snipped off the house from the first layer. Since I accidentally had the card upside down when I made all the cuts (you can see this trifold would have opened to the right instead of the left) I adhered the last two layers together. So now it opens like a regular card! I curved and embossed the sentiment from Totally Random Sayings Vol 2 to follow the curve of the valley. I just colored the trees for this card. Very simple.

For this card, I did not use the mountain die on the bottom layer, just the house die on the first layer (cutting off the house again) and the evergreen trees die on the second layer. Instead of adhering the last two layers together, I adhered all three of the layers together. And that made the perfect place for me to slide in a $20 bill!

What I couldn't believe, aside from this being the perfect size to fit a dollar bill, is that the white house on the back is very similar in scale to the evergreen trees! They totally go together! Who knew?

The background that this is mounted to is made with the Altenew Feeling Dotty Stencil, stenciled once in orange, shifted to the side, and stenciled again in aqua.

These next few photos I was UNABLE TO EDIT, thanks to Photoshop thinking I was some sort of criminal mastermind taking photos of US currency and perhaps replicating them?!? It honestly would not let me edit these photos showing the $20 bill. Hilarious, and also annoying. Thought I'd share them with you anyway so you can see how I slipped the money between the two layers.

I'm always looking for clever and creative ways to give money. Cash is cash, so it's nice to have a way to make it stand out from other gifts of money.

Here's my collection of projects made with the Alpine Windows dies so far! I blogged about the card here, and the monster treat bag here.

 

 Thanks so much for looking!

-Kelly

Altenew Stencils, Feeling Dotty Alpine Window by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps, Totally Random Sayings Vol. 2 by Julie Ebersole Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Tiki Torch Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Aquatini Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Black Jack VersaMark Ink Pad Brutus Monroe Metallic Embossing Powder, Gilded My Sweet Petunia MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (8-1/8 X 10-1/2)