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


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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)

W&W December Rerun - Stampets: Penguin

 

Hi Folks! Each month at Winnie & Walter we feature a previously released set and host a challenge (either with that set, or something that inspires you from the featured projects). This month we're featuring the smaller 3x4 Stampets: Penguin set.

 

 

There's a bit of masking going on here, but for the extra time it took to do that, I saved more time with the black and white coloring. 

The only marker colors I really used was for the scarf. I decided to just cut the scarf out instead of masking it because 1) masking would have been more involved, 2) I could color the stripes outside the lines since I was cutting it out anyway, and 3) the ends of the scarf would be able to bend outwards. To make the scarf look a little more textured and real, I drew a few lines through the striped design with a colorless blending pen.

 The background was blended with Catherine Pooler's Midnight and Juniper inks, and then flicked with some gold spray from Heidi Swapp and some watered down white paint. I had to cut a lot of heads to mask the penguins before I flicked paint on the background!

Instead of gray shadows, I used light blue shadows for them since they're on the ice.
 

Be sure to check out the Winnie & Walter blog for details on how to participate in the monthly rerun challenge, and win a $25 gift card. Also, don't forget that this set is currently on sale all month!

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly 

FOUR Different Ways to Use the NEW Hands Dies from Ellen Hutson

Hi folks! I'm so excited to show you four different things you can do with the new Hands die at Ellen Hutson!!

This set comes with a pair of hands in a small and large size. Aside from giving you more options with your design, the two different sizes also makes it a lot easier to create multiples when you can run them both through at the same time. This comes in handy for cards like this first one where you want a lot of hands to make a crowd ...

   

1. Make a cheering crowd. Some of you may have seen my post on Instagram where I shared my inspiration for this card. 

 

 

Now that the boys are old enough to be left at home for an evening we've been attending a lot of concerts. To me, there's nothing like the feeling of one of your favorite performers coming on stage for the first time, and the crowd going wild.

This translates perfectly to this card, where you just see the shadows of all the hands raised up in celebration. And how easy is this card to make ... just die cut a bunch of hands, stick them on a card base that's been blended with white ink in the middle, and heat emboss the sentiment. It's a perfect congrats card for those hard-to-impress teen boys. 

 

2. Use them to enhance your sentiment. You may have several sentiments already that would work with hands, holding, gestures (like waving "hi"), etc. but if not, there's a coordinating stamp set called Hang On with several compatible phrases.

This card uses one of those phrases, embossed onto a heart I cut out, and held by a mom wearing a sweater. I really love the visuals of this card echoing its sentiment to send a strong message. 

3. Use them to hold your gift inside the card. I am SO EXCITED about this one, and this reason alone would make me want these hands! How many times to you go to put a gift card or money inside a card and HAVE NO IDEA what to do with it so you just put it loosely inside the card? Then maybe it falls once the recipient opens it, maybe not, you have no idea.

If you adhere the base of a hand under a strip on the bottom of your card, just fold up your money and slip it in between the fingers. No need to adhere it ... it's light enough and small enough to stay put through normal use of the card. If you have a gift card, you might want to put light adhesive under the gift card, but it would still have a purpose for being on the card (because someone is giving it to you).

I love that it literally looks like you're being given money by someone (you)!

4. Depict Sign Language. I can't decide if idea #3 or #4 is my favorite ... being able to actually show a specific sign language word/phrase/letter opens up a whole new door of communication with these dies!

This one here is the sign for I Love You, where the letters I, L and Y are all combined.

I kept everything white, except for the red sentiment, and the subtle background with a stamp from Snow Days. Conveniently, the "I Love You" phrase is also part of one of the sentiments in the Hang On set. Just think of the possibilities here! You could bend the fingers to make so many different things ... Hang Ten, have it point to something important, make an initial in sign language, actually spell out someone's name in sign language, OK, call me, etc. It would be really fun to make a series of these cards too. Or a set to give someone.

Sure hope you came away with some good ideas for this set of dies and/or the coordinating stamp set! It's available starting TODAY in the Ellen Hutson shop!

Thanks for looking!
Kelly

Affiliate Links (which simply means if you purchase something using these links I get a small portion of the sale, at no additional cost to you. So appreciate your support!)

Hands by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies Hang On By Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Hands & Hang On By Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Stamp & Die Combo Snow Days by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Aquatini Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Mint To Be Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Garden Party Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Melon Ice Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Green Tea My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (6-1/8 X 7)