card design

,

ESSENTIALS BY ELLEN HOLIDAY 2021 RELEASE IS NOW LIVE

,
Click on the graphic above to go straight to the release page.

Click on the graphic above to go straight to the release page.

Have you determined what you wanna make for your holiday cards this year? Cuz you’re in luck today! The Ellen Hutson Holiday 2021 Release just dropped! We’ve got snowflakes, stockings, festive holiday botanicals, bold typography and some lighthearted snark for the insides of your greetings (HINT: take a close look at Sending Holiday Cheer on that release page; just sayin’ . . . ) that will elicit some laughs from the recipients of your creations!

feat. Essentials Snowflakes Die Set / Oh What Fun Stamp Set (Gift with $75 purchase)

feat. Essentials Snowflakes Die Set / Oh What Fun Stamp Set (Gift with $75 purchase)

Today I wanted to highlight the Gift With Purchase Set “Oh What Fun”—I adore the modern lettering and how nicely it plays with this “eclipse” technique, using the new Essentials Sowflakes set (the largest of the set was used to create the eclipse, and the other sizes were layered all over to create a faux embossing folder effect!

“On What Fun” will be included with any orders of $75 at ellenhutson.com Oct 15-17 (while supplies last; please see the website for details).

The ombré inking effect on the sentiment was achieved by inking and stamping first with Rockin’ Red (a stamp positioning tool, like the MISTI, is key to creating this effect with precision), then inking the lower half of the sentiment with Peppermint Scrub, blending the edge with a smooth blending sponge, to avoid a hard line, and stamping again directly over the first impression. The end result will be a beautifully smooth transition from the red to the deeper almost wine hue. I’m a sucker for ombré . . .

If you’re not familiar with the “eclipse” technique, you can see me demonstrate it during a LIVE with Ellen that we did for Summer of Stamping. It’s definitely one of my all-time favorite techniques. Because easy.

As for the faux embossing folder effect? I have a tip for ya’:

Apply Stick-It Sheet adhesive to the back of your card stock BEFORE die cutting the snowflakes; then you can just peel and stick ‘em wherever you want on your card front all quick-like. When you trim off snowflakes that end up hanging off the edge of your card front, many of them can be positioned elsewhere you feel there are any gaps (along the outer straight edges). •fist pump•

I’ll be sharing more samples in the coming days—thanks so much for reading!

,

BEAR WARE GRAND TOUR

,

Hey, ya’all! Happy World Card-makin’ Day! Bear is off on some international adventures—with bags all packed and a shiny new passport, he is ready to take on the Grand Tour! (France, Italy + the UK) I wanna go, too!!! You can see this small, but darling release over at Ellen HutsonLLC (←link)

In addition to Bear Ware Grand Tour, there’s also some super fun supporting products that can also be used as stand-alones in other projects! I didn’t happen to use them on these particular samples, but you’ll see them on my blog post / YouTube video over on the Ellen Hutson Blog when that publishes at 10 am.

We also have an Instagram hop going on where you can enter your name to win some prizes by leaving comment love! WOOT! Click HERE to go straight to my IG to join in that fun!

2021-10–02-WCMD-2.jpg
2021-10–02-WCMD-3.jpg

I really couldn’t resist making an Insta-worthy shot of Bear in London, using the Instant Photo Frames! How do you like his deer-stalker? Cracks me up!

For the background, I elongated the Skinny Stripes Die by passing it through my die cutter once, then repositioning the die further down the panel using the previous die cut stripes to guide the positioning and ran it through my machine again . . . felt kinda genius about that, LOL! (serious monkey-clapping)

2021-10–02-WCMD-4.jpg
2021-10–02-WCMD-5.jpg

For this idea, I was waaaaay excited to use some of the travel accessories in the set to create this “alpha substitution” type design using my trusty Classic Block Alphabet Dies! Had to foil the background with those tiny stars! You know me; gotta have all the stars . . . !!!

So, what do you think? Are you a fan of Bear and this latest version?

P.S. I’m not one to “decorate” my envelopes, BUT, one of my favorite things to use Washi Tape for is to decorate the flap of my envelopes—remember back in the day when wax seals were used to seal envelopes? So lovely and romantic when mail was delivered by hand . . . And, highly impractical in today’s world of modern mail machinery. Enter: Washi Tape. It makes me smile when I’m opening a letter before I’ve even seen what’s inside!

Click on the graphic below at 10 am to view my WCMD video on YouTube!

FYI: There’s a special sale going on today only at Ellen Hutson in honor of WCMD. Please read the details in the graphic below and click directly on the graphic to go straight to that sales category!

GIVE ME ALL THE STARS!

I adore stars—this basic shape is truly suitable for so many different occasions and applications! I think the largest sizes of the star shapes would make great banners for the holidays or birthdaysuy

For the creations below, I did full panel watercolor washes onto quarter sheets of my favorite watercolor paper using my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors and a wide flat brush—one of the best investments I’ve ever made to my crafting tools.

Once they were dry, I flattened them under some heavy books overnight and then they were ready to go for whatever I wanted to do with them, which was the following (so far, heh, heh, heh!) . . .

Using the negative from my die cutting session made the perfect backdrop for my li’l Boo, here! I laid down a variety of sizes onto the panel and ran it through in one fell swoop! I’m telling you, it does not get any easier than this!

I had used the Piercing Plate 2 on white card stock for a textural effect on white card stock which I trimmed 1/4” smaller than the base card (standard A-2). Then I mounted the starry watercolor panel onto that and trimmed the edges of that to be flush; mounted that to the base card. I love that some of the stars “bleed off” the edge.

For just a tad more interest, I made a messy nest of black thread from my emergency sewing kit (I don’t really sew, but a girl’s gotta’ do what a girl’s gotta do when the button of her pants pops off, am I right?!)

On this one, I took all the solid cut outs and layered them around my moon, which was first cut using the Alpine Snowfall die, which. isa knock out die, and then cut out using the Essentials Circles. I didn’t bother poking out all the chads in the “moon”, because I liked how it looked when some fell out and others still clung—it’s more moon-like, IMHO. Gotta’ love those multi-functional dies, LOL!

Hope your weekend is stellar! (chortle)

Stay healthy and safe out there!

HALLOWEEN STAMPING GOODNESS

Today I’m sharing three sweet and adorable Halloween Boo-quet projects here on the blog—also used this set on a Haunted House Treat Box Tutorial over on the Ellen Hutson YouTube Channel that turned out so STINKIN’ CUTE, it’s gonna kill me to wait until Halloween to gift them to the grand weebles! GAAAAH!!!

This was a super fast card, excellent for a last-minute Halloween greeting! So fun to string the balloon boo-quet to kitty’s tail! The matching die set has individual dies, in addition to one for the boo-quet as a whole, so you can pick and choose which of those to pop up, if you want! Options . . . always options, LOL! (wink!).

QUICK TIP: Stamp the balloon strings first, then position and stamp the ghost/bat balloons; so much easier to line them up accurately!

It’s hard to tell in the photo, but our sweet little witch has a pale pink watercolor wash on her dress. I foiled a quarter sheet of black card stock with the Tiny Stars Hot Foil Stamp and then die cut the clouds from that, popping them up, but upside down. Sometimes, I just like ‘em that way. My card, my prerogative. (hair flip)

After die cutting the black clouds in the previous project, I had some leftover, of course . . . So, I figured why not use it to make a background for my little witch to go trick-or-treating with her buddy and broom—and at that point I decided it would be fun to die cut a circle large enough to accommodate the sentiment and turn it into a quick little shaker element!

If you haven’t been bitten yet by the hot-foil stamping bug, I must say, it’s super satisfying—I just love the look of those shiny stars, debossed into the paper. I could just putz around and hot foil stamp the day away—which is actually a smart idea because then you could have a number of pieces ready to go when you need them. Truth.

What do you do more of? Halloween greetings or treat packaging? I’m a mixed bag because both are so much fun to make.

Hope your week is going splendid!

PINKFRESH STUDIO HOLIDAY RELEASE

Pinkfresh Studio has a new holiday release and I’m playing along on their Instagram Hop! There’s prizes and GOBS of eye candy, so if you’d like to check it out—which I highly recommend you do—you can hit my Instagram HERE and check out all the details.

Being a girl from the Pacific Northwest, this Wintry Forest Stencil really got me—love! If you haven’t worked with Pinkfresh Studio’s stencils before, they are numbered so you know exactly in which order to proceed. BUT, do you see the white “snow” detail on my trees? That’s stencil #6 in the set; technically, it would be the last, right? But to create the illusion of snow on the branches, I actually STARTED with #6, using a Versamark PEN to hit all those spots. Then I removed the stencil and applied white detail embossing powder and heat embossed. Afterwards, I grabbed a range of green inks and went back to #1 and started with the softest hue of green ink, and used a subsequently darker color with each stencil layer. I used a dry cloth to buff off any remaining ink that was sitting on top of the embossing lines.

Trimmed down to create a nice layer on a simple white base card.

After hot foiling the sentiment, it was die cut and popped up on the card front. Super simple, but I love ow striking it is! I personally LOVE hot toil stamping and am thrilled to see more companies adding this to their product lines.

Here, I used the wreath stamp image to create a shaker on a square card; the image was stamped with black pigment ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder, then watercolored. The gold frame compliments the hot foiled sentiment quite nicely here without being over-bearing. I had a heckuva time shooting this—foil and acetate are so reflective; this card has a lot of sparkle and glimmer in real life that I just couldn’t pick up with the camera.

The Poinsettia Washi Tape and coordinating die make cards like this a cinch because you can skip the coloring; it’s all done for you! The tape is gorgeous and features gold foiling details. I just spread the tape smoothly along a piece of card stock measuring 4.25 x 11”, die cut everything and positioned them in a pleasing way. I used some NUVO drops to accent the berries. FYI, you CAN cut apart some of the die cuts to create your arrangements—the Crafty Po-Po will not come after you. Truth.

Here is another variation of this beautiful washi tape, using the wreath. Again, sooooooo very simple! I’m honestly not much of a colorist (if I have to color, I usually reach for watercolors because it’s the fastest) so the idea of being able to skip the process of hand coloring when mass producing holiday cards is tremendously appealing to me—the time-savings is HUGE!!!

Hope you found these ideas inspiring and thanks for stopping by!

The Pinkfresh Studio Holiday release is LIVE; please click HERE to view them all.

Disclosure: Yup, those are affiliate links to the products used in my projects and I make a small commission when you purchase via those links, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for buying all the things!