Wreath Builder Templates: For the Boys

It occurred to me last week that all the card examples I've done so far to show the wreath templates have had a distinctively feminine feel about them. So this week I started creating some male themed cards with the templates, both of my  creations have a slightly robotic theme, perfect for the number one man in my life 😍

I used the the 5" x 5" template and just for a change I worked with black card stock, metallic inks and pens and threw in a little heat embossing.

The inks I used for both cards are the Delicata brand made by Tsukineko in 'Golden Glitz' and 'Silvery Shimmer', the second project I used the same inks plus their 'Celestial Copper' ink. If you haven't yet come across Delicata inks yet, I recommend you add some to your stash when you can, they come in 12 different colours and are some of the best metallic inks I've come across, that give some of the best results out of all the metallic inks I've tried and I've tried a good few brands believe me!

Delicata inks dry really quickly on porous surfaces and don't smear once dry like many other metallic inks. They are the latest generation of metallic inkpad's and give a superb, rich, bright metallic colour, the ink pads are water-based, acid-free and archival, and they are available as full sized ink pads and in cube inks, plus they also have re-inkers available, the re-inker bottles lend themselves to other techniques not just re-inking.

My second card was constructed from two large 7" squares  that I hand cut to be a hexagon, and the new 7" template. Once all the stamping was done I glued the 2 pieces together at the top to create a tent fold card. I made my own card blank from Limetree Craft​ 260gsm black cardstock, the best black card stock I've ever bought, I highly recommend Limetree for all their card, plus their Silky Smooth Ultra White 240gsm Card for alcohol markers is the BOMB!

The cog wreath was stamped in 3 different colours of Delicata metallic ink as mentioned above and I added 'Peacock Feather' Gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards to the silver inked cogs.

The sentiment and centre panel are cut with another of my go to sets, I have several sets of the Craft Stash Wonky Stitches dies in a variety of shapes, and if you've seen many of my cards you'll know I use the ovals, circles, squares and hexagons a lot, they are brilliant for giving an interesting edge to a card without being too fussy.

The robot in the centre (and the sentiment) are from a Woodware set called 'Rusty Robot', I heat embossed them with gold then used to metallic pencils to colour him in. Couldn't resist the addition of some wobbly eyes for a bit of playfulness 😉 Now I need to investigate other stamps that can create cards for men and now that we the 7" template it means I can use larger stamps, which should make it a lot easier!

New Sizes of Templates Added

We're delighted to announce that we've added 2 new sizes of templates to the set we sell, that means the set now contains a 2" template, perfect for making small toppers for cards or cute little gift tags.

Plus a 7" template which means you can now create much larger wreaths and of course use larger sizes of stamps.

I'm very aware that not everyone has a stamp positioning tool, so I was delighted to discovered earlier this week that our templates can be used with stencils and don't require a stamp positioning tool to achieve fabulous results, and you can read more about this technique here.

The 2" template is perfect for making gift tags for any occasion, I did make a set with the 3" template but decided they were in fact a bit big to put on a small gift. So I asked the man that can to create a 2" template so that I could make smaller tags, and whilst he was at it I asked for a 7" template as well.

Much tinkering and playing with numbers and CAD software ensued and a few days later he presented me with the new templates to test out. I'm happy to say they worked like a charm, just like the other templates do, like the upgraded set from earlier this year each template has a recess for holding a magnet and a hole so that the templates can all be threaded together on a cable ring to keep them together.

Blossom by Blossom stage 1

The 7" template allows you to create designs that are big enough to add to 7" card blanks, or you can matt and layer your designs on to 8" cards. I've made some samples over the past few days for the launch of the new templates and I've had lots of fun taking the stamped squares and turning them into different shapes.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that customers who already own the 3" - 6" set may want to purchase the 2" and 7" templates, so over on our Facebook store we've added the new sizes to the shop so customers can buy just the ones they are missing to complete the set.

I also realised that not everyone has a larger stamp positioning tool, some people only have a Mini MISTI, so a full set of templates would be a waste of money (unless they were going to use them with stencils) so I've turned the templates into 3 bundles: -

The final Blossom by Blossom card cut with a circle die.

Small (2" and 3") which will fit in a smaller sized stamp positioning tool with a stamp area of 6" x 4.75" such as the Mini MISTI.

Medium (2", 3" and 4")  For platforms such as the Original MISTI and any stamp positioning tool that measures 6.5” x 8.5”.

Large (2", 3", 4", 5", 6" and 7") Whilst the 2", 3" and 4" templates will work in smaller stamp positioning tools, we recommend the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform by Tonic Studios or a Memory MISTI for use with the 5", 6" and 7” sizes, the larger sizes will not fit smaller stamp positioning tools.

Each of the sets come with a cable ring and the price includes postage and packing. Over on the shop I have included prices for the UK, USA and the EU. As the new template bundle now contains 6 templates instead of 4, there will be an increase in the cost due to the fact that we're using more materials, more electricity to power the printers etc, so the price will increase by £4.00 going forward making the templates plus p&p cost £14.95 (posted to the UK), £17.50 (posted to the USA) and £16.95 (posted to the EU). Prices for the smaller sets and the 2" and 7" template bundle can be found over on the Facebook Shop.

If you have any further questions then you can leave a comment on the blog, or send me a message via our Facebook page and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Using Our Wreath Builder Templates With STENCILS!!!

Hi Everyone, I'm really excited to share with you another fabulous use for our Wreath Builder Templates and to use them in this way you DO NOT need a stamping platform!!! I know, it sounds too good to be true doesn't it? I can't take the credit for the idea because I saw the lovely Jennifer McGuire do this over on her blog earlier this month and I wondered if I could achieve the same with our templates.

I didn't want to rush to say to you "Oooo look what you can do with our stencils!" Only to discover that you can't use them in the same way. Instead I thought that I'd test the idea and create a couple of projects to make sure that our templates could definitely be used in the same way before I said they could be, so I did and they can! ::Tigger like bounces::.

All you have to do is tape the template to a flat surface, I used my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat which has the added bonus of helping the inks to blend more smoothly. I've recently switched to using blending brushes for using with distress inks (more on them soon) and you end up with some brilliant results. I've so far tried the using the 6" and new 7" templates (more on that soon!) and both work, but I won't lie you have to keep a firm grip on the stencil if you do it the way I did, next time I'll tack down exactly like Jennifer did, but the results are amazing!

What I should have done is use low tack tape and mask off the areas I didn't want to use, instead I held it down with my hand and used a piece of A4 paper to 'mask', Jennifer explains how to do it in her video that I've linked to below.

I was a little excited to try it as I had some free time so I skipped steps, but it still worked! I used painters tape to stick the template to the media mat, don't worry about getting distress ink on your template, if you do it will wipe away with a damp cloth or a baby wipe.

For the green card I used the 'Line Em Up' stencil from Time For Tea Designs and two shades of distress ink in Salty Ocean and Twisted Citron and they blended together beautifully. The image was in my Maybe Someday box, I'd coloured it a few years ago when I got the Neat & Tangled 'Purrfect' stamp and die set, so my colouring isn't as good as it is these days, but its not too shabby!

I haven't made a card with the panel generated by the 7" template yet, I'll finish it and add it to my post to introduce the new 7" and 2" templates later this week. I have so many templates that I can use in this way to make some fabulous backgrounds, I think its a huge added bonus for the templates and its brilliant that it means that people without a stamping tool can also use the templates as well.

I'm off to play some more, my head is now full of stars, snowflakes, hearts and more that I can use to create card backgrounds with my templates. If you already have a set of templates and your try out using your templates with stencils, please share your cards over on our Facebook Page, I love to see what you all create 😀

Mew Are Pawsome - Time For Tea Designs

Just before my holiday back in may my lovely crafting buddy Shabneez posted a card she'd made with an adorable stamp set from Time for Tea Designs called Mew Are Pawsome, my inner crazy cat lady (who am I kidding its outer and all over lol) was smitten and I ordered the stamp set and co-ordinating dies, Joanna who owns TFTD was on holiday when I placed my order and I got an email to tell me this and explain my order would be sent once she was back off her hols. As I was going on mine at the time I thought no more of it and went away, happy in the knowledge that the stamps would be with me when I got back off my holidays.

When I arrived home as I expected my order was waiting for me, but inside there was a little note from Joanna and a free rubber stamp to say thank you for waiting for my order, which was a lovely touch, even though I hadn't been waiting. I love small companies because they offer personal service and the customer matters, suffice to say TFTD went on my radar thanks to Shabneez. I'd been so busy since I got back off my holidays I hadn't had time to play with the stamp set though which was bugging me, so yesterday after I had finished making a birthday card for my dad and a couple of Father's Day cards - I'll post photos of them after Sunday when the recipients have received them - I sat down and created the above cards just because, I needed to play with something where I wasn't worrying about getting things finished by a set date.

TTFD released 4 new stencils earlier in June and the designs are fab, plus they had a special offer to get all 4 for a reduced price of £12, I think its gone up to £16 now, its still a saving but I got a real bargain. I've only used one so far the 'Sunny Side Up' stencil which I think is going to be one of my most used stencils in the future, as well as the sun in the centre, the stencil has 4 other sides:- a straight edge, clouds, grass and hills all perfect for creating scenes. I used the clouds and grass on the background for the father's day cards I mentioned earlier 😉

I used water colour card and distress inks to create the background. The images I stamped and coloured with Copic Ciao's, I don't have lots of colours yet so I'm limited as to how I can blend the pens, but I am thrilled with them, I know they are an expense, but I really wish I'd saved money when I started buying cheaper pens that just don't do the job and just gone for Copic's in the first place, in the long run I would have saved money, and have lots more colours to boot lol!

To finish off the card I added a few gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards, I love the gems and pearls that Lucy sells, it was via Jennifer McGuire that I discovered Lucy's Cards gems and I was surprised to find that Lucy was based in the UK, so now I order all my gem treasure from Lucy, she does sequins, pearls, gems and tiny confetti which is perfect for adding to shaker cards. The sentiment is also from the Mew are Pawsome set, I just stamped it on to a strip of white cardstock with some Gina K Amalgam ink and cut the end to form a fish tail.

The second card I created using one of our Wreath Templates to make a circular 'rocker' card, using my Tim Holtz Stamping Platform and a 6" template. I stamped lots of the smaller images from the TFTD 'Mew are Pawsome' set with Gina K Amalgam ink and coloured them with my Copic pens. I find colouring very relaxing and therapeutic to do, again I wish I had more colours but I'm happy with what I've achieved.

Once I'd die cut the circles and layered everything up I finished the card off by adding a little shimmer pen to the balloons and cupcake icing and a little white gel pen detail to the balloons and cat. My stroke of genius for this card was to use a red Sakura Glaze pen for the centre of the candle to make it more flame like. This stamp set is going to get a heck of a lot of use, and I can't wait to use the other stencils I got from TFTD, watch this space.