Elzybells Blog

Showcase Sunday

I love Sundays - I especially love sunny Sundays and I have a great line up for the showcase this week! So what better way to start than with this happy and sunny card by Jane Bracht!

Here's another warm card by Trix!

Next, this *beautiful* card is by Meahni Pieterse. The flower is gorgeous and is a nice balance of the patterned paper.

Next up is a bright and cheery card by Sue Tolley

 

This beautiful floral card made for her nanna's 88th birthday is by Jane Millard.

I think this last card is actually my favourite of the week! It is by Jan Jackman and I love how Jan added the nails and washers and the SU patterned paper co-ordinates so well, don't you think?!

 

 

Thank you so very much to both Jane's, Trix, Meahni, Sue, and Jan for letting me share your gorgeous creations, it's always a pleasure for me to showcase them!!

 

** Note, that due to the fun birthday celebrations we have coming up throughout the whole of June, I won't be doing the showcase but it'll be back in July!! Ladies, you will all be added to the draw for July :) 

If the weather's not great where you are, I hope these cards might have brightened your day up a little!

Have a wonderful sunny Sunday!

 

It's party time...

... and YOU'RE invited!!

 

Now, who wouldn't want to go to a birthday party hosted by these cute teddies...?!!

 

 

Well, I am *VERY* excited to announce that June brings the elzybells blog's 1st birthday and I'd like to invite you all to help me blow out the candle!!

Will you come??

 

 

 

.... I have lots of fun celebrations planned throughout the entire month including competitions, special challenges and lots of chances to win some stamping goodies....  I do hope you can stop by - details to follow on Monday!!

 

Until then, have a great weekend!

 

May's winner!!

Here's the winner for May, randomly chosen from all the showcase Sunday entries....

 

Carly Robertson!!

 

Carly, you get £5 to spend in the online shop - please get in touch and I'll let you know your coupon code :)

 

Challenge 21

 

This fortnight's challenge has been set by Kim and it's a good un'! The challenge is to recycle and you can interpret this as you wish!

 

I decided to recycle an old jam jar and turn it into a Summer tea light holder.

 

I tried stamping the daisy directly onto the glass. The plan was to then colour using glass paints but it's near impossible to get a perfect image without any smudging as the surface is round and so slippery! So after many failed attempts (I didn't give up without a fight!) I decided to stamp the daisy onto some thin white tissue paper and stuck it onto the glass with glue. It was a bit fiddly but it did save me colouring them in afterwards.

I then added some yellow liquid pearls in the daisy centres, added some wire for hanging and a little bow.

 

 

 

 

My favourite creation from the design team is by Charlene who recycled a cardboard cheese container and also the light blue trim is from some suede-like perfume packaging!

 

  

 

  

 

It just goes to show, you can make a beautiful gift on a limited budget, you just have to be imaginative!

To see what the rest of the design team came up with, check out the link in the right sidebar (challenge 21) or visit their blogs for more information on what has been recycled. Jeanne will have a tutorial today showing how to recreate her gold and silver background which I'm looking forward to seeing!

 

If you would like to play along with this challenge you have one week to link your creations to this post. Next Thursday I will choose my favourite creation and that person will win a £5 elzybells voucher to spend online! I'm really interested to see what you can come up with and I'll be looking out for who has been the most imaginative with the item they are recycling!

 

A touch of shimmer

As you now know, not only do Koh-i-noor have lusciously smooth coloured pencils, they also make a beautiful gold and silver pencil too.

 

 

 

With the same superb quality and buttery texture as the set of 24 colours, the gold and silver pencils are perfect for adding a beautiful shimmer to your creations. You can blend with them in exactly the same way as I showed in my tutorials or you can draw with them for an even more spectacular effect.

 

I sent a few of the design team members a gold and silver pencil each to play with and they have created some wonderful examples to show their versatility. Here's what they came up with...

 

 

Tobi made this sweet card, I love how striking the gold background is!

 

  

 

 

Here are a couple of cards by Steph. The pencils look so good on coloured card!

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of cards by Paula. The pencils are so good for accenting Christmas cards!

 

 

 

This sweet card is by Jeanne 

Jeanne also has another card with a gorgeous gold and silver background but I'm going to tease you with that until tomorrow as it's for the fortnightly challenge and Jeanne will be sharing a tutorial too!

 

Don't forget - today is the last day of the special introductory prices on all the koh-i-noor pencils. At midnight tonight (UK time) the price will go up to its normal retail price so if you were hoping to snag a bargain, do it today!!

 

See you tomorrow for the DT challenge!

 

Time to pick a winner....

 

 

Well, I've had a great relaxing bank holiday. Right now I've been baking a chocolate cake and while it's in the oven I thought it'd be a great time to select the blog candy winner for May's release!

So using random.org, the winner selected from all the comments on the release post is........

 

Annelies who wrote:

Great new stamps! My favorite is definitely 'Teddy surprise'! Thanks for a chance to win! Greetings from Belgium, Annelies

 

Congrats Annelies!! Could you please email me your address and I'll have the Teddy Surprise set sent asap!!

 

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their wonderful messages and emails of praise and support lately. I really appreciate you taking the time to do so - the craft industry really is a wonderful place to work in! :D

 

I will have a few more cards to share throughout the week using the new release stamps... but now I'm off to follow that warm, comforting, chocolatety smell that is wafting through the house... have a great evening everyone!

 

Love Elizabeth

xx

Showcase Sunday

It's time for the weekly showcase and I have LOTS of beautiful creations to share with you! Click on the images for a larger view.

 

First up are two cards by Claire Murray, whose blog is here.

 

 

 

This next fabulous creation is by Inge Groot based on a tea bag holder tutorial on SCS. Inge's blog is here.

 

 

Here are two cards made by Jane Millard. Jane's blog is here.

 

Here's a lovely card by Meahni Pieterse

 

 

 

Here's a great card by Wendy Hall (I love the colouring!). Wendy has a blog here.

 

Thank you so much to everyone for sharing their wonderful cards this week!!

 

Don't forget - I'll be drawing a winner for the May release blog candy tomorrow! To be in with a chance to win, see this post.

 

I hope you are all having a happy sunny Sunday!!

 

Boy, what a week!

The weekend really couldn't come quick enough for me. Being a bank holiday on Monday, we've worked tirelessly to get all orders despatched so you'll have them in time to play over the long weekend :)

By the sounds of it we have some glorious sunshine coming our way so I hope you all have a chance to enjoy it...

 

 

 

If you play along with the challenges, you will have read on our most recent challenge that I'm changing the format a little - instead of all the participants being put into a random draw at the end of the month, from now on, you'll have a chance to win on very challenge!

I will pick my personal favourite from all the cards submitted for each challenge!

- - Oh my word, I never realised this would be such a difficult task!! Challenge 20 was that your card must include more than one fold. There have been some amazing cards submitted where obviously a lot of thought and time have gone into creating them. I could have quite easily picked four or five winners, but alas I can only choose one.

So, the winner for challenge 20 is Anne Ray with this creation

You can visit Anne's blog for more details here.
Anne, can you please drop me an email and I'll let you know your voucher code!

 

... Ok, well as it is the first challenge where I pick the winner, maybe I could choose just one more... check out Paul Ford's amazing creation!

 

The reason why I like it is because it's so different to what everyone else (including me) thought of for this challenge!

Here's Paul's blog so you can find out more :)

 

 

As I said, it's a bank holiday weekend so Elzybells HQ will be closed on Monday. Orders will not be processed until Tuesday and I won't have access to my emails until then either. If there's anything urgent, you can email me through the blog.

 

Have a bright and cheery weekend!

... I feel a picnic coming on... :)

 

 

Yep, it's release day today which means I have a final sneak peek to share and some blog candy...!! All the new stamps will be available to view and purchase from mid-day today.... sorry for the tease!

 

 

Our Everyday Greetings set which comprises of 72 stamps has proved very popular with its versatility so with this release I have created an 'Everyday Add On' set with another 51 stamps which can be used in conjunction with the Everyday Greetings for an even bigger variety of sentiments!

 

What I love about these sets is the font is simple but has personality! I think this is why it's so appealing and makes it suitable for many a style of card. I think you can easily get around a whopping 300 sentiments out of these stamp sets!!

... So wondering how you could get the very most out of these 'everyday' sets, I have also designed an alphabet & number set in the same font and size which make the Everyday Greetings and Everyday Add On's as versatile as you can get!

 

 

So here, for my first card I have a simple example using the Everyday Alpha set. It has both upper case and lower case letters as well as numbers plus a few other characters and like the other sets, being clear, perfect alignment is a doddle!!

 

 

 

Now, we also have another new clear set which I am especially proud of.

Again, it can be used in conjunction with all the 'Everyday' sets and is called 'Family Greetings'. I've included all the family members I could possibly think of, it even has the words 'foster', 'in law', 'step' etc so hopefully you won't find yourself stuck for any. The set has 51 stamps, ten of which are larger and in different style of fonts with words such as 'special', 'cool', 'greatest'... 

 

Here's an example

 

All the words are separate stamps so you can play around with the alignment and mix and match with the other stamps in the set or even with any of the other Everyday sets making these a great staple in your stamping inventory!

 

 

 

   

 

Now for some blog candy!!!

You can win your favourite stamp / stamp set of your choice from the new release by simply leaving a comment on this post, telling me what your favourite is. So come mid-day have a nosey in the online shop and report back to me here!!

I will randomly pick a winner on Monday (25th) and the lucky person will win their favourite stamp or set!!

 

Be sure to visit all the design team's blogs for their final sneaks today!

 

 

 

Teddy surprise 

 

It's the third day of sneaks today (- boy this week is going by quickly!) With the current challenge, I've got folding on the brain and our super cute 'Teddy Surprise' clear set is perfect for what I had in mind...

 

 

... a simple three panel birthday card jazzed up with bright patterned papers! I stayed away from the obvious girly colours on this card but I think you could give it to either a boy or girl.

 

Here's the back panel so you can write a birthday message:

 

 

Here's the front of the card when it is closed and a few close ups:

 

  

 

 

 

 

The elzybelles have been creating up a storm! They have some wonderful samples to share so be sure to check out their blogs - - there's just one more sleep 'til release day...... woohoo!!