Tribal inspiration

I have been looking forward to using the dies from the new Tribal range since I first used them in December to prepare for our upcoming trade shows. Tribal textiles and designs are all over the high street as we speak and this range is perfect for both paper crafters and textile artists with the inclusion of so many gorgeous Sizzix Bigz dies.

The dies are all designed by my good friend Debi Potter who has a wonderful eye for the next trend in die cutting.

I'm using just one set of dies from the Tribal range namely the Elephant Duo Thinlits set which comprises two super cute elephants and a couple of heart dies.

I had the great pleasure to be demonstrating at Sprinkle Twinkle in Kings Lynn last weekend, we had a wonderful time and it's so nice to see a retailer which goes that extra mile for it's customers. 

It's a great shop full of inspirational ideas and products. While I was there I fell in love with a couple of stamp sets from a US company named Precious Remembrance Shop. Apparently, Sprinkle Twinkle are their only UK stockist at the moment but I'm sure they are going to be huge. The set I used is called Positive Thoughts Stamp Set which is just one of many great collections.

Don't you just love it when you stumble across a great new product and want to share it with the world?

Anyway... Back to the cards! I die-cut the large elephant from a warm grey card and applied a little Distress Ink around the edges (Pumice Stone). Next, I die-cut a strip of rust coloured card across the heart detail on the die. I Attached a couple of strips of sticky tape to the rear of the main elephant and  lightly inked the top of each heart before attaching them into their corresponding aperture holes

I continued with this process until I had decorated the whole elephant. Next, I cut a 12 x 12 cm square of ivory card before rounding of the corners with a punch. I applied some Old Paper Distress Ink around the edges and added some stamped detail. Next, I stamped my sentiment onto ivory card before colouring the heart using markers before trimming it to size, inking the edges and attaching to the rectangle using a stapler.

I attached the rectangle to a deep blue base card with staples and added a couple of Die-cut hearts from the same set.

I was only going to make one card but then I looked at the other cute little elephant and it seemed a crime not to make another! I die-cut the elephant in two shades of brown and inked the edges as before. Next, I cut an 8 x 14 cm rectangle of ivory card before rounding off the corners. I inked and stamped as before and applied my sentiment using adhesive foam pads.

I die-cut three large and two small hearts and I placed the large hearts and the elephant onto the rectangle, roughly in the position where I want them to sit before using a marker to make a dot at the top of the elephants body and at the bottom of each heart. Using a ruler I joined up the dots with the marker and added some bows to give the illusion of balloon strings.

And here is the finished card, I love the combination of the contemporary shapes and super cool stamps, hope you do too?