The new StickerKitten Mermaid Treasures range is here!August 27, 2018 |
Hi crafters! Well I am super excited that our new StickerKitten Mermaid Treasures range has launched and is now available in the shop for you to buy. I launched it live on Facebook (catch up here), showing you through the products and then doing a little tutorial on how to make this cute little jellyfish splattered background card.
As I mention in the video, the range was inspired by a cute little jellyfish that James had sketched in ink a while back. I have wanted to do a whimsical underwater collection for a while, and mermaids and sea creatures seemed like a great pairing.
STAMPS
So first up in the range we have two stamp sets: mermazing and birthday fishes.
In the mermazing stamp set you have a mermaid and a merman (and they can hold hands!) and a large sentiment banner at the top. You can stamp the ‘mermazing’ on its own, or mask it to just stamp the banner. Or you can pair it with the ‘you are’ and ‘together’ stamps, which can be stamped in different colours or coloured in because the letters are hollow. With this set I had in mind that you could make the most fabulous unique wedding or anniversary cards, or simply tell a friend that they are mermazing! You can also add the little merbaby from the second stamp set to use as a new baby congratulations card. Add some of your own extra lettering or stickers to make ‘a mermazing new arrival’ card! To make a boy merbaby, just mask off the ponytail and top when you stamp the image.
The other images in the mermazing stamp set include a treasure chest (which fits in the arms of both the mermaid and merman), ‘I treasure you’ sentiment (again good for anniversary cards) and four smaller stamps – a shell, happy starfish, gemstone and seahorse. You can group these together on your stamping block (along with some from the other stamp set) to make the most adorable pretty backgrounds.
In the second stamp set, birthday fishes, you get four lovely sea creatures – a narwhal, turtle, jellyfish and cheeky octopus – plus the little merbaby and shoals of fish, seaweed, bubbles and sentiments. This is nice set for making cards for friends as you can pair the little mermaid with her sea creature friends! The sentiments ‘to my friend’, ‘have a fintastic day’ and ‘so happy to sea you’ can all be paired with the big ‘birthday fishes’ sentiment to make super cute and lovely cards for friends. The ‘birthday’ bit of the ‘birthday fishes’ sentiment is hollow again so you can colour the letters if you want to.
Try making a scene with clusters of seaweed along the bottom and shoals of shimmery fish. The solid fish stamps are the same size as some of the fish in the shoal so you can add bursts of colour to your shoal with coloured ink.
All our stamps are created from James’s hand drawn illustrations so each design is special to us. We have thought carefully about each stamp in the pack and how you will be able to get good use out of it.
PAPER PACKS
Also in the new StickerKitten Mermaid Treasures range we have two pretty paper packs! As I’ve done for previous collections, I have designed two paper packs for this range too – a designer paper back and a basics paper pack.
With the designer paper pack, the idea is that you could use these as feature papers – they are quite strong designs to stand out on your cards. There’s a mixture of kraft and normal patterned paper which can be layered together to add texture and interest.
With the basics paper pack, the idea is that these are similar-feeling complementary designs and colours. They can be used as more subtle backgrounds, such as when you are using stamped images as the feature of your cards and want background layers that add colour but blend nicely in without drawing the eye away from your central design.
The colours match across both paper packs so that you can use them interchangeably to have lots of choice and variety for your mermaids cards!
WOODEN EMBELLISHMENTS
In this collection we have two packs of wooden embellishments – turtles and starfish – and an extra special jellyfish pack which is exclusive to the complete collection craft box.
Similar to the wooden embellishments in our Bird Garden range, for this range we have kept the designs simple and non-engraved so that you can add whatever kind of ink, paint, glitter or other effects you like!
There are two different sizes of turtles in the pack and two different sizes of starfish. The wooden jellyfish are engraved and take longer for us to make – that’s why they are so extra special and only available in the craft box – it’s like a little extra thank you for buying the whole range.
DIE-CUT EPHEMERA
Die-cut ephemera is one of my favourite new products that we have added to our collections recently. I love crafting with ephemera pieces as it makes it so easy to make a lovely professional looking card quickly. You don’t have to worry about inking up and making a mess (I know some of you love that, but I just prefer everything neat and tidy!). So for the Mermaid Treasures range we made sure the ephemera packs have a little bit of everything.
You get 56 pieces in the pack and that includes mermaids, mermen, merbabies, all the little sea creatures (narwhal, jellyfish, turtle, seahorse, starfish, octopus) and extras like shells, seaweed, little fish and ‘birthday fishes’ sentiments. Some pieces such as the jellyfish come in 4 different colours so you have loads of choice when putting your cards together. As with all our products, these are developed from my initial sketches and James’s hand drawn artwork so each little piece in the pack has been designed with love and designed to coordinate. You may think of them as little artworks to adorn your cards and scrapbook pages <3.
SEQUINS
You may know that I used to collect sequins when I was little (and still sort of do…) so these little shiny treasures will always have a place in my heart and craft collections! I spend a long time carefully sourcing sequins to match our ranges – and I am super pleased with this especially sparkly mix!
Each pack contains 10g of sequins – a mix of iridescent green round sequins and sort of raised 3D star sequins. The pictures don’t quite do them justice as in person they are so sparkly and delicate and pretty – like shimmering mermaid scales. Sequins are great for making shaker cards, but I always like to make them last longer too by only using a few here and there on a card for a finishing touch.
DIGITAL CUT FILE
Brand new to us, at the request/suggestion of fabulous design team member Laura, we now have a digital cut file available of the Mermaid Treasures scallop pattern from the paper packs. This is a downloadable png for use with electronic die cutting machines, such as a Silhouette Cameo. You can import the file into your machine’s software and use the ‘trace’ tool to make a cuttable file. It’s resizable and you can cut as many times as you like for all your different projects! Check out this fab scrapbook page Laura has made with hers. You can see the YouTube tutorial on how she made this page here.
FANCY A CUPPA?
Phew! After this long blog post you’re probably in need of a lovely cup of tea. Well we have just the thing!
One of James’s side projects has been to work on some new StickerKitten mugs! We were lucky enough to get a mug press and printer at a good price from a colleague, and making our own mugs is something we have wanted to try for a while. It took a little bit of trial and error to start with, but now we have two designs of mugs available and are hoping to add more soon. The first one is this cute jellyfish mug (also available as a personalised version), and the second is this sweet tumbling dinosaurs design from our first collection, Birthday Dinos. Again there’s a personalised version available (because who doesn’t want a super awesome dinosaur mug with their name on it?!).
Mugs take us a little bit of time to make and we quality check them carefully to make sure you get a super good product. They cost a bit more than the average mug you find in the supermarket, but they are made by us individually with love, from our own hand drawn designs. And if you order a personalised one it’ll truly be a one-of-a-kind mug! All orders help our little business along. We make up and package all orders ourselves so please know that we get very excited when we see an order come in and that you are helping to fund an artisan business rather than helping some billionaire buy another yacht! (Though if one day we miraculously become billionaires and buy a yacht, you can totally come aboard for cocktails).
Thank you for reading this far! As a recap, here’s the new Mermaid Treasures range and here are some cool mugs. And know that we love you. Happy crafting!
Sarah x