White Christmas

Hi to everyone.  May I start off by saying Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in The States, and hope you have a great time.  It's just as well we don't celebrate it here because I don't think I could find the time to make all those extra cards.

Today's card is, guess what, another Christmas card.  I decided that, as I had never made one before, I would go for all white.  To make the card I used: Square White Card Blank, Heat Resistant Acetate, WOW Embossing Powder Sparkling Snow, Versamark Ink, Chocolate Baroque Bold Snowflake Shadow Stamp, Nellie's Scallop Border Die, Chocolate Baroque Poinsettia Stamp, White Parchment, Sakura Silver Gel Pen and a Silver Sentiment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                   

I started by stamping with the Snowflake Shadow onto heat resistant acetate with Versamark Ink and heat embossing with the WOW EP Sparkling Snow.  I haven't used the embossable acetate before, and although it will take heat I think I got a little too close with the heat gun and it did wrinkle a bit, but apart from that I thought the results were fine.  I stuck this to the base card, but because of the wrinkling it was a bit troublesome to glue flat, but I decided to go with it.  I then made the border with the Scallop Border Die, running it through twice to make a decorative strip, and glued that in place.  I stamped and heat embossed the Poinsettia twice onto the parchment using the same WOW EP as before, cut them out and layered them up.  I used a Sakura Silver Gel Pen to highlight the centre of the flower and finished with a silver sentiment.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Stamping for Pleasure Rudolph Day
Pixie's Crafty Workshop because I used some snippets/scraps of parchment for my Poinsettia. 
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Pine Branch and Baubles

Another week is ending which is another week nearer to Christmas, and my Christmas cards are progressing very slowly, so here's another one.  This card may well be replicated to speed things up as it is quite a quick card to make.

For this card I used:

A6 White Base Card
Dark Green Card
Kaisercraft Christmas Papers
Memory Box Pine Needle Border Die
Cuttlebug Embossing Folder Holly Ribbons
Freebie Bauble Stamp
Versamark Ink
WOW EP - Metallic Gold, Metallic Gold
Sparkle and Clear Gloss
Distress Ink - Red Brick
Gold Sentiment and Border                                                       
                                                                      

I embossed the white card with the Holly Ribbons embossing folder, then cut and embossed the green card with the Pine Needle Die, and adhered these to the white base card.  I selected two different patterns from the Kaisercraft paper pad and on the first I stamped and heat embossed the bauble stamp twice with the WOW Metallic Gold Sparkle EP, and cut them out.  I then used the bauble stamp as a template and cut another bauble from the second DP, covered it in Versamark Ink, and heat embossed with the WOW Clear Gloss EP.  I then stamped and heat embossed three of the bauble tops with the WOW Metallic Gold EP and added some Red Brick Distress Ink to the spaces to match the baubles.  After assembling them I hung them from the pine branch using the gold border strip.  Lastly I added the sentiment.

I am entering this over at  Stamping Sensations where the challenge for this month is Christmas.

Koi Carp and Water Lilies

Hi everyone.  Today's card is a birthday card which I made for a friend.  I do however have to apologise to her because I 've only just realised that I forgot to put a sentiment on the front.   Luckily I did put an insert inside with 'On Your Special Day', so Happy Birthday, Marilyn.

For the card I used a set of stamps which have already had an outing on here.  It is a set by Sheena Douglass called A Little Bit Oriental.  There is a large Koi, which I used last time, and a smaller Koi which I stamped twice for this card, together with the floating Lilies and the second largest Water Lily, used three times.  The other two stamps used were a couple of the ripple effects.

I began by selecting my usual square card in cream - as you can probably see this is my favourite shape at the moment.  I decided to back the focal layer with a dark blue which I obviously did at a later stage.  I then took a piece of white stamping card and covered this, using the acrylic block technique, with three colours of ink, namely Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and Memento Nautical Blue.  I then took some snippets/scraps of white card and using Memento Tuxedo Black stamped out the two Koi and the three Water Lilies and coloured them with Promarkers in a selection of about six colours.  I only have a pack of eleven colours with a blender so I don't have a great deal of choice. but I manage.  I then returned to the background after decided where I would place the Koi and Water Lilies and then stamped the water ripples in Memento Nautical Blue.  I decided when placing  the Koi that it might be quite fun to have one fish with it's head out of the water so I cut that one down and placed the Water Lilies around it.  I then, as mentioned earlier, mounted this on dark blue card, and then mounted that on my cream base card.

Thank you to everyone who stops by, and hope you all have a good week. 

I have decided, as this uses a few snippets, to enter the challenge over at Pixies Crafty Workshop.

Flourish Heart Anniversary

Hi to you all.  First I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has left such lovely comments, and welcome to my new followers.

Today's post is an Anniversary Card .  The stamp I used for this card was from a set of flourishes and swirls from  Crafty Individuals.  This card was a bit fiddly to make but I had seen something similar a while ago and it stuck in my mind, so thought I would give it a try.  Unfortunately, I can't remember where, otherwise I would give them a mention.

I started by making the heart using a Nellie Snellen Multi-Frame Die Set.  After cutting and embossing it, I stamped one of the flourishes using Archival Ink in Jet Black.  I then heat embossed with WOW Clear EP, coloured using Fired Brick Distress Ink and then added a few more flourishes using second generation ink.  The next step was to place the flourishes on the background, which I did by making some faint pencil marks where the heart was to sit and then stamping the flourishes with black ink and overlapping the pencil marks.  I did try to match up with the flourish pattern on the red heart but this was only partially successful as this consisted of holding the heart in place, hovering with the stamp and moving the heart away as I stamped.  I think I would need to find a better method another time.  I used a little of the Fired Brick Distress Ink on the background, glued the heart in place and then mat and layered the white on to black and then silver mirri, and then that was placed on a white card approximately 6 inches square.  Finally I added the sentiments.

I am entering this card in the Addicted to CAS Challenge .

Poinsettia and Snowflakes

Today I'm back to Christmas again, so thought I would feature that lovely Memory Box Snowflake Corner Die which I was lucky enough to win last week.  The stamps are from Chocolate Baroque - the first is the Poinsettia which I don't think is available any more, and the second is the Snowflake Shadow.  This is approximately 6 inches square and is good on it's own or as a background.

 

This was quite a quick card as I already had a piece of the background from the last time I used the stamp, so I mounted this on a piece of Gold Mirri Card which I stuck onto a piece of red card measuring 6 x 4 inch when folded.  I used the same red card for the Poinsettia, which I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with WOW Red Glitz EP, and for the centre I used a Gold Uni-ball Pen.  I have to admit I did make the flower a bit smaller by cutting out the central part and adding some bits of the outside petals behind in order to keep the flower a bit smaller.  The background is so pretty I didn't want to cover too much of it.  I also coloured the background in a little with a gold and silver pen which I dont think shows up all that well in the photo.  Lastly I used the Memory Box Snowflake Corner Die but used as flourishes.  I cut three from the Gold Mirri Card, and the one in the middle I cut down a little.  The sentiment which I stamped and heat embossed with WOW Gold EP, is from a freebie set which came with a magazine.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look today.

I've decided to enter this card in a challenge over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop.
Stamping Sensations have a Christmas challenge so I am entering that too.

 

The Art of Chess

Hi Everyone.  I notice I now have two more new followers, so thank you for that.

Today's card has a chess theme and is a set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque.  I used this set on my very first post, but that was a more elaborate card.  This is a much more straightforward version as I am entering it in the latest challenge at Less is More, which is to produce a card with a dark background but with a splash of colour(s).   I am also going in for the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, which is Anything Goes, and finally Pixie's Crafty Workshop, because that asks you to use snippets/scraps of paper or card, and the chess pieces were made from leftover pieces of card.

This lovely set of stamps has various chess pieces in differing sizes and styles and I selected a few of these to make a nice grouping on the card.  Next I found some nice bright colours of card to add my splash of colour.  There is a background stamp, and I used the top half of this as a backdrop on the black 31/2 inch square mat, which was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss EP.  I then stamped each of the chess pieces as above, heat embossed with the Clear Gloss EP, and attached to the mat.  Finally, having placed the mat on the A6 black card, I finished it off with a sentiment heat embossed with White EP.

Unfortunately, as you can see black card is very unforgiving, and even after using some talc brushed on to lessen the static, I still managed to get a few stray white flecks of EP.  I am something of a perfectionist, but sometimes I have to tell myself to take a step back and accept that if it is 75 to 80 percent as you would like it that this is probably about as good as it gets, for me anyway. 

Birthday with Bags of Style

Hi there everyone.  Firstly I would like to say thank you for all the lovely comments I have received and thank you to my new followers - in fact the first three followers - thank you so much.

Anyway, on to today's post, which is a birthday card I have made using a set of stamps from Creative Expressions called Bags of Style, which consists of four handbags, a border and corner and some sentiments.  They stamp beautifully and are large enough to colour, emboss or use paper piecing techniques on, which makes them an extremely versatile and useful set of stamps.

I started with a 6 inch square white card.  I stamped the border and corner stamp four times on some white stamping card with Versamark Ink, embossed with WOW Gold EP, and cut them out.  Luckily these fitted nicely on my base card.  Often I start off with a rough starting plan which evolves as I go along, and I decided after doing the frame that I would keep the colours to gold, black and white.  I next cut a 4 inch  diameter circle from black card using an X-Cut Die and using a Spellbinders Shapeabilities Die D-Lites Medallion Three I cut the pattern in the centre. To add a little extra interest I used a mask from That Special Touch called Chicken Wire, which actually has more the look of a trellis or harlequin design, and embossed it using my Grand Calibur.

I stamped one of the handbags onto white card using Memento Tuxedo Black Dye Ink and coloured it using a Promarker in Cool Grey and a Uni-ball Gold Pigment Pen, and then I covered it completely with  Versamark Ink and double embossed it with WOW Clear EP to give it a lovely shine.  I was going to add a piece of Mirri Card under the mat but then decided to use a softer tone and found this creamy yellow which I thought went better.  To finish I heat embossed the sentiment in WOW Gold EP.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and I hope you are enjoying your weekend.