Embossed Impressions with Baubles

Hi there.  I have a card today which I made to enter the Rudolph Days Challenge which finishes this evening/tomorrow morning as there are 8 hours difference in the time zones.  The challenge is run by Mo of Scraps of Life by Scrappymo and runs from the 25th to the end of each month.  There is always a lovely prize for the winner, and in December if you enter every single month of the year there is an extra prize to be won, so if you are quick you have still got time!

I decided to use a technique which I first saw over at Jennifer McGuire's blog here, where you ink up the die with Versamark and dry emboss it, then hopefully the ink will have been transferred to the impression, in all the grooves, and you then heat set it with embossing powder.  To get the full picture it is best to go visit the link above.

I found a piece of blue card which I had die cut using a Crealies Pierced Rectangle die which was just the right size.  I then used the above technique to impress these freebie baubles which I got with a magazine several years ago, I think it is a Crafter's Companion one, and I heat embossed it with some WOW Sparkling Silver Embossing Powder.

I then used a Wink of Stella pen to give it some sparkle and highlighted the raised bits and on the rest I used a white Sakura Pen, and I then did it the other way round on the other.  After it was dry I decided the white pen hadn't worked that well on the dark blue card for some reason, so I used another Sakura silver sparkle pen over the top, one of a set which I have had since I first started crafting about 11 or 12 years ago, I think it might be a Stardust gelly roll pen.  This just added a touch of extra sparkle and turned the white into a nice bright silver.  I then added the sentiment using the same technique, just dry embossing and heat setting with the same Sparkling Silver EP.  I then filled in the sentiment with the Sakura silver pen.  Unfortunately it doesn't show up too well in the photo. 

I finished by adding some sparkly silver embroidery thread  to the tops of the baubles using a needle to pierce a hole and taking the thread through, first taped at the back, over the top and also taped at the back.  I then added the little bows to decorate which I stuck down with Glossy Accents which really sticks things like this firmly.  I added a piece of fun foam to the back of the topper to give it some dimension and added it to a rectangular white base card.

Thank you for joining me here on the blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am also entering the following challenge:

Christmas at Sweet Stampin' January Challenge - Anything Goes.

Chinese Lantern Flowers

Hi everyone.  I really wanted to enter the CAS Watercolour Challenge and as usual am running out of time so I quickly whipped up a card today as the challenge closes tomorrow, luckily we are eight hours ahead timewise which makes it a bit better..lol.

I used a relatively new set of stamps from one of my favourite companies Chocolate Baroque and the set is called Autumn Poppy.  These I think are Chinese Lanterns which are a lovely orange colour, but these look a little muted, due in part to having to take a photo under a daylight lamp and not in proper daylight.

I decided to make this a one layer card and started with the background.  I used a piece of acrylic and laid down some Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac Distress Inks onto it and spritzed with water.  I then turned it over and applied the inked acrylic to the lefthand side of the card.  I continued with one or two more layers until I was happy with  the colour.  Applying the ink this way gives you more control of where the colour goes, and I have to be honest and say that I got the idea from Karen whose blog is full of beautiful inky creations.

I then stamped the image using Versafine Smokey Gray Ink and coloured with my Distress Inks and a  waterbrush using the following colours:  For the flowers - Spiced Marmalade, a little Mustard Seed for the highlights and Faded Jeans added for the shadows, and for the leaves - again Mustard Seed for the highlights, Mowed Lawn and Pine needles mixed in for the shadows.

I finished by stamping the sentiment using the Smokey Gray Ink and whilst wet I heat embossed with Versamark and some WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope to be back before the end of the month as I am going to try and enter the Rudolph Days Challenge, so see you then.

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Watercolour January Challenge - Birthday.
Seize the Birthday Challenge - One Layer Card.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add A Sentiment.
Country View Challenges January 2018 - Anything Goes.
Penny Black and More Challenge - Something New ( I have never used this stamp before).
Fashionable Stamping Challenges - No. 131 Anything Goes.

Twofer Feathers

Hello everybody.  I have been having a very busy time lately and my cardmaking has been a bit fragmented, and all the posts so far this year have been draft posts done well before Christmas and which just never got shown.  I was determined though to try and get my act together to enter LIM, CAS Mix Up Challenge, and together with the second card Darnell's new Twofer Challenge.  I only had the purple feathers ready and so missed the LIM deadline as obviously I needed the second card ready as well, but two out of three is OK, like they used to say on school reports...could do better..lol.  Darnell's Twofer Challenge is one you need to get your head round, using the same stamp/die for two cards for different occasions, and this has proved to be a hit and I am so pleased for Darnell.  Here are the two cards:

These two cards are for Twofer Card Challenge - No. 1 Feathers.

                                                    
                                                               
I have had this freebie feather die for a year or two and have only ever used it once so thought of that straight away.  I have to be honest and say that mainly I make just birthday, anniversary and Christmas cards so thought the two cards would be a birthday and an anniversary card.  This first one I decided to make purple to go with the LIM Challenge which sadly I missed, and I started by colouring a snippet of white card with some purple brushos, sprinkling them on and spritzing, and when dry die cut the two feathers.  I decided they were a bit pale so I added some Distress Ink in Shaded Lilac, and then round the edges some Adirondack Eggplant.   I cut a mat using a Crealies Pierced Rectangle die and another snippet of white card, then added some interest to this layer with a Texture Fragments stamp from a recently acquired set from Chocolate Baroque.  I heat embossed it using Versamark Ink and WOW Silver Metallic Embossing Powder.  It is quite a small stamp so I stamped it three times to form the background shape, and then I mounted this layer on to the white rectangular base card.  I added the two feathers giving them dimension by adhering them using Mounting Foam Tape and finished with a black snippet for the sentiment banner and heat embossed the sentiment using the Versamark and WOW Opaque White EP.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 317/318 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.
Happy Little Stampers January Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Birds of a Feather.

                                                                                                        

The second card took me a while to think what I could do with this feather die so I could make it look substantially different from the first.  I decided to dry emboss the feather across each corner of the square white base card.  This worked reasonably well but unfortunately in a couple of place it cut through so I cut the front off the card and then mounted this on to another card to give it a base layer and decided that it looked OK like that, just made sure that I put pieces of tape behind the cuts.  I then decided to use a set of stamps by Creative Expression called Rustic Birds, so as well as the feather background I thought this would work with the Twofer as I am sticking with the feathers theme, and I thought the two birds side by side on the branch would make a nice anniversary card.   I made a square background for the silhouette birds using a piece of glossy card and a stitched die from The Works, and sprinkled Turquoise Brusho Powder then spritzed with spray starch and and also a bit of water as it was a bit too grainy and I wanted a reasonably smooth finish.  Whilst wet I covered this in cling film which gives the finished piece that pretty pattern.  I left it to dry for about an hour before removing the cling film.  I am not totally sure exactly what the spray starch does, apart from the fact that it has more body to it than just water and maybe that assists it sticking to the card and makes the cling film work better, but I intend this card for the CAS Mix Up Challenge and it was the technique for this time so gave it a try.  There will be videos you can watch about this type of technique and the links will be on the blog.   I made the little silhouette scene on this using the smallest bird and one of the leafy branches,  and added the sentiment, stamping with Black Archival Ink.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

CAS Mix Up Card Challenge - January - Use Cling Film + Stamping (my choice: Dry Embossing and Die Cutting)
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add A Sentiment.

I hope you have managed to stay the course with this rather lengthy post, and thank you for visiting today and I'll see you again soon.

Art Deco Anniversary

Hi there everybody.   No new anniversaries at the moment, but I made this card towards the end of last year as this was needed for a couple who only got married several years ago, in fact it is the last wedding we attended.  I remembered their stationery had an Art Deco feel to it and I bought this Papermania stamp a little while ago at a very reasonable price as a local shop was closing.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be very readily available now.  It is called Charleston but they are definitely not dressed for that particular dance, I think a fringed dress would be more appropriate...lol, but it is very pretty nonetheless.

I found a piece of nice smooth white card and stamped it using my black Archival ink pad and coloured it using Spectrum Noir Coloured pencils, two or three shades of red and two or three greys through to black, although the finish looks more grey than black as I didn't want a dense black colour.  I do have the Sansodor and paper stumps which I didn't need to use as I felt the finish was smooth and blended enough without.  The man's button hole was coloured with the same red but unfortunately looks as though it's black in the photo. 

I die cut it with a Crealies Pierced Rectangle die and matted it on to a slightly bigger piece of silver mirri.  I decided to use a Marianne die - Twine Border which I also cut from silver mirri and mounted this across the middle of a 6" square white base card, and then placed the rectangle over the top.

I finished with a thin strip of black card and using my Misti I stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set and cut it with a fish tail and placed it across the border butting it up to the right hand edge.

I decided the topper perhaps needed something to bling it up a bit so I used a Sakura Starlight silver pen and added some touches of glittery silver to the dress and the headdress.  There were some little dots which came out of the border and I stuck a few of those randomly over the topper.  They were a bit fiddly to stick but I used my Zig glue pen.

Thank you for visiting me today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Fashionable Stamping Challenges - No. 131 Anything Goes.
Country View Challenge January 2018 - Anything Goes.
AAA Cards CAS Challenge - No. 106 Quote - the quote includes the words 'something new', and my stamp is being used for the first time.
Penny Black and More January Challenge - Something New.
Allsorts Challenge - No. 450 No Patterned Papers.

Painted Petals and Texture Fragments

Hi everybody.  This is one of two cards I made a little while ago which have been made using pieces of mop up copy paper from a session of gelli plate printing using Distress Inks, and which had been sitting on my table for quite a while, and I thought were too pretty to waste.  This piece has a sort of pinky orange tinge and I enhanced it with some extra inks put on my glass mat and spritzed before swiping the paper through it and dried with my heat tool.  I then for fun decided to cover it with these Chocolate Baroque Texture Fragments really just to see what they all looked like when stamped as they are NBUS/new and this card is their first outing.

I stamped using the same inks, i.e. Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Victorian Velvet.  I have been wanting to get these stamps for ages, and by ages I mean probably three or four years, and for one reason or another I have ended up getting some others instead, but I decided to take the plunge, and I am so pleased I did as I think they are great for enhancing a background.

When finished I thought that it was definitely nice enough to go on a card, and as the copy paper is somewhat flimsy I stuck it on to a snippet of white card and die cut using my Crealies Pierced Rectangles.  I decided to make a 7" x 5" card so wanted this to be just a smidge/tad/gnat's whisker, or if you prefer, just about 1/8" smaller.

I have had this set of stamps by Stamping Up called Painted Petals for a year or two and haven't used them a great deal.  I won them over at Pixie's Playground and they have lots of flowers and leaves which you can use in all sorts of pretty combinations.  There are also two group stamps, one of flowers and one of leaves which go together to make a lovely spray of flowers.  I think not reaIising this at the time, I cut the flowers and leaves out so that they were all separate, and then when I tried using them together I found it difficult to get a nice arrangement so I gave up.  I have recently looked at some videos of them being used and now understand how they should go together, so after practising  a bit I managed to get a reasonable result.   Here is a picture of the stamp set:

I used a snippet of white card and stamped the Painted Petals flowers and leaves.  I used Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick to give a variation in tone, and then Adirondack Lettuce with the darker green being Mowed Lawn DI for the leaves.  I blended some Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick round the edge of the piece after I had cut it with one of the Crealies Pierced Rectangle dies.   I finished the topper with a white layer also cut with the Crealies die.

I finished by adding the sentiment on to the topper using Adirondack Espresso ink and then I layered it up on to my white base card.

I used the technique which I used on my Michael Powell stamped card to make the right size of rectangle on the background and both layers of the topper.  This means cutting with a slightly larger die then placing it back in to nip a bit more off one side, or in the case of the white layer both sides, by hanging the die cut piece over the edge of the die making sure the pattern lines up, and then running it through again.  I must admit the white layer behind the topper could have been a little bigger.  I thought it needed to have a white edge to show up better against that busy background and I wanted to cover as little of the pretty background as possible.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I'll be back soon.

I an entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 315/316  where we use our snippets of paper and card etc.
Penny Black and More - Something New.
Artistic Stamper - Anything Goes.
Sieze the Birthday - Anything Birthday Goes.

Fluttering Hearts Anniversary

Hi there.  This is the last anniversary I had to make a card for in 2017, early December, but with everything else going on I never managed to show it.  There are a few others that haven't had an airing either which may appear on here between now and April which is when I start with the new season of anniversaries amongst my family and friends.

I thought I would use these two sets called Fluttering Hearts and Baroque Corners from Chocolate Baroque which I got fairly recently.  I was going to do it in just black and white but decided to add some red too.

I stamped the Baroque Corners on to a piece of white card about 6" square using the smaller of the two in the top left and bottom right corners, and then the larger corner in the other two using Black Archival ink, and heat set with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I decided to colour the two larger corners using a red Spectrum Noir pencil for the flowers and just one shade of green for the leaves.

I then stamped two hearts on to a piece of black card usingVersamark and heat set with WOW Opaque White EP.  I cut them out and added some dots of red glue gel to the centre of each flower on the hearts and also to the two largest flowers on the large corners.

To finish I added the sentiment again using the Archival Black ink and WOW Clear Gloss EP, and then layered it up.

I am giving two new followers a shout out.  The first is Christine whose blog you will find here, and who is a lady after my own hear and loves getting inky.  The second is Sharon whose blog is here and who I am pretty sure I have never given a shout out to.  I have noticed that my numbers have not always shown up accurately, and I was checking through the list and noticed Sharon there so I apologise if you have been with me for a while and I just haven't noticed you.   She makes the cutest and most prettily embellished cards, so if you have never visited these ladies before you are in for a treat. 

Thank you for visiting today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Something New (The Baroque Hearts).
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Something New (The Baroque Hearts).
Fashionable Stamping Challenge - No. 130 Celebrate.
Inkspirational Challenge - Designer's Choice - Stamping Only.
Country View Challenges January 2018 - Anything Goes.
WOW Embossing Powder January Challenge - All About Hearts.

A Year in Cards

Hi to everyone who ventures here on the first day of a new year which is always so exciting as it gives us the opportunity to draw a line under last year and start afresh.  Last year was a bit mixed for me as I did have problems with my gall bladder for more than half the year, but I am pleased to say that normal services have been resumed...lol.  I have decided to do what I have noticed a few other people have done which is to mark the start of a new year with a montage of cards, one from each month of last year, some of which are my personal favourites and others were those that seemed to hit the spot with you all, so here goes:

                             

I hope you have all enjoyed taking another look at some of my cards from 2017 and I look forward to seeing you all throughout 2018.


  Wishing you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!