Well, hello!

The other day I was tempted into buying a set of digikits from Daisytrail that were on special offer.  Looking back over my past orders I realised that I'd collected quite a few. OK, a lot!  The worst thing is I hadn't even downloaded half of them, and the half that I had downloaded had barely seen the light of day.  The Paper Players challenge blog accepts digital submissions, so that seems like a good way to make good use of all that wonderful content that is going unused.

 The theme this week is a Tic Tac Toe challenge:

I chose flowers, die cuts and yellow, and here's my card:

I think it would make a nice Valentine's Day card.  Something a little bit different from the usual hearts and red.  I've used bits and pieces of various digikits and I can't remember where they all came from, except that the sultry lady is from the "Pin Up Starlets" digikit and the "die cuts" are from the "Photo Cutouts" kit.  I had no idea what I was going to do when I started, but it all came together rather well.  Isn't it a wonderful thing, to start off with a blank slate and end up with something lovely?

Sparkle and Shine ATC

It's been a while since I posted and since I entered the Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge.  It's good to be back!  The theme this time is "Make it Sparkle", and here's what I made:

I started with an ATC base made from an old cereal box, which I covered with patterned paper.  I then stamped and die cut the chandelier, and coloured the die cut with a very light off-white, just to soften it a little.  I went over the lights with pastel yellow 3D Pearl Effects, and the jewels on the chandelier with silver glitter glue.  The chandelier was getting lost against the background so I toned the background down with a little gesso and used foam pads to raise the chandelier.  I tried to create a warm glow from the lights with yellow ink on the background.  The words were stamped on white card; "shine" was also embossed in gold (although in hindsight maybe I should have used silver to match the rest of the ATC).  Glitter glue around "sparkle" and a couple of gems on "shine" finished everything off.

Wonderful Day

A few months ago I went a bit crazy in the Sizzix Spring clearance sale.  I love flowers so several of the items that I picked up were flower related including the Susan's Garden gazania die set.

I dug out some Luminarte silk acrylic glaze paints that had been languishing in the bottom of a drawer and started making backgrounds.  Then I cut the gazania from some beautiful foiled designer paper.

I really love the background. The colours work so well together and the flower matches perfectly.

The challenge on this week's Crafy Cardmakers is "Autumn colours". I think this really fits the bill.

Two Hearts... One soul

My husband's nephew got married over the weekend.  I've never made a wedding card before so this was the perfect opportunity to try it out.  Here's what I made:

Quite simple, but quite pretty I think.  I embossed white card with a swirl pattern (one by Sheena Douglass), wrapped ivory ribbon across the middle then fixed that to an A5 card blank (the card blank had a lovely linen texture).  I cut two hearts from white card that I had painted with silver glitter paint, and one heart from red card.  I cut a section from the red heart to match the area where the two white hearts overlapped and stuck that on the top.  I printed out the words "Two Hearts... ...one soul" and cut two flag banners. The whole thing was finshed off with some pearls.

Foiling would have looked great but as I don't have a foiling machine I'm going to have to look further into how to hot foil using a laminating machine.

Furry Friends

It's been a while! I didn't mean to take so much time off. 

I'm joining in with the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge. The theme for the last week was "Furry Friends".

The background was one that I had made before (I like to make a few at a time).  The paw prints came from the docrafts Little Meow stamp set.  I also stamped some random feathers in pink & silver inks. 

The cat also came from the Little Meow stamp set.  She looked to me like she was looking at something so I added a little bird from another stamp/die set I have.  I wasn't sure what words to use so I just stamped "meow".

I felt like it needed a little something else so I added the dots and dashes border.  I tried to use puff paint for the dots to get some texture, which sort of worked.  It was my first time using it so I haven't quite gotten the hang of the technique.

Pisces

I haven't played along with the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge for a while.  I just never seemed to get around to it.  But this week I made a point to get in on time! 

The theme this week is "Zodiac Signs".  I got a set of Tropical-themed stamps with last months "Creative Stamper" magazine and I chose the rather fabulous-looking fish for Pisces.  

The background is watercolour card that's been used to mop up excess paint.  I want over it with a fairly wet wash of Luminarte Acrylic Glaze in Azurite.  The fish was stamped and embossed in black and then coloured with alcohol markers and a white gel pen.  I used a bubbles stencil (homemade) to sponge on some white ink around the fish.  

The colours are more muted than I would have liked due to being coloured onto a darker background.  If I were to do it again I'd stamp first, mask off the fish, lay down the background and then colour. 

Moroccan Inspired Cards

I bought the Sizzix Peacock* and Moroccan Flowers stamps + die sets recently and I love them. LOVE THEM! I also bought several of the Moroccan label dies. Although I really like them, I found myself struggling to come up with a decent layout, but thankfully I got there in the end.

First off I embossed a piece of red mirror card with my Xcut Moroccan Flower Tiles folder.  Then I cut a label with the Sizzix Tangier die and stuck that on top of the mirror card.  (I like the way the red shows through the decorative elements of the label.)  Then using one of the stamps fron the Peacock set I stamped and embossed the detail in red before cutting out the shape with the corresponding die.  The sentiment is attached to the centre of the label using foam pads.

The second card used another stamp from the Peacock collection.  I stamped a repeating pattern on the blank card using white ink then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then used my inks to create the warm orange/yellow/red background.  To bring out the embossed detail I buffed those areas with a dry baby wipe, which removed any ink from the top.

The die cut was done with the Sizzix Arabesque Flower die using red mirror card again.  I used the same stamp/die/sentiment combi as before, but this time I embossed in gold. Again I used foam pads to adhere the sentiment.

I love how these cards turned out.  Both quite simple but really striking.  And so my love affair with the Sizzix Moroccan Collection dies & stamps goes on.

I'm entering the following challenges:
CAS-ual Fridays - Embossing
CAS on Sunday - #62 Embossing
Daring Cardmakers - No Black, No Neutrals
CAsology - Repeat

*I have used some affiliate links in this post.