Gold....Silver....Copper....sounds like the Olympic medals gone wrong! But this week's Challenge theme of metallics certainly has plenty of scope, and if you think of those car colours available as an optional extra in metallic finish (at vast extra expense, of course) you can see we're not restricted to the precious metals. On the highest step of my rostrum is this Christmas star stitched in gold metallic thread, edged with a thin gold border and mounted on dark blue velvet paper. Stitching pattern from Form-A-Lines, the sentiment is by JustRite Stampers cut with Nestability dies and has a scalloped border of the same gold.
Silver and white says snowflakes to me (yes, I have very selective hearing...). The big one is a stamp by Personal Impressions embossed with silver EP and mounted on matt silver. Two embossed panels have snowflakes by Crafts Too and Papermania, and the card is 6 inches square.
The partridge in a pear tree is made with a Dreamweaver stencil and matt black paste on copper coloured card, then mounted on green velvet paper. I even had a sheet of copper coloured greetings to embellish it!
The three kings stamp by Hobby Art is embossed in gold and painted with Twinkling H2Os - those non-precious car colours - which have a pearlescent finish rather than 'twinkling' in the way that Glimmer Mists or Cosmic Shimmers do. I cut the shape with Nesties Label #8, framed it with a patterned gold card and mounted it on green mirri card.
The theme for this week's Challenge is 'Apertures' which seems a perfect occasion to use a pair of stamps I bought at a big craft show in Toronto, Canada, about four years ago and, I'm ashamed to say, have inked only once to stamp them in my catalogue. The resulting card was much quicker and easier to make than I feared. The snowy village scene was stamped straight onto a white card blank and coloured with dry watercolour pencils. The windows were stamped on a piece of green card the same size, cut out and a sheet of acetate stuck on the back. One of the bottom corners was a bit ragged so I applied a little Polar White Flowersoft on the acetate to be snow on the window sills - I don't know how I would have disguised ragged corners at the top but I was lucky! I then cut a strip of card 4cm wide and scored 3 vertical lines, accordian folded them and cut the strip in half. I stuck a piece to each side of the front, attached them to the snow scene and there you are: a view through the windows! A silver peel off border and greeting completed the front....and I wondered why it had taken me so long to use those stamps. Although they are by a Canadian company and may not be readily available in the UK it would be easy enough to cut similar windows freehand to go with any scenic background. The folded strips between the front panel and the scene mean that the card will squash flat to go in an envelope, but when extracted the windows stand proud like the proscenium arch on a stage.
When buying peel offs you may have seen big white sheets of geometric shapes and wondered what they are for. This card was made by punching three square apertures and sticking matching peel off frames with clear centres on the front (I use waxed paper such as the carrier sheet from labels inside the card to protect the back surface). Inside I sprinkled ultrafine holographic glitter on the sticky surface of the centres; on the outside I added small peel off motifs and coloured with appropriate pens. I stuck the edges of the insert sheet all round on the lefthand side so the glitter wouldn't rub off.
It's many years since I used this wreath stamp by PSX and having made the card I remembered why! Nothing wrong with the stamp, it's all that cutting..... I stamped it on white card with Versamark, embossed with silver EP, coloured it with Promarkers and cut it out (memo to Self: new decoupage snips are needed urgently!) The card was covered with green paper embossed with the Cuttlebug folder 'Holly Ribbons', the aperture cut with a Nestabilities Classic Circle die and the wreath stuck down overlapping the edge. The sentiment was stamped on the inside - I traced lightly the inner edge of the wreath to position it properly - and the only minor problem is that the back of the leaves show on the inside of the aperture and, because the Promarkers bleed through, it looks a bit untidy. If I make another I shall cut the wreath out double and then stick the clean copy on the back after colouring and before assembly.
Having been a stamper for about 20 years my first thought when I read 'Embossing' involved powders and a heat gun! I made two complimentary panels using a very old, traditional wood mounted stamp by PSX, and a fairly new, clear unmounted one by Dimension Fourth, each stamped with Versamark and embossed with silver EP. They were too big for my original card idea so I made a Z fold card which embraces both and an insert, yet still fits into a standard C6 envelope. The sentiment is by Funstamps and was stamped in Brilliance ink; snowflake border punch by Fiskars.
Next is a 'crossover technique' card (aka, what do you mean by embossing?); the ornament is another PSX stamp embossed with Red Razzle Dazzle EP, cut out and mounted on a panel made with a Cuttlebug embossing folder from the 'Holiday' set.
Third card design goes way, way back. I once bought some ready made blanks printed with a grid of different size boxes into which you could stamp various images: very useful for incorporating those little stamps which often seem too small to have any use. I used to copy the idea and painstakingly draw out my own grids with ruler, pen and a few curses, but now the job is made so much easier with a score board! It's best to choose the images and plan your grid to fit them on paper first. Oh, and I had to cheat: thin embossed lines do not show up when scanned, so for illustration purposes only I went over them with ruler and pencil!
The red and gold card looks impressive (I hope) but was the quickest of the four to make, using a Dreamweaver stencil and gold embossing paste. It really couldn't be easier: tape stencil over card, apply paste, remove stencil and leave card to dry! For the background I used self adhesive red velvet paper on top of thin card, and stuck the finished panel to an A6 card - I did try layering it onto a 7" x 5" but decided the simple approach was the best. If you would like to try this technique I can recommend a DVD by Carol Cockbain of The Craft Barn, or watch a demonstration by (another) Carol from The Craft Station if you catch her at a show (please note, I have no affiliation with either shop).
The theme for this week's Christmas challenge is 'flying things'. I was planning to use one of the 'Winter Birds' stamps by Impression Obsession but I went to a big craft show on Friday (and Saturday....and this morning! Well, it's only ten minutes down the road) and saw a sample card which I have sort of copied - certainly took it as my inspiration. The stamp is one of a set of 'Twas the night before Christmas' by Clarity Stamps; it's a favourite poem of mine and I have a beautifully illustrated copy, but I think Barbara Gray, owner and designer of Clarity, has done a fabulous job. The card on her stand at the show had the image mounted and layered on the Nesties Label #1 and then mounted on a larger card with a ribbon accent; I decided to leave it small and have mounted a small square red card behind. It was stamped in black Versafine and coloured with dry watercolour pencils. The red mount is velvet paper which I was pleasantly surprised to find is self adhesive.
The subject for this week's Bah! Humbug! challenge is to use a CD as part of the design. I persuaded DH it was time he weeded out all the computer disks he didn't actually need any more, having grandiose ideas of what I might make with them, only to face my usual problem of what I was actually going to do once they were in my hands! I've said many times that I don't do well with lots of shine or sparkle so my first idea was to cover up as much of the surface as possible while still proving that it really was a CD and not a piece of card masquerading as such; in fact that led to this centrepiece idea quite quickly.
I'm still recovering from the shock: TWO cards made today for TWO different challenges with TWO blog posts.....and furthermore, one isn't due until next Thursday and the other has another two weeks to closing!
The challenge at Bah! Humbug! this week is to use something that hasn't seen the light of day for quite a while but used to be a favourite - what they are calling 'An oldie that's a goldie'. I used this stamp by PSX several years ago for many of my Christmas cards because it gave beautiful results without too much work and I could produce quantities fairly quickly. All it needed was heat embossing in gold or silver; sometimes I coloured the flowers lightly but more often left them plain. I'm now thinking of trying it in white or copper EP on dark card, rather like the thistle from my Burns Night card, but for this challenge I just mounted it on a panel of red mirri with a length of silver ribbon. The dies were the two largest from the mega deckle long rectangles. And the green border is purely background - I found that a plain white card on the white blog page left more than a little to the imagination!
