Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed

Sharing an engagement card featuring the Cheers image from Vanilla Arts.

I really wasn’t sure what to put on this card so looked at some challenges for inspiration.  Over at Less is More their current theme is beverages, which naturally made me think of champagne and toasting to the happy couple.  The gold dipped prompt at Inkspirational led me to foiling, mostly because I couldn’t find the champagne die I have and I only had the digi not a real stamp so couldn’t ink up with gold.  I did add in the stars with a stamp and used Jennifer McGuire’s foil stamping technique.  Not sure if it was my dodgy stamping (I knew I should have used my Tim platform!) or what but my foiling ended up rather thicker than I expected.  I would have started again but my laser printer was being temperamental so I thought best to stick to what I had.

I used the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for my layout.  The stars form the larger rectangle element and I brought in the three circles with a die cut around my image and sentiment.  I popped the die cut up on foam dots for some added depth, seeing as I cut it straight from the kraft cardstock of my card front.  I also layered up the front on some gold and black cardstock because, well, I love layering over multiple mats.

Although the colour scheme is neutral and there aren’t any embellies I think the foiling adds a touch of elegance and I am really quite pleased with how this came together.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Stampendous! Embossing Powder ~ Detail Clear

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Simon Says Stamp! Dies ~ SSSD111455 Stitched Rectangles

Inks & Paints etc

Tsukineko Ink ~ VersaMark

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bazzill Classic Cardstock ~ Licorice

Core’dinations Tim Holtz Kraft Core Metallics Cardstock ~ Gold

iCraft Decofoil ~ Gold

Kraft Cardstock from stash

Stamps

Vanilla Arts ~ Cheers

Winnie & Walter ~ WW001 Scenery: Big Bang Confetti

Challenges

Thanks for stopping by!

…the fine simplicity of our forefathers

Sharing a card I made for a fishing friend featuring one of the stamps from the The Great Outdoors set from Close To My Heart.

I used the current sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches for my layout and thought it would be fun to use the bubbles from the Big Bang Confetti set by Winnie & Walter to create the scattered circle pattern.  I stamped these first in VersaMark ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then added the fish in and used a mask to keep the fish white while I did the distress watercolour background technique to create my water.  Unfortunately, once I added in the background the bubbles became a bit too subtle but this led me to a fix that let me use some of my PTI raindrops I’ve been hoarding since forever.  Love the subtle dimensional element these added, just wish I had more sizes to fill all the stamped bubbles.

I wanted to play along at Mod Squad for their fun titled challenge ‘Greet Your Vellum’ so I stamped my sentiment on a piece of vellum that I attached under one of the raindrops.  The sentiment is from the Stampin’ Up! Lemon Zest set and was heat embossed with some metallic Zing! embossing powder.  I cut the piece of vellum to a flag shape and only adhered the point so it would flap a bit like a fly you use for fishing.

Over at Southern Girls they’ve got animals up to all sorts of antics and, as my card features an animal, I’m also linking up in their challenge.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Super Fine Detail Clear

Stampendous! Embossing Powder ~ Detail Silver

Zing! Embossing Powder ~ Metallic Finish Blue

Embellishments

Papertrey Ink ~ Raindrops

Inks & Paints etc

Jane Davenport Mermaid Markers ~ Meteorite & Moonbeam

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Evergreen Bough, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers & Tumbled Glass

VersaFine Clair ~ Paradise

VersaMark Stamp Pad ~ Watermark

Wink of Stella Glitter Marker ~ Clear

Papers

7 Dots Studio

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bazzill Monochromatic Cardstock ~ Lagoon

Bazzill Vellum ~ White

Stamps

Close To My Heart ~ The Great Outdoors (retired)

Stampin’ Up! ~ 143808 Lemon Zest (sentiment)

Winnie & Walter ~ WW001 Big Bang Confetti (bubbles)

Challenges

Mod Squad ~ Greet Your Vellum

Southern Girls ~ Animal Antics

Thanks for stopping by!

You can’t possess radiance…

Sharing a rather sparkly card I made for a friend’s birthday featuring the Flawless Diamond die from Winnie & Walter.

I was scratching around for what to put on this card and, as usual, looking through the various challenge blogs provided much needed inspiration.  Over at CASology their theme is girl and another challenge had an inspired by a song theme.  I missed playing in that challenge but combined the two got me thinking about songs about girls and what popped into my head was “diamonds are a girl’s best friend’.  I have a Marilyn inspired image but didn’t have time to colour up an image but then remembered the Winnie and Walter die in my stash.

My layout comes from the current sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches.  For the main element I decided to just brush on a background using my Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Brush Pen.  I made a quick stencil from a bit of scrap copy paper to keep it a neat square.  The smaller rectangle element became my sentiment, a fab chippie from Uniquely Creative that perfectly matched my die cut.  A couple of bling gems finished it off.

For my colour scheme I went with golds, taking inspiration from the colour palette at CAS-ual Fridays.  I’ve gold a few different ones on this card, not sure they match closely the ones on the colour swatch but they were what I had in my stash.  The sketch I chose allowed me to a add one shade in the background element, I have a couple of different golds in my die cut, the sparkly paper I cut the solid shape from and them the embossing powder I used over the outline top die.  I used the same embossing powder on my chippie sentiment.  My final touch of gold was in the bling I added.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

WOW! Embossing Powder ~ Metallic Gold Rich Pale

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Winnie & Walter Cutaways ~ Flawless Diamond

Embellishments

Jolee’s All That Blinds ~ Multicolour

Uniquely Creative ~ Chipboard word

Inks & Paints etc

Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Brush Pen ~ 881 Midas Touch

Tsukineko ~VersaMark

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bellbird Paperarts ~ Cotton Blend Card

Stampin’ Up! Joyous Noel ~ Glimmer Paper

Challenges

Thanks for stopping by!