Baublicious

Jenny has chosen an unusual but very pretty colour combination for us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week.

It took a little while to think what I wanted to do for this, and a bit of serendipity played a part.

The background uses an embossing folder, I saw a youtube of someone using this technique, which I haven't done for ages, so decided to have a play.

I didn't have an ink that I would call aqua (there was a bit of a discussion at home about what colour aqua was, how much green is in it!). So I blended distress oxides, mostly peacock feathers, with a bit of tumbled glass and bundled sage sponged on. Cracked postacio may have been a better green to use, with hindsight. I added the ink to the deboss side of the folder, and spritzed the card with water before running through the embossing machine. I had a few iterations, this was the one I was happy with - although the photo is doesn't show the touch of green there is in real life!

(You can see I also used a spray over an embossed panel, but haven't made that into a card yet. The spray was also a blend, of distress reinker colours.)

I was going to do a gel plate paint print for the rose pink, but then on holiday last week I treated myself to some pink alcohol inks, and a gold mixative (amongst other crafty things!). So it seemed rude not to use them for this colour challenge.

I used these, again blending the pinks to get a shade I liked, to make a background sheet. I used yupo paper and coated card as bases, to compare.

I preferred the piece on coated paper, although that's not what I ended up using!

Onto these, I stamped my baubles in versamark ink, and heat embossed with a light gold powder. Of course, yupo paper is plastic so doesn't handle heat well - it curled up a lot!

However, once I'd fussy cut them out, I preferred them, they had more dimension, and the card ones looked flat in comparison. So those are the ones I used. And the rest have gone in an envelope to be used another time!

I arranged on the base, then stuck down with red linetape, to cope with the plastic surface, curl and embossed base.

At this point I realised I hadn't cut my base to size, it was slightly large (as is my usual practice, in case I don't like a bit or the edge pools or something). Fortunately, it was only slightly too large, because the baubles weren't coming off! I trimmed the base slightly, and made my card blank a bit bigger than usual, and it worked out.

I sponged peacock feathers around the edge, then added the bauble strings with a gel pen and ruler. The gold was a bit too yellow next to the embossing, so I used a little silver as well, while the ink was still wet, mixing them on the page to get a more subtle gold colour.

So, there you have my rose pink, aqua and gold card. Unfortunately the photo has distorted the colours a little, and the texture on the base and baubles looks a lot better in real life! But this is such a pretty colour combination, I hope you can get a feel for it.

 

 

To play along with this challenge, visit us at the 52CCT blog. You have a week, until Friday 20th August, to enter your card into our gallery.

Groovi snowflakes

I'm a little late posting my card for Andreja's technique challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown - my daughter decided we needed to make a Dalek cake for hubby's 50th on Friday, so that took precedence!

Andreja's technique choice is:

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a Groovi card! I do so little, but do like it, and have the kit so feel I should make use of it!!

For this I used blue parchment. After marking the area to fill with pencil, I put the manuscript style letters in for NOEL, then filled around with snowflakes from various plates.

Using a white eraser pencil, I removed the ink from the open areas of the letters and snowflakes. I then did some white work on the letters (very inexpertly, I don't so this a lot and don't have the patience!)

This means that the letters are white all the time, whereas the snowflakes are see through, so are coloured when there's something behind but white when the card is open, as you can sort of see below.

I coloured the vines around the letters with perga pens, which I got on sale a little while ago.

For inside the card and the die cut snowflake swirl, I blended various blue oxides onto card, then flicked with water and blotted to create the snow effect.

To construct, I measured and marked with pencil on a card blank for the aperture, then cut with a craft knife. I repeated on another piece of white card just smaller than the card front, to go on the inside. I then attached the parchment behind the first aperture and added the liner, matching the apertures up. 

With a grey pen and ruler, I added faux stitching around the aperture.

Finally, I added the blue inside the card, and the die cut on the front.

 

 

This was a bit more fiddly that I anticipated, with the cutting etc, but not too bad!

I do like the icy shades of blue, and snowflakes are my favourite Christmas (really Winter I guess) motif, they look so pretty here!

 

 

 

To join in with this challenge, come and visit us at the 52CCT blog. As there are 5 Saturdays in July, you have 2 weeks to play along, this challenge closes on 6th August.

Silver, silver, silver

Branka's colour challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week is Silver and White.

My first thought was to make something delicate and pretty with silver embossing, and dry embossing on white. And I'm sure we'll have some beautiful cards like that. But I wasn't in that kind of mood, I wanted to make something more grungy.

I started with super smooth white watercolour paper, and silver mica powder. I wetted the paper, mixed the powder with water, and painted and splattered it onto the card.

I used the one on the right as my background, and the other for die cutting.

I cut the background down, and die cut a zig zag edge.

I then overstamped the background with silver pigment ink and a few different stamps. 

The right side was a bit plain/dark, so I stamped and heat embossed with silver powder.

From the other mica powder piece, I die cut a circle, and the Noel shape and some snowflakes. I stamped parts of the circle with the silver ink.

I heat embossed a spare piece of card with my sentiment, then painted the edges with mica powder.

To mount, I cut a piece of white card and edged with silver embossing powder.

There was a lot of fiddling and rearranging before I got to a composition I was happy with!

 

I'm really pleased with how this has turned out. I didn't know if I'd be able to get this much variety and interest just using silver, but I think that with the different products and techniques, I have.

I hope this has inspired you to play! To join in with your take on silver and white Christmas cards, pop over to the 52CCT blog. The challenge is open for a week, to Friday 16th April.

My turn to host

Welcome to February. It's my month to host the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, I hope you enjoy the challenges I've chosen for us all to play with.

As always, we start the month with a sketch. This is what I composed for us:

 

I used an embossed resist for my cards. This is a pearlescent silver powder, although it's more cream than silver. The flower (which I think is a poinsettia) is a stamp I've had for ages and only recently used and realised how pretty it is. The diamonds are from Clarity.

I then added brushos - leaf green to one, and gambodge to the other, with touches of dark brown added later as it needed a bit more drama.

The sentiments are die cut, and then embossed with the same powder.

I edged the cards with matching ink.

 

This one also has some splatters using the brusho as a watercolour. The swirls of different greens and yellow are very delicate and pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

I love the colours of this one, although it's not traditionally Christmassy. There's great movement in the brushos.

 

 

 

  

 

I hope you're inspired to join in and play along with our sketch challenge. To enter, visit the 52CCT blog. The challenge is open until Friday 12th February.

Last minute lights

Goga chose "christmas Lights" for her theme challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.

This caused a bit of rummaging on my part! But I did find an A4 stamp set from a magazine that I have no idea when I got, that had a little one inch border stamp of lights.

So this card is based around that one little stamp!

I started with distress oxides, blended onto Sheena's card in stripes.

This was the last photo I managed! With all the coronavirus upheaval, and getting two young cats this week, this card has been done in very short bursts over many days!

I stamped the lights in lines along the yellow stripes, then heat embossed in black. I filled in any gaps with black pen.

I coloured the lights with inktense pencils and used the waterpen to make them bright.

In between the rows of lights, I used Christmas border stamps and distress oxides. Very bright, and sort of a Christmas jumper feel!

For the focus, I blended my inks onto a scrap of the same card, and die cut my NOEL, then recut in black for a drop shadow. 

I cut a small square of white card and stamped the lights again to make a frame - it's not a great stamp so I went over with black pen. Then I filled in with the inktense pencils again.

I blended green ink around the background, and edged the background and focus in black, then mounted on a 6x6 card blank.

I used the snowflakes that had come out of my die cuts on the corner.

I like the background I made here a lot, and I'm pleased with how the lights stand out. The middle bit I'd probably rethink if I had loads of time. But I don't! The die cut is very pretty, at least!



Not a lot of time left to join in with this one - the challenge closes on Friday 27th March. Head over to the 52CCT blog to check out the other DT cards and entries.

Swirly Impressions

For her techique challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, Andreja has chosen "Embossed Impressions".

When I tried this before, I wasn't particularly happy with the results I got, so I went back to the video Andreja suggested, and have made a card along very similar lines.

I used a Tim Holtz swirly die (another Christmas present), to create my corners. I cut my card to size first (one 6x6 and one 7x5 card). I gently inked the die with versamark, then ran through the die machine with the embossing mat. Learning from my previous attempt, I tweaked the plates so it wasn't such a deep emboss. This involved using sheets of cardboard to get the depth I wanted, but it worked!

I was looking through my embossing powders for ultra fine, as I thought that would work better, but only had white, clear and black. The first two wouldn't work for this technique (on white card) but I thought black might be an interesting look, so used that on one card. For the other I used regular powder in platinum (a pale gold that I love).

They turned out pretty well - the lines are a bit irregular but I don't think that matters.

Next I added my sentiments. As I hadn't planned at all, I didn't have much space between the swirls! So on the 6x6 card, I went for a small "Noel" from ClarityStamp. On the 7x5, I used a Merry Christmas, also Clarity, but had to shift the words relative to each other, by masking and cleaning in between stamping each word.

I embossed them both with the powder to match to swirls.

The next step was to water colour the embossed swirls. I used distress ink pads and reinkers, and a water pen. For the square card, I used barn door, pine needles, mowed lawn and bundled sage.

For the rectangle, I used dusty concord, blueprint ink, and peacock feathers.

This took a long time!!! But isn't it so pretty? Definitely worth it.

They were both a bit clean and crisp, so I splattered with the same inks.

I decided to mount these on another layer, with the same embossing powder applied round the edge. This meant cutting them down by 4mm to make space on the card blanks - and allowed for a bit of balancing where the sentiments sat.

And then just put them together.

 
This one is obviously very Christmassy colours. I think with the black it has quite a clean, crisp feel, and I love the pops of red.

But this is my definite favourite! The gold gives a bit of glamour, and I love the blues and purples in the swirls.




So, I think I can say that this is much more successful than my last play with this technique. If it's new to you, check out the video above, and my top tip is not to emboss too deeply.

To share your results, head to the 52CCT blog. This challenge is open until Friday 31st January.

Soooo late!!!

Ridiculously late with my 52 Christmas Card Throwdown DT card this week - but I'd started and really liked what I'd done, so was determined to finish it off!

Myrna has chosen "Easel or Tri-fold" for her technique challenge.

A super speedy run through the "how to":

Sponge antique linen distress oxide over an A4 sheet of Sheena's stamping card.

Sponge gesso through two stencils - Clarity's brick and holly.

Put another Clarity stencil (don't know the name!) and sponge through with fired brick and mowed lawn distress ink, watered down. The gesso acts as a resist.

Cut to size (13.2 cm square) - two pieces for an easel card.

Stamp in versamark with a music stamp and a holly one. Brush bronze mica powder over.

Edge with vintage photo distress oxide and mount on charcoal card.

Grab the "NOEL" I stamped for the black and white challenge, cut down, edge and mount in the same way. Add to one of the pieces.

For the stand, take an offcut of the background, stamp the sentiment (from Clarity again) in versamark and add the mica. Add holly around the edge. Edge and mount as above.

Put it all together onto a 6x6 card blank, folded to make the easel.

I love this background, and the layers within it. So pretty and Christmassy.









To join in, head over to the 52CCT blog. Only a few days left - you have until Friday 4th October to play.

So simple in the end!

This week's challenge on the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is colour:

I have to admit I really struggled with this one. I started (went quite a long way) down the road of texture paste words with various mediums over them - this is where I got to:

Four cards nearly done, I like elements of all of them, but none of them quite right. And too tired and uninspired to "rescue" any of them - maybe I'll come back to one or two later!

So I went for something simple.

A brusho background in yellow, orange and brilliant red:

And a Clarity stamp in fired brick distress oxide:

And there's my card, so easy but I like it a lot more than the ones I'd been working on for ages!

If you'd like to have a go with these sunny colours, head over to 52CCT - the challenge closes Friday 15th June.

I hope you get on with them better than me!