Tie-Dye and Sparkles

Hi! Popping in to post a birthday card I made for a coworker. She's in to the late 60s early 70s hippie tie-dye Grateful Dead era and not much into froufrou flowers and such, so when I saw a sheet of glittered tie-dye paper at Michaels I knew I had to have it.

I used a slightly oval card that started as a snowman's head that I found in the Christmas clearance at Michaels as the base and covered it up with the tie-dye paper, using the center of the paper where the spiral was nice and tight and I could get all the colors. =) Sooooooo pretty!

I didn't want to cover too much of it up, so for my lovely Hero Arts sentiment, stamped with VersaMark on a bit of Spellbinders acetate packaging and used Winter Wonderland embossing powder from Stamp-N Stuff, an opaque white with silver glitter in it. I did warp the plastic a bit... okay a lot, but I let it cool down under an acrylic block which helped get it flattened out enough. Yet another lesson learned! =) I used a Heather Ellis Pure Innocence image and colored her with Copics and popped her up over a strip of tie-dye ribbon I picked up at WalMart a couple months ago.

I stayed simple with my embellies, using a couple WOC Summer Blooms. The largest pearl I had looked a little too small once I had it on, so I filled in the gap around it with some Stickles that I brushed up along the flower petals. I am so addicted to glitter and sparkle now (I can't count the number of times I catch my inner crafty child thinking, "oooooooooooh, shiny!" LOL

I filled in the hearts in the sentiment with Ruby Red Liquid Pearls so I could hide the foam dots and decided to try to make some matching little heart embellies. I squeezed them out onto a craft sheet and let them dry, then Glossy Accented them to the card. After the first couple I got the hang of using just enough to keep a recognizable heart shape even after they oozed around and flattened out. (Euw, that sounds so gross! LOL) I did a really simple couple of circles on the inside and accented those with some Crystal Stickles and a few more hearts.

It's nice and colorful and girly but not too frou-frou, so I'm hoping it fits the bill =) 

Only one challenge for my card tonight--I'm posting it over at Hiding in My Craft Room where this week's challenge was "Freestyle". Nice and easy. =) haha

Hope you all have a really great weekend!  See you soon!

Happy Crafting,

Christy

  

Glass Slide Christmas Ornaments

Hello again!

This year for my 13 team members at work I decided to make ornaments. I used a different image for each of them.  These are my favorites:

 

3 Snowmen from Dustin Pike's DoodleDragonStudios.com



  

 (These are Pure Innocence, Meijen, and Pink Cat Studios digital images)

I printed out my images on 24 lb. paper and colored with Copics. It took a few tries to get the hang of not overinking as the thin paper bled much more than the smooth cardstocks I’ve been using for Copics coloring. Then I chose some DCWV papers for backers and glued the fussy-cut images down. I glittered with Stardust Stickles in most cases and some have twine or ribbon and snowflake positives from the Martha Stewart Aspen punch-around-the-page punches.  I created sentiments for the backs on the computer:

I created a sandwich of these between two 2x3 plain microscope slides. (I saw ornaments made with Memory Glass, but microscope slides are much cheaper!) I used Scor-Tape around all the edges and dipped it in embossing powder. I chose some ultrasparkly powders - Blue Blaze by Recollections and Red Dragon by Stamp-N Stuff. On some not pictured I also used an opaque white with silver sparkle called Winter Wonderland by Stamp-N Stuff. Then I heated the powder to melt and set aside on a craft sheet to cool. I had originally intended to put the hanging wire in the sandwich and to seal it in, but the wire made too much of a gap, so I fudged it a bit by using some Glossy Accents to glue it to the outer edge.

When that dried, I added some more glue and dipped in embossing powder, heat and set aside to cool. It’s a little bumpy, but not too noticeable, especially when it’s hanging on a tree. =)

I did add the ornaments to a card as “gift wrap”:

These cards were simply a Penny Black stamp, Pine Silhouettes, stamped in Evergreen Bough distress inks on a parchment cardstock.  I handwrote a Merry Christmas in red pen on each one as you see and tied the ornament on with red and white twine.

I fell in love with a couple of them, so I am going to have to take what I learned and make more… for ME! LOL

Challenges…

The Dustin Pike images only for Pike’s Playground challenge - Anything But a Card

Digital Tuesday – #141 Winter Wonderland

Crafting For All Seasons – #16 Christmas Projects

Glitter Geeks – #28 Anything Goes

Craft Your Days Away – #35 Snowmen

Hiding in My Craft Room – #25 Embossing

One Stop Crafting – #162 Christmas Sparkle

Paper Crafting Journey – Christmas Challenge

Well, I’m off to get ready for work. Fun times. Will be back with a couple last-minute cards and some other Christmas gifts! =)

Happy Crafting and Happiest of Holidays!
Christy

Warm Winter Wishes - Pearl Shimmer & Sparkle

Hello!  Just finished up this beauty... I am loving this digital image from Pure Innocence this year. I think it might be the only image I've used twice so far. I don't think my first attempt at white on white did the image justice, so I thought I'd put her in pretty pink this week. I've done several blue and white cards, and although I love that combination, I also am loving the pink-white-silver I have seen on other crafters' cards  over the past month. Plus I wanted something soft and feminine for the friend for whom this is intended. =)

Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes... if you remember, on my WOW card, I dropped on Liquid Pearls for the snow and then found out that running it through the embosser with a Nestie resulted in flat snow dots. This week, just as I was finishing up my Copics coloring, a drop of gray got onto her sleeve that colorless blender just wouldn't remove. I couldn't figure out a way to cover it up or get rid of it, except to add snow over her to match her background, so I got out my never used bottle of white enamel and dotted it up. To my delight, it worked, at least well enough for me. To my horror, I realized... d'oh! I'd done it AGAIN. So after smacking myself upside the head, I realized that since I wanted to use some embossing, I could cut out a frame and emboss it and lay it OVER my image! Eureka! =)

I used a shimmery pearlescent white and a pearlescent silver/gray, both from Colorbok, and a pink scrap left over from my niece's birthday card. Can't remember what paper pack that came from. I used a Sizzix Textures snowflake embossing plate and shimmed it to get a really good, deep impression. I colored a Martha Stewart snowflake with the same pink Copics I used for my image and added some Stardust MyLifeWouldBeDullWithoutYou Stickles and layered it with a smaller MS snowflake punch and a white pearl colored with pink Copics. I used a white single-faced satin ribbon with a pearlized twine from a name badge holder from a recent conference. The computerized sentiment was done in a darker pink to match the background paper and the darkest pink Copics I used.

So, one more checked off the list. =) Challenges are being very easy on crafters this month due to the holiday, so here's the list for my shimmery, snowy warm winter wishes card:

Christmas Cards All Year Round: December (this one's #3... 2 more to go!)
Crafty Calendar: Cold and Frosty
Joanna Sheen: #1 It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Cupcake Crafts: #172 Don't Look at the Light

Lollipop Crafts: #61 Happy Holidays

Digital Tuesday: #141 Winter Wonderland

Tuesday Throwdown: #78 For Someone Special

Papertake Weekly: I'm Dreaming of a favorite-color Christmas

ABC Christmas: Y is for Yippee - Christmas Is Almost Here!

The ABC Challenge: E is for Embossing

Paper Crafting Journey: Christmas Challenge

Chocolate, Coffee & Cards: #1 Celebrate  (my final entry - I managed 3 different types of celebrations!)

2 Sisters: #69 Christmas
and finally... Sunday Stamptacular: #142 Christmas Glitz

Whew! Well, soon it will be back to non-Christmas stuff and from what I've seen from scrolling through older challenges at these sites, I'll have a much harder time combining challenges. But this has been fun while it lasts!  I'll just have to make lots more cards in 2012! =)

Thanks and Happy Crafting, everyone!

Christy

White on White... a first attempt

Hi! Scooted out from behind the craft desk to post the pics of the card I finished last night. My mom is recovering super-fast from her knee replacement but she wasn't quite up to the challenge of the 12 dozen cookies for an exchange she signed up for at Church, so I spent a few hours at her house yesterday baking up my favorite standby... chewy chocolate cookies. I'm not a death by chocolate girl, but these I love. The batter tastes like good chocolate cake, and the cookies are chewy like a good brownie. Yum! Anyway, didn't get as much time in the craft room this weekend so this is the only thing I have completely finished so far. Of course, there's still a few hours left to the day! =)

This is my first attempt at White on White. I've seen so many really pretty WoW cards that I figured I had to have a try.

I do like how I've colored my little Pure Innocence digi, but lesson learned about Liquid Pearls. I did that first, figuring that if I messed up, I'd toss it in the bin and start over. Then I colored my image. THEN I decided I wanted to use a deckle-edged Nestie to cut her out... surprise, surprise - embossing with a Nestie will flatten out Liquid Pearl dots. LOL Oops! They still look ok, but it's funny -the back of the image has all these little humps now. Fortunately no one but me will see that!

I used Frosted Lace Stickles on the snow (since my fave Stardust has colored bits), pearlized white paper for the snowflakes (Martha Stewart) and two embossing plates from Sizzix - winter wishes and snowflakes. A bit of white grosgrain to hide the seam and a couple of pearls to center on the snowflakes.

I like the image, but I'm not sure I like the rest of it. Maybe it's too simple. I didn't want to hide all the embossing, but I might try a flourish cut-out or swirl or something when I make another one. I also missed inking all my edges... I think I'm addicted to that now. LOL

This one's just going in the Crafting for 4 All Seasons - Challenge #14 White on White. 

That's it for now - happy crafting, everyone, and see you soon!
Christy