Lindy's Stamp Gang September Challenge and Scraps of Darkness Scraps of Elegance Inspiration Board

Embossing Powder - Spray

Hyacinth Blue Green - Danny Zuko's Denim

Silver Moon Mistletoe - Gag Me With A Spoon Gray

Desert Moon Cooper Teal - Fuzzy Navel Peach

Madonna Robe Blue - Ocean Breeze Blue

Cleopatra's Copper - Cowabunga Copper

Other Supplies:
Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Beauty Stamp
Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Sentiments Unmounted Clear Cling Stamps
Sue Wilson Dies Finishing Touches Collection - Classic Roses
Sue Wilson Cascading Hearts A4 Embossing Folder
Spellbinders Decorative Labels 28
Creative Expressions Pearly Head Pins
Viva Decor Pearl Pen - Copper
Prima Finnabair 12x12 Butterfly Stencil
Centura Pearl A4 Cardstock in White Gold, Chocolate Brown and Navy.
Copic Marker Pinkish White
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad Wild Honey
Tim Holtz Trellis Framework Die
Tim Holtz Mirrored Sheets

How I Did This

It's a little hard to see but on the shimmery side of the Centura Pearl Snow White Cardstock I cut it down to 71/2" x 71/2" and put the Prima Elementals Finnabair Stencil Butterfly on top and sprayed with the LSG Ocean Breeze Blue and let it sit and remvove the stencil and dried it thoroughly with my heat tool.

When completely dry I sprayed the whole thing with the Same Spray lightly and then dried it again thouroughly.  I loved how it looked and I stamped the Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Sentiments Stamp 'Happy Birthday' on the lower Left Side and then embossed it with the Sue Wilson Cascading Hearts Embossing folder and then put it to the side.

On another Centura Snow White Cardstock and I Stamped the Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Beauty on the reverse of the cardstock which is fantastic for colouring and painting and inking!  I embossed the image with the fabulous Silver Moon Mistletoe and when cool I started the fun fun stuff!!

I have all the sprays and powders but not the magicals and I really wanted to color in the image so I gave it a little go.  I colored the skin areas with Copic Marker 'Pinkish White'

I opened all the bottles and dipped my fine paintbrush into the bottle itself.

I used the Gag Me With A Spoon Grey for her hair.  I painted all the flowers with the Ocean Breeze Blue.  I did the ribbon in Fuzzy Naval Peach.  I did the dress in the Cowabunga Copper and Fuzzy Naval Peach to accent here and there and the Danny Zuko Denim for the sleeve.

I let it dry naturally before I cut it out with the largest die from the Spellbinders Decorative Labels 28 and then used the TimHoltz Wild Honey Distress Ink Pad around the edge.

 To do the flowers and leaves I cut the White Centura Pearl Card into 3 strips and sprayed 1 with the Gag Me With A Spoon Gray, and Fuzzy Naval Peach dried them well and cut out 2 flower outline 2 of the detailed flower and 2 large/extra large and 2 small leaves and applied as seen the peach with the gray detailed flower pinched the petals for dimension and then put the bottom part in reverse and glued them in place.  I put the leaves where I wanted and then put it all to the left of the stamped image.

For the band that goes across and under the die cut spellbinders piece I cut out 3 Frameworks Trellis from Tim Holtz. 2 in plain cardstock and one in the Tim Holtz Mirror sheet.  Sometimes it's neccessary to put the mirror sheet through your Big Shot (just remember to change the piece you want cut around a little so it will cut more) because the sheets are quite thick.  On the 2 I cut from cardstock I inked them up with clear embossing and poured the Hyacinth Blue Jade Embossing Powder over it and heat embossed (I did this twice to ensue a thick and complete impression)

Then with the little pieces I applied glue and covered some with Gag Me With A Spoon Gray Glitter and others with the Cowabunga CopperGlitter  (which are both from the Totally 80's set) and 1 with the magicals powder itself of the Cowabunga Copper (it was an accident but I loved the look of that piece). I also used a some of the mirror sheet pieces.

Once I was happy with where I wanted to place the focal point raised up slightly with double sided foam adhesive pads on the embossed cardstock I glued the Trellis piece and then put everything together.  I layered it all and rounded the corners with the We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper Deco/Stub and I used the Viva Decor Pearl Pen to create dots all around the edge (it was the 1st time I did this and they are by no means perfect I'm afraid!).

To Finish I layered the piece to Brown and then Navy Centura Pearl cardstock.

Let me know what you think of this.

Hugs for everyone!

Caught in Crystal and Chocolate Baroque is so Nouveau Riche

I want to share one of my most favourite techniques which is Caught in Crystal.

It's easy to do but as there are others far better that me that showed me how to do it you can go to

Sheena Douglass' fantastic youtube video to see how she does it with floor wax polish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noj44phXDIQ
or
Sue Wilson's descriptive tutorial using crystal lacquer
http://particraft.blogspot.ie/p/i-just-survived-another-fabulous-ally.html


Both create fantastic results every time.  It is so easy to do that my daughter has made sheets of it for me since she's been five!!  Under supervision of course.

This one I did using Sheena's technique and Lindy Stamp Gangs Starburst Sprays Tibetan Poppy Teal and Cheshire Cat Cherry with a little Silent Night Silver.

The mica in the sprays make the acetate sparkle

Now really it works better with alcohol inks and/or Luminarte Radiant Rain but I desperately wanted to see if it is possible to use other types of sprays and it is trickier but possible.


Supplies
Lindy's Stamp Gang Silver Moon Mistletoe Embossing Powder
Lindy's Stamp Gang Tibetan Poppy Teal Starburst Spray
Lindy's Stamp Gang  Cheshire Cat Cherry Starburst Spray
Lindy's Stamp Gang  Opal Sea Oats Starburst Spray
Elizabeth Crafts Velvet Sheets Black
Foundations Card Stock Milk
Foundations Card Stock Black for layering
Hunkydory Hologram Card for layering
Couture Creations Embossing Folder
Chocolate Baroque Stamps Mackintosh Collection
Prima Say it in Crystals Swirls
Prima Stationers Desk Bling
Prima Flowers
Simon Says Stamps Die Thinking of You


Instructions
1) I made a sheet of the Caught in Crystal Technique doing it Sheena's way with the the Starbursts Sprays
2) Whilst it was drying I cut a sheet of the Milk card to 7.75 x 7.75 inches and embossed it using the Couture Creations folder,  It needs to be run through twice because to make get the whole sheet embossed
3) When the crystal sheet is dry I stamped the acetate with Versamagic Frost Ink Pad using the beautiful Chocolat Baroque Art Deco Mackintosh Collection.  I love these stamps because they are so elegant and seem so delicate. Then I used the LSG Silver Moon Mistletoe EP and heat embossed.
4) I cut out the pieces by hand as closely as possible because the shapes can't be cut out with dies and then layered them with Holographic Card and used clead dots to adhere the pieces so that there is a little space between the acetate and the card so it looks like it is froating. then I adhered the pieces to black card for aesthetics.
5) I die cut the Simon Says Stamp Die Thinking of You with black velvet sheet and used a little cosmic shimmer clear pva glue to the centre of the milk card
6) I stuck the 2 stamped images to the upper right and lower left of the card mounted on foam
7) I applied the pearl and crystal Prima swirls and the Stationers Desk bling to the corners
8) I painted a Prima Flower with the LSG Opal Sea Oats and finished the card by layering the eitire piece with Holographic and Black card.

I am really pleased with the way the card turned out but I'm not sure about the flower.  I think it could look better without.

Tell me if you think it looks better with or without the flower

Hugs

Celina

Lindy's Stamp Gang February Color Challenge

Embossing Powder - Starburst Spray

Starbright Gold Green - Opal Sea Oats

Midnight Teal - Tibetan Poppy Teal

Razzleberry Plum - Cheshire Cat Cherry

Silver Moon Turquoise - Silent Night Silver

I think I seem to have craft dies from most company's and so many that I haven't even begun to use a fraction of them in my cards, alterables or scrapbook pages.  I started out collecting Spellbinders ones first, then Memory box, Simon Says Stamps and Sizzix.  I freely admit I have gone way overboard on more than one occasion.

So I decided to really challenge myself and try to make a nice card without using my dies and use chipboard pieces so I didn't cheat ... well ... me!!

At the moment the whole less is more trend is something I'm struggling with.  It's difficult to keep the bulk of a card white or neutral so I did this card as a study of sorts to find out how difficult it is to do a minimalistic looking and make it aesthetically pleasing too.  I like how it turned out considering how it was made up of a 3inch strip of lots of dots pretty much.

My passionate love affair with the fabulous LSG starburst sprays is ongoing, because they are two-toned (three tones really) sprays.  Not only do they have the main colour i.e. Cherry but also a mica that is golden and an extra more subtle shimmer too.

Their embossing powders have fantastic coverage and are two toned.  I love them and they are my go to embossing powder.  There isn't a colour I don't love.

Supplies

Centura Pearl Card (non-pearl side)
Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray Tibetan Poppy Teal
Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray  Cheshire Cat Cherry
Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray Silent Night Silver
Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray Don't Eat Yellow Snow

Lindy Stamp Gang Embossing Powder Angel Wings Mauve
Lindy Stamp Gang Embossing Powder Razzleberry Plum
Lindy Stamp Gang Embossing Powder Silver Moon Turquoise

Lindy Stamp Gang Glitter Gag Me With A Grey Spoon
Lindy Stamp Gang Glitter Pretty in Pink

Cosmic Shimmer Black Detail Powder
Just Rite Everyday Vintage Stamp

Versamark Frost Ink Pad
ArtGlitter Dries Clear Glue
Brilliance Pearlescent Yellow Ink Pad
Wycinaka Chipboard Hummingbird Swirls

1. Cut and trim centura pearl card to 20cmx20cm and leave to the side
2. Cut 3inch width x 20cm length and using the starburst sprays unscrew the cap and flick drops onto the 3" strip of card on the reverse side of the card and dry
3. Repeat with the Cheshire Cat Cherry and dry and then the Silent Night Silver
4. With the Don't Eat Golden Snow Spray spritz the whole piece with the spray and then dry

Hello Friend Says It All, Dont You Think?

5. With the chipboard pieces Ink it with the Versamark and pour on the embossing powder (larger piece is Razzleberry Plum and the smaller piece with the Silver Moon Turquoise) It took 2 layers to get the right amount of powder on them.
6. While the pieces cool I took the little chipboard flowers and put a layer of glue on each of them and then applied half of them in Gag me With a Grey Spoon Glitter and the rest with Pretty in Pink Glitter
7. Ink up Hello Friend phrase and stamp directly to the lower right of the 20x20cm piece of card
8. Edge the 3inch strip with brilliance pearlescent inkpad and adhere it onto the middle of the 20x20inch card
9. Glue the large Razzleberry embossed Chipboard to the middle of the coloured strip and place the little glittered flowers
10. The smaller swirl is glued under the phrase and the remaining glittered flowers affixed to the rest of the card.
11. Layer the card onto holographic mirror card to finish



Try making a card like this and don't be afraid of empty spaces.

((Hugs))

Celina