Snowflake wreath

 This is the project I needed so many snowflakes for.
I still have loads left over, but I'm all snowflaked out for now.
 I cut the flakes with a variety of snowflake dies, and 3 punches, a large, medium and small.
 I used glitter card/paper mainly, but also as I hadn't enough white, or a pale blue, I made my own. I sprayed some pearl paper with Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle in Iridescent, then sprinkled on some Glamour Dust in Crystal, and a pale blue glitter from Sweet Poppy, as  punches cope with paper better than card.

The flakes have been layered up in threes and fours, and have an acrylic gem in the centre.


The sentiment was cut three times from white card, then once from silver glitter card and layered up.









Rather than use a whole sheet of glitter cardstock to matt my embossed panel onto, - these are 8" card bases- I made a 'cheat' glitter background.

First I cut what would be my glitter panel down to fit the card front.
 Then added a strip of Double sided tape along one edge.
I sprinkled fine glitter onto it, then before tipping the excess off I rubbed it in well with my finger.
 This really helps to make sure you have even coverage. Just repeat this process around all four edges.

If you find any gaps because your tape was too short, either add in a little piece, or you could dab in some wet glue with your finger, then sprinkle glitter over that.

I tipped off the excess, then using a bone folder and a sheet of paper, I burnished over the glitter really well. This gives the glitter a really soft, almost velvet like finish, and of course helps to make sure none will shed.

  I picked this tip up from Jennifer McGuire- she does loads of You Tube videos, and always has lots of great techniques and tips to share. Another tip from her regarding glitter is to use Swiffer cloths to mop up glitter from your card/workdesk. She cuts each one up into a few smaller pieces, and watching her use them it really does pick up glitter easily.

  My 'glitter' cardstock now matted onto the card fronts.
 Next job was the panels I was going to make my wreaths on, and I was intending to run them through embossing folders, so I cut some white pearl cardstock down to show some of the glitter border when it was matted.

 I used two different folders, one called Elegant Snowfall, by Crafters Companion. I think it's been retired, but they have a very similar one called  Snowfall Drift now. The second one is called Seamless Circle, from Crafts Too.
 Took a bit of sorting to find folders where the pattern could be repeated across the panel, as most folders are not wide enough.

To add these panels to the card fronts, I ran a line of dst just inside the glitter square, and then added the embossed cardstock onto that, as dst will not stick to glitter, so putting it on the back of the embossed panel as I normally would ran the risk of it being too close to, or on top of the glitter.
 To make the wreath, I took a large circle die and  lightly marked around it in pencil. This won't show at the end, as it will be covered by snowflakes.
Then I 'dry fit' all my snowflakes to make sure it looked right. I put 4 of the larger ones down first, then put 4 medium ones between those.

That left me enough space to add the smaller ones between those, so 8 of them in total. I also had made up a few tiny snowflakes, and they came in handy to fill the odd gap.

They got moved to one side then, and I began adding them to the panel with a blob of Glossy Accents.

The sentiment was stacked up for dimension, using a Zig Glue pen, then added to the centre of the wreath with some Glossy Accents added with a fine tip fitted to the bottle.
 And I also got a slightly different look by accidentally putting one of  my cardstock sheets into the folder the wrong way round, so one of the Falling snow ones is debossed, one embossed!

Stampbord & Stampscapes

I was watching another couple of Kevins videos on the Stampscapes You Tube channel today. I've got up to number 17, and this one is called 'An Introduction to Stampbord'. Something else I have some of, but haven't really spent much time playing with. Anyway, Kevin made it look really easy- mind you, he makes whatever he does look easy, lol- so I thought it was time to give it a go. The piece I thought I'd try is ATC size- I think I bought the pack in a sale at Chocolate Baroque.

He only uses 3 or 4 colours, so I went with Cloudy Blue, Stonewashed & Denim, with Pitch Black for the edges, and stamping the image. I've pretty much imitated how Kevin did his.


For the first colour, Cloudy Blue, I just swiped the pad over the whole surface, and evened it out just a bit with the Stylus tool (colorbox).

The second colour was Stonewashed, which was applied around the edges,leaving a pale centre to the Stampbord.


So onto the third colour, Denim, applied the same, around the edges moving inwards, but leaving some of the Stonewashed showing.

I was beginning to think I'd messed up here, as it doesn't look like much!

Pushed on anyway- I can always sand it off, I suppose.






Last colour application is black, to define the edges.
 
So now to stamp. I used the same stamp Kevin did, Lakeside Cove, although he worked on a   smaller piece of Stampbord, so he used the small version of this stamp.

Inked the stamp up well with the same Pitch Black Adirondack. Kevins advice was to place the Stampbord on to the stamp, rather than taking the stamp to the Stampbord, so you can control where your image is placed.

Came out surprisingly well, although I do think the image could have done with being placed a little lower, so that the light area was more even. But I'm happy enough with it that I will still use it.





I added some reeds to the foreground, and a pair of ducks, and I heat dried the previous stamping first- I found the black ink of the image stayed wet for quite a while. Then I had a little try-out with a scraper type tool, not a lot, I was too worried about wrecking it now!
 He also said he likes to seal his image, with a spray sealant of some sort, as the image on the Stampbord surface tends to be a bit flat, and dull. I do have some artist sealant, and I also have some Spray & Sparkle, from Crafters Companion. I haven't used it before, but thought I would give it a blast on this. I have Silver and Iridescent, and it was the Iridescent I chose to use on here. Its given it a nice sparkly finish, which actually looks better in the flesh than the picture shows.

So, all in all, not too bad, and I shall use this to mount onto a card- I love the Stampscapes for mens cards, and you could always put some magnetic tape on the back for a Fridge Magnet.