Christmas Card Club #7- Christmas Candles.

Finally getting to post today!Rita has chosen this theme, and she'd like us to feature Christmas Candles. You now how doing one thing can spark off another idea, and then that one gives you yet another? I started with one idea,using this tag stamp. I have no idea who made it, it's far more years old than I'd like to think! I can only tell you it's a clear stamp. I stamped it, then coloured using Prismacolor pencils. The vellum panels came from some vellum I found in my Christmas papers box, and I also added some tiny acrylic stars to the tag background. I've had those ages too, I ordered them to use as Tree star toppers, but when they arrived they were too tiny for that to work.
 I trimmed the cards upper corners to match the tag shape.
 It was while looking in my Papers box, I spotted the wallet with my glittered pieces in, and recalled I had some lovely Celtic Knot style candles in there. So that made another half dozen cards.

The sponged/brushed strip is an idea I've seen Eileen Godwin use a lot, just masking off the front of the card, and gently applying inks of your choice. I'm not brave enough to work directly on my card base yet, lol, so mine are matted and layered.
 The candles are attached with a little Matte Medium, and I've used some peel off sentiments.

These were the final 4, I have a Card-io stamp set called Christmas by Candlelight, and wanted to use that.

To get the candles standing in Holly took a bit of thought, but finally figured it out.

I stamped two Holly Branches, which is a Lavinia stamp, and used Archival Leaf Green for that.

  
I wasn't going to cut masks for the holly leaves, so I tore roughly a sheet of kitchen paper, and used that to cover the holly.

 

Any spaces left between the candle and holly I could draw in afterwards. I'd stamped in Distress Archival Ink Barn Door, so I could use the Distress Marker for that.

Finished the stamping by adding the candle flames, then coloured the candles with the Prismacolor pencils again.


I also added some half pearls to the holly for berries, and then finally some Glossy Accents to the flames, sprinkled with a tiny bit of Glamour Dust for some sparkle.

Again, I added a peel off greeting. Partly because I'm trying to use them all up, and partly because I forgot about heat embossing until I'd matted & layered the card front, and the heat would have released the adhesive!
 So, after starting with 3, I ended up with a massive 13 for this fortnights challenge.

WOYWW 564- The Locked Down Edition!

Well, here we are, in lockdown. Hoping you are all safe and well, along with your families. We've been being extra careful for a few weeks, to be honest, as I'm in the high risk group. Dougs been going out for any shopping, and it seems like at last, the panic buying is tailing off, as he could get bread & milk in Tesco yesterday afternoon, instead of everywhere being sold out before breakfast! So, our safe space as always, visiting desks around the world, courtesy of Julia over at The Stamping Ground.

Todays desk, working through as many of my UFO's still, as I can finish up. Will be taking a break from them for a few days, as this weekend another Christmas Card Club is due, and I almost missed the last one, lol.


These are the cards I've managed to put together from the various wallets they were stored in.




Two using Sweet Poppy stencils, and foiled afterwards, both on Brusho backgrounds. Found some old vellum with dragonflies on, to back the card on the left.

The top two are using a very old Stampers Anonymous stamp, Classic, which is a wood mount, but I think it's available as a cling mount now, in one of the sets.

The other card uses stamps from Crafty Individuals.

These are a stamp by Indigo Blu, called Bicycle, which was stamped 3 times, overlapping, with 3 generations without reinking. Inks sponged over the top. Covered with a sheet of Double sided Adhesive, then sprinkled with Glamourdust.
 The flower is a die by  Heartfelt Creations, called  Delicate Aster.

 A background stamp by Phill Martin, called  Birthday Cloud, and I did the same with these as I did with the Bicycle ones.
 The front is an old Cuttlebug Embossing folder, Scroll Frame, and I cut out the blank oval with another die. Hard to see the sparkle in these though.

Two Eclipse cards using the same stamp.


Slowly making a decent dent in the UFO's, as I'm being really good and not starting anything new until I've used up a considerable number of them.




This is the next batch I'll put together.

All trimmed down and matched up, just need to stick them down.

I end up with so many UFO's as I have a habit of making a large batch of something while I have the stuff out, then either run out of ideas, or just get bored with them!

And now we get to the Enabling part!
 
Some new stamps from Lavinia, a Tim Holtz Layering stencil, and 4 new colours of Alcohol inks.



And that's me for this week, which brings us round to ....And Finally, and this week you get a Twofer!

First off, a reminder for all in the UK that it's Clocks Forward this weekend.

And one for all us crafters everywhere, it really made me laugh when I saw it.


P.S. Our Neet came up with a fab idea to Brighten Our Days on Facebook- every day, post a pic of something you've made. It can be anything at all- crafting/baking/even gardening, and can be something new, or something you did a while back. Feel free to join in, help us beat the doom & gloom on FB.😀

Invading the UFO box!

So, five cards made so far from the UFO's. The first two are both Eclipse cards.
I used Happy as one Eclipse, and Birthday for the second card. Die cut a small sentiment to complete them.
 The stamp is by Phill Martin, called Birthday Cloud, and is roughly A5 in size.
The Alpha dies are by X-Cut, called Wedding Alpha & Numbers. 1⅜" or 3.5cm high.

The other three use the same stamp. I had stamped a number of these in different colourways, when I made some into Shaker cards.

 For these, I added some double sided adhesive sheets, then sprinkled that with Glamourdust. Because the Glamourdust is so fine, it doesn't hide what's behind it, just gives a little sparkle.
 The cover frame is an old Cuttlebug Embossing folder, Scrollwork Frame.
 Then I cut out the blank oval in the middle with an oval die. The Embossing folder is slightly too small to cover the front of the card, so I trimmed it down to leave a contrasting border, from the base card, on each side.

WOYWW #562 - The Mothers Day card Edition.

Because that's what I'm working on right now.
I stamped this image twice, using Versafine Clair Nocturne, then left that to be totally dry before colouring in with those Zenacolour pencils I bought a while back.

One in pink, and one purple.
 Then I took an idea I'd seen someone use on Fb, where she'd added Glossy Accents to some Lavinia Pods, then covered them in glitter. I didn't quite do that, I added the Glossy Accents, then sprinkled a very tiny amount of
Glamourdust onto it.






Any really ultra fine glitter would work,not just the Glamourdust.
The Glossy Accents do slightly intensify the colours of the pencils too.



A couple of close ups so you can see the sparkle, just a little, not in your face. Beauty, of course, is that it won't shed.
 Not coloured the centres, as I'm going to add acrylic stones to them.

 The stamp is by Honey Doo Crafts, called Daisy Display. I must admit, I thought they had the look of Polyanthus/Primroses, rather than daisies.

Something else I'd seen on Fb, was a product called Brusho Wax Resist. This lady that used this had mixed ultrafine glitter into some of it, then painted over her scene for a delicate glitter sparkle. I had a look for it, and thought it was a bit expensive. Had a look on Amazon, and found the Zest-It version much cheaper. Tested it out on some scrap, and it works really well. It also dries completely, so no glitter shed.
I do like the Zest-It products as they have a nice citrus smell, rather than a chemical one.
It is supposed to be used in the same way and uses as Masking Fluid, this is just an entirely different use for it.

And so I'm done.As always, it's our desk sharing day over at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, so I'll look forward to seeing everyone there later. Which brings us round to.....And Finally.....

P.S.
Just thought I'd mention, for those in the UK- Postage prices are going up on March 23rd, 6p for 1st class,and 4p for 2nd. As stamps are just marked 1st and 2nd, it's worth grabbing some before the increase. I worked it out, and that increase equates to almost a free stamp in every book if you buy them now. So yes, I did bulk buy,lol.

Snowflake Christmas Cards

Putting all of those snowflakes to good use, and this is the first 3 cards made using them. They were inspired by a card I spotted on Pinterest back last week.

 This is the card that I saw, and it was mainly the embossing folder that caught my eye, as I have that one.  It's by Darice, called Snowflake Swirl.

The cardmakers name is Carol, and her blog is Our Little Inspirations.











I think my card is made larger than hers was, as I needed to add some embossing to the lower part of the piece of cardstock I was using. Mine is based on an A4 sheet of cardstock scored and folded.
 A few weeks ago I did some stencilled sheets using the Tim Holtz Merry Christmas stencil with silver embossing paste and sprinkling it with Crystal Glamour Dust, but they weren't long enough for this so I needed to do some new ones.

I found this stencil best to work with upside down, as the tiny parts of some letters- notably the 'R' and 'M', can easily get caught as you spread the paste. This also applies when cleaning them, you do need to be very gentle to avoid bending them.





I also had to do each one in two sittings, as the stencil wasn't long enough for my card front, but they only take about an hour to dry.I tried with the first one doing the whole strip, but it's impossible to do without smudging the paste you've already laid down.
 As you can see, epic fail!

While I was waiting for the paste to dry, I made a start on layering up the snowflakes. They're not all for these cards, I have another set planned. There are 3 or 4 snowflakes used in each one.

 I trimmed the strip down to roughly one third of the card width, then trimmed the embossed panel down to fill the front.


Both were attached with DST. I added a very narrow strip of silver ribbon to cover the join. For that I cut some narrow dst roughly down the centre, and added that over the join, then wrapped the ribbon around the card front, siting the join where I intended to place the large snowflake at the top.

The card base and the embossed panel are both Pearl White cardstock.

The sentiment is a Crealies die, and I cut it 3 times from white cardstock, and once from silver glitter and layered them up for a dimensional sentiment. I added a tiny acrylic jewel as the dot on the 'i'.






I also did a couple of stencilled sheets using Glossy White stencil paste- both this and the silver are by Sweet Poppy- and again sprinkled with Crystal Glamour Dust.

 So I changed it up for the third card, using the white sheet, and swapping the sides round too. In each case the ribbon join is under the large snowflake.

A small acrylic gem in the centre of each snowflake finished them off nicely.

Mixed Media & Stencil Paste Baby & Wedding cards

Been having a play with some stencil paste and Tim Holtz Layering stencils today. I thought this flourish design lends itself to so many useful cards, it all depends on the colour paste you use. I coloured white paste with pink and blue  Memento inks to make the baby cards, and left it white for the two wedding ones.In all cases, I gave the wet paste a very light sprinkling of Glamour dust, just to add a gentle sparkle.




 Useful things to know about this technique:
  When colouring your paste- and you can colour white or Translucent- you can use a variety of mediums. Inkpads, reinkers and acrylic paints all work fine, and subtler shades can be achieved with mica powders. You can also add mica powders along with your inks/paints, for a pearly sheen. You can also add glitter, for sparkle that doesn't shed!

One thing to remember when using liquid colours to colour your paste is that the liquid will alter the consistency of the paste, so this is one case where you do not want to start with a little, and add till you've got the colour required. Acrylic paint will not be too bad, as it's not so liquid as ink, but with reinkers especially, go for a fairly dark colour, just adding a drop or two. You can always add a little more paste if you want to lighten it.Remember also, when adding to white paste it will lighten the colour anyway, and it will usually dry slightly lighter as well. Also, don't skimp on mixing up your custom colours. If you run out before finishing, you'll never mix exactly the same shade!Any leftover paste can be stored in small screwtop pots, and will last for a few months. If there is not enough to make that worthwhile, you can spread the excess onto a scrap of cardstock, using that to add all your waste paste to. Then, when dry, just cover with a sheet of hot foil, run through your laminator or foiling machine-you can even just iron it on- and you have a sheet of foiled card you can die cut sentiments from.
Use a fairly good thick cardstock to work on, as the moisture from the paste will cause thinner cardstock to buckle.
Here are some I've done in the past.

 Also, Mylar stencils such as these are not going to lay as totally flat on your cardstock as metal ones, so more care needs to be taken when adding paste, so that it doesn't  start to seep under the edges of the design. Try to add enough paste, and use a wide enough spreader to cover the design in one sweep.  Too many spreading motions will increase the likelihood of the paste going under the lines. Sweet Poppy have a fab wide spreader for this, and Lucy Ellis of Sweet Poppy has some cool videos on You Tube showing how to get the best results.
 Finally- cleaning your stencils. You want to do this as quickly as possible, and I take a sandwich box with warm soapy water  in up to my craft room to drop them in, to save going up and downstairs to a sink every time I've used a stencil. Make sure you have a bowl/tub large enough to lay the stencils flat in. Keeping them flat while washing & drying is really critical to keeping them in good condition. The paste comes off easily if you do it straight away. I have found that the Cosmic Shimmer glitter pastes are really difficult to remove if they start to dry on your stencil,so speedily dropping into water is important. I have an old towel on a work surface, and stand the tub on that. A small nailbrush is ideal for removing the paste, then I lay it onto the towel, and PAT dry. That's important, especially if the stencil has unattached parts, like the Flourish one does. If you bend parts through rubbing, they will always let paste/ink etc seep under the design. This applies to metal ones with unattached parts too, not just Mylar.
So, back to the cards. The card bases are topfold, half A4 sheets, which end up as 5¾ x 4⅛. The cardstock I used for the stencilling was 6 x 4 so I had a little to trim down to tidy it up. I finally trimmed the panels to 5¾ x 3⅜.
 As the panels were narrower than my base card, I decided to die cut some borders, you could also use border punches, of course.
 I made some choices from this set by Spellbinders, called Shapeabilities On The Edge. They are just a hair longer than my panels,but these dies are fully repeatable, so you can make a border as long as you need.

I chose pearl papers and cut the edges twice for each card, then split down the middle. The pink one, which was the second up from the bottom in the dies, actually gives you two for one- you could easily use the offcut as a border too.
The pearl papers came from some paper blocks I bought years ago at the NEC, from a company called Craftwork Cards, who sadly no longer exist.They are really useful for borders, or for punching from.




The strips were attached to the back of each panel, along the edges, with dst, then trimmed down to fit.

All four done.
 Now they just need mounting onto the card fronts, and again I used DST for this. Remember to add tape to all 4 sides, as there will always be a little warping of the cardstock from the paste. If you are a wet glue user, I'd recommend laying them down with a weight on top for half an hour or so.






Now to add a sentiment, and I chose to use these Crealies Text dies for the baby cards. They are a small die, but the perfect size for these cards. there is quite a selection of sentiments available too. The 'A New Baby' sentiment is one die, but the three words are all separate, which I love as that gives you freedom of placement. I cut  the die 4 times from white scrap card, then once each from the pink & blue pearl paper I used for the borders. This was so I could layer up the white die cuts twice, then add the

colour on top, for a little dimension.












 I have some stitched banner dies, from Aliexpress, and used the smallest size from the long set for this. It was actually a little longer than I wanted, but the bottom set was a little too short. I sorted that by just replacing the banner in the die, matching up the stitched lines, then trimming it shorter.

A simple fix. You may notice than I am cutting down into my bottom plate in my 'Bug. I saw a few crafters switching the order of their plates, putting the 'B' plate on the bottom, and the 'C' plate on the top. This is great, as you can see exactly what you are cutting, so makes precise placing easy. I'd lain my words on the banner first to decide how much shorter it needed to be.

A ZIG glue pen- in fact any glue pen- is ideal for layering up the words, and for attaching to the banner. Again, laying them down under a couple of acrylic blocks for  a few minutes helps them set.

To add them to the card front, I used a few foam pads. Because the surface is uneven, and glittery, both of which can cause problems with adhering stuff, I added a small dab of Pinflair Glue Gel to the top of each foam pad. This helps to make sure it will stick to the awkward surface, and also gives you a little wriggle room to position it straight.

I decided the banners needed a little something else, so added an acrylic heart to each. I used a clear one for the blue card, as the only blue hearts I had were not close enough in colour to the blue used in the card.

For the wedding cards, I used the same banner die, but added the sentiment with peel offs, as there currently isn't a wedding die in the Crealies line. I have emailed to ask her about the possibility,though. 😀 A small white half pearl was added with some Glossy Accents.