Metallics revisited

I am having so much fun with this metallic challenge at Less is More.
This morning, I did some more canning- love harvest season. After lunch, I decided to play.

I've gotten a bit of use out of my Boss Kut poinsettia die, and I decided to try it with red metallic paper.

 

I ran the die through twice, which gives it a nice, full look. Then I added the leaves, adhering them to the card stock with Glossy Accents. I seem to be using that as glue quite a bit lately. I stamped the sentiment on white and layered it over a bit of red. Easy, peasy. I did play with a few options, but decided to leave it plain, to let the flower stand on its own. 

 Yesterday, I was going through my stash of metallic papers- yes, I have an entire container just of metallics. I love coppery colours, and this one jumped out at me. I decided to try a couple of things with this card. I have never done the cracked glass technique, and I was a little nervous about trying it. I discovered that if you don't like what you have done, the cracks can be heated back up and they will fill in, then you can start from scratch.

I used three rounds of ultra thick embossing enamel then stuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes. After I cracked the enamel, I rounded the corners and adhered it to the brown card base. The inside of the card has a white insert so the writing can be seen.

One more day left of this weekend. Can't wait to play with some of the new toys I purchased on Saturday.

Let's get metallic!

I didn't have a chance last week to play along with the Less is More blog, but when I got up this morning to let the dogs out, I logged on to see what the challenge was this week. This week, it's a colour challenge with METALLIC.

The wheels immediately began to turn. I had a few things to accomplish before I got creative today, including stopping at a couple of craft stores with my friend M. It looks like the Michaels stores here will start to carry Spellbinders (they were not actually on the shelves, but there were tags for them!). Then we headed to one of our local scrapping stores that is under new ownership and checked out the cards we'll be making at a Dreamweaver class later this month.

OK- on to the challenge. Anyone who knows me, knows I love sparkly things. Bright, shiny, new things. So, this challenge is a natural fit. However, there were a few false starts. I thought I had a brilliant idea, but combining two embossing powders just turned into a gigantic mess.

As I had to stay in the basement until the laundry was done, I decided to play with a punch I got last year that I haven't really done a lot with

 I punched the pine needles out of metallic green cardstock and adhered it to a green base. There are about 40 punched out boughs on this card. To dress it up a bit, I punched the circles out of metallic red card and adhered it with Glossy Accents. To finish it, I tied the bow and attached it with Glossy Accents as well.

The greeting was stamped and embossed with holographic embossing powder.

 I have a couple more ideas for this challenge, and there's two more days left in the weekend for me to play.

House Mouse- no cookin' challenge

This week at House-Mouse and Friends, it's a No Cookin' Recipe Card Challenge.  I don't think it's any secret how much I love House Mouse and company, and I have been meaning to play along with the challenges for ages, but it always seems like I miss the deadline. This week, I had a few ideas for the challenge, and they were all birthday cards. September is a busy birthday month in my world, and here's one card down.

I also love cookbooks and have many. In fact, they have overflowed my cookbook cupboard and are on several shelves. I pulled this recipe from a book I picked up for $1. It's brand new, and decided to muck it up a bit using distress inks in Vintage Photo and Tea Dye. The recipe contributor's name was in the right corner, so I distressed it further by tearing the paper.

I stamped the image on Bristol paper with Momento ink and coloured with copics. I then cut it out and adhered it to the recipe with foam tape. It is layered on glassine paper and orange cardstock.

Wonder who is going to get this card?

I'll be home for Christmas

This month's challenge for the Flourishes' Christmas Spirit Challenge at SCS is Song Inspired.

I have two favourite Christmas caroles- White Christmas (also my favourite Christmas movie ever), and I'll be home for Christmas. It is a hugely sentimental song for me.

Having close ties to the military- husband is recently former military, and I have two cousins who are in, and many friends who are military and military spouses. Also, I work for an organization that supports the military. I'll be home for Christmas has a whole new meaning when you are military- either having a loved one deployed, or even just moving to a new base, where you might not know a soul and don't always have family close by.

As it is posting season (military families moving to their new bases), I have been thinking a lot lately about family and how we make our own families no matter where we are. Some people are family by relation, and others are family members by choice. When you are in the military, or married to it, the friends you make are your family as well.

OK- phew- that got a little heavy there.

On to the card!!

This was not originally what I had intended for this stamp. It's from the Forest of Trees set. I stamped it in green chalk ink, added brads as the ornaments and then put the red paper on the side of the frame, added the panes and overlaid it on the tree. I really like this stamp set and can't wait to play with it more.

Party time!

I had some time to play a bit this weekend, and brought out some of my House Mouse stamps. The first one, I seem to be using a lot lately. He's just so cute and summery. 

I stamped in Momento ink, coloured with copics and used an edge punch. Then, I layered the card onto some orange cardstock, then on top of corrugated paper, which I coloured with distress inks.

This camera mouse I have had for ages, in fact, I am pretty sure it's the first House Mouse I purchased and have never used. I think I was a little intimidated by colouring the camera, but it really wasn't that bad. I also have several birthdays coming up, and thought that by having camera mouse take a photo of the birthday mouse, I could use two stamps on one card. I have to admit, I am rather pleased with how it turned out. 

I hope to be able to play a bit more this week as well- depends on what is going on, but I have come across a couple of challenges I'd like to play.

I like to move it, move it!

It's been a crazy weekend. I was busy yesterday, busy puttering today, and finally got a chance to play this afternoon. I went to my favourite LSS this weekend with M, and there were new House Mouse stamps... this one called my name. It fits in perfectly with the Less is More challenge this week, which is THINGS THAT MOVE. We could make a moving card, have an element that moved, or depict something that moves. So, mousey it was.

I actually stamped, coloured and punched the mouse yesterday, but I was in a bit of a bad mood, and nothing was turning out, so I put it to the side and came back to it today. It turned out that I didn't like the colour of the flower (pinks), so I decided to colour over it using purples. I had never done that before- colouring over one Copic job with another, but I like the way it turned out- it added a bit more depth of colour.

I finished off the card by punching the mouse out using a 3 inch circle, layering it on a 2 inch strip of purple and putting it on a base.

The more I play with the Less is More challenges, the easier the clean and simple method is becoming.

Can't wait to see what's in store next weekend!

New stuff

Oh, how I love new toys! I have my eye on this Boss Kut die for quite some time, and last time I went to Scrapyard, it was mine.

As with most cards I make, there were lessons learned. I cut out two of for the flower and leaves. Then, I covered them with Versamark ink and Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). I learned that UTEE is a wonderful tool. However, it goes EVERYWHERE, and I mean everywhere when you are heating it. I have little balls of melted plastic all over my work table. It also gets really hot. Fortunately the cooling time is relatively quick.
I layered the flower pieces on top of each other, punched and then used a brad to hold it all together.
I needed a piece of ribbon to add a little band of colour to the card. I didn't have any colour that I wanted to use, among my (approx) six kazillion rolls of ribbon, so I took wide white ribbon and coloured it with pine needle distress ink.
I dried it with my heat gun, but for some reason, it didn't dry right away. There was green ink everywhere. Next time, I'll let it dry over night. 
This card was incredibly quick and easy to make, and I love the results. I think it'll make it into the card rotation this year.