Happy St Patty's Day (a little late)

Today's design team project for Craftin' Desert Divas is a little late for the actual St Patty's Day holiday, but I just couldn't resist this "Rainbow's End" digi stamp set! I also used the sketch from Try Stampin' On Tuesday as my inspiration -I just turned it horizontally and made it a 5 x 7 card -along with using their theme of "Green".

I layered the rainbow behind the leprechaun before printing and colored him in with Chameleon colored pencils. I then die cut him out and layered him on green glitter paper. I splashed on some Sparkle Silk from FSJ and accented him with Emerald Isle Sequins. 

I blended the Lucky Clover Distress Ink behind the sentiment on the inside...this is the same ink I used on the plaid stencil pattern that I repeated across the front of the card. The hand cut banner from the gold glitter paper made the perfect final touch to complete the sketch image.

Until next time~

Lucky Shamrocks

Today's card was inspired by the sketch & alphabet challenge at the Fusion Card Challenge blog and will be applied at several other challenges that are Green and White themed this week- like the ones @ heARTfelt stamping challenge, Craftaholics R Us & the Paper Players.

For this card, I dug out some supplies that I haven't used in a while and that have been in my stash for at least a decade or more...specifically the Galaxy Gold Brilliance ink pad, the Jeweled Gold embossing powder from Stampendous, the large, retired alphabet stamp set from CTMH, the retired sentiment and single shamrock stamp from TAC, the shamrock die from Quickutz and the free paint chip strip from Lowe's. 

I started with a side folded A2 white card base, gold glitter cardstock scraps, a small green patterned paper scrap and a small, dark green DieCuts with a View paper scrap. First I repeatedly, randomly stamped the shamrock all over the front of the card in the Brilliance Gold ink and heat set it. Next came stamping the LUCKY letters in versamark ink onto the paint chip -heat embossing it with the transparent gold glitter embossing powder just turned out so gorgeous!

I then stamped the Happy St Patrick's Day sentiment in a deep green dye ink from TAC, and trimmed and mounted it on gold glitter cardstock, leaving a super thin border showing around the edges on all four sides. I trimmed and corner rounded the green patterned scrap, cut a thin strip the same height of 5 1/2" as the card front from more gold glitter paper, diecut the shamrock and lightly sanded it to highlight some of the texture inherent with this brand of paper.

First step in final assembly is to line the gold strip up on the far right side of the card and butt the stamped paint chip tightly up against it. Green patterned paper is attached flush along the card spine  with the sentiment overlapped on top. Everything is held together with the super strong adhesive from my ATG gun except for the shamrock that is popped up with foam dots on top of the "blob" of gold floss.

All finished now and this cute card is headed on it's way to a March card swap friend. If you are interested in getting involved in any card swap groups, there are some excellent ones being run over on FaceBook -which is where I participate and have for over a year now...it's a lot of fun!

~Come join us~

SIP Challenge #89 -A Sketch!

Today's card was inspired by the sketch challenge over at the Stamp, Ink, Paper blog.

Gathering of my supplies included the February Die of the Month Club set from Spellbinders Maker's Mart, a 2" circle punch, my favorite glue, some foam dots and cardstock from my stash. I only used 2 of the dies from this set -imagine what else you can do with it!!! I'm sure you will be seeing more of it in the future -it's becoming one of my favorites!

I ran the frame die thru my Amaze machine with gold glitter cardstock and the shamrocks with 3 shades of green cardstock. Once the shamrocks were diecut, I ran them thru a 2nd time with the embossing plate and mat to get the embossed dimension on the petals.

Since the green paper was textured and had a white core, I was able to use a sanding block  to add some interest by removing some of the color from the tops of the shamrocks. I used a standard A2 size white card base and layered a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" panel of brushed metallic gold cardstock on the card front. I stamped the sentiment (retired from TAC) in dark green dye ink on the circle punched from white cardstock and sponged the edges with the same green ink. The gold glitter frame was then centered on the card front and adhered with the liquid Mono glue.

I trimmed a piece of vellum for the left side of the card front to help keep the shamrocks grounded and adhered it with my ATG glue gun so that the adhesive would be hidden when the shamrocks were added.

I coated the sentiment circle with a good, even layer of glossy accents, added the 3 pieces of tiny gold confetti into the wet glaze and let the whole thing dry over night before adding it to the card front with the ATG. The shamrocks were spaced evenly along the left hand side and popped up with adhesive foam dots to finish off this glitzy, golden beauty!

PP334 -"Cut It Out" Theme Challenge

Today's card was inspired by a MFT design team member's card I saw on Pinterest and the theme challenge at The Paper Players blog.

I decided to try using my Fun Stamper's Journey rectangle die set in a new way...using 4 at a time to make a pierced frame element directly in my card front.

 The first step was stamping the clover (retired from The Angel Company) in archival black ink all around the edges of my 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" side folding, horizontal, white card front...creating a wide border. I then colored them using watercolor crayons and a small water brush. Using an acrylic block as my palette, I pulled and puddled color from 2 different shades of green crayons and mixed them with water to get the shade I was going for.

I gave it a few minutes to air dry and then helped it along with my heat tool to speed up the process. Once the piece was sent through my Amaze die-cutting machine with all 4 dies taped together to cut the frame directly into the card front, I lined it with foam tape to pop it off the card base. I wasn't entirely pleased with the spacing on the pierced elements, but these were the only dies I had to work with, so it will just have to do! (And my perfectionist self just needs to get over it, lol)

I trimmed another piece of white cardstock to 4" x 5 1/4" and adhered it to the inside of the card front so that I would have somewhere to re-adhere the middle piece of the frame so that I could stamp the word "lucky" on it with a retired script alphabet stamp set from Close To My Heart. This was done in FSJ Black Licorice hybrid ink and then embossed with clear powder to give it a slight bit more dimension.

Assembling the card front was like putting a puzzle together and once complete, I used my clear Wink of Stella pen to cover all the white space on the recessed middle retangle with a soft, subtle shimmer before adding the 7 green sequins. I then tied some green jute along the left-side spine of the card, securing it with a mini pop dot under the knot of the bow. 

While it's not a perfect card, I am still pleased with the way it turned out and had fun experimenting with some of my crafting tools during the process...and isn't that what it's really all about? Now it can go out in the mail to one of my March Card Swap Pals.