Making It Sparkle

Last night our stamping group met and we had a great time! It was my turn to sit back and have fun while one of the other members of our group, Shawna, taught the class. We got really inked up as we were playing with Alcohol Inks, both on foil and on vellum.

This is the card Shawna created using foil. It was inked and embossed. Beautiful!

For this card, we stamped the butterfly on vellum and then colored it with Alcohol inks. After cutting it out, we mounted it on a card front that had been misted with ink and attached sequins and a word that had been cut out with the help of a Silhouette machine.

Shawna is very talented and has just opened her Etsy store, Blue Painted Dragonfly Designs. You can check out her Facebook page as well–be sure to give her a like!

Today was great for me as well because I didn't have to work! In fact, I have the entire weekend off–woohoo!

I was up fairly early and sent in our Stampin' Up! order from last night. I then headed to Winnipeg for a bit of a haircut and on the way homeI decided to stop at Dollarama in Selkirk to pick up some foam tape.

BIG MISTAKE!

All of their Christmas decorations and crafting supplies were out so I had to buy the stuff while it was still available, of course! I walked out with two very full bags!

Back at home, I decided to choose a card challenge to get me started. I chose the Friday Mashup.

This was quite an interesting challenge because you could do one of three things:

• create a project using the Diamond Dust Technique found here.
• create a project using these colors: Island Indigo, Garden Green & Rich Razzleberry

OR

• create a project using the technique and the colors.

I was a little leery of the color combo but decided to go with the flow and create a card following the third option.

The sparkle suggested Christmas to me and it also reminded me of the Bright & Beautiful stamp set. I mean, stars twinkle and when they do, they look like they're sparkling, right?

I chose the medium star and inked it up using my Stampin Write Markers in Garden Green and Island Indigo. I used the markers because I wanted to ink certain sections of the stamp and it has quite an intricate design.

If you recall from yesterday's post, when using markers on the stamps you need to huff on the stamp to refresh the ink before stamping it. I stamped it on Whisper White and the star looked fabulous just like that! However, I went ahead and used one of the Stars Framelits to die cut the star.

I thought that the starburst from Kinda Eclectic would look neat behind the star. That idea required a matte. I cut a square matte from Garden Green card stock and stamped the Starburst in Versamark. I heat embossed it using a Sparkly Silver embossing powder.

I used Island Indigo to ink the edges of the matte, using a sponge dauber. To enhance the embossing, I cut a second matte from Silver Glimmer paper and adhered the stamped matte to it. These eventually mounted on a Rich Razzleberry matte which would be adhered to a card base of the same color.

Following the tutorial, I completely covered the star with Versamark and heat embossed it with a Iridescent embossing powder. It got so vibrant and sparkly!

Then I made a pleasant discovery involving the book plate framelit from the Apothecary Accent Framelits. I'll share it with you in the form of a picture tutorial.

Here are what the framelits look like when cut. The book plate is on the top right.

I cut a book plate from Garden Green.

 Next, I grabbed my Tag Topper Scalloped punch.

I centred the book plate and stuck it into the punch a far as it would go.

After punching both ends, this is the result.

Cool, huh? The reason I thought of this technique was because I knew you could modify one of the Chalk Talk Framelit tags in the same way but that tag doesn't look as ornate as this one.

I stamped the sentiment with Versamark and heat embossed with the same Sparkly Silver embossing powder. I then inked the edges of the book plate with Island Indigo.

Because I now had holes in the tag, I was able to add a a now retired Island Indigo ribbon to it and make it into a slider. The book plate was just a bit too wide for the front of the card so I trimmed it a bit. It still looked very ornate!

I played with the placement of the matte and the book plate and then adhered both to the Rich Razzleberry matte. I added some Dimensionals to the back of the book plate and some Sticky Strip to the ends of the ribbon, wrapping them around the back of the Rich Razzleberry matte.

A few rhinestones for added glitz and my card was complete!

A couple of close ups so you can see the effect of the Diamond Dust Technique.

I hope you'll try the Diamond Dust Technique–I know I'll be using it again!

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