Just Add Ink Challenge Entry - #486

Feels Like Frost Tri-fold Shaker Card

Welcome back to Valley Inspirations with Andrea. Thanks for dropping in. 

This week I have created a Christmas card for an entry in the current Just Add Ink Challenge. I also created this card with a special friend and fellow paper crafter in mind.

Photo Credit: https://pin.it/46yqdqea3drdpe

This  week's Just Add Ink Challenge is to create a project that has been inspired by this gorgeous Christmas table setting. As I studied the photo I thought of classic beauty, shimmer, light, decadence, crystal clear glasses, foliage and of course, Christmas. I thought of a generally neutral colour scheme with some colour from the table runner and the foliage. Pondering what I would create, my thought process went to Stampin' Up!'s luscious Feels Like Frost designer series paper (DSP) with a shaker card. As I collected the materials I would need, I also pondered the practicalities of trying to stand a shaker card without it falling forward, so I decided on a simple tri-fold card. 

Post Update - I was so delighted to receive an Honourable Mention for my card. Some comments from the Design Team were:

Such an effective card fold, using gorgeous papers and die cuts.

A great project with many elements.

A gorgeous work of art and the soft tulle and shaker elements are so celebratory.

Here is the card front:

After preparing a Thick Whisper White cardstock base, I cut a Whisper White frame using the largest and 3rd largest Stitched Rectangle dies and also cut a piece of the Feels Like Frost DSP with the second largest rectangle die. The Frosted Frames dies were all used to cut Whisper White cardstock, with extra leaves and snowflakes also prepared (although I still needed to cut more as the card design developed). The die cut pieces, including the rectangular frame were spritzed with Frosted White Shimmer paint mixed with Isopropyl Alcohol.

Showing some sequins over the card front, after a gentle shake.

The leafy frame was cut into pieces and adhered to the underside of the rectangular frame, with an extra leaf spray and snowflake - all facing inwards. This is opposite to the die cut frame where the leaf sprays and snowflakes are on the outside. A piece of Window Sheet was adhered to the underside of the re-created rectangular foliage frame. Before adhering the piece of DSP to the card base a greeting from Itty Bitty Christmas stamp set was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed using Shimmer White Emboss powder. The greeting was re-stamped in Rococo Rose ink moving the stamp a tad to the left to give a shadow effect - the Stamparatus is brilliant for this. Foam Adhesive Strips were stuck on the edge of the DSP ensuring there were no gaps so sequins can not escape when the final card is shaken. The delightful Snowflake Sequins were sprinkled within the rectangle formed by the foam strips and then the decorative frame placed on top. Voila! It's a shaker card. (Bye the way, in a number of the above steps, ensuring accurate alignment is important. It is certainly worth the effort of double checking before adhering.) A bow of 1.6cm Whisper White Polka Dot Tulle ribbon has been tied around the card to hold the card in a neatly closed position. 

The card front without the tulle bow, showing the sequins.

With this simple tri-fold card, apart from the card front, there are four other card surfaces that can be seen when opening the card (that is, not including the blank card back). In line with the decadence of the inspirational table setting, I decided to add design elements to each surface, with the greater focus on the RHS flap that is seen first when the card is opened. One of these pages is for the hand written greeting to the recipient and the other two pages have simpler designs, so as not to compete with the focal pages. 

The view when card is first opened, with a focus on the RHS.

The card is fully opened, showing the 3 inner pages.

As you can see, the inner pages continued to use the Feels Like Frost DSP, the Frosted Frames dies and the shimmer spritzing technique, and more of Rococo Rose and Blushing Bride cardstock and ink were used to tie in with these colours in the DSP. The matching Frosted Foliage stamp set was used as well. Layers have been kept to a minimum within  the card and no dimensionals were used so that the card did not become tooooo bulky. 

Now for a look at each individual page:

Inner page seen when card first opened.

The design elements on this page include some Feels Like Frost DSP, using the silver and white side. The white leaves and snowflakes were sponged with Rococo Rose ink ensuring it was darker at the bottom and lighter at the top. The Foliage Frame was cut out of Silver foil and the sentiment panel of Rococo Rose cardstock was inlaid in the Foliage Frame. The sentiment from the Light & Peace stamp set was heat embossed using the Shimmer White Emboss powder. Three snowflake sequins were scattered around the sentiment and two die cut and shimmer spritzed snowflakes were adhered on the frame's corners.

LHS page when card is fully opened.

This page is very simple so as not to compete with the page shown directly above. A sentiment from Itty Bitty Christmas stamp set was stamped in Blushing Bride ink. Die cut white and shimmer spritzed snowflakes and snowflake sequins were scatted around, giving a subtle white on white effect.

Central page of fully opened card for handwriting a message. 

This central page was stamped in Blushing Bride ink using the snowflakes stamp from the Frosted Foliage set. The stitched rectangle, which had been cut out to form the Whisper White frame on the card front, was adhered in the centre and two die cut Rococo Rose shimmer spritzed snowflakes were added at two corners.

The RHS page when card fully opened

The final decorative page has a sentiment from the Frosted Foliage stamp set that was heat embossed using the Shimmer White Emboss powder on Rococo Rose cardstock. The die cut and shimmer spritzed leaf sprays were cut from both Whisper White and Rococo Rose cardstock. A number of star shaped sequins were scattered around. The Snowflake Sequins are simply delightful with a number of different shaped and coloured sequins.

A view of the fully open card showing the inner RHS page, the card back and the card front.

I so enjoyed creating this card, with its different pages. Having been inspired by the gorgeous Christmas table setting, the card creation took on its own life as the design aspects developed. While it's a pity that the shimmer spritzing didn't show in the photos compared to the effect in real life, I hope you were able to get a sense of decadence, sparkle and beauty. I also hope my friend will like it and feel special.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my entry in the Just Add Ink Challenge. Have a blessed Christmas and wonderful New Year. I do hope you drop back to my blog in 2020. 💕🐾

AWH Monthly Blog Hop - Dec 2019

Christmas Layers and Partial Die Cutting with a Little Shimmer

Thanks for dropping by. The Art With Heart Team are back with our last Blog Hop for 2019. I hope you are enjoying hopping along with this December 2019 Blog Hop.

Getting in the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations, this month our theme is ‘Add A Little Sparkle’. We have a huge range of sparkly projects to share with you featuring products such as Glimmer paper, Rhinestones, Delicata Ink, Shimmery White cardstock and much more. All of these products are available from Stampin’ Up! and any of these lovely ladies would be happy to assist you.

I love adding a little sparkle to my projects, not just at Christmas but all through the year. One of my favourite ways of adding sparkle is to spritz part of my projects with shimmer paint mixed with Isopropl alcohol. For tonight's card I have used a sparkly spritz on die cut snowflakes to add a little glimmer to the tone on tone background. I've also used a amber of other products to add a (more) little shimmer. 

Starting with Seaside Spray cardstock as the card base, I also cut four sets of snowflakes out of additional Seaside Spray cardstock using the Christmas Layer dies to develop a tone on tone effect. As I was aiming for a subtle shimmer effect I only spritzed the die cut snowflakes lightly, however, the photo doesn't pick up the subtlety of shimmer effect. (I guess, my novice photography skills don't help either.) When dry, these snowflakes were adhered to the upper 2/3rds of the of the card base. Using a piece of Whisper White cardstock and the larger die with multiple snowflakes, I partially die cut snowflakes so that white snowflakes jutted out from the card front. I needed to do this twice as the die was smaller than the width of the card front. A difficulty in cutting twice is ensuring the partial die cutting finishes in straight alignment. I then needed to use a scalpel to cut away the card front in between the snowflakes. Here's a closer look:

Some Seaside Spray 6.4mm Metallic ribbon was tied around the card front a little below the snowflake edge. This is such a gorgeous ribbon with a metallic shimmer. The Whisper White partial die cut card front was added to the card base using Stampin' Dimensionals to lift and seperate it a little from the card base. The greeting "Christmas Blessings" that came from the Light & Peace stamp set was stamped in Delicata Silvery Shimmer Metallic ink and cut out using one of the smaller Stitched Rectangle dies. Three of the smaller blue snowflakes were scattered around the greeting on the white card front. To add a little more shimmer, small rhinestones that had been coloured with Dark Seaside Spray Blends were adhered to the blue snowflakes - both on the background and those on the white card front.

The greeting inside the card came from the So Many Stars stamp set and also was stamped in Silvery Shimmer ink. A few individual blue snowflakes were scattered around the greeting to tie the centre to the card design.

Thanks for calling by and taking time to check out my blog. I've loved sharing with you 💕

There is more sparkle and creative inspiration in this month's Art With Heart Blog Hop.  The next demonstrator to share her sparkly project(s) with you is the delightful and talented Kathryn Ruddick. To visit her blog, click on her name or on the arrow below.  

  

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop midway through the participants, you can view all the talented paper crafters below by clicking on their names and the link will take you to their blog. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing everyones' creations.

Tina Gillespie

Rachel Woollard

Catherine Proctor

Vicki Boucher

Rebecca Jacovou

Andrea Sargent  - You are here

Kathryn Ruddick

Caroline Manwaring

I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas and New Year. I'm looking forward to sharing with you again in 2020. 💕🐾

Just Add Ink Challenge Entry - #485

#485 - Just Add "One Layer"

Welcome again to Valley Inspirations with Andrea. Thanks for dropping in.

Today's blog focusses on Just Add Ink's Challenge #485 - Just Add a "One Layer" card. This week's JAI Challenge has the card base as the card front with no additional popped up elements, although embellishments such as sequins, rhinestones or the like can be added.

I decided to take up this challenge, knowing that it was contrary to my normal style - I love mounting the focal section of the card front, adding die cuts, ribbon and other embellishments. It was good to stretch myself and try to think outside the square. 

Blog Update - I was so surprised and delighted to receive an Honourable Mention for my card. Some of the Design Team's comments were:

 I absolutely adore these soft coloured florals.

So pretty and a gorgeous colour palette.

A simply beautiful card.

Here's my entry:

I just love Stampin' Up!'s Beautiful Friendship stamp set. It provides a lovely watercolour effect and is great for #simplestamping, so when I thought of participating in this challenge my mind went straight to this set. It would be good for a beginner stamper as it is just paper (Whisper White card stock as the card base), stamps (Beautiful Friendship), and ink (Petal Pink, So Saffron, Seaside Spray, Pear Pizzaz and Blueberry Bushel Stampin Up's ink pads) with the addition of some white pearls (Stampin Up's Basic Pearls). The only technique used was stamping off - the leaves were second generation stamping as was some of the seaside spray flowers. When adding some leaves to the stamped floral arrangement, I realised I had accidentally marked some green where it wasn't wanted. Isn't it easy to have unwanted smudges appear. I was sooo thankful to be able to add a  pearl to cover the mark and then scatter other pearls to build the design.

#simplestamping plus Pearls 

This JAI Challenge is similar to Stampin' Up!'s #simplestamping December Challenge, which is paper, stamps and ink with a "Thinking of You" theme. The #simplestamping challenges are designed to provide ideas for beginner stampers. The addition of embellishments, ie in this case "pearls", means this card isn't eligible for the SU challenge, however, as I experienced with this card, the addition of inexpensive embellishments can be useful for the beginner stamper to hide accidental & unwanted marks.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my entry in the Just Add Ink Challenge. I will be back this Thursday for the Art with Heart Monthly Blog Hop where we will be adding a little shimmer. I hope you have a blessed Christmas and wonderful New Years. 💕🐾

Art With Heart “Heart of Christmas 2019” - Week 16

A Christmas Wreath using the Peaceful Boughs Bundle

Welcome to this, the final "Heart of Christmas 2019" Blog Hop. I hope you have enjoyed hopping along with us each week. I've loved being apart of the Art with Heart Team's Christmas Blog Hop.

We are in December now and Christmas is close. It has been a wonderful learning experience to establish a blog that has enabled me to share a new Christmas card with you each week. As I mentioned a number of weeks ago, I love wreaths and so this week I have made a wreath using Stampin' Up!'s Beautiful Boughs dies.

Using the single pine leaf die, I cut 5 each of Copper, Champagne, Gold and Silver foil. They were glued singly, rotating each colour and placed to form a circle. If you are going to try it, make sure you tuck the twig end under the leaf below (not sticking it on top of the previous one ... - ask me how I know its easy to make this mistake when you are running out of time 😁). 

The background (and card) was cut from Very Vanilla cardstock. The card front was dry embossed using the Pinewood Planks 3D embossing folder and then mounted on some copper foil to show a slight stripe of copper along both sides. The sentiment came from the matching Peaceful Boughs stamp set and was cut out using the matching set of dies.

The wreath was finished with a bow tied in Copper Trim and some Rhinestones, which had been coloured with a Bronze Blends marker, were scattered around.

The card centre used the other sentiment from the Peaceful Boughs stamp set and I couldn't resist cutting out the sentiment with the matching die from the Beautiful Boughs dies. Some copper pine leaves have been tucked underneath.

That's it for me for this week and for the Heart of Christmas blog hop for this year, however, there is so much more inspiration to be found this week. The lovely Judy May is hosting the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop this week. To check out the team’s festive creations you can visit Judy’s page, Just Judy Designs by clicking here where she has links to all the other blog hoppers.

Also, a big THANK YOU to Claire, our wonderful team leader, who established this annual blog hop and who leads us through all things Stampin' Up!

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my blog. I hope you have a blessed Christmas and wonderful New Years. See you again in 2020. 💕🐾