.... AND A PEACOCK IN A CHERRY TREE!

Hi there, 

I'm back to share with you some more goodies we got in our SNS surprise package last month. I got some Gold Mirror Cardstock which I thought I would highlight this time round - making a gold and black card. Difficult to photograph always, but here goes!

I took the stencil that I had also received (Dreamweaver Cherry Blossom) and taped it down to mustard cardstock - remember to tape in order that when you remove the tape you are left with the top "hinge".  Apply Matte Black Embossing Paste over the stencil. Remove the stencil and let the paste dry for 30 mins at least. Clean off the stencil.  I worked on the peacock in the meantime.

Stick a piece of 2 1/2" Tear-ific Tape down on white cardstock and run the Peacock Stencil (Sizzix Thinlits Peacock #659070) through your embossing machine, both to cut and then to emboss. You can see how the pattern of the peacock's tail eyes are raised. Remove the protective backing and apply Fleur De Lis embossing powder and then heat set.

Apply the anti static bag to the piece before proceeding to the next step.  Replace the stencil over heat embossed peacock. Using a Versamarker pen trace the tail eyes and the wing of the peacock and "color in" with the ink pen. Remove the stencil and then apply Black Detail embossing powder and heat emboss.

Back to the background! Replace the clean stencil and apply glue (using the Essentials Glue Pad) and then using a small stencil brush, apply Dreamweaver Metallic F/X Gold Dust. Again remove stencil and clean. Below you can see the dimension that the paste and the Pearl Ex provide.

On to the embellishment! I took three flowers (not sure of the source - but they had music on them!) I took my Versamark pad and just swiped here and there on each of the three flower layers, as I didn't want to completely cover the music design, but wanted to tie in the gold. This time I heat set with Gold Detail embossing powder. The brad was also "blinged" with Fleur De Lis to tie everything together.

So then to put everything together. I cut an oval (using Spellbinders Grand Ovals) from the Gold Mirror Cardstock (which was slightly smaller than the mustard piece) to make a frame for the background. The "blinged" flower was attached to the corner of the frame, before being layered to the black cardstock base.

The peacock was then attached with Dimensional Foam as shown to complete the card. I deliberately kept the embellishments to the bottom of the card so as not to cover the entire background.

I left off a sentiment on  the card, but it really could be used for anything - Christmas, Sympathy, Birthday .... endless possibilities! Love Gold and Black! ... and Fleur De Lis is just that!!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Hugs,

Shona

A "FLOCK" OF DISTRESSED BIRDS

Hi there, 

Glad you stopped by today, I've got a fun technique which I have played with before, Coloring on Flocking.  This time however, I used Distress Inks and Distress Markers to "color" my Snow White Flocking.  Even the sentiment is stamped on flocking!

I used the other bird set (Wilson) from the October Reveal. Here are the ingredients I used to make my card:

Distress Inks: Dusty Concord, Spiced Marmalade, Aged Mahogany

Distress Ink Markers: Pine Needles, Dusty Concord, Aged Mahogany, Spiced Marmalade, Black Soot

So let's start with the background, shall we?  I cut a piece of 4" x 5 1/4" Super Adhesive sheet and attached it to a piece of white cardstock. I removed the protective backing and covered the entire piece with Snow White Flocking, burnishing it in well with my finger tool.  I opened the Cuttlebug Leafy Branch embossing folder and applied Memento Summer Sky ink to the raised background of the folder. Taking the "fall" colored Distress Markers I then colored in the depressed areas. I "huffed" to remoisten everything as it took a few minutes to color in all the leaves.

The white flocked piece was placed in the folder so that the flocking was face down to the inked side. It was run through the embossing machine to provide this gorgeous result:

So then on to the birds! Since the Distress markers are dye based, I used Black Staz-On as my choice of ink. NB: If you prefer to use alcohol markers then you should stamp with Memento ink. I'm using the dye-based markers as I wanted to use the matching ink pads.

I took a piece of 2 1/2" Tear-ific Tape and attached it to white cardstock. I removed the protective backing and then applied the Snow White Flocking. The stamp was inked  up with the black StazOn and stamped directly on top of the flocking:

Then get coloring!

What I found with the Distress inks, that matched the Markers, is that I could daub the color directly to certain areas. This gives a more even look than using the markers. It's also a much quicker way to color bigger sections. When you use the daubers, just mask out the certain areas that you don't want colored. You can see the difference in the coloring with markers versus the daubers by looking at the tall bird. His belly was daubed, but I used the marker (Aged Mahogany) for his back. The marker produces a darker and more textured look. 

For the birds below. I daubed both of them (except for the masked eyes, beaks, belly and the legs).

Then they were all fussy cut!

On to the sentiment. I thought I'd see if it worked - and guess what? It did!

I placed a scrap of Super Adhesive Sheet on a piece of orange cardstock and removed the protective backing. I then applied Snow White Flocking and burnished it in well with my finger. I then inked up the sentiment stamp with Dusty Concord and stamped directly on top of the flocking. I loved the result. It was very clean and vivid. I hand cut it in to a fish tail banner.

To put the card together, I layered the background on to a piece of purple cardstock and then to an orange card base. It was then just a case of placing the birds and the sentiment with some Dimensional Foam, though I did use 1/8" Tear-ific tape at the feet of the birds so that the heads kind of popped up to give the card a little more dimension. Now looking at the photo it looks like the little guy on the right has bunny ears! 

Hope I've inspired you to get more colors from your flocking! It can be whatever color you want, or at least whatever color of markers and ink pads you own!

Have fun!

Shona

SPARKLE N SPRINKLE'S OCTOBER 1ST REVEAL

Hi there everyone and welcome to Fall 2015 and Sparkle N Sprinkle's October 1st Reveal!! Today I am sharing a Box card which I made using the new Jefferson Set 745. If you are participating in the hop, then you should have arrived here by way of Marie's blog. If you wish to be eligible for winning all of the six sets, then go back to the beginning of the hop with Jess.

The Jefferson Set is one of SIX new stamp sets Sparkle N Sprinkle is sharing with you today.  These new sets are 20% off until Oct 3.  So once you finish the blog hop, head on over to the store and start shopping.  All of the new sets are available on cling mounted rubber or as a digital image.  

The sets are:
Witching Hour 742  (digi version DIGI742b)
  Cackle On 743  (digi version  DIGI743b)
  Sleigh Ride 744  (digi version DIGI744j)
 Jefferson 745  (digi version DIGI745b)
Wilson 746   (digi version DIGI746b)
Hats DIGI3120 (digi only)

On Oct 3, one GRAND PRIZE WINNER will be selected from the comments left on the Designers' blogs.  Please leave a comment with each Designer in order to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  You never know who the Mystery Designer will be that has the winning comment.  

The Grand Prize Winner, which will be announced on Oct 3 on the SNS Facebook page and on the SNS Blog, will receive ALL of the new stamp sets released this month (or the digi versions, if preferred).

In addition to our regular Designers, we are happy to introduce you to two new Guest Designers this month.  Irit and Jess will be our Guest Designers for the months of October, November, and December. 

 We'd also like to say Thank You to our second set of Guest Designers, Ani and Chris, for a job well done!


The Blog Hop order this month is:
Jess
Belinda
Eret
Marie
Shona
Anne
Irit

(*Tip: if you have difficulty with a particular link, try clicking on the Designer's blog title to send you to their Home page.)

We hope you enjoy the New Reveal Blog Hop as much as we have enjoyed creating new projects for it.  We also hope that we have inspired you as well.  Thanks for joining us and remember to comment on each of the Designers' blogs to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  (We love reading these as your comments also inspire us.)  
I was the latest Mystery Designer. I wonder who it will be this month??

The Sparkle N Sprinkle Creative Challenge also begins today.  There are lots of prizes and recognition badges.  Come check out how you can become a SNS Featured Artist as well.  The theme is always Anything Goes using Loose Glitter, Embossing Powder, and/or Flock.

We hope you enjoy the New Reveal Blog Hop as much as we do.  Thanks for joining us and remember to comment on each of the Designers' blogs to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  

I have seen the Box card used quite a lot lately, so thought to give it a try myself. I searched for a template and found this one, which was pretty straight forward and only used a half sheet of cardstock (5 1/2" x 8 1/2"). If you kept your pigeons inside the box it would have gone in a regular envelope. I decided to let them fly a little so I will need a slightly larger envelope!! I also put in a second insert, so that I had more places for my pigeons to pop out from.

After making the box itself, I began to decorate the outside panels, using the Lace Technique. I needed six 2 1/2" x 1 3/4" panels. One 5 1'4" x 1 3/4" for the back strip and another 4" x 1 3/4" to tuck in at the back of the inserts. I attached the 2 1/2" Tear-ific Tape on to white cardstock and used the lace technique with Pinkerbell and Jasper Blue glitter:

Here is Pinkerbell before adding the Jasper Blue:

Here are some of the completed panels:

Then on to the birds - stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black, the pigeons were colored with Copic B21, the flamingo with RV06 and their beaks were colored using YR16. To brighten them up, I applied Versamark to all of them and heat embossed them with Clear Detail:

Now I had a flock of shiny birds:

I then added Fascination glitter with the pigeons' wings with Brushable Glue, Sea Spray was added to the tip of their heads and bellies.

The Flamingo was decked out in Neon Flamingo (what else?) in the same manner. They were then attached to pieces of Embossable Acetate (1/2" wide in various lengths) and attached with Tear-ific Tape to the front and backs of the inserts. One little fellow was attached to the back of the front and one was attached directly to the back panel. The Flamingo was centered.

I stamped the sentiment on to a piece of glossy white cardstock in Versamark and heat embossed with Mediterranean (one of the detailed Tuscany colors). It was cut to a fish tail banner and also attached to a piece of acetate and was positioned among the birds.

The Happy Birthday was stamped in Versamark and also heat embossed with Mediterranean and the three brads were blinged with Mulberry Star embossing powder to add a little more pizzazz! So that completes my share for you today. Hope I've inspired you to give this Box Card a go - they really are quite fun!

Remember to leave a comment for me before going over to check out what Anne has up her sleeve! Good luck in the drawing for these six sets.

Till next time,

Hugs,

Shona

ONE STEP FURTHER!

So after my last post, I thought .... "I wonder how a background die would work using a die and some double-sided adhesive?" Well, I was pretty pleased with how it came out! I just added a simple sentiment from the Happy Birthday Set 416 and some ribbon and my card was complete!

I looked through my background dies and found this Spellbinder's one (Butterfly Magic).  As the die is large, I decided to make a 5" x 7" card this time. I cut a piece of Super Adhesive Sheet 4" x 6" (as the 2 1/2" Tear-ific Tape was not wide enough) and stuck it down to a piece of white cardstock. I then put the die face down on top of the tape and ran it through my machine. This is how it should look:

Next you start to pick off pieces where you want the first color of glitter to go. For this I use an exacto knife. 

Now you are ready to start coloring! Burnish the glitters in well with your finger tool! I like to use the Velvet Glitters for this technique as they are microfine and cover the adhesive thoroughly. I put some Ballerina down first, flipped the card over to remove the excess off the piece and then poured Orchid Rose over the piece and burnished it in well with my finger. It adhered to the remaining sticky surface to give this result:

I then picked out some more of the "image" and applied Purple Rain:

The remainder of the protective backing was removed, and I applied Cloud Nine. Dump it on and burnish it in. It will not get contaminated from the other darker glitters, as the darker glitters are truly stuck to the adhesive - they will not move!

Put the excess glitter back in the jar!

A sentiment and a purple ribbon were all I felt it needed to be complete. I stamped the sentiment in Versamark on glossy white cardstock and heat embossed with Mulberry Star. This embossing powder is one of the Tuscany EPs. They are detailed embossing powders, which makes them awesome for sentiments, when black just won't do! The sentiment was die cut and embossed with Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Trio. A little Memento Lulu Lavender was daubed on before removing the die. The card front was layered to purple before tying the bow and attaching the tag. Dimensional Foam was added behind for dimension.

I hope I've inspired you to give this technique a try. Let me leave you with a quick look at another card I made using the same idea, but using five dies, instead of one to make a background.

Hugs,

Shona