SPARKLE N SPRINKLE MARCH 1ST REVEAL

Hi there and welcome to the Sparkle N Sprinkle March Reveal. For my card today I chose to work with the new Lucky Charm Set 776 to create the easel wedding card below. I used chipboard sheets to make my own frame, horse shoes and dancing couple chipboard embellishments. I made a little Faux Fresco panel for the base of the card using the same Copic colors as in the image. Some Mon Ami Gabby Pull Ribbon was incorporated into the card also:

We have Three new stamp sets to share with you today.  These new sets are 20% off until March 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:

Honey Bees 775 (digi version DIGI775)

Lucky Charm 776  (digi version DIGI776)

 Donna's Stylin' Sayings 777  (digi version DIGI777)

On March 3rd, ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will be selected from the comments left on the Designers' blogs listed below. 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 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).

The Blog Hop order this month is:

Jess

Eret

Diane

Chris

Belinda

Anne

Shona

Marie

(*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 do.  Thanks for joining us and remember to comment on each of the Designers' blogs to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  

 Wonder who the Mystery Host 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.


Have you checked out the SNS YouTube Channel featuring Demo Donna?  If not, then you are in for a real treat.  Subscribe today to get all the latest Demo Donna tips and techniques!

So now back to my card. I began with stamping t he horseshoe image in Versamark and heat embossing with Silver Detail. This gave a lovely detailed impression to then color in with my Copics.

I had thought that I would make this an easel card so I prepared a piece of card for the base panel using the same copics that I used for the image. I decided to do a Faux Fresco to give it a more muted look. First I embossed a piece of white cardstock with the Cuttlebug Musical Flourish embossing folder. This was then colored with several of the Copics on the raised part of the cardstock. To be honest it looked a little scary - but don't worry, the best is yet to come!

I then took some Acrylic White Paint and spread it over the entire piece with a palette knife.

Where did the Copic coloring go? Believe me it is still there! So set this aside to dry - I left it over night, while I continued with the rest of the card parts.

Next day, I sanded the piece. The paint on the raised parts will sand off and reveal some of  the base color. Which it did! Now cover the entire piece with Versamark and heat emboss with Sparkle.

Set the panel aside, while we work on the Chipboard pieces. After working with the Want 2 Scrap Chipboard embellishments, using cardstock with my dies just wasn't cutting it (see what I did there?)! So I thought ... what if? So I had a pack of unopened Recollections 40 point Chipboard sheets  - not too thick, but a lot more substantial than cardstock. It says on the dies that it can be used with thin Chipboard, so I tried it and it did:

The frame cut perfectly well and easily using the Spellbinders Label Ten die cut. The Lucky Horseshoes (Poppystamps) and the Sweet Petites - Dancers  (Die-Versions) had to go through two or three times. What I found was that if you turned the sandwich upside down as well as moving the position within the sandwich that it helped. The cuts came out very clean. I would not recommend trying to use a delicate, intricate die with the chipboard. Having said that, I am going to try more dies - just to see how intricate I can go! But this is all we need for this card, so I'll leave well enough alone at this point. 

The couple were applied with Versamark before being heat embossed with Silver Detail. Oh, and by the way, one really good thing about making your own chipboard embellishments - they don't leave burn marks on your Versamark pads! I gave them another coat of Versamark and applied Super Thick Silver to give them this nice shiny look.

The frame and the horseshoes were done the same way - with a coat of silver Detail first. If you do this, then the Super Thick Enamels tend to melt in rather than fly off when being heated from the top. I added some Verdigris to parts of the frame and three of the horseshoes were done in Verdigris, three in Super Thick Silver.

Now for the assembly! Make a base for the easel - 11" x 4 1/4". Folded at the 5 1/2" mark and then at the 2 3/4" mark.  Run the front panel fold through the embossing machine with the Label Ten die - put a piece of card across the fold so that it doesn't cut through past the fold. Then die cut the horseshoe image. Tape the image to the folded flap and then attach the frame to the image - I used 1/4" Tear-ific Tape.

To make the horseshoe ribbon bouquets, I took a length of the Mon Ami Gabby Pull Ribbon R08 and threaded the three big horseshoes to the base. For the three smaller horseshoes I used a smaller ribbon - R01.

Cut the Faux Freco panel down to the appropriate size for the base, to leave room for writing your message inside. Punch a hole in this panel where you want the horseshoe ribbon bouquet to go, thread the end threads through the hole and tape down, before attaching the panel to the base. For the little bouquet, I eased the frame up from the cardstock with an exacto knife and threaded the ends of the little bouquet through, so that the tape, between the image and the frame would hold the bouquet in place.

The couple were adhered with Dimensional Foam, The sentiment, from the same set, was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with Silver Detail. This was cut and embossed using one of the smaller Labels Ten  dies and I edged it with the Coral colored Copic. This was also popped up on the base with Dimensional Foam. 

Hope you've enjoyed my share today, along with the rest of the design team's creations. 

I'd like to enter this card in the 

Stamping Sensations Challenge - Anything goes

Penny Black and More Challenge

.. and Our Crafty Corner Challenge 6.

Remember to leave a little love in the form of a comment on each of the blogs to be eligible to win these three fabulous sets. I'll be back soon to share what I've done with the other two sets - lots of fun projects this month! Here's a little sneak peak at one of them using the same dancing couple die.

Your next and last stop on the blog is Marie!

Till next time,

Shona

STENCILS, BLACK EMBOSSING PASTE AND NEON GLITTERS!

Today, I've got a new technique to share with you using a stencil, some Dreamweaver's Black Embossing Paste, the new Sparkle N Sprinkle Neon Glitters and some Want 2 Scrap Chipboard!

First I attached the TSC Designs Wild Lilies Stencil to a 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" piece of bright green cardstock.

Notice that I didn't tape it done all the way round - I found that this added a more funky, artsy look which went well with the glitters - in other words it was OK for the paste to go under the stencil a little! Apply the Dreamweaver black embossing paste over the stencil. Remove stencil and set aside to dry. I left mine overnight. Clean the stencil with soapy water.  When dry, replace the stencil, tape down again and using a paint brush go over each section with Brushable Glue that you want to "paint" with each color. I began with the flower petals that I was going to "color" with pink.

Remove the stencil carefully, and put it in soapy water, while you apply the first of the glitters - Exulted Pink! Shake off the excess glitter and put back into your jar, then leave to dry - it takes 10 minutes at the most. Clean off the stencil while you're waiting on it to dry.

On to Energized Orange! Replace the stencil and apply more glue where you want the orange glitter to go:

.... continue with Electrified Yellow for the stems and then finally with Exhilarated Green for the leaves. 

Now we get to play with the Want 2 Scrap Chipboard Pieces! Sparkle N Sprinkle now carries a wide variety of words and embellishments and bling from Want 2 Scrap. They are great for scrapbook pages!

Apply the Chipboard piece with Versamark and then heat emboss with Silver Detail. Then reapply the Versamark and this time heat from underneath with the Super Thick Silver (this will stop the bigger particles from flying off the word).

Now how to adhere them to the page? I've done it both with tape (the 1/8" Tear-ific Tape) and with Dimensional Glue, but what I've found as the easiest way is to give them a background to stick to. In this case I chose to use Spellbinders Classic Scalloped Hearts. I applied a piece of Super Adhesive Sheet to a piece of hot pink cardstock and ran it through my embossing machine. The smaller hearts were able to fit on the 2 1/2" Tear-ific Tape.

Remove the protective backing of the tape and stick the word (or words) down before applying the pink glitter to the remaining sticky surface.

The hearts with their words were attached with Dimensional Foam So now how are we looking?

1/4" Tear-ific Tape was attached around the edges of a 11 3/4" square of the hot pink cardstock and then the page was centered on top before being applied with the Neon pink around the sticky surface. This was then attached to a 12" x 12" black Scrapbook page.

I didn't want to cover up, or clash with the colors of the fun flowers, but really needed to make it into a "Scrapbook" page, so I had a black and white wallet size photo made of a photo a couple of years back of David and me. I made a little frame the same way as the hearts using Spellbinders Classic Rectangles Small.

There was an annoying little black piece in the photo in the top corner, so I covered it up with another little scalloped heart. I used the inside of the little frame to die cut it from.

.... and that finished off my page. I was going to do 25th (for a Silver Wedding), but I really loved the look of the flowers and wanted to leave it open as much as possible. 

I'd like to enter the Challenge at Our Crafty Corner with my scrapbook page.

Here's a sneak peak at my next project. Using a Dreamweaver stencil this time and painting on top of the paste with a paint brush instead of through a stencil. This worked better for a card size project as it was more detailed.

Hope you've enjoyed my share today! See you again, later in the week!

Hugs,

Shona

THE SECRET GARDEN!

Hi there, 

Today I want to share with you my take of a card from the Secret Garden Set 773!. I am an avid gardener (to the point that it really gets in the way of my stamping over the summer months!) And then on top of that ... my eldest son Struan, was involved with Broadway as a child, and he was picked to play Colin Craven, the Crippled Boy, in a musical reading of the show, so I ending up learning the story quite well. It always holds a special place in my heart.

Little Mary Lennox  and the Robin were stamped on white cardstock in Memento Tuxedo Black and were colored with Copics: Y17, Y21, Y32, YR61, E07, E33, E13, E35,  YG03, YG67, N4, B32, B95, B63 and C1. The key and the lock in the image were applied with Silver Dreams Glitter and the flowers with Celestial Glitter, after being applied with the Sakura Glue Pen. 

I cut an arch from a piece of Kraft cardstock, using the Spellbinders Mega Ovals Large (stopped cutting 2/3 of the way down the shape, so as not to cut out the bottom - cutting a straight line along the base to line up the two sides to leave an arch aperture for Mary).  After inking this with Memento Rich Cocoa, I then ran it through the Darice Brick Pattern Embossing Folder and ran Memento Toffee Crunch directly over the surface of the bricks.

I made a fun flower, combining two colors Beige and Brown of the Mon Ami Gabby Pull ribbon and punched a hole at the side of the arch to poke the pull thread through and attach with tape on the back side of the arch. The edges of the arch and the Kraft card base were distressed with Rich Cocoa before attaching Mary behind the aperture.

The sentiment from the set was split in two and stamped on white cardstock with Versamark and heat embossed with Silver Detail. The two pieces were cut into banners and were distressed on the edges with Rich Cocoa before being attached to the card front with Dimensional Foam.

A Want to Scrap Chipboard Antique Key 4304 was applied with Versamark and heat embossed with Silver Detail and applied again with Versamark and heat embossed with the new Super Thick Silver. Love the look of this enameled powder! The key was attached with Dimensional Glue to the card front. The Robin was cut from his original image and was placed with Dimensional Foam, to look like he was holding the key for Mary.

If you're interested, the following is a video of part of the Secret Garden Reading that my son took part in, as Colin Craven, 11 years ago! It is the part where Mary shows him the Secret Garden.

Hope you've enjoyed my share today!

Warm hugs,

Shona