Sunday, November 20, 2011

More Bling Cards!

I just my got Hero Arts CG211 Magical Background stamp not that long ago, and I was itching to try it out. I love the beautiful swirly background, and I felt it was definitely calling out to be "blinged"! I haven't really made many much white-on-white cards in the past, I usually love loads of colour on my cards, but having seen a few white-on-white CAS cards recently, I decided to give it a go.

For this card, I stamped the background on white card with Encore Ultimate Metallic Silver ink, trimmed it to fit, and mounted it with foam dots to a pale grey card blank. The sentiment 3129C Congrats from Stamp-It Australia was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black, and punched with McGill's Vintage Label Punch. Clear self-adhesive rhinestones were added randomly to the background.

 
The sentiment is from Hero Arts LP221 Very Merry Christmas, and was punched out with EK Success 2" Oval punch. Some of the corners on the background and the card were rounded off with a Fiskars corner rounder punch.

I used Encore Ultimate Metallic Purple ink for this card, and diecut the bottom edge with one side of Spellbinders Nestabilities Small Deckled Rectangles die. A little bit of Stardust stickles was added to the bottom edge. The Season's Greetings stamp is also from the same Hero Arts set LP221 Very Merry Christmas. A mix of clear and lavender rhinestones of various sizes were used on this card.


The great thing about this background stamp is that it's so "full" that it doesn't need much to dress up a card. For this last card, I used Encore Ultimate Metallic Champagne ink - it is a gorgeous colour, somewhere between gold & silver, and I felt it matched the Kraft card perfectly. I diecut the square background with a Lifestyle Crafts Rounded Nesting Squares die, mainly because I wanted the image to be perfectly square, but you could easily just trim with a craft knife, and then round the corners off with a corner rounder punch if you don't have this die.

Monday, November 14, 2011

A Week Of Bling Cards!

Ok, ok, I admit, I've been rather slack with updating my blog, but can you blame me? We have had some lovely weather the last couple of weekends in Melbourne, and we couldn't resist going down to the beach at Torquay - warms days spent swimming, surfing, bodyboarding... my idea of heaven! I may love stamping, but I absolutely adore the beach! LOL J

Anyway, back to my most recent card creations. Interestingly, it's been a week of Bling cards for me. On the Penny Black Blog, last week's Card Challenge was to use bling or gems to accent your cards. Coincidentally, on the Hero Arts Blog, one of this month's (November Contest) challenge themes was to "Bling It Up!" Well, if you've seen any of my previous cards, you'll know that I absolutely love bling, so I couldn't resist entering both challenges.

I absolutely love 40-083 Twinkling by Penny Black, and have used it on a number of my cards (see here & here & here). Surprisingly however, until now I've never tried stamping it with silver ink on black card, even though it is one of my favourite techniques for creating simple yet stunning cards (see some examples here & here & here). I love the dramatic look of Encore Ultimate Metallic Silver ink on black cardstock - the silver is so rich & thick that it doesn't get "lost" on the black, as most other colours tend to. For this card, I decided to stay with the classic black, silver & white combination. Some clear rhinestones were added, and a combination of 3 different clear Stickles (Stardust, Crystal & Diamond) as well as White Liquid Pearls was added. Even though Stardust, Crystal & Diamond are all "clear", they each have a different iridescence and when used together can really make your cards sparkle! The greeting is from Penny Black 30-018 cystalline and was punched out using a Fiskars small tag punch.

I continued experimenting with stamping on black with this card. In this case I used Brilliance Galaxy Gold; although not quite as striking as the silver, I didn't mind the subtle gold colour. For a richer gold colour, the image could have been embossed with gold embossing powder (but I was too lazy to get mine out, LOL). The image was trimmed and then decorated with coloured rhinestones & various colours of Stickles glitter glue, and set aside to dry. The background was diecut from white card using Spellbinders Nestabilties Curved Rectangles. Snowflakes from Penny Black 30-007 & 30-018 were stamped randomly with Antique Linen distress ink and "Noel" from 30-035 was stamped with Scattered Straw distress ink. The edges were lightly distressed with more Antique Linen ink. This was then layered on a black card blank which had been edged with Galaxy Gold ink (this was done by gently running the inkpad over the edges of the black card). Once dry, the tree image was adhered to the front of the card with foam tape. "Happy Holidays" from 30-086 was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black onto cream card, then punched out with EK Success 2" Oval punch and edged with Galaxy Gold ink.

4214K simply ornamental
When I first saw 4214K simply ornamental by Penny Black, I immediately thought that the bauble was crying out to be "blinged!" So I definitely had to try it out for this weeks challenge. The one minor problem with using the bauble image from this stamp is that the girl's hand is resting on one side of the bauble. To get around this, I inked up the image carefully (with Memento Tuxedo Black), taking care not to ink the portion where the hand was. After stamping the image onto white card, I then filled in the blank area with a black marker, as well as outlined the rest of the image with it, to give it greater definition. (I used the Letraset Fine Line Drawing Pen, which does not interact with alcohol markers). I then coloured the baubles with TRIA markers, and trimmed them. I added coloured rhinestones to the baubles, as well as Stickles glitter glue. The main bauble was mounted onto some pink card diecut with Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Frame 4. A piece of hot pink card diecut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 17 and embossed with Cuttlebug Polka Dots was used as the background. "Happy Holidays" from 30-086 was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black onto white card and punched out with EK Success 2" Oval punch. Some stickles & bling were also added.

For the Hero Arts Bling Challenge, I decided to use Hero Arts K5376 Hydrangea. I've had this stamp for a few months now, and haven't really used it to make any cards yet. For the first card, I stamped the image with Memento Rich Cocoa ink on white cardstock. Then I diecut the image using Spellbinders Nestabilties Labels 17. I coloured the image with TRIA alcohol markers, and edged the diecut with Tea Dye Distress Ink. Little clear rhinestones were added to the flowers, as well as Stickles. I used Kraft card for the card base. Although Kraft card seems to be very popular in the US, it's not that commonly used here in Australia and can sometimes be a bit hard to get hold of. I was quite happy when I managed to purchase some at the Picture to Page Papercraft Show from my friends at Envelope Solutions. $10 for a stack of 50 pre-scored cards - great value!! I stamped on the Kraft card with Hero Arts H2365 Old French Writing using Brilliance Moonlight White. The Hydrangea image was then attached to the card base, as was a flourish diecut with Die-namics Fancy Flourish. The sentiment is from Hero Arts CL343 Holiday Sayings - it was stamped with Walnut Stain distress ink, and punched out with McGills Vintage Label Punch, and distressed with Walnut Stain ink.

For this card, the Hydrangea was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and diecut with Spellbinders Nestabilties Labels Two. The image was coloured withg TRIA alcohol markers and the edges were distressed with Worn Lipstick distress ink. Some stickles were added to the flowers, and distress stickles added to the leaves. Half of the background card was embossed with Cuttlebug Seeing Spots and the other half was stamped with Hero Arts CL482 Dots & Flowers. The sentiment is from Hero Arts CL497 Find Joy.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Penny Black Fave Challenge

This week's challenge on the Penny Black Blog is to create a card using your favourite Penny Black stamp. Ha ha, asking me to choose my favourite Penny Black stamp is probably like asking a mother of 10 kids to choose her favourite child (only in mycase it's more like 100 "kids", LOL)... I just can't do it, I love all my Penny Black stamps! However, as I already had 3989K joyeux noel out for last week's Sketch challenge, I thought I'd use it to create this card.

As you can sprobably tell, I still haven't quite had my fill of creating Distress ink sunset backgrounds, LOL J
I started by die-cutting a piece of white cardstock with Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 17, then holding the die in place around the card to create a frame, I masked off the top part of the image with scrap card, and sponged on Brushed Corduroy & Crushed Olive distress ink to create the ground. I then masked off the bottom part of the image, and starting in the centre, sponged Spiced Marmalade, followed by Mustard Seed, Dried Marigold & Barn Door distress inks. When the background was dry, I stamped 3989K joyeux noel with Versafine Onyx Black. I didn't quite like how the image just ended rather abruptly on the right side, so I added a little bit more "branch & berries" with a black Sharpie marker to extend the image to the edge of the frame. I also darkened portions of the image with the black marker to give it more definition. A little bit of Opalite Golden Mist ink was sponged over the top to give a slight shimmer (not really apparent in the photo), and gold & red Stickles added to the berries on the image.


I was still playing with my distress inks when I created this card. Creation details are similar to the above card, except I used Penny Black 3623K quite dandy for the image (which I stamped twice) and 3424D thinking... for the sentiment.
I had a few tags leftover after creating last week's Sketch Challenge which I didn't want to waste, so decided to create a Tag card (to make the tags, check out this post). To create the background, I first covered a piece of white cardstock with Tea Dye distress ink - I did this by just rubbing the inkpad directly onto the cardstock. However, I wasn't quite happy with the colour - it did not seem quite dark enough, so I went over it with Walnut Stain distress ink. I then inked Penny Black 1999L letter background with Walnut Stain distress ink, and stamped randomly over the background. I think the background was still fairly wet, so the letters merged into the background slightly, and are not very obvious in the photo. I then stamped the music background from Penny Black 30-009 clearly in love randomly over the background with Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink. I also edged the sides with gold ink. The finished background was  attached to a black card blank, and the tags mounted on with foam tape. "JOY" from Penny Black 30-087 winter wonders was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...