Make it Sparkle - Challenge 148 at Crafty Cardmakers and more

Sally is hosting today and wants to see you 'Make It Sparkle' so any form of sparkle is allowed, glitter, gems, pearls, shimmer sprays etc.

Very fortuitously, I was asked to make a wedding card just last week, and theme it "silver and diamonds".

My card was actually very straightforward, as it is largely diecuts!  

 

I used a 7 x 5 inch pearlescent ivory card base and onto that I layered a piece of the same card, with some silver card that I ran through my cut n boss machine in the lattice hearts embossing folder matted onto it.  

Using the same ivory card, I then cut out the bride and groom figures, the congratulations sentiment and the lattice heart with the birds.  All these dies are from Joanna Sheen's range.  Additionally, I used a small tattered lace heart.  I mounted all of the diecuts except for the tattered lace heart onto the card using thin foam pads - I didn't want them to be too obvious, but did want a little bit of height.  The latticed heart didn't show up against the silver lattice background, so I backed it with some scrap ivory card before sticking it on, and it worked a treat.

Next, I chose some "diamond" small adhesive gems and stuck them on the intersections of the lattice in the heart, and at the top of the headdress of my "bride".

Finally, I diecut the intials of the bride and groom using spellbinders alphabet dies, and attached them to the heart.

Because I used heavy base card, it was satisfyingly weighty, and I printed out an insert with a motivational poem on the inside left cover to go inside.  To finish it off, I presented it in a narrow box, that was made from the same ivory card.

  

Challenge 147 at Crafty Cardmakers & More - Flower embellishments

This time round at Crafty Cardmakers, Julie is hosting our challenge and she would love to see your creations with additional flower embellishments. 

She wants to see your handmade creations and diecut, and premade flowers, BUT NO FLOWER IMAGES, or rather Flower Images ALONE do not count, there needs to be additional dimensional flowers added to count. 

This is right in my comfort zone - I really like making flowers!  For my project, I  thought I'd show you  a 21st birthday gift box I made  from a template (Arty Farty, I think). 

It's about 6 inches  in diameter and is ideal for a small gift (like the earrings and necklace that was going to go inside this one).

I made the box from plain white card, and distressed  and stamped all the pieces before putting it together. The request was for pink and purple, so that was the colour distress ink I used.

There are a lot of pieces.... 6 individual sides,  a top lid, an outside and an inside bottom and then layering pieces for the side and top inside and out.  Each side is cut out individually and stuck to a base using a tab, and then joined using a piece of vellum (cut to form a hinge????).  I stamped this vellum with the same flower stamp I had used for the inside of the flaps.  The inside flap cover hid where the vellum was stuck down.

On the outside of each "flap" a further piece of card is stuck - I embossed these with my butterfly embossing folder and then coloured them to match before sticking them on.

I used some of my Nuvo crystal drops to put the faux "pearls" all around the edges of the layered panels (this took ages!) and then attached the ribbon and charm onto the front of the box using my hot glue gun.

I stamped the name and the 21 in versamark and then heat embossed it in silver. Then it was time for the flowers!  I used my Dreamees stitched flower stamps to stamp out a number of varying sizes and cut them out.  Then, I used my chameleon pens to colour them in.  I was really pleased with the shading effect I got with the pens!  Before I made the flowers up, I went over them with my clear wink of stella pen, which gave them a lovely shimmer.

 I used my pokey tool end to shape the petals and then layered the different sizes to make a number of flowers, which I stuck (along with the name and number)  onto the top of the box with my glue gun.