Sparkle and Shine Day 5--Embellishment Mousse

In this lesson presented by Stephanie Klauck, I learned something I didn't know.  I have a lot of Stickles, and basically I just use them for accent dots, or for a little glitter highlight on something.  I found out you can squeeze some out on your craft mat, and use a palette knife and spread them through a stencil.  I think they will get a lot more use, now that I learned that little tidbit! 

However, I chose to make a card using the ideas presented in the third video, presented by Shari Carroll, who used embellishing paste applied with an ink blending tool through a stencil.  I've recently purchased some Nuvo Embellishing Paste, and have used it a few times, applying it through stencils with a palette knife which added a lot of texture, or using my finger, which was messy and harder than I thought it would be. 






I was amazed at how easy it was with the blending tool.  Just a couple of dabs into the paste, and it went onto the card front smoothly and easily.  It was much easier to blend it, too.

I was delighted with the results, and made it into a "Thinking of You" card. 

Day Four--Perfect Pearls

I was happy to see that one of the classes was going to be about using Perfect Pearls.  I've had a couple of sets for several years, but was never confident enough to use them.  Finally, Day Four, and we have a video lesson on using them.  Wow, so much easier than I thought, I guess I should have just started when I got them.  Oh, well.

I had a background stamp which I thought would look pretty sharp in Perfect Pearls, so started covering the stamp with the Perfect Medium that came with the kit.  Thought it was going pretty well, until I stamped.  There wasn't full coverage, but I was using my MISTI, so I started to add more Perfect Medium to the stamp, when I noticed tiny flakes of something yellowish.  The pad was disintegrating, and the glue wasn't as sticky as it should be.  I tried to use it as it was, and it wasn't horrible, but there were spots where the Perfect Pearls didn't stick well.  I guess you have to actually use your supplies before they start deteriorating.  The Perfect Pearls themselves seem to be okay, and the brushes are great, but I'm definitely going to have to get new glue of some type.  

So, in spite of a few problems, I got a card made.  I don't like the way the sentiment came out, and I will be replacing it, but not tonight.  I have to think a bit on what I want to do.  So, here is the card, as is, with plenty of room for improvement, but I think it will eventually be a pretty nice card.

A Little More Glitter and Foil

While watching the Jennifer McGuire's video on using gilding flakes, and how she used a "hello" die cut on a piece of sticky paper before adding the flakes, it occurred to me that possibly peel-off stickers would also work.

My gilding flakes haven't arrived yet, but I thought I would try attaching a sticker to some glitter paper and coloring the inside design (coloring on glitter paper was taught in an earlier class).  I grabbed a sheet of stickers (Dazzles Vintage Cars Stickers from Hot off the Press), and stuck it on a small piece leftover silver glitter paper.  It stuck on very well, after a little burnishing, and then I colored in the car body with my Copics.  The color dried much lighter than it went on, so I had to go over the red again with a darker red, because the first time the card turned out pink.

I then foiled another Foil Mates background. I had a lot of trouble with that, first trying one foil that didn't melt to the background, even doing it a couple of times.  Then I tried another foil, to see if a different brand would work better.  Still nothing, so cut another sheet of the background to try that.  Nothing.  Then I tried it again, this time adding an additional sheet of card stock in the stack before running it through the laminator.  Did better, so I ran it through again.  Finally, success!  I don't know what the problem was, didn't have any trouble earlier in the week when I did it.  When I used the leftover silver foil on a sheet of toner card, I had to do it three times, and there were still little spots that didn't take the foil.  I put the sentiment over the worst of it.

All in all, I was pleased with how the card came out.  I liked the idea of using the stickers, even though I'm not a big fan of fussy cutting, and I think it turned out pretty well. Sorry abut the photo, it was the best one, even though I am semi-reflected in the background.

Day 3 of Sparkle & Shine!

Running a little behind in the class, but I'll have the weekend to catch up.  Today lesson was about liquid applications.  Kristina Werner presented a video on Nuvo drops and Shimmer pens. 

I received a new card kit today, and was eager to try it out.  It was the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero kit, and it featured mermaids and sea life.  Perfect for a little bit of shimmer!

I started off by using the included ocean waves stencil, blending the three Hero Arts inks that were included in the kit.  I then went over it again with a light blend of the lightest ink, as the white areas looked a bit too stark for my liking.  After I was done with that, I got out my Imagine Crafts Frost Shimmer Spray and gave it a light coat to add some sparkle and interest. 

I stamped the mermaid sitting on a rock, and three of the little starfish in Momento Tuxedo Black ink, and colored them with my Copic markers.  After they were colored, I added some sparkle with my Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Brush. 

I stamped a sentiment from the kit on the card front in one of the included inks, then die cut the mermaid and starfish with the matching dies.  One starfish was attached flat to the front, while the other two and the mermaid were added with foam tape for dimension. 

 

When it was done, I added a row of Nuvo drops in front of the sentiment to add a little more detail and draw attention to it.  Unfortunately, I didn't think of it until after I'd taken the photo.

Sparkle & Shine Day 2--More cards!

I received my order for Deco Foil Toner Sheets and Gina K. Designs Foil-mates today. I wanted to test them out and see if I liked them.

They worked very well, and I didn't have any problems using them.  I started off by cutting one of the Elegant Damask sheets into card front size, cut my Minc Blue Foil into a 6 by 5 inch section, and then laid them in my folded copy paper carrier.  Ran it through the laminating machine with no problem.  Fast and easy, and turned out very well.  I then used a smaller piece of the foil and a greeting from the Foil-Mates Birthday Essentials, ran that through the same way, and that also went off without a hitch.

The reflection of the foil made it hard to get a good photo.   It is a pretty bright blue on both the sentiment and card front.

I then followed Gina K."s suggestion, and used the left over foil from the card front on a 3.75 x 5 inch piece of toner sheet.  That turned out pretty well, except when it went through the laminating machine, there were streaks on from where the foil wrinkled going through.  I carefully smoothed the foil out a little, and ran it through again, and it came out much better.  The only disappointment I had is that there isn't very much contrast between the black of the toner sheet, and the blue color foil in real life, and looks better in the photo. 


So, generally, I was happy with how well the toner sheets worked, and how well the Gina K. Designs Foil-Mates worked.  Will I order them again?  Probably not the birthday greetings, as I like to use a variety of greetings, depending on the card, and for whom I'm making the card.  That being said, the birthday greetings included are very nice, and they are extremely easy to use.The Elegant Damasks are a maybe.  They make lovely card fronts, and will probably look great in a variety of different colored foils.  But I'm not sure how many cards I would make before getting bored with the design.

As for the toner sheets, I'm not sure.  It seems like a good idea to use the leftover sheets from foiling something else, and the card front came out nice when I tried it.  I guess I just wish toner came in white instead of black.  You can add a different color to white, and change up the look, but black is pretty much always going to be black.

Sparkle & Shine--Day 2

Day 2 in this class is all about foiling!  Thank heavens, as I was really tired of the glitter mess I was making.  Guest artist Julie Eversole made the first video for today, using adhesives, both dry and liquid, to attach the foil to her card.

For my card today, I laid a strip of double-sided tape on the left hand side of my card front, then laid some lovely purple foil on top, burnished it with my finger, and voila!  a lovely shiny purple strip on my card front.  I cut another piece of white cardstock to about 4 inches by 5 1/2 inches, and ran a border die along the side.  I then attached this to the card front, with the scalloped border over the purple stripe.  I think it looked pretty good!

I next laid some double-sided tape on a scrap of cardstock, added more purple foil, and die cut our a script hello.  I then glued that down to the front.  I think it worked for a very clean and simple, yet elegant-looking, card.

Sparkle and Shine using loose glitter and tape adhesive

Learning a lot from my Online Card Class.

On the first day, they also had a lesson on using bonding powder presented by Kristina Werner.  She used it to stamp images, and then added the glitter to them.  It was a great look, as she added more than one color to each stamped image!

I know I have some Ranger Sticky Embossing Powder somewhere, and I've been wanting to try it out, but I just couldn't seem to find it when I looked.  When it shows up, I will be trying it out, and the lesson was very interesting, but for now, I'm out of luck.  Perhaps later in the week I'll be able to do it.

However, there was another lesson, this one by Jennifer McGuire, about making Glitter die cut inlays.  She used double sided adhesive sheets, and sprinkled various shades of blue and green to make a lovely blended watery background for an underwater sea scene.  Very pretty.  In one of her other cards she used strips of double sided tape adhesive, peeling off the  protective color one strip at a time and adding different color glitter to each strip.  She did a rainbow background and inlaid a rather detailed house and trees die.  It looked awesome!


Having some double sided tape on my worktable, that became my base.   I cut three hearts from my front, laid it on the tape, and proceeded to sprinkle glitter on the adhesive showing through the cut-outs.  My idea was to make them mostly red, with some gold blended in for highlights.  What I got was splotchy hearts.  Not quite what I had in mind.  While the result was not what I wanted, the procedure went very smoothly, so I decided to try again.

My next try was cutting out a more detailed heart from black glitter paper, then adding red glitter to the result.  This did not go as smoothly.  Trying to line up some of the detail pieces apparently resulted in  me removing some of the sticky from the adhesive.  I also ended up with some sticky on my finger, which I discovered when I left some on the card front and red glitter stuck to it, right on top of and next to the design.  I would not call this a success.  Maybe I'll try again later in the week, but for now, I think I'm going to try another technique.











So this was not a total loss, I attached the black cut-out leftover heart to the front on a gold glitter card.  That turned out pretty nice.

Another colored glitter paper card

After finishing my last card, I had a little bit of the glitter paper I colored left over.  Using a couple of Simon Says Stamp dies, I cut out a smallish heart, and the word Always.  Laying them out on the card front, they looked a little lonely, so I cut out two of the larger nesting dies hearts from scraps of glitter paper I had in my scrap pile, one from a thin white glitter paper, and one from a gold glitter card stock.  After layering them and attaching them to the card front, I played around until I was satisfied with the way the small heart and word looked.  I think this card turned out fairly well.

New Online Class--Sparkle & Shine!

When OnlineCardClasses.com sent the information about this upcoming class, I was elated!  I love cards with sparkle and shine, but I'm never too sure how to add it without overdoing it.  So I generally just use a bit of glitter paper for the background, or else add some glitter to my shaker cards.

Since I had some glitter paper handy, I started off with the idea presented by Carissa Wiley, and used some Sharpies I had to color over some silver glitter paper.  I used a bright yellow, bright orange and bright red.  The result was a little different than I imagined.  It wasn't as bright and bold as I had anticipated, and the bright yellow ended up looking slightly green.   The orange ended up looking like a copper color, while the red turned into a brownish color.  Even with this, I thought the resulting glitter looked pretty good.

My original intent was to die cut the three words, and attach them to the front and be done.  However, when I laid my design out, it looked a little too sparse, so I die cut the black card stock frame, and was more happy with the result.


I did have a little trouble with the die cuts.  While they looked like they were cut all the way through to the back, apparently there was a thin layer of some sort of adhesive to attach the glitter to the base card stock, which did not cut through in some places.  The card stock was cut through, the glitter itself wasn't a problem, but that adhesive just stretched instead of being cut through in several places. The most troublesome places like the cut outs in the middle of some of the letters, or the skinny indents, such as between the g and h in laugh.

It took me longer to get the words cut out cleanly, then all the rest of the card put together, including the coloring. I believe the next time I will look for my metal plate and see if using that helps at all.