Author: luciegcards

Advice from a Snowman

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the current challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches – it’s a fabulous sketch and perfect for quick and easy cards.

As soon as I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to use the fabulous new Snowman Advice stamp by Newton’s Nook. I thought I could pair it with some snowman patterned paper, if I had some…. so I went to my paper mountain and found at least SIX different snowman designs! Honestly! SIX!!!

I just had to choose a Basic Grey design. Isn’t it cute? I miss Basic Grey so much. I have many fond memories of being in the Craft Barn in Lingfield back in the day, choosing 12×12 sheets from their new releases…. at least I still have my own Basic Grey mini paper mountain in my craft room!

Anyway, onto the card. I embossed the wording and then blended Altenew and distress inks over it, before wiping the excess from the embossing.

I cut a rectangle of patterned paper and adhered both to my card base. Super quick and simple! I may use this design for some of the Christmas cards I have left to make!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Swirled Heart

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I’m playing with the elegant colour palette for this week’s challenge over at the Color Throwdown – silver, black, grey and white.

This combo is perfect for festive cards, but I decided to take a break from Christmas cardmaking and opened up my brand new Flowing Hearts Stencil by Altenew.

I’ve been looking for a reliable replacement for my Nuvo embellishment mousses which have completely dried up and can’t be resuscitated with any of the suggestions online…. I’ve been testing out Cosmic Shimmer luna paste – I absolutely LOVE it! Very easy to apply and super shimmery! Plus a gorgeous range of subtle colours.

Once the luna paste was dry, I added a few of my new Nuvo Matte drops and a heat-embossed sentiment, also by Altenew, to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Happy 1 Diecember!

Happy Saturday and Happy 1 Diecember everyone!

I’m very excited that my Simon Says Stamp Thanksgiving Day order arrived this morning and I immediately started playing with my new crafty items!

First up was the stunning Alicia Snowflake die. Isn’t it gorgeous. I have so many snowflake dies that I’ve tried to ban myself from buying them and use the ones I have instead. But I have seen this snowflake all over the place and eventually I caved!

I cut the snowflake from white glitter card. The word die is also from an older SSS die set (Happy Winter) and the embossed stamp is from a SSS sentiment set.

I’m entering this into the current SSS Flickr challenge (Christmas/Holiday) and the SSS Wednesday challenge (anything goes)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Puffed up

Hi there!

I’m back with another Crafts-U-Love DT card.

Earlier this month I shared how I used the Studio Light stamp and die set to create a paper-pieced card. Today I’m using one of the dies from the set plus another item I received in my DT pack – the intriguingly-named ‘white fluffy stuff’ by Cosmic Shimmer.

It has been YEARS since I played with this sort of product. I recall buying something similar the first Christmas that I was crafting and used it on Santa beards! The Cosmic Shimmer version is very similar… but my style had changed and I was concerned that the Fluffy Stuff might be a little too…. heavy… for the countryside scene that I was originally planning to make as my second card using the Studio Light set.

In the end, I settled on a masked ink blended background to showcase the Fluffy Stuff. I used just one die from the set and cut it several times before masking off a section of my base card and then adding the trees on top.

I gently blended four shades of distress ink (Antique Linen, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Dusty Concord) and then removed the masks to reveal my white trees! Then I die cut the Creative Expressions Merry Christmas die a few times from card, adhered the layers together and then onto my card. I planned to add a top layer cut from gold glitter card but as I would be using a heat tool for the Fluffy Stuff, I thought it may be safer to add the glitter layer after heating the Fluffy Stuff.

Once my sentiment was in place, I started to play with the Fluffy Stuff. I wanted to create smaller dots of snow, so I tested the dot size on a piece of spare card. A little goes a LONG way.

In the end, I added very small dots to my base card – I needed quite a steady hand as the Fluffy Stuff flows freely from the bottle and I didn’t want to apply too much by accident!

 

 

Then I got to work heating the Fluffy Stuff! Once this stuff gets hot it certainly puffs up – and actually puffs up a lot more than I expected! And that is where I made a mistake! I was convinced that the two small dots in the bottom left should puff a little more… so I went back to heat them a little more. Result = burnt Fluffy Stuff.

 

 

 

Well I guess this would be ok if I was creating an image of a Baked Alaska but this is not the look I was going for on this particular card!Luckily, once cool, the Fluffy Stuff comes off really easily! Phew!

 

 

 

 

Actually, I managed to knock off a couple of my fluffed up dots when I was adding the top layer of the sentiment. So to prevent this from happening when I added some shimmer to the trees, I positioned a couple of clear blocks on the card to ensure my hand was away from the paper.

In hindsight, I would use the Fluffy Stuff as my very last element to reduce the risk of losing some dots.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Studio Light tree stamps and dies*

Cosmic Shimmer Fluffy Stuff*

Distress inks

Creative Expressions Merry Christmas die

Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Midas Touch

Day 26 – 25 Days of Christmas Tags 2018

Hi everyone!

I’m playing along with Tracey McNeely’s 25 Days of Christmas Tags event again this year.

Day 26 is a bonus day with A Jillian Vance Designs as sponsor. As usual, the designers had come up with some amazing inspiration and I was particularly taken by two tags using a deer head with glasses! So quirky! Now, unfortunately I don’t have any glasses dies, but I decided to create my own take on Rosemary Dennis’s tag.

I used an old Tim Holtz/Sizzix die that I have had for AGES, but rarely use nowadays as it’s one of those thick BIGZ dies and has been banished to the depths of a cupboard. So glad I came across it by chance on Saturday and that I can use it so quickly after!

I added glitter ornaments from my beloved Pretty Pink Posh Festive tree die set and adhered the whole image to a tag cut from Basic Grey. Ah, I still miss Basic Grey! Just as well I have a small mountain of it still!

I’ve loved this challenge even more this year! It’s been such fun stepping outside my comfort zone from time to time and using a variety of my festive supplies – old and new alike!

Thanks to Tracey and all the designers who made this such a fun event!

And thanks to you, of course, for stopping by!

LucieG.

Day 25 – 25 Days of Christmas Tags 2018

Hi everyone!

I’m playing along with Tracey McNeely’s 25 Days of Christmas Tags event again this year.

The sponsor for Day 25 was Hello Bluebird. This is quite a new company that has some really cute critter stamps! I have to be really strong whenever I see their product as I’d love to get a set, but I know I’d probably just look at it as I don’t tend to use many cutesy images.

There was so much inspiration from the designers. I particularly loved Francesca’s CAS pom-pom tags, but unfortunately didn’t have anything suitable in my supplies (HOW?? I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF!!), so chose Caly’s fabulous pink and purple tag as my inspiration.

I started off by embossing snowflakes from the Simon Says Stamp Lots of Snowflakes set and a sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp/Avery Elle Stamptember 2016 collaboration. I then blended the same distress oxide inks that Caly used (Abandoned Coral and Wilted Violet) over the tag. I rubbed the whole tag with a cloth to remove any ink from the snowflakes and then added a few splatters of water.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.