Author: luciegcards

You can do hard things

Hello everyone!

So, if you read yesterday’s post, you may have already guessed that this card is another by-product from my first session playing with Perfect Pearls and Perfect Pearls medium!

I was practicing with some Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamps and the butterflies turned out so pretty, I just had to use them! I used the coordinating dies from Sizzix to cut them out so I had a pile of embellishments, all ready to go. I just love how the Sizzix dies always cut very closely to the stamped image, don’t you?

When I saw the theme for this week’s Casology challenge (encouragement), I thought a simply sentiment and butterfly would work well. I stamped a sentiment from a Dina Wakley using Lightning Black Brilliance ink and then adhered the butterfly using some foam pads.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Playing with Perfect Pearls

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards. This fortnight’s theme is based on a quote – ‘Let today be the start of something new’ and Happy Little Stampers is our sponsor. You don’t need to include this quote or any other quote on your CAS card, but we’d like you to use it to as your inspiration! Maybe you could use some new supplies? Or a new technique?

For my card, I chose to use a new-to-me technique – stamping/colouring with Perfect Pearls. A few years ago, I bought a couple of sets of Perfect Pearls, mainly for the neutral colours, but the sets were good value and included coloured powders, a couple of brushes and the Perfect Pearls medium, which remained untouched…. until last week!

I must confess, I did go a bit over the top and ended up creating quite a few cards, as it’s such an easy technique! They’ll be popping up on the blog/Instagram over the next few weeks!

Anyway, back to the technique….

I stamped a Carabelle Studio stamp on some black cardstock with the Perfect Pearls medium and the dusted over the image with different coloured powders using the smaller brush from the sets. I used the larger brush to dust away the excess powder but had to resort to the magical Swiffer cloth for a few stubborn bits!

I trimmed down the card to create a square card and added a Penny Black sentiment, again using Perfect Pearls.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog – please drop by and visit their fabulous creations!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

Simply thanks

Happy Saturday everyone!

I treated myself to an order from Simply Graphic on New Year’s Eve and it arrived this morning! Super fast shipping from France!

I just had to use my new dies today and here’s one of the cards I made! I used the colour combo from this week’s Colour Throwdown challenge (grey, ivory and black) and added a sentiment die from Mama Elephant.

I’m also entering this into the current Time Out challenge (thankful).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

New Year balloons

Hi there everyone!

For this card, I finally inked up the gorgeous balloon background stamp from Create a Smile stamps. I’d wanted this stamp for a while and was so pleased to see it in stock when I placed an order with them earlier this month.

Anyway, I embossed it with white embossing powder and then set to colouring! I decided to try out the ‘Stained Glass Watercolour’ technique Jennifer McGuire showcased a few weeks ago. I decided to use distress markers. Not sure if it was me, but I found it quite difficult to move a lot of colour and went back to a number of balloons several times until I was happy with how they were looking… I have a few Tombow pens so I may try with them….

Once I was happy with the balloons, I had to cut the watercolour panel. I was a bit hesitant because I often change my mind about the design of a card when I’m assembling it….. However, I was following a sketch, so bit the bullet and cut! I ended up making a birthday card with the other half.

I layered my panel onto some coloured card and finished off the card with a Hero Arts sentiment stamp.

I’m entering this into the current Freshly Made sketches challenge and also the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge .

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Distress crayon new year

 

Hi everyone!

I’m sharing another New Year card today! I just love creating and giving these cards!

For this one, I pulled out my new metallic distress crayons! I was very pleasantly surprised by just how metallic they are – the Tarnished Brass is definitely my favourite one at the moment!

To create my background, I coated some cardstock with Distress Collage Medium to make it easier to blend the crayons. I had originally planned to use the Peacock Feathers, Broken China and Brushed Pewter crayons but I preferred the look when I substituted the Tarnished Brass for the Brushed Pewter! Anyway, once I finished blending, I cut the background with a Taylored Expressions Background die – as soon as I saw this die, it just screamed ‘New Year celebration’ to me and I was relieved to see how it turned out. Look at that shine from the metallic crayon!

Anyway, I stuck it to a base card and then stamped a Hero Arts sentiment using distress oxide ink (in Peacock Feathers).

I’m entering this into the current Timeout Challenge (new beginnings) and I’m adding this to the Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday challenge as I’m using two new items – the metallic distress crayons and the background die!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Written in the stars – 2018

Hi everyone!

Happy 2018!

I seriously can’t believe how quickly 2017 disappeared. I’m really happy that I managed to spend a lot of time in my craft room and finally set up this blog! I’m looking forward to continuing my creative journey in 2018 and even hope to start doing some process videos – just got to learn how to do them first! I’ll keep you posted!

For today’s card, I used the fabulous Hero Arts star confetti die. I knew that I wanted to create the ‘2018’ from the stars using the inlaid die cutting technique but I didn’t want to spend ages fiddling with die cut stars. So, I embossed the die onto some white card and coloured stars in pencil, erasing multiple times until I had a pattern that I was happy with. Then I ran the die once through my Big Shot – this was enough to cut the stars and still leave most of them in situ when I removed the card from the die. I stuck it lightly to a card base using Kokuyo tape which I knew would give me the flexibility to remove some of the blue stars and replace them with silver ones.

I used the die with some silver glitter paper and got to work replacing the blue stars with silver glitter ones as per my embossed template. This part was really quick – I’m so grateful I thought of creating a template! I must confess that once I was finished, I stuck a few silver stars on top of the base card to reduce the gaps between some stars and make the numbers clearer.

To finish off the card, I added a Hero Arts sentiment which I had stamped using the gorgeous Delicata blue shimmer ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG