Creative Expressions

Fabulous Flowers

Hi everyone!

It’s the 15th of the month and after a bit of a break, I’m back with a card for the Crafts-U-Love Design Team.

This month I received two Julie Hickey stamp sets: Family Sentiments and Floral Fusion.

I pulled out my distress oxides and started stamping! Once I was happy with my background, I spritzed the card generously with water to activate the Oxides and cause the inks to bleed a little.

For the sentiment, I combined some words from Julie’s set and added a die from my collection (Creative Expressions Happy Birthday die – brilliant price point on these!).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Starry 2019

Hello friends and happy Friyay! Although, I’m not sure about you but I had no idea what day it was when I woke up – post-Christmas limbo time I guess!!

Anyway, now that I’ve given out my festive thank you cards, I’m working on my new year’s cards.

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge again this week – and so this is my take using a Creative Expressions stencil, a couple of the Cosmic Shimmer luna pastes and some very old Cuttlebug dies!

I’m loving the luna paste so much – it has a much smoother consistency than the Nuvo embellishment mousse and I’m hoping it will survive a little longer than my mousses!

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

Autumn thank you

 

Hello everyone!

I’m here today with a new post for the Crafts-U-Love Design Team.

This month, all DT members were sent the same Julie Hickey Designs set – ‘Garden Treasures’ – isn’t is fabulous? When Caz told me that we would be receiving a JH floral set I was really hoping it would be this set! It is so versatile!

I decided to make a CAS ‘hidden sentiment’ card using just one stamp from this set. This week’s Color Throwdown challenge has a fabulous colour combo (orange, brown, rust and yellow) which I felt would be perfect for an Autumn Thank You card.

I masked off part of the card to create a square to stamp the images, chose a stamp and got to work!

Once I had finished, I die cut a ‘Thank You’ sentiment from the centre of my panel. This is always so nerve-wracking – I hate cutting into an image that I’ve created… but I love the effect of a hidden sentiment so I held my breath and cut!

I removed the die cut sentiment and stuck the panel to a card base. I then cut the sentiment from a piece of funky foam and adhered the two die cut sentiments together to create a dimensional sentiment – you could also use a could of layers of card if you don’t have any funky foam. I inserted the sentiment into the space on the base card and voila! A hidden sentiment card!

To finish off my card, I added a few gems – got to have a bit of sparkle of course!

 

Some other cards I’ve created with this technique –

Happy Birthday Lovely

Autumn Greetings

Thanks

I’m also entering this card into the current Color Throwdown challenge.

Right! I’m off to see what my teammates have come up with using the same set!

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.

Julie Hickey Designs – Garden Treasures stamp set*

Papermania adhesive stones*

Creative Expressions – mini thank you die

Distress oxide ink

Brilliance ink – pearlescent rust

 

 

Sparkly Peacock

Happy Friyay everyone!

The theme for the current Blog Named Hero challenge is ‘sparkle and shine’. A fabulous excuse to get out the glitter paste, stickles and mirror card….. not that I need any excuse really!

I started by blending some distress ink though a Creative Expressions (That Special Touch) stencil. I then spread a generous layer of Nuvo glimmer paste over the inked background.

I used my go-to inks from Altenew for the Hero Arts Layering Peacock and cut some mirror card using a sentiment die from the March My Monthly Hero Kit. Love that font! Finally I added a few dots of stickles to the peacock’s tail – you can never have too much glitter can you?!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

The world is your oyster

Happy Sunday everyone!

I spent a very happy morning in my craft room, playing with some supplies I put aside yesterday!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge and use some of my city-scape dies. I love them and can’t seem to stop buying them… buy I need to use them! Do you have that problem?!

Anyway, for this card, I used the Poppystamps Urban Skyline collage die and then added a couple of buildings from a Sue Wilson/Creative Expressions die. If you click on the photos you can see the subtle embossing on the tallest building.

After sticking the scene to a blended background, I looked for a suitable sentiment – I really wanted this to be a ‘good luck in your new job’ card. You know, I have hundreds of stamps, HUNDREDS… and how many do you think say ‘good luck’ let alone ‘good luck in your new job’? The answer is very few, my friends, very few. I think I have found a gap in the market! We need more good luck stamps.

Unfortunately my good luck/new job sentiment felt a little too big for the card. So I replaced it with a Clearly Besotted sentiment that I still felt conveyed the same kind of sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.