Technique – dry embossing

Featuring dry embossing

Happy World Cardmaking Day

Hello everyone!

Life has been busy with no crafting time, but I had to make a card today, right! After all, it’s world cardmaking day!

I was really pleased to see a list of prompts that Susan Opel shared on Instagram as I was finding it quite difficult to decide what to create! I chose ‘dry emboss’ with a Spellbinders folder, ‘3 or more ink colours’ (crushed olive, Victorian velvet and antique linen) and ‘no stamping’ (Simon Says Stamp dies). However, this card took me FAR longer than I expected!

This was mainly down to a few issues with my embossing folder. It’s new – I found it at Alexandra Palace a few weeks ago after looking for it for YEARS (I think I first saw it in Simon Says Stamp in 2014). It’s a wonderful design and embosses very deeply, but unfortunately it also causes the paper to crack or tear in a few places. After googling this, I tried a suggestion to wet the paper before embossing. As I was creating an ink-blended background, I could only wet one side of the paper so I still had some cracking but a definite improvement. And the strategic positioning of die cuts hid the rest of the cracking!!

I’m adding this to the SSS blog linky today – they are offering a gift card and magazine subscription to two winners. I just realised that we have until next week to link our cards! I thought the deadline was tonight! But I’m pleased that my misunderstanding helped me focus on actually making a card today!!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Happiest of birthdays

Happy Friyay people!

My Altenew Watercolour paints arrived this morning so I had a fun afternoon swatching and playing with them! They made using this week’s Color Throwdown challenge palette (aqua, peach, light grey and white) very easy indeed!

I finally inked up and embossed part of the Simon Says Stamp Centre Cut Flowers stamp and coloured it with my new paints.  I dry embossed a strip of grey cardstock and adhered it to my base card before adding the coloured image.

To finish off the card I added a sentiment from My Favorite Things.

I’m also entering this into the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Color Throwdown Celebration

 

Good morning everyone!

This week, I have the honour of being the Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges – the Color Throwdown Challenge.

The palette for this challenge is navy, blush, gold and white, another fabulous combination, don’t you think?

I had a lot of fun with this combo and ended up making several cards!

I wanted to celebrate the 500th challenge – isn’t that an amazing milestone! I’ve only been playing along with the challenge for a couple of years and whenever my mojo goes AWOL I always look back for a past colour combo to get my creativity flowing again! Many congrats to the whole team, past and present!

Right, onto my cards…

For the celebration card, I used a new embossing folder that I found at Michaels during a recent trip to the US. I used dies from My Favorite Things and Crealies for the balloons and added a die cut  sentiment by Penny Black to an Avery Elle banner to finish off the card.

 

 

For the hello card, I heat embossed a Penny Black image with Altenew Peach Gold embossing powder and added some die cut butterflies by Simon Says Stamp. The frame and sentiment are by My Favorite Things and Sizzix/Karen Burniston.

There’s some amazing inspiration from the Color Throwdown DT over on the challenge blog – I do hope you can play along this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Tulip egg

Hi everyone and happy Good Friday to you.

I pulled out one of my old wooden stamps for this card – this one s from Whipper Snapper and has 2005 on it! I think I bought it a few years later, maybe in 2008. You know I have so many of them, but they just aren’t as easy to use as clear stamps with a stamp positioner, are they. However, I love the impression from my wooden stamps and don’t think could ever part with them. Luckily I have a good storage system for them and whilst they do take up a lot of space, it works for me. Anyway, I think I’m going to challenge myself to use at least one a week now.

On to the card. After embossing, I coloured the egg with my Twinkling H2Os – I think it looks a bit like stained glass, don’t you? I then fussy cut it and attached it to an ink-blended strip that I had embossed with a Carabelle Studio folder. The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

I’m entering this card into the Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the Retro Rubber challenge (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Blended eggs

Hi everyone!

Happy Hump day! Can’t believe it’s Wednesday already, can you?

March is really busy for me with lots of birthdays, but I also enjoy making Easter cards as my Easter supplies get very little love during the rest of the year.

For this card, I used the Poppystamps Ribbon and Bow Egg die that I’ve had for ages, but never used, together with some smaller eggs from the Egg Cetera set.

I actually thought this card idea would be really quick but it ended up being anything but that! I didn’t like my first few ink blended eggs, and then after I had stuck everything down, I decided I didn’t like the background I’d chosen. Luckily everything peeled off easily!

I ended up using a background embossed with a fun folder from Carabelle Studio and I added a sentiment from Woodware.

I’m entering this into the current Time Out challenge (bold) and also the Poppystamps challenge (clean and simple).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Dreaming of Cherry Blossom Season – Part Two

Hello again!

Apologies for the two posts in one day, but I was so inspired by this week’s colour palette over at the Colour Throwdown challenge that I HAD to make another card. And I really wanted to use my ‘new’ cherry blossom embossing folder. Well new-ish! I actually got it when I was in Washington DC for Cherry Blossom season last March!

Anyway, for my card, I created a background using Tattered Rose distress oxide ink which I then embossed it with the sakura folder. I added  Memory Box die cuts and a sentiment from My Sentiments Exactly to finish off the card.

I’m also entering this into the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.