Technique – dry embossing

Featuring dry embossing

Christmas in July 2024 – Day 12

Hello everyone!

It’s Festive Friday and Day 12 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2024!

While I was hunting for a stamp that I don’t think I own last weekend, I unearthed a few festive treasures that I HAVE to use! First up is this Hero Arts/Sizzix Trees background stamp/embossing folder set. The packaging says 2011 and I can’t remember when I last used it… Quite honestly I had forgotten all about it!

I stamped it onto some pale blue card and waited for the ink to dry before dry embossing it. I knew I wanted to use this bold merry stamp as well, but it took FOREVER (and many, many , many glittery die cuts) until I embellished it with silver thread. Sometimes the simplest card takes the longest, eh!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas in July 2024 – Day 6

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Day 6 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2024! Today I’m honoured to be the Guest Designer for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown’s Sketch challenge.

I have to confess that it took me some time to create this card. I wanted to be true to my CAS style but there are a lot of panels in the sketch. Eventually I chose a subtle Taylored Expressions embossing folder to create two white background panels – they’re a bit difficult to see in the smaller photos, but they are there – promise!

I then added the beautiful Memory Box Frosty border that I trimmed a little plus additional die cut snowflakes and a sentiment from a very old Hero Arts wood-mounted set.

The Design Team has some amazing inspiration on the challenge blog – I hope you can play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

All Smiles 2024

Hello everyone!

Today I’m sharing cards I made with some products kindly sent to me by Penny Black from their new All Smiles release. This is a truly gorgeous release with some amazing stamps and dies. I was very excited to play with the teacups and flowers stamp sets – although I have to confess that I was a little apprehensive about colouring the larger images. But having spent a lovely morning with my paint brush, I think I had just fallen out of practice with water colouring! Before I started, I decided that I wouldn’t put any pressure on myself to create a specific card and would just practice with my different watercolours, card panels and paint brushes. It was such a relaxing time and I surprised myself with some images that I felt comfortable including on a card. So if you’re feeling like me, just focus on enjoying the colouring process and you may surprise yourself!

So onto the cards! First up is a card using a cup from the Brew-tea-full stamp set (31-063), cut with the Brew-tea-full Cut Out co-ordinating die (51-823) and coloured with a liquid watercolour. I love all the blooms in both flower sets that are in this release but in the end I chose to use the daisies from the Blooms stamp set (31-064) that I had coloured with a distress reinker. I cut the image with the Blooms Cut Out coordinating die set (51-824).

For the background, I embossed a panel of coloured card using the Rounded embossing folder (65-016), adhered it to a card base cut from the same colour card. Once I adhered the images, I felt it needed a little something extra so I added a branch, Airy (51-423), cut from glitter card and a small strip of green to ground the cup.

My second card also uses a cup from the Brew-tea-full stamp set (31-063), cut with the co-ordinating die (51-823) and coloured with a distress reinker. This time I wanted to do something a bit different, so used a Penny Black stamp from a few years ago as my inspiration – the stamp is called Sweet Sip (30-905) you can see the card I made with that fabulous image here.

I chose a kitty from the fun Fancy Cat dies set (51-347) and the gorgeous Dignified die (51-821) and coloured them with distress inks. I blended some Tumbled Glass distress ink on my card base and adhered the elements – I ended up separating the leafy branches when arranging the elements in my teacup. I added a leafy border from the Garden Edgers die set (51-549) to ground the teacup plus a sentiment from the Love & Light mini stamp set (31-037) and some stickles and sequins!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Cardinal in June

Happy Festive Friyay!

My training for Christmas in July continues today with my card for the current sketch challenge over at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown!

What a great sketch! I had originally planned to use a snowflake die set for my focal point but soon realised that the image would be too big – so I pivoted and pulled out the new-to-me Poppystamps Bird House Pop Up Easel die set that I picked up in a sale earlier this year. I have to confess that I bought the entire set because I LOVED that cardinal die!

I created the background strip using some coloured card, a Simon Says Stamp embossing folder and tons of distress oxide ink. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Red Bouquet

Happy June everyone!

How can it be June already? After a super busy May, I’m hoping to have more crafty time this month and I want to gear up for my annual Christmas in July challenge!

Today I’m playing along in this week’s Color Throwdown challenge which has a very patriotic red, white and blue combo. I briefly toyed with creating a litt;e London scene with some of my older stamps but my dies won the day and so I ended up with a non-patriotic card, although I do feel this could also be used as a remembrance card.

The two flower dies are by Simon Says Stamp (Layered Perky Flower and Cosmos Stem) and I adhered them to a background embossed with my favourite Stampin Up folder called Painted Texture.

The stamp is by The Greetery.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.