Today I'm sharing a card using the vibrant colour palette over at TGIF Challenges and the theme challenge over at Less is More: 

I had struggled for a while to come up with something suitable for the 'shine a light' LIM challenge, especially as I have a distinct lack of light-related stamps, when it occurred to me that I just needed to look at the subject differently. When I think about light shining, one of the first things that comes to mind is the beautiful colours of light streaming through a stained glass window. Paired with the bold colours at TGIF I suddenly had my 'aha' moment - take a look:

An Easter card using the Graceful Glass Designer Vellum and the Painted Glass stamp set! Here's the low-down on today's card:

The Graceful Glass Vellum is one of those 'easily overlooked' products in the annual catalogue, yet has some great patterns and designs that are perfect for colouring with Stampin' Blends. I chose one of sheets made up of vertical floral panels and cut out the strip featuring lilies as I thought this would be perfect for a focal panel on my card. I coloured the reverse of my vellum with both light and dark shades of Stampin' Blends in each of the challenge colours and inset it between a split panel white card front. I stamped my sentiment from the 'Painted Glass' stamp set on the wider front panel and finished it on the inside with the words 'Easter Blessings' from the 'Itty Bitty Greetings' stamp set.

I like this card so much I made another card, this time a birthday card, with another of the strips from the same vellum panel and a combination of Lovely Lipstick, Call Me Clover and Soft Sea Foam Blends:

Here are the visual summaries of the key products used on today's projects for you to pin for easy reference:

Graceful Glass Easter Card:

Graceful Glass Birthday Card:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Graceful Glass 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.X Cm) Designer Vellum (£10.25)	Painted Glass Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£17.00)	Bermuda Bay Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Mango Melody Combo Pack Stampin' Blends (£8.50)	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock (£7.25)
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad (£5.50)

Today I'm sharing an extra card that uses Linda's oh-so simple sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches (you can see my earlier Paper Players post here if you missed it):

The circle could be used in so many ways and I decided to use it to try out a fun new-to-me colouring technique - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Glimmer Stained Glass - I decided the circular aperture would be perfect for a stained glass window using the Stained Glass Thinlits and a technique I've seen previously where you stamp and/or colour onto acetate and back this with silver glimmer paper for a sparkly coloured effect. I cut two semi-circular windows and mirrored them, inset into the circle cut out of my mat layer and backed this with a piece of acetate window sheet. I then flipped it over and coloured the reverse with my Stampin' Blends, using the borders of the diecuts to define my changes in colour, before adding a piece of silver glimmer paper for a sparkly shine. This is such a fun technique and really very pretty in real life. 

Painted Glass Sympathy - I originally set out to create a Christmas card (what can I say - I'm on a roll!), but having completed my window I didn't think it looked particularly Christmassy and since I didn't want to add anything else to it and detract from the window, I decided to change purpose and used the appropriate sentiment from the Painted Glass stamp set to create a sympathy card instead. I don't believe that sympathy cards should be devoid of colour and there is something quite tranquil about sunlight shining through a coloured stained window in a church so thought it would work perfectly with this in mind. I added one of my favourite sentiments from Flourishing Phrases to the inside of my card:

A Word About Colour - I used a variety of brightly-coloured Stampin' Blends to bring my stained glass window to life and I think it would work with pretty much any colour combination. I think it's the use of black though that defines this card - in the definition of the layers, the inlaid detail of the window itself and my heat-embossed Gothic-style sentiment. Black shouldn't be reserved just for outlines and sentiments - be brave in your use of black as a colour in its own right.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Stained Glass Thinlits Dies (£27.00)	Painted Glass Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£17.00)	Painted Glass Clear-Mount Bundle (£39.50)	Window Sheets (£4.75)	Silver Glimmer Paper (£4.75)
Basic Black A4 Cardstock (£8.00)	Gorgeous Grape A4 Cardstock (£8.00)	Black Stampin' Emboss Powder (£4.75)	Versamark Pad (£8.25)	Embossing Buddy (£5.50)
Poppy Parade Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)	Daffodil Delight Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)	Highland Heather Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)	Call Me Clover Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)	Blackberry Bliss Dark Stampin' Blends (£4.25)
Mango Melody Dark Stampin' Blends (£4.25)