Feathers And Frost Festive Leaf Triptych For The Paper Players PP413

by Joanne James7. October 2018 09:00

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players- yay! It's the turn of the super-talented Sandy to host this week and she has a timely theme challenge for you to work with:

    

Trees and leaves - perfect for autumn and fall, with so many colours at this time of year. I'm on a festive roll though, so decided to go for a Christmas card - still with leaves though as opposed to a tree or trees, as you might expect. I have another Feathers and Frost card for you, but this time using the leaves only - take a look:

 

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

No Feathers ... - The Feathers and Frost stamp set features a pair of robins and poinsettia flower as centre pieces for this leaf pattern, but I decided on this card that I wanted the leaves themselves to take centre stage. Don't get me wrong, I love the pair of robins (and have another project that features them lined up for another day) and have featured the flower on this card previously, but for today it's all about the leaves!

A Leaf Triptych - I decided to create a repeating pattern with a triptych of leaves, creating a longer than usual card (my card measures 21cm in length and is 11cm wide) and joining 3 of the leafy squares into a seamless row. I stamped them in my favourite festive green, Shaded Spruce, onto watercolour paper and used an aquapainter to pull some of the outline colour in and give a light wash over each leaf. When this had dried, I them went back in with some extra ink and my aquapainter and added an additional swipe of colour on each leaf. This is a rather labour-intensive way of colouring, but I think it really adds to the loose brushstroke effect of the stamp set.

... But Plenty of Frost - Whilst there's an absence of feathers, my card has plenty of frost - of the sparkly gold kind at least! I used my retired gold Wink of Stella pen to colour the berries in between my green leaves (you could use the new Vegas Gold Shimmer Paint to achieve the same effect) and flicked some across the surface of my card, along with a sprinkling of gold sequins, some loops of gold thread, gold glimmer paper border and finally my sentiment, which I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed in gold on a vellum strip and wrapped it around the centre of my card. Vellum is a great base to add a sentiment to a card where you don't want it to overly obscure the pattern or stamping beneath. It also enables me to link up with the lovely ladies over at Just Add Ink who are challenging us to use vellum on our cards this week - do check them out, they've some great ideas and suggestions on other ways you can use it in your cardmaking too.

 I also did a little co-ordinated stamping on the inside of my card (and remembered to photograph it!):

 

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 Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:
 
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission.
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL.
4.  Have FUN!

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

So what do you think? Can you use leaves as the main focus and decoration on a Christmas card to good effect? I'd be interested to here your thoughts - do leave me a comment below. 

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

Double-Embossed Feathers and Frost Christmas Card

by Joanne James18. September 2018 07:00

Today I'm sharing a card for this week's challenge over at Just Add Ink where the team have my favourite kind of challenge - a sketch!

I initially thought I would replace the diamond shape in the centre with a circular wreath, until I was browsing my stamp sets and realised it would work perfectly with the foliage square in Feathers and Frost, so I set to work. Here's what I came up with:

 

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

Double-Embossing - I decided to heat emboss my leaves and sentiment on my card with silver embossing powder for some festive sparkle, adding a little more colour with my light Smoky Slate Blend pen, and also added some dry embossing to my white card base with the Layered Leaves dynamic embossing folder. Whilst this isn't especially Christmassy and is also quite difficult to see on the photograph, I love the extra texture and interest that it adds. 

Layered Shapes and Lots of Berries - I added a fussy-cut poinsetta from the same set to the centre of my leaves and coloured it with my Real Red Blends. I decided to use Real Red as an accent colour on my card, both in my layered mats and the many red rhinestones I used as berries. Yes, I used a ton of these sparkly beauties, however I wanted something more than flat colour and love the way they catch the light. Besides, there are 220 in a single pack - so plenty to go around!

Not Just Joy - I used the word 'Joy' as the circular element on the front of my card and completed my sentiment with two more sentiments from the set inside my card:

 

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. 

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

All Is Bright Paper Clip CAS Monochromatic Christmas Card

by Joanne James31. August 2018 07:00

Before I get into my creative post today, I just wanted to remind you that we are nearing the end of the month so today is the final day to take advantage of this month's offers: a free bonus coupon for every £45 spend, redeemable against next month's purchases, and also the limited time Blended Seasons bundle and the second colour assortment pack of watercolor pencils. You can read more about both of these offers here and here.

Don't forget to check out my Creative Escapes Luxury Weekend Creative Retreats post as well - the Bank Holiday booking offer ends today too!

Today I'm sharing a card for the current challenge over at Less Is More where they have a great sketch challenge: 

    

I haven't managed to play along with these ladies for ages (even though they are now running fortnightly challenges which does make it easier - thank you ladies!) but I had a great clean and simple idea for a Christmas card using this sketch - take a look:

 

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

Four Stitched Squares - There are lots of ways that you could interpret the squares in the sketch; they could be quarters of a whole, or individual entities. I decided that they would be four individual stitched squares, to form a base for my main decoration. 

Take A Paperclip ... or 4 - Another new Autumn-Winter catalogue product are the All is Bright Paper Clips - a collection of gold star and tree-shaped paper clips to accent your festive cards and packaging. I used them as the main decoration on my card today - so simple! I must confess I have a ton of shaped paper clips in my collection - I think I might be making a few more of these cards in different colourways to use some of my paperclip stash up!

Keeping it CAS - I stamped my sentiment and heat embossed it in gold directly onto the base of my card and decided to keep my card base and stitched squares all the same colour to maintain a clean and simple feel. My 'white space' today is of course green - Call Me Clover, the new in-colour green, to be precise. A nice Christmas Tree green and the gold and green combo is a winning festive double act in my book!

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. 

Following a visit to a maze yesterday and some overnight camping, we are off to enjoy some watersports and crazy golf today since we are forecast a fine and sunny day. Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

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Hi I'm Joanne and live in Northampton and when I'm not looking after my husband and two beautiful children, am an avid crafter with a passion for all things Stampin' Up!

I must confess that I have never been a big rubber stamper - until I discovered Stampin' Up! that is. I love the fact that I can get such great results with co-ordinating stamps, inks, papers and punches - the possibilities are endless! Join me on my stamping journey as I share the things I love and be inspired to create amazing things yourself!

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