Winter Blues

Good morning-
Nazeema here, coming by to share a little Wintery inspiration with you.  
Christmas is right around the corner and I am already in panic mode!!  I have a list of recipients I typically send cards to and I am nowhere at my quota this year!!  Yikes!! 

 For my card today, I pulled out the following distress ink pads:
Chipped Sapphire and Broken China.
Keeping it simple, so you can see the 2 colors more clearly.
To add a little more something, I  colors Winka Stella Clear to color directly onto Tiny Snowflake Border and stamped onto the background. The shimmer is really subtle, but I think I like.   :)
The Snowflake was embossed with Bahama Aqua and then I embossed again adding a little bit of Ultra Thick White Enamel Powder.
 You can see the cracks in the white enamel, allowed some blue to show through, which looks beautiful in person.

Don't forget, our SweetStamps Challenge is all month long, click the links for all the rules and details.  

Thanks for stopping by today!!  See you soon.

InLinkz.com

Trimming the Tree

Hi!  It's Lisa here today, and I noticed that earlier this week Roxie some beautiful snowflake ornaments, and I'm about to share some more today!  What can I say? Great minds must think alike hehehe!  For my ornaments I have double and triple layered various Globecraft and Piccolo snowflake accents, check them out...

Supplies Used:

Snowflake Ornaments Piccolo Accents	Happy Snowman Piccolo Accents	Enamel Embossing Powder Adhesive	Enamel EP MOSSY GLEN
Enamel EP COPPER KETTLE	Enamel EP 24k GOLD	Enamel EP VICTORIAN BRONZE	Ruby_Red_Slippers_Enamel
Fiesta Sparkle

InLinkz.com

This came together so easily and they look so pretty and sparkly on the tree!  These would make great and easy last minute gifts or just something to enjoy yourself!

Hope to see you join us in our latest challenge: Non traditional colors for Christimas! 

Happy Crafting!
Lisa

Hanging Snowflake Altered Art

I love to make use of items that I’d normally throw out and the main components of this project contain exactly that.

Hopefully you saw my two previous projects using the Globecraft & Piccolo Bejeweled Snowflakes accents set, if you need a refresher you can find them here (Snowflake Votive) & here (Happy Winter Card).  For this project, I used the little snowflakes that are in the set and my "stencil" that I made and used for the Happy Winter Card.  There are 6 adorable snowflakes, measuring about 3/4", that I had left in the set, so I used them up!  

Before I get into the tutorial, let me tell you about the products I used:

Small Snowflakes from Bejeweled Snowflakes   

Stencil I used in making the Happy Winter Card (from Bejeweled Snowflakes)   

Vintage Silver Embossing Enamel 

Embossing Powder Adhesive Fluid 

E600 Adhesive 

Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze 

Frame, 7” x 7” square

White Gesso

Distress Paint in Stormy Sky

Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue

Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black

Fishing Line (or other clear string material)

Oval Word Charms

Piece of White cardstock

Sentiment “Warm Winter Wishes” by Quietfire Design 

I know it seems like a daunting amount of stuff but most of it you use only once.  First thing I did was work on the snowflakes.  I had originally wanted to have one side glitter and one side embossing enamel but that didn’t work out very well. 

I know I could of made this work, but I didn't really like the glitter

The detail in the flakes was a wee bit too defined for the glitter I had so I switched to embossing both sides.  

These are only embossed once - like my fingerprint?

I embossed both sides about 3 times (don’t forget to roll your jar of embossing enamel – it blends all the granules and colors perfectly!), which was tricky because each time I embossed a side the other side grew hot as well and would end up either slipping off or making a finish that I didn’t like.  My solution was to go slower and use a lighter touch with my heat gun; I also wonder if the fact that I have a Weller Heat Gun which is actually made for industrial applications may have caused the powder on the other side to keep reheating so much. When I find my regular crafty heat gun, I will do an experiment and see if the heat was too hot.

Once the flakes were embossed to my liking I set them aside to completely cool.  At this point, I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang them but I had a very vivid picture in my mind of how I wanted the assemblage to look – I thought about threading fishing line through each flake, of tying each flake to cord, using fibers, and a few other ideas.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of having the flakes hang invisibly – so I used fishing line! 

In the picture, you can barely see the fishing line stretched across one of my homemade art boards (cardboard covered with wax paper) and held in place with painters tape.  I then glued each snowflake to the line with E6000.  I made sure I used plenty of line and I matched up the snowflakes so they would all be in about the same place.  I let them dry overnight.

Way too dark!

I went to work on what I think is the focal point of the assemblage, the “stencil” I made from the Bejeweled Snowflakes set – the stencil is actually made out of the waste leftover after all the items are punched out.  This is the third project I am getting out of just one set.  When I made the Happy Winter Card, I had spritzed the stencil with Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue to make the image on the card.  The stencil was really saturated with the spray ink and much darker than what I wanted for this project so I painted some gesso over the London Blue and got the perfect, icy baby blue color I wanted.  Then to give the stencil a bit more stability I painted over it with Glasstique Gloss FinishingGlaze.

Perfect!!!

The frame that I used came from a picture bought at the Dollar Store and had gotten ruined – and the frame was originally black. So I gessoed over the black, twice to be sure it was covered completely and then colored it with Distress Paint in Stormy Sky using a paint brush dipped right into the bottle.  I finished it off with a few light spritz of Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue, let it dry a few seconds and swiped it very lightly with a baby wipe. 

I had already stamped the sentiment on a piece of white cardstock using Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black; all I need to do was trim it up a bit and it was ready to go!

All the pieces ready to be assembled!

Now that all the pieces were done the fun part – putting it together!  This is when I discovered my fishing line refused to stay straight and kept curling up on me.  No fear! I dug into my charms stash and decided that these oval word charms would fit the bill nicely.  I attached one to the bottom of each snowflake line and they worked like a charm (pun intended), in addition to tying the fishing line, I also added a dab of E6000 to each knot.  Now that my curling issue was fixed, I moved on to getting the stencil ready to be attached to the frame.  First thing I did was poke 3 holes into the stencil and thread the fishing line with the snowflakes through the holes, being careful to make sure all the lines were even with each other, then I flipped the stencil over and used E6000 to glue to fishing line to the back so the rows of flakes would stay put.  I let that dry overnight.

The finishing touches are easy – I glued the stencil to the inside of the frame & then attached the sentiment.  It took a bit of thinking and problem solving but I think this is an awesome winter decoration.  I hope you had as much fun reading about it as I had making it!

Another view

Next week I officially start spring, regardless if the weather cooperates or not.

Thanks for reading and I hope you & yours have a fabulous week!

Christi

SNOW PRINCESS FLOWER GIRL

HAPPY THURSDAY! I am really inspired by what the other designers have posted this week. 

I'm very excited to share my first project using the Globecraft and Piccolo products with you today. 

I'm helping a friend with some Winter Wonderland wedding ideas and who is the very next important (and sweet) bridal party member after the bride and groom? Well ---  the flower girl of course!

Here's how I made and adorable accessory for the flower girl to wear.

G & P SHOPPING LIST

- bejeweled snowflake accents LA-100

- vintage silver enamel powder

- aged white enamel powder 

- enamel powder adhesive 

- glastique gloss finishing glaze

- fine line applicator tip

- tweezers (not a requirement but I love the ones I have)

other items - Links provided for SweetStamps products

- heat gun

- extra fine vintage colored glitter

- clear drying glue

- tulle (I used ivory)

- headband (mine is an ivory satin one)

When I opened my package from G&P - I was blown away by the detail of the laser cuts. The bookboard is not heavy or bulky, but it is very strong. 

I opened my Snowflakes and grabbed my pointy tweezers and punched all the excess bits from the laser cut. LOOK AT THAT DETAIL.

Knowing that the back of this may show I covered the front and back of the accent.

The back of the accent was covered with Vintage Silver and the front with the Aged White. (aged white is a wonderful white with sparkly bits - simply beautiful)

I watched several videos previously published before I started ------  the links to the videos are at the main website.

Here are my "QUICK TIPS"
 --- roll the container of the powder several times before each use and after adding the excess back to the jar.

--- if doing both sides - I discovered that a ceramic tile was a great nonstick surface to heat on.

--- on these fine detail shapes, a lot of my powder would blow off with the initial heating - I learned quickly to hold the shape with my tweezers and heat from the bottom until it started melting, then finish from the top.

--- the longer you heat the powder the smoother the finish. (I used the heatflash technique for the white side and heated the back to a smooth finish)

Now for the pretty pictures.

Roll the powder to prepare for pouring.

 I used the embossing adhesive all along the shape.

Sprinkle with the powder (catch the excess on a folded paper - the fold makes it easy to pour back into the container).

Want the finish thicker? Simply reapply the adhesive and powder and heat again.

Oh look --- pretty.

I wanted a bit more sparkle to these - so I used the fine applicator tip with the Glastique GLOSS and added flat backed rhinestones to the rounded areas of the snowflake and to the centers of each of the connected ones.

Let those dry and then to strengthen the shape even more, I covered it all with more of the Glastique GLOSS finishing gel.

I gathered my tulle for the headband and then, using a small flat paintbrush, I randomly stroked more Glastique on the tulle and sprinkled with extrafine glitter. The Glastique dries clear and flexible and makes a great glitter adhesive.

Then using a heavy body glue - I glued the large snowflake and some cutoff small flake accents to the headband.

All that's left to do is add one really cute flower girl. 

Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the next amazing creation.

Life is beautiful --- 

Teresa (aka MaggieGraceCreates)

Piccolo Bejewled Snowflake Accents

Today I wanted to share a card I made using Bejeweled Snowflake Accents from Globecraft & Piccolo coupled with Cheery Lynn Designs dies.  I added Siam Silver embossing powder to each of the snowflake pieces except the small one in the center of the larger snowflake.  I coated that one with Cobalt Turquoise 3D Enamel Gel and added additional gel accents to the rest of the snowflakes.  Be sure to click on the pics a  closer view of the embossing powder shimmer.

To create the backing on my Cheery Lynn Designs Merry Christmas sentiment, I used one of the dies from the Little Stackers Oval Nesting Dies.  It matches perfectly.  I used my Large Parallel Rectangle Stitcher plate to add some texture to the oval before mounting the sentiment.  Finished size is 6" square.

Thank you to everyone who showed interest in our DT call.  We will be looking at applicants and making our choice in the next few days.