November Quintiles

Well November seems to be rushing by while I've been pondering how to depict the theme of FIREWORKS  which was the obvious choice for the Quintiles this month.  Eventually I had a flash of inspiration and decided to use some of the stamps from  Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) sets - Retro flowers/Vases because they  gave me the impression of bursts of colour in the sky such as would be seen with fireworks.  I used two different approaches here - one using the clear embossing resist technique, starting with yellow card and gradually adding images followed by a slightly darker colour of distress ink, then more resist with a darker colour and so on.  The other one was made using very dark purple card with  stamped and embossed images using various colours of Cosmic Shimmer embossing powders.  The descriptive word was typed on the computer and cut out with a label die.   It is lucky really that I actually got these made this month because it took me so long to come up with an idea but hopefully they will get there in time!!

Embossing Powders

I was playing around yesterday with some Sheena floral stamps and Cosmic Shimmer embossing powders and ended up with this card - would you believe it the challenge this week on Sunday Stamper is to use embossing powders, how lucky is that?  Mind you this is nothing like as adventurous as the work Hels produces so take a look at her wonderful blog to see what she made this week - stunning!!  I started by stamping the flowers using Versamark and a blue EP onto some scraps of Tim Holtz vintage shabby paper.  These were then painted over lightly with some shimmer paint, then cut out ready to arrange onto the background. These Shimmers Blingz came my way a very long time ago as a give-away prize from Craft Stamper and to my shame I don't think I'd used them until now when I spotted them lurking on a shelf!! The green layer was stamped in the same way but using a green CS powder and shadow stamping with green ink.  Background layer was made by sponging Distress inks and spritzing with some glimmer Mist - a very subtle sheen which doesn't show up on the scan..  The butterfly was cut out using a give-away die (from a recent magazine) and this was also painted with the shimmer paint.

Mirror

This card was made to meet a challenge called 'Mirror, Mirror' on Cute Card Thursday blog - to use something shiny on a card. The scalloped circle behind the bird is actually mirror card although it doesn't show up well on a scan. The bird is a free stamp from Craft Stamper, long border is stamped using a Rollagraph wheel and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer yellow blush blaze (also shiny).

Just Magnolia

The third Just Magnolia challenge is another sketch. The cute sheep was stamped with Versamark and embossed with Cosmic shimmer embossing powder, flowers were punched using two sizes of X-cut punch and the scalloped border used a Fiskars punch; ovals cut with nestabilities and the swirl is a cuttlebug die cut.

Blue Rose

I've returned to my Harlequin Rose stamps again for this card; stamped and embossed onto an alcohol inked background using Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder. The flower embellishment didn't quite look right in its original state so I added some blue chalk ink to make it tone with the rest of the card.