Parchment with Dragonflies

As I said the other day it is many years since I did any parchment work and now that I've come back to it I'm wondering why it took me so long.  I have to admit that things are so much easier these days with the wonderful Groovi system from Clarity Stamps which does away with the (for me anyway) very tedious business of tracing images.  I don't think this system really takes anything away from the pleasure of actual parchment crafting because once the image is traced you have freedom to emboss, snip, incorporate intricate lace work etc as the fancy takes you and as your skill, and patience, allow.

I have a small selection of Groovi items and this is more or less my first effort where I thought I'd go for something fairly simple to begin with and hopefully as time passes and I get going I can get back into some grid work and cutting although I will certainly have to practise these particular skills before they will be fit to be seen.

Enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend - you can maybe guess what I might be doing at least for some of the time!!

Various Groovi plates used
Colouring done from the back using Distress markers

Rudolph Days - August

It seems to be time  again for the Rudolph Days challenge - my how this month has just rushed by and I'm not too sure where the days went really.  Anyway I have another Christmas card which should fit the bill.  This time it is a DL size with three leaping reindeer.  I used a scrap of patterned paper for the sky and a torn strip of white card for the snow.  The reindeer and the greeting have been popped onto a silver pearl background and once the die cutting and layering were done this was a fairly quick card to make.  I simply popped tiny pieces of blue card between the reindeer layers so that they showed through on the details .

Reindeer - Tonic dies
Sentiment - Tonic dies

Leftovers

I must say it took me a while to realise that if I was careful when placing dies onto card before cutting them the 'waste' could be saved and used for another project.  Of course it doesn't work with all dies but many of them leave usable pieces.  This card was made using one such piece - the black layer - along with some scraps of paper which had been coloured using Pixie powders.  There was enough of this coloured piece to layer behind the black so that it showed through the apertures and also a tiny piece left which was enough to cut the top layer of the butterfly and a small circle for one of the sentiment layers.  A purple scrap was used to die cut a border and also a butterfly layer and circle for the sentiment.  Waste not, want not as they say!!

Floral die - Wild flowers set by Tim Holtz
Border and butterfly - not sure as these were lying unused on my desk

Pixie Snippets Weeks 295 and 296

Despite Di's opening remarks on the Playground post this week she has made a beautiful card for us as inspiration to use up our own snippets and as always has given us details of how the result was achieved with hints and tips as well thrown in.  Just follow the link in my next paragraph to take a look and maybe use up some of your own snippets to enter for an opportunity to have your name put into the draw for the prize - of course you can just play along for fun if you already have these super items.

I decided to make another Christmas card for the Playground challenge this time around and actually dusted the cobwebs off my parchment tools to use up some vellum snippets.  I've made some poinsettias by die cutting them from the vellum and then embossing in the traditional way using ball tools which I quite enjoyed after a seriously long break of several years since I last did any of this type of thing.  This is such a relaxing activity and I'm really not sure why the tools have lain abandoned for such a length of time and you could be seeing more parchment work from me at some point.

A piece of background paper was printed and trimmed to fit the card; two circular frames were cut from snippets of red and gold card; a sentiment stamped onto another snippet and die cut into a banner; greenery die cut from even smaller snippets of card and then the card was assembled adding two layered poinsettias with some gold Stickles for centres.  Cutting the circular frames has of course left me with two smaller red and gold circles to use on another card or two.

Background - printed from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD
Banner - Sue Wilson stitched banners die with stamp from Stampin' Up
Greenery - Tim Holtz Festive greenery die set
Poinsettias - Marianne dies from many years ago, not sure if they are still available
Frames - circle dies from Spellbinders

Colour on Black

While I was playing around with black card and coloured pencils I made this card as well as the one I showed recently.  This time I used another stamp from way back which has always been a favourite but again not used for a while.  I used the same technique, stamping with Versamark and embossing with clear detail powder before colouring the image using coloured pencils.  The panel was cut to a narrow width with opposing corners rounded before adding another layer behind cut in the same way.  The sentiment was stamped directly onto the background paper - good old Misti aided the placement.  Finally I wrapped some twine around the panel and used some scraps of card to die cut a short border which was backed with an even smaller scrap of patterned paper.  The scrap was cut to width first using an edge die before cutting the trellis detail using a different die.

Stamp - Poppy seed heads from Chocolate Baroque
Paper - printed from Artylicious Essence of Nature CD
Sentiment - also from a Chocolate Baroque set of stamps
Border - Sue Wilson die for trellis and Stitched scallop edge die from Die-namics
Pencils - Polychromos

Robin

My pile of Christmas cards is growing and now includes this one made with an image from Lili of the Valley featuring this robin amongst the berried branches.  Colouring was done with pencils and the backing paper was from my stash.  A piece of pleated ribbon and printed sentiment were added and the snow on the branches was glittered although I'm not sure it shows here.

Image - from Lili of the Valley
Sentiment - free download from Netty's Cards
Pleated Ribbon - Stampin' Up from way back (no longer available)
Square Dies - Tonic scalloped square, Sue Wilson Noble Pierced square

Frosty Trees

It does seem odd thinking about Christmas cards when the sun is shining from a clear blue sky but most of us seem to need quite a few and it wouldn't be the best of ideas to leave the making until December - I'd hate to be forced to go out and actually buy cards!!  I had a play with some of my favourite Pixie powder yesterday in just the one colour but once dry the particles separate out to show others.  Water colour paper was used and while it was all quite wet I sprinkled with sea salt flakes and left to dry thoroughly before brushing off the flakes.  A tree die was cut twice using pearl card and partially overlapped behind a stitched hillside strip.  All that was  necessary then was to pop this onto the 'sky', add a word and we have a relatively simple Christmas card.  The letters for the word were cut from a scrap of the 'Pixied' background.

Pixie Powder - midnight blue
Trees - evergreen trees die from Sheena Douglass
Snowscape - stitched hillside die from Lawn Fawn
Word - Brushed Alphabet dies from Sizzix
White Card - Centura Pearl from Crafter's Companion