A citrussy, crafty birthday

Do you get clusters of birthdays on your calendar? We do. I find I have loads of birthdays around Christmas – most of them are my downlines or other crafting friends. And right now is another heavy birthday season, with them coming thick and fast.

This one was for Ruby, who turned 18 last week and is a keen artist, so the Crafting Forever stamp set was just the job.

I began by watercolouring some citrussy colours onto watercolour paper, then die-cutting using the Happy Birthday Thinlits. I covered the whole lot in Versamark ink and then embossed using a mix of clear embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

I’m not a big glitter fan – it gets everywhere and is a nightmare if it ever goes down the drain as it can pollute our seas, so this is a great workaround for me as it keeps the glitter nicely contained.

The card is finished off with some paintbrushes and some splatters made with the Artisan Textures stamp set. Hope she likes bright colours!

Pick a Pattern DSP with glittery embossing

I’m going through a glittery embossing phase, and it all started with a video by Kristina Werner, which inspired me to try some sparkly techniques. While Kristina’s techniques didn’t directly translate to Stampin’ Up!® supplies, the concept certainly did, so I set to work.

I began by watercolouring a background in some bright colours, the die-cut a circle using the fabulous, must-have Stitched Shape Framelits. I embossed the greeting on top in white, then embossed the whole thing using a mix of clear embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Sparkly!

The only ribbon I had in a relevant colour was Crushed Curry, which didn’t quite look right, so I turned to my talented team for some help in finishing off the project, and this suggestion was put forward... curly strips of cardstock. I love it! And it means you can create fabulous embellishments from the bits you’d normally throw away. 

Here’s the card to go with the present – another sparkly greeting and the same fabulous Designer Series Paper. I’m so glad I finally plucked up the courage to start using this paper, instead of just looking at it.

Glittery embossing on Happy Birthday Thinlits

How’s this for a different look with the same stamp set? For this project, I took inspiration from another Artisan Design Team demonstrator (aim high, that’s what I always say), Paula Dobson. It was her gift bag which inspired me to create this funky card; the black really makes the colours pop.

We made this card at last week’s Crafty Friday event, which is a really relaxed class where we often try different techniques. This was actually the only card we made in the session, because there were many steps.

For the greeting, we began by painting some watercolour paper with bright colours – I used Melon Mambo and Lemon Lime Twist. When this was dry, we die-cut it using the Happy Birthday Thinlits die. It looked pretty fab, and you could leave it there, but we were having too much fun to stop, so decided to do some glittery embossing  on top.

We Versamarked the whole piece and added a mix of embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter to create a shiny and sparkly effect. It looks really cool. If you do this, keep your mix made up ready – I use about 60% embossing powder, 40% glitter (roughly!) but be prepared to keep topping up with embossing powder, as the glitter will begin to take over.

The background is stamped in Craft Whisper White ink and, in the absence of ribbon, I added a flower which was stamped on the leftover piece of watercolour paper. Ooh, that would have looked nice embossed, too.