DV #182 All Things Bright and Beautiful

Welcome to Dream Valley’s challenge for the next two weeks, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Today’s challenge is just for fun, as there is no actual prize.

I started with a blank sheet of Clarity 7” Stencil card, and a blank sheet of Crafters Companion A4 black card, a sheet of scrap card., some Tim Holtz dies and some Spellbinders Border dies.

With the scrap card and border dies I cut two fancy edges, which I then taped down over the stencil card to create my own stencilled shape between 1/3 and half way up.

Using Distress Oxides I inked in between my two edges making my own stencilled shape.

Then I stamped some random stamps from Marianne’s texture range.

The little pot with the wildflower is from Tim Holtz, and was lurking in my spare diecuts box. I liked the plain black against the brightly coloured shape. I originally stamped the clarity Congratulations stamp directly onto the card but it fell off the block and made a mess, so I stamped a second time and faux matted it up by going around the trimmed out sentiment with black ink.

I’m entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps - #297 Make Your Mark
Aud Sentimenys - #206 Anything Goes + A Sentiment
CAS-ual Fridays - #202 Inspiration Photo (the bright colours)
Crafting With An Attitude - #40 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz - #422 Anything Goes option Beautiful Blooms
Create a Smile - Moodboard (I chose the colour palette)
Create and Inspire - #75 Anything Goes
Dare2BArtzy - June: Bright Colours
Inkspirational - #163 Use Small Stamps
Less Is More - #374 Bits Box Items
Sheepski Designs - #15 Embellish It or CAS
Simon Says Wednesday - Bright and Cheerful
Simply Papercraft - #58 Anything Goes

CCM #214 Wet or Dry Embossing

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Wet or Dry Embossing. You can enter any project you like, it doesn’t have to just be a card, as long as you have some wet or dry embossing on it somewhere.

I decided to go for both on my card.

My dry embossing is the white panel behind the die cut elements, it’s a Sue Wilson Pinpoint Embossing Folder called Cross Stitch.

My wet embossing is the flower design die cut. I stamped it in three different shades of Tonic Nuvo Inks, but because these dry fast and aren’t really suitable for embossing I decided to try to let those inks dry and them emboss over the top with versamark. Before the various stamping platforms were released (I have the Tim Holtz one), this would not really have been possible. But because I could leave my image exactly where it was and let it dry and then apply versamark to my stamp and restamp over the already coloured image it worked a treat. I was originally going to colour the flowers in but changed my mind as I liked the outline look instead.

The stamp has a matching die  and I used that to cut two green mirri shapes and then used the decorative element to that die to give a lovely lacey effect.

The centres of the dies are from Spellbinders, the two white centres, and the green mirri ones are from a Marianne die set.

The sentiment is, I think, Penny Black, but I couldn’t swear to it, lol.

I am entering this into:-

Allsorts - #472 Use At Least 2 Dies
Back To Basics and Beyond - #5 Heat Embossing
CCEE Stampers - #1824 Blooming Flowers
Color Throwdown - #497 (Couldn’t see that I had to use all four colours! If that’s not correct just delete me)
Crafty Calendar - June: Use 3 of Something
Creatalicious - #141 Anything Goes With Optional Flowers
Dragonfly Dreams - Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers - June: Anything Goes With Dies
Heartful Stamping - Anything Goes + a Stamp
Just Add Ink - #413 Colour
Penny Black and More - June: In The Garden
The Crafty Addicts - #49 Say It With Flowers

DV #181 Add Some Bling

Today at Dream Valley we are sponsored by Dies to Die For with a lovely £15 voucher for the winner, and our challenge is to add some bling.

I started with a lovely new stamp from Craft Buddy’s Gem It range. I did think I didn’t like the idea of specific stamps designed to add gems to but this feather is just so ethereal I fell in love with it. As you can see I didn’t add gems to every little circle. I inked it up with Tonic’s Nuvo Hybrid ink in four different shades as I had intended originally to add some pixie powders to the background, but I loved it on just a plain background so I could have used different inks!

The image is matted onto purple mirri paper and then onto a green satin mirri card. The gems are coloured with copics to tone in with the Inkpad shades and the sentiment is cut from the same paper/card I used for the mats and layers. I used the fabulous Sticky Roll from Wild Spider to back the paper and make the sentiments sticky. I was concerned it might make these small sentiments more difficult to cut but they still cut like a dream and it was so easy to stick them down. No more messy glued fingers and blobs of glue appearing where I don’t want them!

A close up pic so you can see how ‘blingy’ it is.

I am entering this into:-

A Bit More Time to Craft - #69 Anything Goes
A Perfect Time to Craft - #06 Anything Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge - #26 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore - June: Anything Goes
Dare 2B Artzy - June: Bright Colours
Eclectic Ellapu - June: Anything Goes
Heartful Stamping - June: Anything Goes and A Stamp
Love To Craft - #23 Anything Goes
SheepSki Designs - #15 Embellish It or CAS
Stamping Sensations - June: Anything Goes
The Color Sisters - #56 Colour Palette
The Corrosive Challenge - June: Anything Goes