Oh Boy, on my own this time!

Hello and welcome,

Thanks to you all for your visit by my blog especially if you've detoured via the fabulous PaperArtsy Blog.  For anyone that's come straight here, I was so chuffed to have the chance to share some Christmas cards, on the PaperArtsy Blog, that I created using the beautiful bauble stamps from Elizabeth Borer's stamps sets that I helped to launch at the end of August.  The main aim of my designs was to show people who are fairly new to stamping that it's relatively easy to create elegant cards with beautiful stamps and just a few other basic products.

Careful matting and layering with co-ordinating coloured cardstock featured on all three cards to create a frame to display the lovely baubles but there is only one card, as you can see, which uses the stamp as  traditional baubles.

Card #1  

 I stamped a 'flower' from the slim bauble by stamping in a circle and masking to create the illusion of petal layers.  I coloured the petals using Fibralo pens and then cut it out.  I also stamped, coloured and cut out a few individual baubles and after shaping them slightly with a bone folder I layered them over the flower with a little silicone glue.  

I often mock up my designs on scrap paper before committing them to cardstock and I'm really glad I did in this case as firstly I decided that my original was a bit too much (see below) and I also didn't like it centred on the card so the final piece was cut out and attached to one side as you can see and I trimmed some of the petals to fit to the corner.

 

I finished the card off with a metal flower and threaded narrow ribbon through a button and tied a dinky bow for the centre.  The sentiment is an Inkylicious stamp from my stash as I don't yet have any PaperArtsy Christmas sentiments.

Card #2

For this card I created a different style of flower using another of the bauble stamps.  This time I stamped in Versamark and embossed with a metallic blue embossing powder before colouring with my Fibralo pens and cutting each petal out.

To form the flowers I stuck a hole reinforcer to a punched circle of card (this made it easy to keep the petals balanced equally and also gave just a little dimension) and then arranged the 'petals' as shown below.

I created a co-ordinating card matt by scribbling the same colour Fibralos as I used on the bauble onto my craft mat, spritzing with water and then loading this onto a paintbrush to flick onto a sheet of card.  I dried each colour with a heat gun before applying the next one.

I used the same splattered card to die cut the snowflake rosettes and punch out some separate snowflakes and then dabbed them all with 'dries clear' glue before dipping into clear glitter.

Card #3

For my final card I love the shape of this bauble so wanted to use it in the traditional manner which meant I needed something to hang my baubles from.  I stamped out the beautiful art deco style mistletoe border twice and after colouring I cut them out and applied them to the card with 3D foam.  This time the sentiment is a Chocolate Baroque stamp.

 The baubles were shaped slightly from the back with the acrylic wire working tool you can see in the photo.  I've hardly done any wire work but that tool is so handy to have in my kit, lol!  I attached the baubles to the card with silicone glue to keep some dimension.

I created another layer of card to matt again scribbling Fibralos onto my craft matt and spritzing with water but this time I picked it up with a piece of natural sponge and dabbed it onto the card.  This is such a simple technique but very effective.

The photo below shows this layer perfectly and also the dimension to the border and  baubles.  Oh, nearly forgot to mention I put little dots of the Ranger white enamel stuff on the mistletoe berries and dots of white Posca pen on the baubles...... love my white Posca pen, thanks for telling me about them Sam ;-)!

So now I have three beautiful cards to kick off my Christmas card making this year ....... wow, that's early for  me so something else I have to thank Darcy and Leandra for, lol!  I hope you'll agree they do look rather elegant ;D!

Thanks so much Darcy and Leandra for letting me loose on the blog tonight and once again I hope I showed these lovely stamps off as they deserve.  I need to crack on with more Christmas cards now before I lose momentum, lol!

Thanks for your visit folks and if you haven't already been by the PaperArtsy blog do hop over as there's lot more fabulous inspiration as well as my cards.   See you again soon!