‘Tis the season to be blingy

Put your shades on, people….

Now in essence this is a quick card. In practice, far from it. We went through more reinventions and incarnations than Madonna. I think the problem was that I started with the premise that I HAD to use a gilded reindeer but could not find my large antlered beast anywhere, so used a much smaller die instead. I tried stamps for the sentiment because they were to scale, but the embossing powders could not compete with the blingy reindeer. I only have a few Christmas greeting dies and they are too big for this so just overwhelmed the poor little chap. Eventually I decided to cut one down, just to the word ‘Christmas’ which was fine. Then all the positioning went out of whack. Should there be snow up at the top, or snow down at the bottom? Ditto for the greeting. Everything I did fought against something else!

Eventually I decided on putting all the action into the middle of the black layer to give a border of peace and tranquility top and bottom. I think with such a full-on bling thing it was possibly a wise move! This means my brave little Blitzen is now dodging a gold meteor shower, just to bring some Christmas cheer. I hope we are all suitably grateful for his efforts….

To make this card I cut a card blank in gold, then a smaller layer in black. I used the Avery Elle Falling Snow die to create my stardust/meteor shower in the black card and a cut a gold Tattered Lace Happy Christmas, minus the Happy. The recipient will have to take it as given. The reindeer is a Marianne die I have had for years. He doesn’t seem to have a name, just a serial number LR0179. Seems kind of unfriendly, hence the renaming to Blitzen.

Blitzen was a lot easier to gild than the tree decoration from last week. I dug out some double sided sticky paper that is meant to be used with detail dies to save you trying to get adhesive neatly on the back, but of course if you use it in reverse the front of your die cut becomes sticky instead, ready for gilding. So no gluey mitts this time.

I have to confess that the reindeer is raised on 1mm 3D foam, but otherwise the card is again totally flat and will easily meet the lowest postage charge criteria. Lets hope he makes it through the storm!

 

 

3D Thursday: Gilty pleasures

I have been playing with the Christmas ornament ‘blanks’ my sister made again. I previously posted a WIP, which I think I may have now ruined. More of that in another post perhaps. However, this is bauble number two. Just to explain I will be freely switching from using ‘bauble’ to ‘ornament’ and back again, partially so I make sense to the majority of those I know read my blog. Also, whilst a big fan of the English language and a stalwart supporter of using a wide vocabulary, I HATE the word bauble. It sounds vaguely anatomical, like an appendage or a minor organ, maybe something that is prone to swelling and bursting, akin to the appendix. Got an attack of bauble bursitis. Ouch!

Anyway, enough of the inside of my head for now. Here we have ornament number two. I started off by covering it with IndigoBlu gilding flakes in Winter Dawn. Can I say that this is not an endeavour which should be undertaken lightly. There was A LOT of mess, and most of it was stuck to me. I tried to keep one hand ‘clean’ and one hand sticky but it was just not possible. By the time the whole bauble was covered, at least 40% of the surface of my hands was too. Then the cat came along and somehow got a large gilding flake on his nose. Some comedy hissing and ‘pffing’ ensued. Him, not me. Obviously I did not want him to ingest it. I was pretty sure the manufacturers would not have thought it necessary to include any details about whether it was safe for cats to eat. In all fairness, they should not be expected to! So I attempted a pre-emptive snatch and grab (still with my heavily gilded fingers), which of course Riley (cat in residence) eluded. But I couldn’t assume the large flake was not stuck to him – the state of my own paws were evidence this was a definite possibility. So, the chase was on.

Anyone own a cat? Anyone know that a lot of them don’t like tin foil (maybe called kitchen or baking foil too)? Yep, Riley is one of them. I always thought it was the noise the foil made but, seeing me approaching with hands that have suddenly become reflective from all the silver gilding flakes and glue (believe me, it is good glue ‘cos everything stuck fast), well he was either genuinely freaked or just decided it was a good opportunity for a game. After haring up and down stairs chasing him a few times I was satisfied that he was a gilding flake-free zone. I, however, had added a couple of interesting hand prints to the banisters. Oh joy, I thought.

Back to the bauble. The reason I was all glued up was mostly because I was trying to cover a round object; so, holding it, applying the glue to an area and then turning it meant I just. Got. Sticky. I could have done smaller areas at a time, but I was rushing; and maybe latex gloves might have been sensible, but hey, we learn by our mistakes. It was user error, not the fault of the product. You can’t blame a good glue for being good! Once the ornament was all flaked up I just went in with the sponge and gave it a buffing to remove the loose or partially stuck flakes. This is when you can really see the results of your efforts. So, the orb was now covered and the next stage had been inspired by my thoughts on the handprint on the banisters, which in a way was serendipity, or payback, whichever way your mind works. I had an Anna Griffin ’joy’ die which I dug out, cut from gold card and then covered in Martha Stewart Copper glitter, to match the hanging loop. If anyone is wondering ‘why gold card?‘, the answer is that I don’t have any copper coloured, and if you want a coloured glitter to show up really well, stick it onto something which is as close a colour match as you can get. If you put it on white it just doesn’t pop in the same way and black can change the colour quite radically. I tied two fairly extravagant bows of double-faced satin ribbon, and glued them to the top of the ornament so it looks nice from both sides. Then added the copper sparkly ’joy’ and job done.

Photo taking was a bit of an adventure. It is really not easy to do a bauble justice if you don’t have a tree to hang it on! I held it in the sunlight (I know, sunlight in the UK in November. Put it in your diary!) to show how sparkly the copper glitter is.

I also wanted to hang it though, so rigged up a makeshift hook from a silver pipe cleaner, pegged some black card to the curtain and hoped for the best. Here is the ‘warts and all’ zoomed out shot!

I bought these gilding flakes quite some time ago now and I haven’t used them nearly enough. You can use stamps with the Flitterglu or like I did here, cover a whole area. The tubs of flakes are in single colours or several different colour combinations, some warm coppers, rose and gold and some cool greens and silver with slivers of gold or copper too. All are luscious. Please excuse me, I gotta go gild something. Where are the gloves?