Monday Make with Creative Expressions - Blue Sparkle Flowers

And so begins another week! I really like my new life here in Wales as it really doesn't matter what day of the week it is anymore! I am not tied by a clock. I am however incredibly busy getting my house sorted (yes, still !!) and preparing for my first season as a seaside landlady! All very exciting but hard work.

So it is nice to sit down in the quiet of the evening and do some crafting. Mind you sometimes that evening has become early hours of the morning! 

Today I am show-casing a card I made using the highly detailed Filigree Poinsettia die and coordinating stamps. As I said last time, these dies are a joy to work with and they give such stunning results.

I knew when I got these dies a few weeks ago that they were just screaming out to be made into 3D objects and this week I am still doing 3D but this time on a card. 

I started by cutting one of each of the 5 petal filigree flowers using Kraft card.  It was during this cutting that I pondered the idea about running the die through the embossing machine using just the tan mat to create a similar effect to an embossing folder. Now, I might have been doing something that you all have been doing for ages but to me there was a Eureka! moment when I saw what I had created. I had made a completely coordinating embossed background without the use of a classic plastic embossing folder. I pushed the cutting to one side for a moment and went about covering a whole sheet of A4 with these embossed-but-not-cut die patterns. The sandwich is the same as for embossing after cutting. So base plate, die with cutting edge upwards, card, tan matt, embossing plate. I used the same Faded Jeans distress ink to add highlights to the embossed background card. The raised areas picked up the colour nicely.

My base card complete I carried on cutting out the filigree flowers. I then cut out some solid flowers to go behind these pieces.

The flowers were distressed using Faded Jeans Distress ink. This does need to be done carefully as the filigree is delicate but I am sure you realised that. 

The solid flower dies were also given a brushing of the distress ink before sticking behind the corresponding filigree petals with  Cosmic Shimmer glue.. When dry I took each flower and gently curved the petals downwards before sticking them all together again with CS glue.

I cut some of the smaller filigree petals and coloured them with distress ink. I did not use any solid flowers with these as I wanted to maintain the openness of the flowers. 

I then added some of the very lovely Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles Aurora to all the flowers before sticking them to the main card. A little spot in the centre of each flower added that final touch of bling!

Because I am a great fan of colour co-ordination I used the Faded Jeans ink pad to colour up a 1 cm border around some more Kraft card before using it as the matting. Where I had used plain Kraft card I distressed the edges by running my scissors down the edge to fluff them up. 

I created a further mount layer by using the Elegant Poinsettia stamp and the Faded Jeans distress ink on Kraft card.

There were some off cuts of the Faded Jeans coloured Kraft card which I also added CS Twinkles to and used them as decorative ribbons.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this card but more importantly I hope it has inspired you to make your own? 

Kim