Sparkling Friendship

This has been a fun week so far because my oldest daughter is home.  She is here until Sunday when we have to take her to the airport to fly to Italy.  She was accepted at a music camp there and is the only violist from America.  I might be stressing for a while until I know she is safely there - better yet, when she gets safely home.  I am excited for her but very nervous, too.

We are having an in-house glitter challenge among the SNS designers.  Though I have always enjoyed a little glitter on my cards, I have truly fallen in love with all the sparkly delights available at Sparkle N Sprinkle.  I experimented with several different techniques (see the technique page) until I found what I wanted to do.

This card is a 5” x 7” white card base with layers of dark pink, light pink sparkle, and beautiful green decorative cardstock.  The next layer is dark green cardstock cut with a doily die.  I sponged green ink on the edges of this die and the decorative cardstock.  I cut some sticker paper,  using Spellbinder Label 13 and added Bubble Gum and Burgundy Glitz glitter using a piece of lace to create the design.  You can see this technique here.

For the image I used the sentiment “Being My Friend” from Sparkle N Sprinkle’s Thanks A Bunch set.  I stamped it in dark pink pigment ink on a piece of the pink sparkly cardstock and heat embossed it with Sparkle embossing powder (dont forget to always use the Static Free).  I cut it out with a die, sponged a little ink around the edges, and used foam tape to pop it in the center of the card.

My next sparkly element is the flowers.  These are the same kind of flowers I talked about making with my friend, Bonnie.  I cut these out of white cardstock, using Spellbinder’s Rose Creations die.  I used the three largest dies and the second smallest die for the large flower and the three smallest dies for the smaller flowers and then cut a variety of sizes of leaves.  I colored each flower and leaf on both sides with shimmering water colors.  While they were still damp, I used a large tipped stylus and literally mashed down on them on top of a mouse pad.  I start at the ends and work around the flower or leaf, slowly moving to the middle.  When you press down in the middle it pulls the whole flower together to give you the shape.  After they dried I added Starfire glitter using SNS Brushable Glue.  Go here to see a video of this technique.  After this had dried, I brushed a little more glue just to the edges of each petal and added Burgundy Glitz glitter.  Once again I let it dry, then used SNS Dimensional Glue to combine the flowers.  The painting, glue, and glitter do stiffen them but you can still bend and mold them slightly.  You can also put them together using a brad but I usually use the glue if I plan to add some other embellishment, such as the pink pearls I used.  I added the flowers around the sentiment and added a few leaves.  I had planned to add glitter to the leaves, too, but they were already so shimmery and I did not want to take away from the areas that already had glitter. 

For final touches I added some ribbon to two of the corners.  I had some pink jeweled swirls I wanted to add but I needed to make two cards and I only had one set of the swirls.  I decided to add pearls to the second card and guess what.  I liked it even bettter.  I thought I would still show you the one with the jewels.

This card is entered in the following challenges:

Speedy the Cat’s Friends Challenge Week 61 – Make it Sparkle!

The Shabby Tea Room Challenge Week #68 – My Favorite Things (Flowers, Glitter, Colors)

Stampin For The Weekend Challenge #11 – My Favorite Things (Flowers, Glitter, Colors)

Art Impressions Stamps Challenge #21 – Handmade Flowers

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight Challenge – Sentimental: Sentiment as Your Focus

Crafty Creations Challenges #124 – Let It Shine: Lots of Sparkly Things

Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge – Case (I cased Lisette and was inspired by the flower and doily)

Ooh La La Challenge #83 – Summer Flowers

Top Tip Tuesday Challenge #40 - T is for… (Twinkle, Techniques, Three – three sets of three pearls/three in the three flowers, three in two different corners.  Two tips - Use the Static Guard and how to make flowers)