LIMES: JOY

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (red, white, green, peach), Techniques (die cutting), Elements (grid of circles, florals, die cut sentiment, gems, stitching)

INCLUDE: red white green, die cutting, grid, die cut sentiment, gems

MODIFY: added pink and blue, changed patterned paper circles to hand-coloured 'wreaths', added black frame

EXCLUDE: stitching, peach, floral

I love grids and I love geometrics, so I was immediately drawn to this pretty inspiration. 

I kind of discovered this die cut 'wreath' shape by accident by combining two of the dies in the Mandala Quad die set. I coloured them with Copics, using lighter and darker shades of each colour to create the look of dimension.

I couldn't resist trying to make one on a black background for a different look:

Finishing Touches

Today, I'm sharing some fun ideas for simple and not-so-simple snowflake themed cards, featuring some clever ways to add finishing touches that you may not have thought of! 

LIMES: Ribbon Tree Christmas

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (white, red, green, ), Techniques (die cutting), Elements (3 festive red and green patterned shopping bags with tissue, horizontal ribbon, die cut 3 word sentiment, embossed background)

INCLUDE: red, white, green, 3 focal images, landscape orientation, sentiment along the bottom

MODIFY: die cut bags are now stenciled Christmas trees, sentiment is stamped

EXCLUDE: embossing, ribbon

SPIN: gold splatter instead of embossed polkadots.

I have this Ribbon Twirl Tree stencil from Trinity stamps that I've never used, and I thought it would be perfect to imitate the plaid bags on Sarah's card.

But the stencil is designed to create one tree that fits an A2 card. I turned my card landscape (uncomfortable for me! lol!) and masked off the bottom inch of my panel, and just used the upper portion of the stencil to create 3 smaller trees.

I added more inkblending to the outside trees to make them more solid and green, much like the 2 outside shopping bags..

AND I ended up with smudges - nothing fatal, just little bits of 'misplaced ink'. The answer to this is always gold watercolour splatter! And the splatter kind of works to take the place of Sarah's embossed polka dots.

Holiday Magic

Christmas is magic, isn't it? And so is this cheap little product that can completely transform your favourite crafty supplies (and other household items, too!)!

I'm part of a Holiday Magic Video hop today - once you've watched my video, you can hop along for even more magical inspiration!

LIMES - Gel Noel

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (white, silver), Techniques (heat embossing, dry embossing), Elements (embossed background, LOVE theme, 4 letters in a grid, monochrome, square focal/sentiment, silver frames)

INCLUDE: heat embossing, dry embossing, 4 letter grid

MODIFY: used metallic rainbow colours, die cutting instead of stamp/embossing for grid (got 2 cards with the die cuts!), put heat embossing on the background and dry embossing on the grid

EXCLUDE: 

SPIN: square card

I love grids and I love squares, so elegant wedding card is right up my alley. I used an old gel print, cut into squares and then die cut my letters from the squares. Then I used an embossing folder on the square letters to add interest and dimension.

I heat embossed clear stripes onto a black square panel for my background - it's subtle but the embossing shines through the holes in the squares.

I popped up the square letters and instead of using the letter centres, I strategically placed some golden illusion gems to act as the centres and add some sparkle.

Then I used the letters themselves to make another card! Gotta love a 2-for-1!

Bricks in the Wall (Getting More from a Coverplate Die)

Today I'm sharing 3 cards that show ways to STRETCH a cover plate die!

If you watch the video, you'll see these 2 'extra' cards  using the Brick Coverplate: 

If you want to learn more about how I made them, using the Bricks coverplate, click here to go to Jillian's Blog.

LIMES: Merry Mandala

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper, Jessica!

LIST: Colours (blue, brown, white), Techniques (stamping, die cutting), Elements (layered mandala focal image, oval sentiment strip over ribbon, flourish in background, shimmery embellishments)

INCLUDE: die cutting, layered mandala, flourish, embellishments

MODIFY: colours to reds/greens, 2 shades of each colour for dimension, stenciling instead of stamping, metallic embossed sentiment in the centre

EXCLUDE: ribbon

SPIN: 4.25" square card

I remember this old Stampin' Up set - it's really pretty and versatile, as Jessica showed with her two ATCs with reversed colour schemes.

Blue and brown are completely out of my comfort zone, and it's Christmas card making time, so I went with a more festive colour combination. I blended my inks through a small 4 layered mandala stencil from Waffle Flower and then cut it with the coordinating dies. 

My flourish background is a tone-on-tone stenciled pattern using my 2 red inks with gold watercolour splattered over top.

My sentiment is gold embossing on Inca gold cardstock, and as a finishing touch, I added gold pearls.