Ivy Prayers Card

I made this card for the Marianne Design Diva's card challenge "Anything Goes".

I started out by cutting out the image from the MD Vintage Christmas 2 cutting sheet.  I decided to use the square passe partout die as a frame, but needed a backing so cut out a plain square and the passe partout from cream resume paper.  I inked the edges of the plain square with tan dye ink.  I die cut the ivy (CR1253) out of green cardstock and a rectangle of red paper that I stamped with a french script background stamp.

When it came time to put the card together I decided to turn the plain square so it would make a kind of star double framing the image and then glued everything down on a base of cream cardstock.

It was meant to be a summer card, but looks more like a Christmas card (despite the use of ivy rather than holly).

Vintage Fan Layers

I started this card for the Marianne Design Divas Lace and Pearls Challenge, but couldn't figure out how to use the fan pieces on a card with lace and pearls.  So I made a different card for that challenge and left the fan pieces to the side.

Then I saw the new MDD challenge: Layer It Up, and knew I had my start.

So first, I die cut the fan pieces using Marianne Design Creatables Vintage Fan 1.  Before popping the die off, I sponged some red die ink over the raised parts.  I then stamped 3 different flowers on clear shrink plastic using Staz-On ink, die cut them out using a Spellbinders oval die, and coloured the images in using nail polish (it's the only thing I have that will work as I don't use alcohol based markers and pencil crayons, water based markers, etc. don't work on plastic).

Once the images were dry, I shrunk them down using my heat gun.  Yes, they stick up a bit due to the nail polish not shrinking flat, and the nail polish makes the images quite dark, but I like the effect.  You do have to watch them though.  The nail polish on the hydrangea started to burn as I tried to flatten the front of the shrink plastic (it will harden crooked/lopsided if you don't hold it flat for the last few seconds of the shrinking phase).  I glued them on the fans using superglue (and luckily didn't get much on my fingers).

I die cut the label and embellishment from Petra's Large Ovals for the label and fan ends, again adding some die to the embossed parts.  I attached the fan and ends together using a jewel brad.

Since I didn't feel I had enough layers, I also cut out the smaller oval from the Oval Passe-Partout die, inking the centre oval before gluing the label on top.  The dark green oval was cut from the same set, and used to show the intricacy of the fan dies off a bit.

I finished off the card with the dots in the corners using perfect pearls.  I thought the upper corner looked a bit bare and so decided to add the butterfly I punched from shrink plastic and coloured with red gelato (it kind of worked).  The superglue ran over and made a huge wet spot on the card and got all over my fingers.  To fix the error, I punched the white butterfly but it wasn't big enough to cover the spot, so I punched the larger green butterfly and then glued them slightly offcenter of each other.

The card's a lot more ornate than I usually make, but I like how it turned out.

It's Your Day

I made this card for the month's Marianne's Design Diva's challenge, Lace and Pearls.

I glued lace at the top and bottom of the cardstock, then added thin strips of white and silver ribbon.  For the center embossed tag I used Marianne Creatable's Petra's Large Oval.  The sentiment is by Papertrey Ink.   I also used some silver pearls by Imaginesce to finish off the design.