Welcome to Paris!

Next month, my better half and I will be travelling from Nova Scotia to Europe with several friends. These friends form a group of eight; we often enjoy dinner parties with one another, and our tradition is to spend every New Year's Eve together. So I wanted to create a little "purse-something card" to give the gals at our "Pre-vacation dinner party," coming up soon. We'll be visiting Paris, Nice (French Riviera), Cinque Terre (Italian Riviera) and Rome over a period of nearly a month. Our dinner party's theme is "all things Paris."

Although one of the challenges needed some distressing (which is ALWAYS an extra challenge for me!), I had such FUN with this project! I created four of these, three for gal-friends, and one for a local paper crafting shop.

Sooo...I browsed through all the current challenges, and decided on these:

The Crazy Amigo challenge is "welcome" (to Paris!)
The Cuttlebug challenge is to create a "scene" card (Eiffel Tower)
The Wednesday Stamper challenge is "paisley" (inside pocket)
The Ready Set Stamp challenge is to use the following ingredients: cork, the colour blue, a monument, the Cuttlewax technique, and a metal embellishment

Isa's done an easy tutorial on the Cuttlewax technique, on a post dated Aug 12th. (An added bonus is a pic of her "favourite helper elf," her little daughter Melissa)

So, this is what I did: I used a piece of the new Basic Grey lace medallion paper first.

It was actually nicely distressed as it was, but I Cuttlebugged the Swiss Dots folder on waxed paper, then ironed it onto the lace medallion (sandwiched with another piece of cardstock), then distressed it with Tim Holtz Broken China ink.

Then I stamped this Crafty Individuals stamp on a piece of cork paper with the same colour ink, mounted it on the Basic Grey lace medallion, then mounted that on another cork panel. Crafty Individuals stamps lend themselves so well to distressed work. The tower image is very faint, which is just what I wanted. I used some pretty ribbon from Michael's, the Fleur di lis emblems are glittered with rust...very pretty! I picked up the rust again with a small circle of rust textured paper underneath the stamped image. I added a Fleur di Lis metal embellishment from Frost Creek Charms.

I stamped and embossed a couple of paisleys on an inside pocket, coloured with a little Sakura Glaze ink, added some note paper and a pen, then a greeting on the back...et voila!

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit today.

Created by Hand Challenge

The current Created by Hand challenge is to use a favourite background. I'm enjoying glitters with brass stencils these days, so here's one I did for a young friend, who's just recently started card making. I used a Dreamweaver brass stencil with this double sided tape, and a mixture of different Glitter Ritz glitters and Martha Stewart glitters, along with a Quietfire Design sentiment stamp, some crystals and pearls, and a Martha Stewart border punch.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today.

Challenges!

Well, it's been two weeks since I posted anything here. I've been enjoying visiting grandkidlets, and haven't spent any time at all in my happy room, so it was fun to get back here.

This project was created to meet several challenges, but the initial conception was about my little grandson's current obsession with spiders. Connor is three years old, and this will be going in the post to him later this week. It's designed to hold a battery operated flickering candle.

Here are some pics of three year old Connor (wearing green and red shirts) with his five year old brother Avery, at White Point Beach in Nova Scotia last week. They're such FUN little boys!

So, on to the challenges! I started this one a couple of days ago with the current Gothic Arch challenge, which is Edgar Allan Poe (the ravens reflect that). The current Saturday Surprise challenge is to use a different shape. The Papertake Weekly challenge is to reflect the seasons, so here's fall and Halloween! Over at Our Creative Corner, they want us to comemmorate harvest time, and at SAWO, the challenge is to use texture paint.

I started with a 12 by 12 piece of chipboard, cut the three arch shapes in a continuous fashion, gessoed and painted them with Lumiere Burnt Orange, then used the Dreamweaver spider web and spider templates with Dreamweaver Black Matte embossing paste. I paste embossed the spiders on acetate and glued them to the inside Spellbinders-cut ovals. Then I thermal embossed the Quietfire Design crows and word with Tsukineko Black embossing powder, added lots of glitter and little wooden buttons which were painted with gold Lumiere for feet...and it was finished! I made one of these for a favourite local paper crafting shop too..."The Cutting Garden." They're such FUN to do!

Thanks SO much for taking the time to stop by today!