Trying something new.

As I spend a lot of time (too much time!) hopping around blogland, I often read hints and tips and technique tutorials, so it is nice to give some of them a try now and then, and that is what I did for this card.

Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw this technique, but I suspect it was on a Make it Monday post. Anyway the aim is to produce a 'misty', sparkly topper, and is particularly suited to a snow picture. I wanted a sihouette image that would give a good, black picture, so I hunted through my snow folder and came up with this circle stamp set by Carolines. The holly is part of the circle frame, and there are several different, smaller stamps to fill the space so I chose the snowman. Once he was stamped I grounded him with a few pens lines. Next I cut around the frame and passed it through my Xyron machine, face down so the image was sticky. Then I carefully covered it with a used tumble-dryer sheet, and cut around it again. (I don't use a tumble drier, but a friend salvaged a couple for me). I cut this out again and then gently shook a fine irridescent glitter all over, tapping the excess off, which left this clearly visible image with a distinct shimmer.

I used a Nellie Snellen die and an off-cut of blue card for the frame. I chose a plain white base card and embossed the top, right hand section with a cuttlebug folder. The blue ribbon was from my stash, and I finished it off with several snowflakes cut with a set of Marianne dies, and blinged them up with matching gems and the same glitter as the topper, applied with a glue pen.

For those of you who don't have a Xyron, I think this would work with a good glue stick if you worked fast so the glitter was added before it dried. You might need to glitter it and then cut it out.

I am entering this card for the :-
Bah! Humbug! Challenge 43:- Snowmen.
Crafty Hazlenut's Christmas Challenge 45:- Bright colours and/or sparkle. (This one has the sparkle. I'll try to add a brighter one later in the week).
Winter Wonderland: Make your card sparkle.
Delightful Challenges: A very sparkly Christmas.
Heidis Hobbystuggu: A Christmas card with Bling or Sparkle.

Here is another little card that I made this week, this time using a Marianne large snowflake die, and a small bird on a branch die, also Marianne, which I coloured to look like a robin. I again used my Xyron to make the snowflake uniformly sticky, and covered it with fine glitter, and used stickles crystal ice to frost the branch. I shaped the leaves from little ovals, so they looked like holly and added red perfect pearls drops for some berries. The background paper is an old magazine freebie from my stash.

I am linking both of these cards to Shirley-Anne's blog to add to my tally.