Butterfly beauty

Butterfly beauty is the theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

For my card I used the Simon Says Stamp butterfly stampset and the congratulations die, also from Simon Says Stamp.

For stamping my grouping of butterflies I used Ranger dye inks ( grape soda,Caribbean coast, electric lime, classic cherry, cheese puff, lemon twist)

I diecut the sentiment oout of black cardstock lined with Stick-it, so it's easier to adhere to the card.
Homemade enamel dots with WoW! melt-it powder (clear is just melt it powder, then embossing powders chartreuse, red apple, lagoon, parma violet)


While working on it, I thought gold and copper and brass embossed butterflies might be very cool, but it's 11p.m. and I don;t want to make noise with the heatgun, so it'll have to wait untill the morning ..I'm such a good upstairs neighbour...lol...;-)

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, see this

Happy Birthday by Simon Says Stamp

The Monday Challenge ove at Simon Says Stamp is: April shower bring May flowers.

For my card I used the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp (birthday balloons)
and the wide gold foild striped background is from the Simon Says Stamp May 2015 card kit (I think My Mind's eye).
Red glitter strip to pick up on the flowers.
These flowers stamp and dies were from Action.I colored them with Spectrum Noir markers.
mounted them in different heights with foamtape.
I like black sentiments, I usually go for black, but maybe this needed to be gold...hmmm...maybe ;-) So I heat embossed it with gold from Papermania.

I added a few homemade enamel dots I made with WOW! melt it powder, I'm so addicted to them, they're fabulous, I used melt it powder and Apple red to create them.

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Challenge, see this

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine, when skies are greeeey... or something like that, I can't remember...
Over at Less is More the challenge this week is: use 3 stamps or a stamp three times.

I've used the Marianne design (eline's babies ec0110) for the boys and the sun and Simon Says Stamp
for the sentiment (my sunshine).

I stamped it all in Memento tuxedo black and coloured the images with Spectrum Noir markers.
I used Neenah solar white for the panel and I've mounted it with foamtape for some dimension.
I've tried to add some enamel dots, but they didn't make sense ;-) And I so wanted to use my new homemade enemel dots I made with WoW embossingpowder, but yeah they'll have to wait lol

I tried to use a minimum of colours, just to keep the image tranquil, so colours repeat themselves throughout the images.


For more information on the Less is More Challenge,see this

See this video on how I made these glorious enamel dots :-)

WOW! Melt it powder enamel dots

Two weeks orso ago I saw a video on Youtube from WoW embossingpowders, making rings and embellishments from embossingpowders using an extender medium (melt it powder) which is essentially a very fine clear embossing powder and can be used as such.

I immediately ordered the powder and it came in a few days ago.
Last week Laura Bassen  showed it and made enamel dots with it, which got me more excited than the shaped embellishments,


I've been playing with the Melt it powder for a few days now. As the Wow video shows I tried my heat gun first, but that didn't work for me at all! It might be my heatgun, maybe doesn't get hot enough, but it took ages and my heat gun protested a few times, also the noise of the heatgun really put me off.

Ten I tried a tealight and one of those teapot heaters, also didn't work well, better but took ages, but at least it freed my hands to do other things in the meantime.


Last night in bed I was thinking about solutions, and thought I might use my electrical cooking plate, or hot plate, not sure what you call it.
I've started at a setting between 2 and 3 on the smallest plate and the powder kind of melted immediately, (once the plate is hot ofcourse).
I have one heart mold, the rose and ring blancs are still on their way to  me, but I couldn't wait to share, because I 'm so excited now the powder melts well.

I used three scoops of Melt it powder and just a tiny amount of coloured embossing powder. This is very much a trial and error process as you get very different results with the  ratio you mix.

Most Wow embossing powders are transparent, but some are opaque, giving  you a very different look.


My favorite (so far) is the Cha Cha Cha embossing glitter as it makes, what I think are, fire opals, so gorgeous.

I've also used Mulberry mist, primary lagoon and primary red apple.
But you can also just use the Melt it powder to get transparant dots, like dew drops.

Since the video I've made more, I'm kind of addicted right now ;-)

My tips:
use a hot plate for even heat distrubution.

spread out the powder as much as possible, the thinner the layer the quicker it melts.
pour from as low a height as possible, to get the most perfect rounds.
The aluminium dishes are so light you can't help but tremble, so use both hands.
The aluminium  dishes get very hot, so protect yourself, I used a paper towel as oven mittens were too bulky, I couldn't even lift up the dishes ;-)

If you're unhappy with the result you can reheat and remelt the shapes, but be careful

as you can also burn your powder, I saw a colour change happening with the clear and cha cha cha, it went brown ish...

I guess if you have a Ranger melt pot that will also work. Not sure about clean up.
You can reuse the aluminium dishes.

I used these shallow pie dishes I found as the houseware shop, this pack holds 15 dishes at the same price of 5 Wow Dishes, made more sense to me ;-)

I have about 30 Wow embossing powders so I'll be busy trying them all, but I think I need more Melt it powder already ;-)
haha

Anyway watch my video, I didn't speed it up, so it's a bit longer, but I really wanted you to see how quickly the powder melts and seizes up again.

Some Bunny is on the way

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: lets do the polka with Lawn Fawn and the CAS Colours & Sketches challenge #169 where the sketch dictated my design.

I changed the orientation of the sketch as I wanted the bunnies to look at each other.

I've used Lawn Fawn Hello baby and stamped the bunnies onto Neenah Solar white cardstock with Memento black ink and coloured them with my Spectrum Noir markers, then cut them out and used the Memento marker to neaten up the edges. Mounted the bunnies with foamtape.

I used some Let's polka paper from Lawn Fawn (grey one) and other polka dotted paper (not sure which brands) to make the banners, the sentiment is also from the same stampset and I stamped it with Versafine black onyx ink.

Update April 26th:

If friends were like flowers.....

..I'd pick you!.
Virginia's view has posted a new challenge with the theme miss you/friends.

My sentiment is from Joy! crafts (cherry blossom tree) and the image is from Lili of the Valley (Fabulous flower)
I stamped it all with Memento tuxedo Black ink and colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers.
I used Neenah solar white paper.

Pretty easy and no nonsens card, which I like as you might know.
Oh a little Wink of Stella on the flower ;-)

For more information on the Virginia's View Challenge, see this

Bee happy

I had the most troublesome time with this theme, I have a few Lawn Fawn sets, like gleeful garden and now gnome sweet gnome, but none of them were speaking to me.
This morning I came up with this idea and I am happy with it!.
I used Lawn Fawn gnome sweet gnome and stamped the sentiment and bees with Memento tuxedo black ink and colored them with my Spectrum Noir markers. For the little flower image I used ranger dye inks (classic cherry, cheese puff, lemon twist, pink gumball,wild orchid and grape soda)

Mounted the panel with foam tape onto the cardbase.



For more information on the Lawnscaping Challenge, see this
The Lawnscaping Challenge #127 is: beautiful florals.

I'm also entering it into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: April showers, bring May flowers, although I'm also considering another card for that ;-)

For more information on the Simon Says Stamo Monday Challenge, see this