Simon Says Stamp Merry & Bright Christmas card and Spellbinders foiled Peace on Earth Christmas card

Good morning everyone and welcome to another challenge over at ABC Christmas Challenges.

We have 3 themes for you to choose from or combine this time and they are

E for Embossing

F for Fussy and Fancy and/or 

G for Glitter

I have a little gift for the randomly selected winner

My first card is for embossing? and glitter

I had a few problems along the way when making this card, but I persisted and think I got away with it in the end. Feel free to skip the next bit if you don't want to hear how it twice nearly ended up in the bin!

I started by stamping a number of snowflake stamps from different sets with versamark ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder so it would form a resist for my inking. I then blended blue inks over the top and wiped off the excess ink from the snowflakes. Here I hit problem number one - the embossing was discoloured by the ink and the snowflakes looked very grubby. I decided to try the old technique of lifting off the embossing by putting some paper over and ironing on the top. This worked well and I now had whiteish snowflakes .... apart from where the iron got too hot and left a few darker marks. Not ready to admit defeat, I continued with the design and added the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp which covered the main browny mark, and then die-cut some snowflakes to add on top. Problem number two then showed up when the added snowflakes (cut from the same card I used for the base) looked much whiter and really out of place. As I had glued them down and was in danger of ruining the card if I tried to remove them, I decided to die-cut the snowflakes again from some vellum. I added some glue to the vellum snowflakes, sprinkled on some glitter, and when they were dry, I glued them over the top of the very white snowflakes to tone them down.

I'm not sure if this card now qualifies as embossed, but embossing happened and I'm not going through all that again lol!!!

My second card is for Fussy and fancy.

I used foiling on this card, which in my mind equals fancy. I foiled a lovely gold indented frame on the satin finish base card and then  die-cut a stitched rectangle from the same card. On this, I foiled the Peace on Earth sentiment using a Spellbinders hot foil stamp which includes those fussy flourishes. I finished off by adding some holly and berry sprigs to add a pop of colour, and used clear Nuvo Drops to give shine and dimension to the berries.

You'll find lots of inspiration over on the ABC Christmas Challenges blog, and I hope to see you in the gallery.

I'd like to play along at

Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge - anything Christmas goes

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge - anything Christmas goes

Thanks for stopping b

y,

Hugs

Carol x