more snow

Hi, my friends. Yes, we are getting more S.N.O.W.! It's been snowing all day, but I don't think we've seen anything yet. We are supposed to have blizzard conditions heading our way. I went out an hour ago and shoveled down one side of the drive, so it would be easier for DH to get in.

I made a card today for the technique challenge on SCS, which was heat embossing on dry embossing. That part of the card probably took me about two minutes. However, the rest of the card took more like four hours.

I started by embossing a piece of cranberry crisp cardstock with gridlock embossing folder (Tim Holtz/Sizzix). Then I brayered versamark over the raised portions and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I chose a black card base.

Next I stamped Lady of Grace (Stampington & Co.) in versamark on tangerine tango and embossed with clear ep. I then die cut it with my baroque die (Tim Holtz/Sizzix) -- It would have been easier to die cut first and then stamp, but I don't always do things the easy way. I only wanted a portion of the die cut, so I trimmed off next to the image. I wanted to layer this on black, so I put it back on the die, but moved it over about 1/4" so just one side was trimmed off a little more. Then the full die cut of black made a nice layer. I added a couple of black brads for accent.

I also die cut the smaller elegant flourishes (Tim Holtz/Sizzix) in black and then coated it with versamark and embossed it with clear UTEE two times, giving it a look of a metal embellishment.

I was going to make a vertical card, with the image on the right and the flourish lower left. I glued the flourish down where I wanted it -- I had to use crystal effects to get it to stick -- put my non-stick craft sheet on top and a couple of dies to weight it down till it dried.

Now here's where all the time came in. I have some butterflies which I die cut from plastic packaging. I wanted to use one, so I got out my Ranger alcohol inks and did a little polished stone on a couple. In order to make it show up, I die cut a butterfly from white cardstock, which I sponged with vintage photo distress ink along the edges and then put under the plastic butterfly. But this butterfly just wasn't working with the layout. In my frustration, I flipped the card horizontal and placed the image back down and LOVED it! So I adhered the image piece with dimensional tape.

But the butterfly still didn't work, so I decided to go with a smaller butterfly. Now I needed to use a punch, which will not punch through the plastic packaging, so I pulled out a sheet of acetate transparency and punched a butterfly, did the polished stone on it, plunched another of white cardstock, sponged and put them together. I added a black brad and it fit perfectly. Yay!

At this point, I am really loving this card, but I need a sentiment and have no idea what I want to put on it. I considered a lot of different words and sayings and finally settled on imagine. So I pulled out an old Image Tree alphabet that has some pretty small letters. I did some more polished stone on a piece of glossy white cardstock and then stamped the letter with black stazon and punched them out. It's really hard to see in the photo, but I punched black circles to back them. The black circles are just barely bigger than the colored ones, but I wanted to have a bit of contrast there. I struggled for a long time on how to place the letters, but finally decided on just a straight line. I really, really love how this turned out, so I guess all the time spent was worth it.

It was hard to get a good photo, because of all the embossing.

I'm so glad you stopped in for a visit today.