Friday 14 December 2018

2018 #22 C&S Christmas: A Little Bit Sparkly with EKC {by Miriam Grazier}

 2018 Topic 22: Clean and Simple Christmas Ideas


A snowy scene from Miriam with fabulous chunky glitter. A card like this would look lovely sparkling on any mantelpiece! I'm sure if you start digging you will find a wide variety of sparkle in your stash! ~Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Miriam with you today, and I'd like to share with you my idea to create a card with lots of texture and detail which also remains clean and simple, with a lot of 'white space'.  I even managed to embrace the festive season and add sparkle!

The reason that I chose this technique is because I always find it difficult to keep my projects looking 'clean'. By using texture paste and glitter I was able to find a happy medium.  The actual techniques that I used in this project were simple and 'wow' techniques that probably attracted most of us to crafting.  I still remember the first time I used heat embossing - it was like magic happening in front of me.


When Kay Carley released her latest designs and used glitter it really excited me.  I am not really a 'sparkly' person and rarely add sparkle to projects, but seeing Kay's amazing samples got me hooked!


I love poinsettias.  They are such a classic Christmas image and the Kay Carley ones had a bit of quirkiness to them.


 Eclectica³ Kay Carley Set 21 (EKC21)

As soon as I had stamped and cut them out I knew that I wanted to give them a bit more shape using a ball tool.


I loved the simplicity of crisp white images coated in sparkly chunky glitter.  And once layered together, the poinsettia certainly took shape.


To add interest to the background of my card I used Grunge Paste through stencil PS118.


As soon as I pulled the stencil away from the card, I added glitter and left it to dry naturally overnight.  I really loved how this looked on the card.  


The dotted border is a border stamp from EKC04.  This, along with the sentiment stamp from EKC21, were embossed using ultra fine silver embossing powder.


I really hope that I have inspired you to break open the glitter and create some Clean and Simple cards with a bit more texture as I have done. There is still time to create more cards for Christmas, or even for the New Year or Thank You cards.  I think that the one thing that I would have done differently is to have used my stamping platform to ensure that the dotted border was completely straight as opposed to a bit wonky as it has turned out.  This technique was so much fun and so simple, using some of the techniques that really got me hooked into crafting all of those years ago.  

Thank you for joining me this evening.  You can pop over to my blog to see some other makes using this technique.  As Christmas draws near I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. 


There will be no challenge for this topic as we know you are super busy in the lead up to Christmas! So kick back and enjoy the inspiration from our designers instead!

Annual Sale on now at PaperArtsy
on our new look website

Sale ends Dec 16th
Discount applied at checkout automatically
A good time to stock up, or make your Xmas requests from family.

7 comments:

Words and Pictures said...

Those sparkly snowflakes, so subtly shimmering in the background are wonderful, and I love your dimensional poinsettia petals. Lovely!
Alison x

Etsuko said...

What a fantastic Christmas card Miriam, beautiful shimmering technique and fabulous wintry atmosphere. Love it!! xx

geezercrafter said...

Love the Poinsettia composition, very sparkly!!!

Anneke said...

Love the flowers, the shimmer and the white on white decorations. A beautiful card!

craftytrog said...

Stunning card Miriam!

Corrie Herriman said...

How fabulous !
Corrie x

Lucy Edmondson said...

Absolutely stunning, Miriam!

Lucy x