Creative Expressions Thursday

Hi Folks

Thursday again..

Before we get started I just wanted to address something and to thank you to the lovely ladies who emailed me to let me know the comments on the blog were acting up yesterday.
Last Thursday infact I did my usual post for CE and all you lovely ladies left your comments as always but unfortunately I also received a very nasty comment aimed at me personally which was not pleasant so I deleted it, this week I decided to play with the settings and remove the ease for anonymous people to post such need to be haters for want of better words. It obviously caused other issues which I think I now have ironed out so thank you so much Pat and Patricia for letting me know you had tried to comment.
It is sad when some individuals who do not know you or your life think it is ok to be personal but of course I have so many more of you who are real and kind and very special to me each and every one of you and of course my son who sometimes helps me with the admin when he gets chance amongst doing his PhD and running a business and teaching at uni etc lol reminded me how easy it is to collect the IP address from the nasty comments to know who it is and to pass information onto the correct authorities etc. With that said I simply do no want this to upset any of us as it isn't worth our time.

So lets get started on this little gold and pink number shall we....

I really did not have a plan for this one I wanted to be very randam and so I started by getting a few mats and layers with Blossom Foundation card and using the lovely soft gold card too, I find it so much nicer than full on mirror card which is lovely for small edging and for die cuts but on a subtle print paper I think it can over power and steal the show somewhat lol...
As you see in this full picture I chose a couple of the papers from last months paper pack Vintage rose garden as I still had lots left to provide interest in the backdrop.

 I started with this printed piece on blossom card, the backing has writing in feint green letters , towards the end of the card I actually stamp the little lotus in the same colour green from John's Lotus elements stamp set to add interest along the bottom too.

 Here are the other mats and layers in varying sizes to work with too.

Back to the first piece I added a line of thin double sided tape and some pink seam binding in a  blush colour which I did by folding up like a concertina and sticking down then adding a dot of cosmic shimmer glue beyond the folds to hold them down so they didn't sit straight up like in this picture.

At this stage I lined up the mats ready for sticking down to see if all blended together nicely which It did. you can just see those feint little lotus shapes on the bottom of the mat with the concertina ribbon on.Once I was happy with the placement I went ahead and added foam to the back of some of the mats and not others or it would be wayyy too thick as you can see I use a lot of mats as I think it looks so much more professional than just a couple for some reason although that is a personal preference ting and of course if it needs to fit in an envelope is another issue along with P&P charges ( shall we not get started on that one lol)this post would be wayyyyy too long then wouldn't it folks hehe....

So for my little front focal point with the sentiment I start with a little piece of blossom card which on here really looks cream but in fact if you have seen it it really is a very subtle shade of pink as the name suggests and I stamped out the little sentiment also from the lotus Frames clear stamps set but I used it without any of the little frame shapes as I wanted it to look like it was almost running of the bottom of the page. I then matted that onto gold card, on the right of the picture you will see part of a piece of left over paper scrap from the Rose garden pad and i liked it but it looked wrong lined up as it was on the top of the sentiment piece so I cut the bottom very roughly around the leaves which can be as fiddly or not as you want but it is more about getting that flower garland away from the pink paper so we can have it almost hanging (as a garland would be). Once I had the size I wanted I cut it shorter and added it to the card with some Cosmic shimmer glue, I also went around the bottom in white pen it sort of lifts the image from the backing slightly. I also added some little white dots around the top of the pattern which you can see better below.

 This shot is a little blurry so I apologise for that but you can see the white under the leaves pulls it up from the page and the white dots just add a little something, something lol to the pattern I don't know in may all be in Kim's inky mind but to me it makes it look prettier than plain, then I added a few white faux stitches too to this section and one of the other mats on the card too.

I tied a little bow to match in the same seam binding and spritzed it with a little water and scrunched it up just a little, then thought I would like a little tag so I stamped out one of the little lotus' that I had used faintly in the backing but this time I added some colour with distress Markers and a little sparkle, of course. Trimming it into a tag shape then placing it under the bow. I also used a wooden natural button and tied a little hessian twine through the stitching holes and added a few little strands under it too.
Finishing touches then consisted of some smaller wooden buttons and pearl half pieces to the centre of some of them and just plainly on some of the corners. I also found a button in my collection that looked like a clock so I added a pearl in the centre and popped that on too.

So that completed today's card, I hope you liked it and that you can let me know if you did today haha

Here is the full Image again

I hope you like it, it is a little different but still has my style , without too much inkiness i think.

Have a wonderful Thursday my lovlies and I will see you very soon .

Lots of love 

Kim 

XXXX

Creative Expressions Thursday

Hi Folks

Happy Thursday,

Today I have been using one of my favourite colour combinations in card stock, Yes you all know it cream and plum. It doesn't seem to matter how many pieces of Card stock I use to make these cards I always still love the Plum and Coconut white or milk foundations card together the most.

So today's DT card for Creative Expressions is using the Elements Lotus flower stamps by John Lockwood. It also is using the new coloured Cosmic shimmer glitter glue and embossing powder Lustre in Decadent Grape as part of the Phil Martin Line of colours. I have also thrown in some gorgeous Guipure lace and some white Satin ribbon in two thicknesses as you can buy these days which makes this card a feminine one for today.

So for this little number, well mine are rarely little to be honest, this is about 8X7inches haha....

 So I cut a piece of plum card and wiped over with my anti static pad first, I then used one of the tony stamps in the set to stamp a pattern around the edge of the page and used the Decadent Grape embossing Lustre powder and heat set it.

 Here is how it ended up it is a shame I didn't have a mirror image swirl so I could have used it for more of a flow but once the rest of the card is together you will not notice it,  I chose the Grape Lustre embossing Powder to use on plum card because although it doesn't show up the same as say using it on a light card tone on tone is really pretty especially in the Lustre colours , when you turn it in the light and you catch the colours shining through it is so pretty.

This image below shows the sparkle a little from the light taps of glitter glue I added to the petals after I coloured them.                                                                                                                                

Next I took a small piece of Milk card and stamped one of the lotus images and again heat set in the same Lustre EP which shows up a lovely pale shade on Milk card and I used my black archival ink to stamp one of the sentiments from the same Lotus elements set.
To colour the image I took 2 green and three purple shades of Distress water colour markers and blended the colours into each other on the petals. I blasted with the heat gun to set it all and then went in with the coloured Cosmic shimmer glitter glue in the same Decadent Grape colour chosen by Mr Martin. I trimmed the card to size and used cut and dry foam and some Dusty Concorde Distress ink to colour the edges with a fairly light hand.

I matted a larger piece of Milk card on Plum and then down both sides added some Guipure lace in an Ivory/cream colour and used a fairly thick , about 18mm I think of Ivory white Satin ribbon to run down the sides too. I added thick foam to the back and layered that onto a double mat of the same milk card with foam in between to create the piece below, ready for our front section to be added to it with the trimmings which make a cart pretty and complete.

 I always love how elegant this looks as a card backing at this stage it could easily be the start of a wedding card or engagement even, the plm card could be switched to red and it could then be a ruby anniversary, well as you all know the list is actually endless in how a card could go from here.

But this is the way I chose to go, I added my middle section that we stamped and embossed earlier onto the base we just created. I also then added the Main image piece that was left at this stage for this very simple card was to tie a triple bow in matching thin coloured

I zoomed in a little so You can see how the mid section looks once in its permanent home as it were haha.

 Here is the Triple bow with very thin maybe 6mm matching Satin ribbon and the last steps were a large 8mm pearl in each corner on the satin ribbon, I used the normal cosmic shimmer glue to hold the pearls to the ribbon which it did with no effort at all.

This angle shows the mat and layering perfectly for this one and how feminine the lace makes it feel.

Here again is the last view  for this one in all its glory, I went back and using tiny tapping motions and barely squeezing the glitter glue bottle I added some tiny dots on the plum card around the swirls we stamped to give a nice sparkle.

I hope you liked today's card , it was a much simpler card then yesterday's technique card but that is how I love to blog so that you can see a total variety of styles and tutorials so you can recreate it however you choose and at any level you are there will be something for you.

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In my town centre the last two days they have been filming a zombie film with some of the Game of Thrones actors the last couple of days and coming out of work has definitely been interesting and good fun, this is the second film they have used our town centre for, The first one was with Simon peg and Nick Frost a couple of years back called , The World's End. I am unsure what this new film is called but I look forward to catching it when it is released and seeing images that I recognise.

Have a wonderful Thursday lovely friends and I will see you all very soon.

Love as always to all.

Kim

XXXX

P.S   Thank you as always for my lovely comments  I really do appreciate every word you take time to write me. Your a wonderful bunch of ladies and couple of gents I think haha  xxxx