Visible Image Wednesday.

Hi Folks

Well, hasn't it got coldddddd, my fingers and nose actually are bright red as I am typing this they are soooo cold, Think I may invest in some fingerless gloves this year. It is also, Just for variety Raining again in Welwyn garden city tonight. Yawn fest....

So today before I share my little card for the fab Visible Image I wanted to let you all know that my mum has been doing quite well considering all the illnesses and the doctors prognosis being poor for her  up until this weekend and she seems to have taken a downward spiral I am afraid. I was due to go to CE towers yesterday for the start of the new year team but I got called to her house as the rapid response team and doctors were very concerned. They are trying to keep her from going back in hospital as coming out may not be an option as they said she wouldn't make it last time. Anyway I wanted you all to know as a number of you always ask me how she is now doing. Thank you lovelies.

Ok back to the matter at hand. I have used the fabulous Poinsettia stamp From Visible image as the background and also as the main feature on this card, I kept in with the Autumnal theme but also added some Christmas snowflakes in to the mix too. See what you think ?

 I love this combination of colours rustic oranges, and browns with wintery blues with lots of sparkle.

 So to start I took a piece of white cardstock and my Poinsettia stamp which I am so lucky to have boy that thing has flown out of stock through Aly Paly and the Nec shows recently wow! well done Helen and Mark who have worked so hard at the shows and making all the gorgeous stamps to sell at them too, I can't tell you how manic they have been on the build up to NEC week.
I randomly stamped it in Cornflower archival ink then I used potting shed archival and stamped the small leaf from the set randomly too. Next I took Mr Holtz's Rusty Hinge distress and stamped some leaves first and 2nd generation stamping. Then with some perfect medium I stamped out a few leaves ad embossed them with detail clear embossing powder.

 In this photo you can see I have Inked the edges of the card with weathered wood distress ink then covered the entire piece with a sheet of double sided adhesive and then sprinkled some fine glitter jewels all over , burnished it on and dusted off the excess.
Who can resist that sparkle.

Next I took Chipped Sapphire Distress ink and a bit of cut and dry and inked the edges again on top of the glitter, I have shown the technique of inking glitter on several of my shows on C&C and with these really fine glitter they take the colour really well as you can see above.

 I wrapped a small piece of white crinkle edge ribbon vertically on the left hand side (face on  on the card) then mounted it onto black, white then again black card to get some nice border interest going.

 In my stash I have some little chippie frames, fronts and backs but here I just used a front as I wanted the stamping and the sparkle to show through the frame, I spritzed it to start with a couple of layers, drying in between of Acrylic spray inks. If you want more sparkle you can always use a spray with some Mica in or make one from your perfect pearls or equivalent.

 Once dry I took the smallest poinsettia stamp and stamped it tone on tone on the frame to add some texture to it and rubbed a little rusty hinge and Chipped Sapphire around the edges too I also took a white paint marker and shook it up so the colour is loose in the nib, I then shook it at the frame to get a few splats, of course you could always use the Ink splat stamp from Visible image if you didn't want to spill the paint on the frame as above. I also added a few planned dots to highlight a few curves on the frame too.

Once I completed my frame I used a wet glue to adhere it well to the glittered background. I stamped out my Merry Christmas and a happy new year stamp on white card and cut out just merry Christmas and cut the ends into a little pointy end I also inked the edged again with Chipped sapphire ink, I added it with a bowed centre to the top of the frame which I placed at a jaunty angle earlier.

Here you can see a cose up of the frame and also the sentiment you can also see all the glitter making this piece so very sparkly.

So next I stamped and cut out by hand some leaves with the larger of the two in the Poinsettia set. I also stamped out several of the Poinsettias and cut them out too. Run some ink of your choice round the white edges and some sparkle or gold gilding. You can assemble your Poinsettia any way you like it but traditionally if you roll the petal around a paintbrush longways with the veins around the handle of the paintbrush then offset the petals in diminishing size of Poinsettia petal section you will get an elegant pointy Poinsettia haha.
I added one of those to my frame with a couple of leaves, then tied a bow with some of the matching white crinkle edge ribbon. Now usually I take two lengths of ribbon and tie a bunny ear bow and  make it into a typical  'chocolate box bow' as it were but today i took the ribbon and layered it into a nice bow looking shape then wrapped a piece of the wire the three little flowers I used were attached too to hold it securely. then attached it to the card and added my flowers to the knot area to cover the wire.

I think it looks really pretty with two of the leaves cut in half and added under the flowers , I also used a tiny acrylic orange flower with a pearl in the centre to finish off this arrangement and used one in the centre of the main flower too.
Here again is the finished card.

I love that you can see the background stamping and colours through the ribbon and the glitter so you get lovely different textures throughout the card. It certainly is very tactile this one.

Some different views.

Ok so the gorgeous stamps I used on this one were.

                             Christmas and  New Year                   Poinsettia Set.

Enchanting snowflakes.

Well I hope you enjoyed this post. I will be back tomorrow with CE Thursday and there will be the first of the How to series we discussed about techniques over the weekend so keep an eye out for that won't you my lovely blogglies.

Have a lovely Wednesday and Be sure to give someone a nice hug today even if only from me to you.

Best wishes

Love 

Kim 

xxxx

Visible Image day

Hello all my lovelies

Ohhh I know you have all been wondering what I have been up to and the answer is prepping for Mondays shows on C&C, 9a.m and 2pm, so I hope you can join me and email in as you know I love hearing all your thoughts and its so good knowing I have my Internet family watching.

I have been meaning to catch up with all the winners and comments all week but I just seemed to run out of time, all parcels will be posted out on Tuesday this week so look out for posties, I also have no gas at present so been a little chilly its definitely been one of thoseeeee weeks but I have been prepping for Monday's shows and getting another show together fast for the 3rd November so anyway one of the lovely Visible image team , Sam stepped in and covered me on Wednesday and so I am doing today so Huge thanks to her for helping me out.
I thought I'd use my gorgeous Enchanting Snowflake stamps from Visible Image this week and teamed it with a classically timeless sentiment and keep it pretty and fairly simple with mica powders and embossing, well I hope you like it.

I used two different tonal purples here in cardstock and used ivory embossing powder rather than white  to blend in the the ivory paper. I stamped out the smaller snowflake around the backing edge of the frame piece of card with Versamark and used an interference colour Mica which looks silver in certain lights and a bluey/lilac in other, very pretty. I also used the same mica on the edges of the flowers too.

 Here is a closer look and you can now see the backing a little better and the lilac on the mica more.
I love purple and ivory or cream , I used those colours for my daughters bedroom and she still loves it. I have never really been a Christmas red and green colour person but to me this is just gorgeous in these colours and the snowflakes are so crisp but still have that vintage feel to them. Gorgeous.

Here is a close up on the first little cluster with the bow and you can see the stem I cut off the little flowers I twisted around a pokey tool to create a little curly q to add to the flower and some other little stamens just to make it a little more interesting.

 I snapped this little corner so you can see the mica on the stamps in the backing here. soo Pretty and sparkly in real life. The cameras just never seem to pick up sparkle well unless it full on bling.

 This was the 2nd little bunch in the top right of the card, you can also see the two colours in the card used on the layers in this one a little better.

Finally here is the longer shot to show the layers etc. I hope you like this one, the font is so clear and sharp to stamp with , perfect image for Visible Image.haha

Ok so here are the stamps I used on this one.

                               Enchanting Snowflakes                    Christmas and New year.

Aren't they pretty , I can also imagine then used with all the gorgeous colours of metal flakes out there now lovely.

Anyway my lovelies thank you to all those who sent me their addresses so I can send your prizes out and don't forget to watch on Monday and email in to the show so you have the chance of getting more cards and goodies. I really do read them all even if we aren't allowed to keep them now.

Thanks again to our Sam for helping me on Wednesday and I look forward to catching up with you all very soon .

Lots and lots of love to all

Hugs

Kim 

XXXX

Visible Image Sunday and Aly Paly weekend news.

Hi friends.

How are we all?
I hope you are doing great. I have had a brilliant weekend so far.. Today I went to the glorious Alexandra Palace affectionately called Ally Pally here. It was a lovely day and I could see for miles down the hills and over Muswell hill etc standing outside the palace.

I met some ladies Tina and Georgina from my Craftwork cards design team and also Tina's lovely friend Karen, ladies it was an honour to meet you and sit and have not so nice coffee but coffee none the less before piling into the show and splitting up to go hunt down bargains. We were chatting away and before you know it it was 11.30 already, I had a walk around and picked up some bargains and then met an absolutely amazing lady called Lysanne who is part of Creative Expressions along with the wonderful Sue Wilson, I cannot begin to express how warm and kind these two ladies have been toward me and I thank them both from the bottom of my heart. (watch this space to see what is coming from here woooooooo exciting is not the word.)
I am also going back to the show Sunday(today) to meet up with another lady I haven't yet met from my heartfelt Creations team, I can't even remember how we found each other now but we have been chatting around 7 months now and this will be our first meet. Nikki I cant wait lovely lady.

Now sorry If I am waffling.. I actually have 2 lovely long weeks off of work and so am looking forward to a lot of craft to show you all. The time will fly by but for now I am sooo looking forward to this time.
I got back from the show and as today is my day to post for the amazingly deep etched and detailed Visible Image I was going to make something with the stamps I had already but I had special post form Mark and Helen who are the very special owners of Visible Image and In it was the most wonderful snow flakes and verses so of course I used these instead. I am very thankful to them both for the little gifts we receive. Bless you both.

Here is my card for today.

 So sorry the photographer (ME)  hasn't taken amazing shots of this one but it was very late and the light had gone so I will exchange for better once I get back from the show, The card stock is a pearlised Navy blue and i have embossed the snowflakes in white and then silver and cut the silver once out and added them on top of the plain white ones then added blue Promarker to the outer edges and iridescent glitter than is soooo sparkly.

Rolled flowers in organza and lace and pearls finish this off.

 The verse is called  'Winters Miricle'  and is truly beautiful. The snowflakes are 'Enchanting snowflakes' and the more you look at them the more you seem to see. This shot certainly shows this card at a more classy angle and is lit a little better.

   Enchanting snowflake.                             Winters Miracle

What do you think? comments always gratefully received of course.

 I certainly seem to have made a lot of Christmas cards lately and I have some amazing ideas in my head for some vintage and wonderful things that today inspired me with. The windows in the palace for one certainly have a Gothic under tone and I would love to distress something with an arched window and spooky it up for Halloween.

Anyway my lovely crafters I hope you like this card and I will have some really special news for you very soon I promise and don't forget the chances to win some fabulous items too as soon as I hit my first 100 followers then we will be in to Competition time and woo hoo have I got some lovely prizes.

Have a wonderful day and I will post again on Monday.

Love always and keep crafting

Kim 

xxxx