More the Merrier – Silver Snowmen

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday night and welcome to Jaydee's SU stampin space.  Today's card was definitely a progression.  Many of you have written saying that it seems so easy for me to make cards.  Most of the time, nothing could be further from the truth! :-)  There are those days when things fall into place very quickly and very easily.  Yesterday, when I was making this card, was one of the days when nothing fell into place easily.  I wanted to make a card for the stamping411 challenge number 124.  BTW – Another great challenge from the team at 411.  Pop on over and take a look at the fabulous inspiration cards – and the submissions.  I promise that you will find something to inspire you.

I had this idea to use my new Voila set.  I decided I wanted to make a Christmas card for the chef at our favorite restaurant – who is alway so amazing about doing special little dishes for us.  So, Voila a la Christmas seemed an ideal thing to do.  Let's take a look at how it all started.

 A chef in a Christmas coat… ah.. what a great idea.

A festive pair of trousers and black patent shoes.  Little crystal effects buttons on his wonderful Christmas coat.

But hang on… whats this… one corpulent chef.. and one tiny coat!  huh?

All glued up and ready for his coat.  Except… I cut his coat right down the middle.  OK… so, I can just pull the other half out of the bin, right?

Err… well… no, because I screwed up the paper that I was throwing away!  Ooops….  Also, I realized that he was really altogether too big for a 5.5 and 4.25 card!

OK.. back to the kitchen… His little black crystal effect buttons look good, though! 🙂

So… now what.  Considering I'd spent ages planning this and piecing him together.. well half of him that is!

What's this all about then?  What happened to the chef and the Christmas colors of Real Red and Soft Suede.  Well – a 180 degree turn and I decided to do something altogether different.  I decided it was time to get out my little snowmen from The More the Merrier again. 

I wanted to use Bordering Blue and silver, to make a classically cool Christmas card.  (Don't ask me how I got from Voila to The More the Merrier!  except at that time of the year it's party time :-)..)

I wanted to create a silver textured background for the matting, but didn't want to use my metallic paper.  So, I decided to use my Platinum Shimmer paint, my sponge dauber and put the paint directly only my texturz plate.  Except… it was a disaster!  I didn't get the application the way I wanted it.  It just dried too quickly. Nice idea, though.  An E for effort as my dear English teacher, Mrs Tucker, would say!  So back to the drawing board.  AGAIN!!!!!

Ok… now this is MUCH better.

I decided to run my Bordering Blue paper through my Big Shot and then apply the shimmer paint directly to the paper.

I used my sponge daubers and applied the paint directly to the paper.  (I dipped my sponge dauber into the cap of the well shaken bottle) and continued to apply the paint directly to the embossed paper.

You can see it gives a fabulous sheen to it.  So, if you don't have metallic papers, you can create them very easily with the shimmer paints.  (I promised you this in last night's post! :-)…. So… what did the card turn out like. I can hear you going… get on with it woman!  So, eh.  Voila… oh no.. I'd forgotten -that was my first attempt 🙂

OK.  Nothing like it started – but now I'm happy – and I'm loving the "metallic" paper I created.  So, let's take a look at what I put on the card:

1. Bordering Blue card stock for the matts.
2. Image stamped on Shimmery White paper
3. Card base is brushed silver (you can see it has an almost blue feel to it – that's why I thought it was great with the Bordering Blue).
4. I then ran two more pieces of bordering blue through my Big Shot with my texturz plate
5. I then used my Platinum silver shimmer paint and dauber all over the two pieces I had just embossed.
6. I stamped the snowmen in StazOn onto Shimmer white card stock.  I colored their scarves and hats in Bordering Blue marker
7. I added a couple of rhinestone brads to the tops of two of the snowmen's hats and then a little Crystal effects to the buttons, scarves and hats.
8. I then tied a double piece of silver elastic cord around the vertical matt
9. I stamped "sparkle" from the Short and Sweet set in StazOn onto my card base

Here's a closeup for you

I love the matted paper and the metallic feel that it has.  You can see how well all of the colors blend together. 

So, even though I was a LOOOOONG way off from where I had originally started, I was pleased in the end.  A cool, crisp card.  Tip:  to ground the snowmen I used a little silver shimmer paint along the bottom.

So a long journey from my original Voila and a warm color scheme – to a group of fabulous looking snowmen in a cool color scheme :-)  However, I did finish my Voila! card tonight – and I managed to cut his coat to fit him this time!  But that's another post for another night.

I hope you all have a fabulous Tuesday.  As always, thank you for spending time in my area of the stamping blogosphere.  I really appreciate your visits.  Tomorrow take a look at my friend, and fellow demonstrator, Jean's Tightwad Tuesday special.

If you have any questions on the card – or the techniques – just send me an email.  If you are looking for other ideas on using the shimmer paint, just send me an email and I will send my November newsletter to you, which covers many other uses of the shimmer paint.  If you are looking for other cards using "The More the Merrier set" – click here

Peace

Jaydee

  P.S… still no word from Typepad on when they will have the feedburner fixed.