All that sparkles...

Morning all

Well you would have though that with the children going back to school I would be posting more to the blog but the opposite has indeed happened! I'm certainly doing more craft but those precious six hours they are at school for seems to evaporate (a bit like the weekends!) and I'm not finding time to update the blog. So today I'm having an 'admin' day and the laptop is out rather than the Big Shot.  

As it's September my mind has turned to Christmas. Yes, I am indeed one of those awful people who start Christmas shopping in Sept! I fact this year I think my mind has been in Christmas mode since 'Christmas in July' was upon us, at least from a card making perspective. So the Christmas cards will be sorted this year but will we be able to actually spend the festive season with loved ones? Who knows??

Today's Christmas cards are all about sparkle! I wanted to maximise the amount of glitter but I really, really hate actual glitter which seems to find it's way everywhere. To get around this I use glitter card but I've only got silver and gold in my stash at the moment. I wanted at least three colours for this card so I made my own glitter card by using glitter washi tape and laying it across card before die cutting. It's amazing how well it has worked! I have tried colouring glitter card with alcohol markers previously but I've never achieved a very good look this way. 

For these cards I used a die set that came with issue 31 of Die Cutting Essentials magazine. I cut it from silver glitter card and then the pink and teal glitter 'card' that I created from washi tape. After lots of patient paper piecing I had three large glittery snowflakes. 

With the teal snowflake I created a diagonal easel card base and layered up with more glitter card. For the easel stopper I cut smaller snowflakes from all three colours and layered them for impact.

The great thing is that once you have all the bits cut and paper pieced its pretty quick to make a further two cards. For both the silver and pink snowflakes I layered them onto circular card bases.

I will be entering the easel card into the following challenges as they are both 'everything goes as long as it's Christmas'.

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #506

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge #78

Much love

Steph x