My First Graphicus Challenge

Well, HELLO and Happy New Year to everyone! It's been a while since having a good ole bloggle thanks to a month of 'flu, the remnants of which departed only in the last couple of days. Our celebration of Christmas and New Year amounted to plenty of fluids (water) and a myriad of remedies that induced inordinate amounts of sleep. Crafting was out of the question - added to which, even if I'd felt fine, the weather scuppered any craft time in the Bubble owing to an abundance of frequent storms. As it is, today has been a bit of a rush against the weather as it's batten down the hatches time again for the next few days, with winds already increasing and the inevitable ban from the Bubble imminent when the loft hatch is secured in the next couple of hours - for about 3 days!

I've invested (so far!) in one set of Spring Fever Glimmer Mists and two individual shades - Pink Taffy and Coral, so decided to be brave in a first attempt at a Challenge set by Graphicus - Celebration/Plum/Gold. The Glimmer Mists are fun to use and I can see why folk find them very addictive in creating all sorts of shades. For this Challenge I only used two and very tentatively at that as it's a new technique for me.

Ingredients:

A4 Hammer Card
Purple Mirri Paper
Gold Mirri Card
Double Sided Sticky Tape and Pinflair Gel Glue

Glimmer Mists: Pink Bubblegum, Rum Raisin
Sakura Glaze Pens: Forest Green, Yellow. Stardust: Pink shade
White Shrink Plastic
3mm Burgundy Satin ribbon
Gold, Silver, Purple rhinestones

Black Stazon

Versamark
Versacolor pigment ink: Peony, Gold

Jewelled Gold Embossing Powder
Elusive Images stamps: Pansy/Script; Oriental Themeplate - Good Deeds
Creative Acrylics: Celebration

Backing Papers from Artylicious CDs - which I printed on both satin and glossy paper ages ago and need to check to see from which CDs they were taken.

Method:

All backing papers were mounted onto gold mirri card using DST and randomly placed on the base card. The Glimmer Mists were sprayed from about 12-18 inches, again quite randomly, but used more of the Pink Bubblegum directed towards the flower and bud areas. Dried using heat tool as I was impatient to wait for the results if left to air dry. Used the Sakura pens on leaves and a little yellow in the flower centre. Smudged the Peony Versacolor round the edge of the card, then mounted it onto gold mirri.

Did much the same with the shrink plastic version, shrunk it then buffed most of the Glimmer Mists off with kitchen towel. Emphasised the leaves and petals with Sakura pens. Glued it onto hammer card and edged that with Gold Versacolor, then added a burgundy ribbon. The little card is suspended from the 'Celebration' embellishment with a fine purple thread. The leafy image inside and on the back of the little card is from the Oriental Good Deeds set using Peony Versacolor. The wording is from the same set and stamped inside using Versamark and Jewelled Gold EP.

Peony Versacolor was smudged onto the wording of the Creative Acrylic 'Celebration' tag and buffed, then glued to the card. Hid the holes with silver rhinestones and added a burgundy bow to the side.

Then it was time to take photos, loads of them and I'm still not happy with the results as nothing will ever show how lovely the card really is, but I hope it conveys the idea. It was great fun to make and weather permitting, I might have a bash at another Graphicus Challenge ... one day.