Friendship Grows in Rainbow

Spellbinders has a new monthly challenge, and January is 'January Glam' - and I just happen to have a brand new Glimmer Hot Foil machine!  So far I've had really good results, as this is only my second foiled image.

I am using the rainbow foil that came with the kit, and wanted a large plate that would show off the entire rainbow, so this is the November Betterpress Society plate, Friendship Grows.

After foiling, I used the included dies to cut out both edges, then adhered it to my card base with 3D foam adhesive.  The sentiment is from the It's Your Day Sentiment Strips press plate, pressed on the wonderful Brushed Gold Treasured Cardstock.  A few gold pearls finished it off.  As always, it's hard to photograph metallics - but I think you can get an idea of how pretty this is in real life.

 

Simple Pattern Play

If you follow me, you'll have seen this die set appear several times on my blog - it's one of the favourite products that I purchased last year.  These are the Pattern Play dies from Concord & 9th:

It's my husband's birthday later this week, so I was in need of a masculine card (I made two of these!).  I have a jar with 'extra' bits and pieces that I've die cut using this set, so I pulled it out, and was able to get about 80% of what I needed for two of these from my stash.

Every time I pull these dies out, I've used a different pattern/layout, and different colour combos - keeps it feeling fresh every time.  The sentiment was done with my Betterpress on Brushed Gold Treasured cardstock from Spellbinders.

Glass Container & Birthday Journal Set

 I am on the Art Impressions blog today for their Watercolour Weekend post!

Welcome to a whole new year of watercolour painting!  I have two projects today featuring older products.  After all of the holiday crafting over the past few months, I'm always needing to replenish my stash of cards in the New Year, and birthday cards top the list.

I stamped the sweet pup from 5722 - Birthday Journal Set in Tombow #N45, masked him, and stamped the stack of presents beside him, and the banner across the top.  I am using the 5742 - Easter PP on both projects today, and choosing my pretty background paper was the starting point for picking my colour palette.  I painted the pup in #947, keeping the undersides a little darker, and the face area almost down to nothing.  The florals are from 5258 - WC Flower Set 4, painted in #703 & #636, surrounded by the small green from 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set in #312.  I took a damp brush to my bouquet, softening everything.  

The packages were painted with #761/703/312/N45/636 in various washes & patterns, and the banner was washed with N45.  565 was used as a wash in the sky, and to darken up a few shadowy areas.  I used my grey Twintone marker to darken up some of the lines of my scene, and to draw a bow on either end of the banner.  I used the 5061 - Square Double Stitched dies to cut out my scene, and mounted it on a larger square of dark grey textured cardstock.  I cut the hello from 5718 - Mini Journal Template in the grey cardstock, and adhered it across the top.  I added 3D foam adhesive and attached it all to my card base - the finished card is 5 1/4" square.

I have never painted a glass container before!  It was time to give it a try.  

Using Bonnie's examples as inspiration, I stamped the largest vase from 5921 - Glass Containers Set in #N45, then masking the rim only with a tiny sliver of paper, I stamped in the flowers and foliage from 5920 - Long Stem Foliage Set and 5919 - Long Stem Floral Set using #312/177/636/N45.  I picked up all of the colours from my palette, and painted in the foliage softly.

Most of the stems were stamped inside the vase, but for a few that weren't, I painted the stems using the green shades.  I used tones of #451 and 565 to paint in blue lines suggesting the inside of the vase and the waterline, adding a few streaks of green for the reflection of the stems.  #565 was used as a wash in the background, and around the base of the vase.  To add a little glimmer, I used my silver Gel Pen to paint the flowers of the baby's breath - to echo the silver cardstock.

The scene was cut out with a decorative rectangular die, and mounted on some silver cardstock.  Everything was adhered to the card base with 3D foam adhesive, and a few iridescent jewels added more sparkle.

Top 10 of 2025

I did a Top 5 of my Ai projects a few weeks ago, but always like to do a full Top 10 post of all of the projects I made through the year.  I prepped my choices for both posts at that time, and had 19 for this post!  So I managed to whittle it down to just ten, I don't do one per month, just my ten favourites in no particular order.

My undisputed favourite project of the year:

A huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to look at, like and comment on my projects - they are much appreciated.  And another huge thank you to all of the creative people and companies who design the products that I get to use - that's where it all starts.  I get an enormous amount of inspiration from those creatives, along with the many crafters that I follow, and hope to continue on creating through 2026.

Market Place Tags

In prepping my end of the year post, I realized that I hadn't posted the Christmas tags that I created to gift with the tri-fold cards that I made using the Market Place suite of products from The Greetery.  

Yes, I managed to get 18 of these little guys made!  I used the tri-fold card as my inspiration, sticking to a limited colour palette, and cut multiple pieces out at a time - it looks a little more daunting than it actually was.  Once you embrace the chaos of doing a project with a ton of tiny pieces, it goes pretty quickly.

This is the Market Place Mini die set, along with the Holiday Festoons set - that provided all of the wreaths, bows and swag details.  I made them into tags by backing them with a solid cream building, then glued another one to it like a hinge, so you can open up the house and write your Christmas greeting.  I punched holes through the top and threaded some jute twine through.

The finishing touch was to spatter some gold paint to go with the touches of gold on each tag.  Labour of love, and SO worth it!  Everyone raved about these.

Tri-fold Box Village Template card

From the moment I first saw this die set, I knew that I wanted to make this!!  This is the recently released, 6114 - Box Village Template Die from Art Impressions.  The die set actually creates a little box, that you can make a journal to sit inside, but I love using it for cards.

I used the main template to cut out three bases, trimming the tops and sides off, just leaving a 1/2" tab down one side to glue them together (I'll show you the back side so you can see what I mean).

After choosing my colour palette, I spent days mapping out what I wanted to do... this was the most time consuming part!  I gradually cut all the doors, windows, roof and extra bits - laying everything out before I assembled anything.

I dug through my craft room to see what I could use for a wreath or trees... and found the Holiday Festoons set from The Greetery for the wreaths, bows and swag, and a sectioned tree die set from Dee's Distinctively.

The alphabet dies are the 5562 - Journal Dies from Ai.  I wanted a little more glimmer, so cut pieces on each house out of some brushed gold cardstock.  After assembly, I added some chunky glitter along the roofline, trees and other spots.

The best thing is that this folds flat to fit in a standard A2 envelope.  Bonnie says she's coming out with more of these in 2026, so stay tuned!

Twinkle Tidings Tags

 My third project with the October Betterpress Society plate, 'Twinkle Tidings' was a couple of tags. 

I followed along with Erin from Spellbinders Socie-Tea tutorial, where she painted a glow effect around each bulb, and knew that my Moonbeam Shimmer paints from Crafter's Companion would work beautifully for the effect.  I used a pretty pink/purple/blue/green/gold colourway.

I used some older Studio Katia tag dies to die cut them, backing with plain white tags so that the gift giver can sign the back.  I added the word 'merry' in some metallic blue and green cardstock, and a small Lawn Fawn tag to each as well.

You can get a Betterpress Society subscription from The Papercrafter's Workshop.