Tell Your Story...

Hello friends and happy new year everyone ~ I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and a good start to the new year! I"m sure many of us are currently watching the events that are unfolding in Australia and my heart goes out to everyone who is being affected by these horrendous fires! I know many people who live in this amazing country, including some very close friends of mine and my thoughts and love are with you all ~ please stay safe!

Today, the Simon Says Stamp DT are back on the Monday Challenge Blog and this week our theme is called SOMETHING NEW and the team are showcasing Darkroom Door within their projects.

I actually made this project at the beginning of December, it's been such a busy crafty month from that point on and I just knew I wouldn't get the time if I didn't make it at that point ~ so, I chose to create a card that celebrated the brand new decade and all those wonderful adventures that lie ahead and used a combination of metallics to create some sparkle and shimmery shine!

It's time to say hello to 2020 here on my blog and let's get the new decade started...

To begin with I chose to use the Starry Night Background stencil from Darkroom Door and placed this over a panel of black card 14 x 17cm. I then applied Transparent Texture Paste through the stencil. After carefully removing the stencil, and whilst the paste is still wet, I sprinkled Vintage Platinum Glitter Dust over the top of the paste, tapped away the excess before setting it to one side to dry THOROUGHLY!! No poking at it with your fingers, just let it do it's thing and set.

Whilst the paste is doing it's thing, I moved onto the globe and used Tim Holtz's Destination die to die cut Mixed Media Heavystock Card, that I had previous painted with a combination of Ground Espresso, Walnut Stain, Black Soot and Antiqued Bronze Distress Paints. After putting down the first solid layer of paint, Ground Espresso, I then applied a dry brushing of each layer of paint individually, heat drying between the layers and just building up the colour.

Once it was dry, I then placed the die cut onto foam pads and mounted the globe onto a piece of black card, stamped with the gorgeous sparkles stamps from the Great Outdoors stamp set. I stamped the stars in clear embossing ink before applying gold embossing powder and heat embossing the powder until molten. You can see the stars shining through from behind the globe die cut in the photo below.

To complete the starry night background, I lightly splattered Antique Linen Distress Oxide Ink over the surfaces of both the stamped background and the larger glittered panel, before inking the edges of both pieces with the Antique Linen Distress Ink.

Put the globe to one side and taking the glittered background, matt onto gold metallic kraft card, followed by a layer of pewter coloured card, a second layer of gold metallic card and finally a layer of kraft card. Then mount the layered background onto a pewter coloured card blank.

I then mounted the dimensional die cut globe, complete with the stamped starry night background, onto the front of the card using foam pads to add some dimension.

Now we can move onto the sentiment banner that sits below the globe. For this I cut a strip of blackout kraft card and used the Alphanumeric Label die to die cut gold metallic kraft stash to create the words "The Adventure Begins". Top Tip: Applying adhesive sheets to the back of the gold metallic card makes it so much easier when it comes to sticking the letters to the banner.

Matt the banner onto a piece of champagne coloured metallic 3 kraft stash and then a piece of black card before mounting the banner onto the card blank with foam pads.

Add a Hardware Head to either side of the quote.

For the 2020 that sits on top of the globe, I used the Handmade Die to cut my numbers from chipboard that I covered with some of the gold metallic card.

Once the numbers were cut, I then inked them with Mushroom Alcohol Ink to knock back the brightness of the gold.

I mounted the year onto the surface of the globe and then placed a Tim Holtz metallic quote sticker, "Tell The Story", directly beneath the globe. The sticker came from my stash.

Finally, I added three shimmering bursts of gold using the amazing Radiant 3D Die to cut more of the gold metallic kraft stash. I used the smaller sized die cuts and placed them onto my card, adding a Metallic Droplet in the centre of each.

To complete the project I added a clip at the top of the project.

So that's it from me for this week and I hope you've enjoyed the process behind this card and how I've combined all the metallic elements to create vintage sparkle and bring this project to life! The one thing that I will say is....OH. Em. Gee....was this a pain to photograph! The camera just hated all that glitter and metallic shine but I hope I've managed to capture it and I hope the photos do this project justice!

Don't forget, if you would like to see more inspiration from my talented teamies over on the challenge blog and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp and you can join in up to 5 times, which means you could have 5 chances to win. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today and hope to see you again soon, love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Darkroom Door Starry Night Stencil

Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Alphanumeric Label, Handmade Alphabet, Destination, Radiant 3D Die
Stampers Anonymous: Great Outdoors
Distress Paint: Ground Espresso, Walnut Stain, Black Soot and Antiqued Bronze
Distress Oxide Inks: Antique Linen

Idea-ology: Hardware Heads, Metallic Quote Stickers, Metallic Droplets
Prima Marketing Rusty Metal Clip

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Gold Embossing Powder, Vintage Platinum Glitter Dust, Transparent Texture Paste, Mushroom Alcohol Ink
Surfaces: Mixed Media Heavystock, Blackout Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash 3, Pewter Card, black Card
Glass Media Mat

Heat Gun
Big Shot