Frozen...

 Hello friends and Happy Monday!

As another week begins, it's time for the new Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and this week our theme is called ICE COLD! So, if you would like to join us and play along, the DT are looking forward to seeing all the magical, icy creations you create.

For my project this week, I chose to create a Christmas card ~ I will admit, I'm running behind making Christmas cards this year, but with 10 days to go, I might...might just get a couple of special cards made including this one, which was inspired by Disney's Frozen and of course, my favourite colour, ice blue.

So, let's begin and here's how I created this card, full of icy magic...

To begin with I created the backgrounds, the main background is a panel of Mixed Media Heavystock, 12 x 15cm and the second is a Size 8 tag.

To colour the cardstock and tag, I applied Speckled Egg and Iced Spruce Distress Inks to my glass mat and after lightly spritzing the inks and the card surfaces, I dipped the card into the inks to pick up the colour. To blend the colours together, I spritzed a little more water over the inked surface and then heat dried the cardstock.

After adding some stamped layers, using the script and music stamps from the Vintage Holidays stamp set, I wanted to add texture and used a palette knife to apply some gesso by scraping the medium over random areas of the inked background. Once this was dry, I then applied some Crackle Paste, again applying it with a palette knife and adding it quite randomly.

Leave aside to dry and let the crackle do it's thing and once this is done, I took the Iced Spruce, Pumice Stone, Rustic Wilderness and Speckled Egg Distress Crayons, applying the colour over the top of my card and tag and using my finger, which I dampened slightly to blend out the colour and allow it to sink into the crackles.

I then cut a panel of vellum and wrapped this around the matted layer of the large card panel, before machine stitching a border around the outside of the large card panel...

...and securing the vellum in place and then matting both surfaces onto champagne gold metallic kraft stash, taken from the Metallic 3 Kraft Stash.

I matted the larger panel onto white card cut using the Deckle Edge Trimmer and then a panel of Fog Grey card. I mounted this panel onto a kraft card blank which I inked around the edge using the Picket Fence Distress Ink Pad.

Now for the snowflake, and building that dimension as the focal point...

For this I used the Sizzix Stunning Snowflake die from Tim Holtz.

I began by cutting both of the Snowflakes three times from Heavystock card. Each of these flakes have two separate pieces, so after removing the centres of each one, I set the inside of the larger one to one side and then, layered the die cuts over the top of one another to create three separate flakes, approximately the thickness of chipboard. I primed the surfaces with gesso and then painted each of them using Speckled Egg Distress Paint. Once the paint was dry, I then used the Embossing Dabber and pounced the dabber over the top of the larger flake, before sprinkling with Emerald Creek Marshmallow Rock Embossing Powder and heat embossing it. This gave a more random effect to the embossing, rather than a solid finish, which is what I then went onto do with the outside section of the second flake. You can see that the one flake is solid white and layered over the top of the larger flake which is Speckled Egg blue with a hint of the embossing powder.

There is one remaining blue flake, and for this I applied a coat of Matte Collage Medium over the top and then sprinkled it with Rock Candy Distress glitter. Allow this to dry. 

I now have three separate flakes and layered them over the top of one another to create one dimensional snowflake and added a gold Metallic Droplet to the centre.

I attached the snowflake to my tag.

Beneath the snowflake I added my wording and for this I used a piece vellum and a piece of acetate, both cut to the same size, 8.5 x 3cm.

Using the Dashing Through The Snow stamp from the Bold Tidings Set, I used Stazon Snowflake Ink Pad to ink the word "SNOW" only and stamped this onto the acetate. 

I then layered the acetate over the top of the vellum and clipped it either side, attaching it across the bottom of the tag, using Tiny Clips which I altered with a little Gilded Alloy Alcohol Ink.

To complete the tag, I added a Remnant Rub, "Believe In the Magic", placing it underneath the acetate strip.

After attaching the tag to my card blank using foam pads, I added some Mummy Cloth which I dyed using Iced Spruce and Speckled Egg Distress Spray Stains. I threaded this through the hole in the tag and tied a small Antiqued Gem on the end of the cloth.

To complete the card, I added some Hardware Heads, again altered with Gilded Alloy Ink and placed 3 each down the sides of the card...

...and that finishes my card, inspired by Frozen and I hope you love what I've created.

Don't forget that every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $25 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 ~ stay safe and well, and see you again soon.

Love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Stampers Anonymous: Vintage Holidays, Bold Tidings 4

Sizzix/Tim Holtz: Stunning Snowflake

Distress Spray: Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce

Distress Ink: Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce

Distress Paint: Speckled Egg

Distress Crayon: Speckled Egg and Rustic Wilderness, Pumice Stone, Iced Spruce

Gilded Alloy Alcohol Ink

Tim Holtz Idea-ology: Hardware Heads, Mummy Cloth, Metallic Droplets, Antiqued Gems, Christmas Remnant Rubs, Tiny Clips

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Gesso, Rock Candy Distress Glitter, Stazon Snowflake Ink Pad, Emerald Creek Marshmallow Rock Embossing Powder, Distress Crackle Paste

Surfaces: Mixed Media Heavystock Card, Metallic 3 Kraft Stash, Acetate, Vellum, Kraft Card, Fog Grey Card, Size 8 Tag

Glass Media Mat

Deckle Trimmer

Sizzix Big Shot

Paint Brush

Heat Gun