Anything But a Card Challenge - Shiny, Sparkly, Blingy!

Hello Blog Friends

Welcome to my latest Followers, it is a pleasure to have you along on my crafting adventure, I very much appreciate you and all my loyal Followers taking the time and effort to watch my journey!

This time over at Anything But a Card Challenge the theme is Shiny, Sparkly, Blingy.  I wanted so much to enter this time but was a little worried about the requirements, I tend to only use shiny, sparkly, blingy for Christmas but as I have been making Christmas cards and have all my glitters out, I thought I should have a go.  One of the DT has done some fabulous Christmas baubles so I thought it would be OK.

The wonderfully talented Christine Emberson makes gift bags out of envelopes.  I have been making these to give little treats to family and friends.  If you click on Christine's name you will be transported to a little video that Christine has made, showing how she did it - prepare to be inspired!

Since I saw Tim Holtz's rosette snowflake die I have wanted it so much (needed it!) but I could not afford this and there are many other things (mainly Tims) before it on my 'must have' list so I thought I would attempt to make something similar (although nowhere near as nice as TH's) and it is here on my little gift bag:

The backing paper is coloured with Pan Pastels (love these) and then overstamped with a snowflake stamp, covered with embossing powder and heated.  The vintage seam binding is also coloured with the same Pan Pastel.  The tag is Craftwork Cards, punched and hung with a jump ring.  The icicle strip across the top is glitter card, cut, folded and held on with a white paper clip with a bit more ribbon tied on the end.  Such a simple but effective closing.

The rosette was quite simple once I got the hang of it.  I scored a 12" x 2" strip of thin white card with my Martha Stewart score board at 1/4" intervals.  I then took the strip and drew a line along the whole length at about 1.1/4".  I then cut along the drawn line and at every 4th and 5th score line I made a point.  I then cut along the whole length to include the points.  I then concertina folded the whole length and glued the ends together, ensuring that the spacing at the end matched the rest of the point folds.  Once dried I pushed the rosetted into a circle and glued a piece of card to the back to hold the whole rosette in place.  Once the glue was dry I then sprayed the whole rosette with Crafters Companion Stick and Spray and liberally covered it with glitter.  It does take a lot of time and effort so I may think again about the die, but I am happy with the result.

The smaller snowflake is cut from glitter card using a Spellbinders snowflake die and I added a clear gem to the middle. The rosette is nowhere near as glamorous as Tims, his are quite stunning but for a gift bag I think my way is fine.

If you do visit, I hope you have enjoyed it and that you will leave me a comment.  I do love to read them and I will always do my best to return the compliment, as long as I know how to get in touch.  Crafty hugs, Anne x