Silver Bells, Teapots and Glitter...Oh My!

Happy Tuesday!  This week I decided to join two challenges that are new to me.  The first is the Teapot Tuesday Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.  The Teapotters are a great group of stampers who use a different teapot each week to inspire their cards, and then they send the cards off to a designated person who could use some "happy mail" that week.  This week's inspirational teapot is a beautiful silver one, and our destination for cards is the mother of a fellow stamper who is dealing with several medical issues.  She normally loves Christmas but is having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year, so we are sending lots of silvery, sparkly cards with a Christmas theme (and we are asked to throw in a hint of pink if we want to really make the card special for her).  

The second challenge I'm joining is the Use It Tuesday Challenge (see the blog and challenge HERE).  This challenge asks us to use items from our stash (instead of hoarding them while daydreaming about all the Pinteresty things we could be doing with them), and this week we're asked to make a Christmas or Hanukkah card.  I have so many lovely things in my stash that really need to see some paper action, so it was fun to dig in and use what I already have.  All of the supplies used on this card are from my stash, but here are two things I was really excited to unearth from my stash to use on this card:

• Glitter.  The real stuff you adhere with glue.  I've had a package of several beautiful glitters that I never use because of the mess (I usually use embossing powders or glitter glue).  It was really fun (and incredibly messy) to use some of the real stuff! 

• Hot pink and white baker's twine.  I bought a sampler of several twine colors but had not found a use for the hot pink color until now.  Isn't it cute here?

So here is my shimmery, glittery, Christmasy card:

 

 

I wasn't sure if I would like silver on silver, but the sparkly glitter pulls so many other subtle colors that I think it works.  It's hard to see in the picture just how shiny my ornaments really are, but just imagine preschooler-playing-with-glitter sparkly and multiply that by 10!  I also had difficulty getting "true" colors photographed on this card.  The sentiment panel is white (it looks a bit green on my computer screen, but it's actually stark white) and the baker's twine is hot pink and white (no red or green on this card, per Teapotter instructions!).

 

I started with a Basic Black card stock base and a piece of silver shimmer paper.  I die cut three circles from heavy white card stock, then covered them in silver glitter glue to create an extra-sparkly glue base for my glitter.  I added glitter and used my heat tool to speed up the drying process (I should really learn to be more patient, because the heat tool pretty much blew that glitter from here to eternity).  I added more glitter and silver glitter glue and attempted to find a modicum of patience. 

 

Meanwhile, I added hot pink and white baker's twine to my silver panel and stamped my sentiment in Memento Tuxedo Black on heavy white card stock.  I adhered the sentiment piece to a larger piece of black card stock.  I carefully (oh, so carefully because that darned glitter was still wet) adhered my ornaments to the silver panel with dimensionals.  I pulled the ornaments' edges forward slightly to keep the paper from buckling from the glitter glue and to give the ornaments a bit more distinction from the background.  I added my sentiment panel to the front and adhered a piece of white card stock as a liner for the inside.  Then I set it aside to dry and did a happy dance that I finished another card without completely smudging the glitter glue!

 

Here's a tip: If you're using a lot of glue of any kind (in this case, glitter glue), it helps to use a heavy weight card stock.  I've found that lighter weight card stocks will buckle more than the heavier card stocks.  This card stock held up really well to my multiple layers of glitter glue.

 

Do you want to know what a craft room looks like after a messy crafter uses this much glitter?  No, trust me, you don't.  It's really too bad I do my stamping in the middle of the night, because there was so much glitter on me by the time I was done that I looked all glammed up for a night on the town! 

Thanks for joining me for a bit of sparkle and shine today!

 

Products Used:

Stamp: Polar Bears (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)

Paper: Basic Black card stock (Stampin' Up!);
Classic Crest Solar White 110 lb. card stock (Neenah); Shimmer Matstack (DCWV)

Tools and Accessories: Nestabilities Standard Circles Large (Spellbinders); Silver Glitter Glue (Studio G);
Silver Holiday Glitter (Sulyn Industries); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); baker's twine