Elegant Deer

 

Over at The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up it is the midway point of our first challenge of 2023. That means it is the turn of the Merry Maidens to share some more fabulous Christmas cards.

The challenge theme is any Any Christmas Card or other December holiday with an optional twist of Out With The Old & In With The New. The lucky winner's prize is any 2 Winter or Christmas paper packs from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles

If you link up 2 or more cards to our challenge you will get a free digital paper sent to you that our intrepid leader Lisa of Decosse's Dynamite Doodles has designed. 

My card this month has a mixture of Old & New

Old is the digital papers which were offcuts that are from a previous project.

Old is the peel off line stickers & sentiment I have had in my stash for a million years.

Old is the Elegant Deer die I have had for at least a couple of years and not previously used.

New is the gilding flakes used to 'colour' the die cut

New is gilding which is a new technique for me.

I have used the following papers designed by Lisa

The base is a sheet of white A4 cardstock. I wanted to add gold as the metallic accent as this was a large part of the colour of the gilding flakes. I used a metallic mirri card to create a border around the plaid paper. I have some border stickers from Lakeland Limited that I have been using for years. There are an assortment of thicknesses in silver and gold and have proven so useful. It is a shame they don't do crafty things anymore as I got quite a few things from them over the years. I lad the thin gold strip along the thin black lines on the pattern as I felt it gives the paper a more opulent effect that enhances the gilding.

The deer is a Sizzix thinlits die that I cut from a double sided sticker sheet. It was a bit fiddly to remove as the curly sections of the antlers were very delicate. I added this 'sticker' to the crumpled Chrome paper and cracked open my gilding flakes from Indigo Blu.

Now having never used gilding flakes I am not altogether too sure if my technique was right as I got myself in a right mess. I had used an old ice cream tub and put a few flakes into it. I then grabbed a few and squooshed into the sticky shape. Once covered I started to remove the excess that stuck out. This is when I started to get it everywhere as the static build up was worse than I had expected. I used a muslin clothe to rub off the excess and buff it but it just kept sticking to me. It was so funny at the time as these little precious flakes were all over my desk. Eventually I managed to control the bits and get them back into the pot. Having watched a YouTube video I now know I should have used a stiff brush to get the excess off before rubbing it with the cloth. The demonstrator got into a mess too though so I don't think I did too bad for my first attempt. I enjoyed doing it though and it didn't put me off having another go ☺

Apologies for the weird angle on the photo as it was the only way I could get the foiling to show up properly. 

Card Details -

Size - A5

Die - Elegant Deer (Sizzix Thinlits)

Digital Papers - Purple Plaid, Crumpled Chrome (Decosse’s Dynamite Doodles)

Embellishments - Morris Dance Megaflake (Indigo Blu) Peel off Sticker sentiment, Peel off line sticker

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)

• 613 Avenue Create - #202301 Anything Goes
• A Perfect Time To Craft - #1-2023 Anything Goes
• A Place to Start - #202301 Anything Goes
• ABC Christmas Challenge - A is for Anything Christmas
• Ally's Angels - #66 Anything Goes
• As You Like It - Fave Reason to Send a Card - Christmas, love making them and do so all year round
• Birthstone Challenges - February Amethyst
• CD Sunday Plus - #101 - Anything Goes with a Digital Item
• Christmas Craft Creations - Snippets
• Christmas Crafts All Year Round - One of Something (snowman)
• Classic Design Challenge - #1 Anything Goes
• Corrosive Challenge - #1 Anything Goes
• Craft Rocket Challenge - #99 Not A Square
• Crafting Happiness - #138 Celebrations
• Crafts Galore Encore - #107 Anything Goes
• Crafty Animals - #68 Anything Goes with an Animal or Insect
• Crafty Calendar Challenge - Add a Sentiment
• Crafty Catz - #621 Anything Goes / Add A Die Cut
• Creative Fingers - #246 Anything Goes
• Cut It Up - #269 Anything Goes with a Die Cut
• Digi Choosday - #1 Anything Goes
• Ellibelle’s Crafty Wednesday - Anything Goes
• Gem of A Challenge - #2 Anything Goes
• Get Creative Challenges - #117 Something New (Gilding Flakes & technique)
• Jan’s Digi Stamps - Anything Goes
• Let’s Craft & Create - #191 Anything Goes
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - #198 Anything Goes
• Love To Craft - #72 Anything Goes
• Love To Scrap - #159 Anything Goes
• Make My Monday - #192 Fave Theme of 2022 (#181 Christmas)
• Merry Little Christmas - #48 Anything Christmas Goes
• Mix It Up Challenge - #63 Anything Goes & No Stamping
• Morgan’s Art World - #1 Anything Goes
• Most Magical Time of the Year - #4 Christmas
• My Time To Craft Christmas - #52 Patterned paper
• Outlawz Festive Fridays - Christmas
• Outlawz Sunday Songs & Rhymes - Inspired by New Things to Explore phrase in the song (gilding flakes new product & technique)
• Outlawz Twisted Thursday - Anything Goes & New Gilding Flakes & Technique
• Papercraft Challenges - #90 Anything Goes
• Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge - #32 Anything Christmas Goes
• Penny’s Challenge - #538 Anything Goes
• Polkadoodles - #2 Anything Goes
• The Creative Crafters - #60 Anything Goes
• Try It On Tuesday - In With The New (gilding flakes new and new technique)
• Word Art Wednesday - #579-580 Anything Goes
• Your Scrapbook Place - Anything Goes