Out of kilter

because

1: We are about the only part of the UK with no snow. I like a good 36 hours of proper snow. And then for it to disappear instantly

2: I went to see Les Mis this week and came out unmoved. I looked at my watch near the end to see how much more I had to endure. My poor DCM colleagues and Facebook friends have heard some of my reasoning so I won't go into it now, but it is odd to read about rave reviews and people sobbing and thinking "how come we watched the same film?" And I quite liked Russell Crowe as Javert

3: I am bone weary, keep feeling like a horrible cold will develop and yet it isn't. I DON'T want a cold, but I want to stop feeling on the edge of one. I am not much fun to be around!

4: I've actually managed a bit of crafting this week but the bad light has meant that taking photos and then finding time to blog has been limited. I could have done a lot more crafting as I didn't have as many evening meetings this week but thanks to 3: I spent more time lying on the sofa watching Buffy (now on series 2 and Spike has arrived. Yay!)

You should have seen the shenanigans to get anywhere near a decent card for DCM this week. Keilly dared us to go for Embossability
Here's my card

 

I bought a bargain priced Docrafts deep embossing folder this week (OK I bought 2). I love the dimension it gives to plain cardstock. I tried inking and embossing at the same time as well but that didn't work, so I embossed one of the clock faces again and swooshed ink over it. What I should have done is carefully measured everything as I planned to put it over the matching plain white image - but my embossed greeting section was too big. (Yes "Celebrate" is slightly squiffy). I used October Afternoon Midway papers; Banana Frog and Imagine That stamps; Versamark ink and detail white embossing powder; Liquid Pearls and  enamel accents.

I decided to go one stage further with the old embossing and do some triple embossing with UTEE. I took a chipboard number and green and blue UTEE, embossing and melting 3 times. on the last layer I pressed a Clearly Besotted stamp into the still warm powder to create this ridge effect. Only now have I remembered that perhaps clear stamps aren't the best thing to use for this so hopefully my lovely new stamp is still ok. I'll report back!

I also made a card for a church member who reached a special age this year. Again the light was TERRIBLE so please excuse it

The numerals are a pale pink in real life and have been embossed and covered in glitter, as were the paper roses and leaf. It is lovely to know that you are hand delivering a card so it can have loads of dimension. The papers are all Echo Park This and That Graceful. I also used PTI number dies; Sizzix and Dienamics shape dies; Cuttlebug embossing folder; Martha Stewart punch; Imagine That stamp.

One other thing to share just now - as I wasn't feeling creative I decided to be useful instead and made handy guides for my Stickles and Liquid Pearls so that I know what colours I have and what they look like

Turns out I have quite a few.... I love using Liquid Pearls most as they tend to flow much better which allows for more even distribution. I had trouble with the green and patina Stickles as you might be able to tell. Hopefully this will help me to use them even more.

If you have snow this weekend - hope you are safe and warm and can have some fun!