Bring on the Shine! - Make a Card That Sparkles -

Hi friends! Today I’m sharing a card with all the shine. I just completed a class taught by the queen of sparkle, Carissa Wiley, called Let It Shine. In this class, you learn all the different ways to add shine to your cards. I don’t typically gravitate toward glitter or sparkle on my cards unless it’s for a holiday but I think this card turned out beautiful.

Some of the ways you can add sparkle or shine to your cards is through embossing powders, metallic or glitter cardstock and embellishments. I incorporated all three on this card. To start, I pulled out my Billowing Peonies bundle from Altenew. This set is HUGE. If you like to make 5×7 cards, this is fantastic set for those. I placed a 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inch Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock panel into my Misti Stamping tool. The largest floral image, which is the one I used on the front, will fill up a standard Misti platform so you will have to strategically place your cardstock to get the image you want. If you don’t have a sticky mat for your Misti, I highly recommend you get one. I use the Misti Sticky mats and they work great to keep you cardstock in place.

After I placed my card panel where I wanted it, I stamped the image in Versamark ink, making sure to get a good impression. Then I sprinkled with my Brutus Monroe Gilded embossing powder and heat set with my WOW heat tool.

Next, I selectively stenciled the image by only using a few of the coordinating stencils. You get so many stencils with this set so you can really get a lot of different looks. I wanted some white areas on the flowers and leaves so I only used stencils 3, 4 and 5 for the peonies then stencil 7 for the leaves. Even though I only used one stencil for the leaves, I used two colors and created some variation by blending on a darker color by the base of the leaves. To keep my cardstock in place while I stenciled, I used my Waffle Flower Grip Mat. My Altenew Fresh Dye ink colors are listed below.

Peonies
Leaves
- Pistachio
- Misty Sage

With my ink blending complete, I cut my card panel down to 5 1/4 by 4 inches so I could create a glitter cardstock mat behind it on my card base. My gold glitter cardstock mat measures 5 3/8 by 4 1/8 inches. I adhered my card front panel to my glitter cardstock and then adhered to my card base. The card base is a Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb side-folding A2 card base measuring 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches scored at 4 1/4 inches.

For my sentiment, I chose the word ‘thanks’ from the Versatile Greetings die set. I chose a gold glitter cardstock and cut the word once from that and then twice more from white. This would give me some dimension without needing to use foam. Next I cut the shadow layer twice from the same white cardstock as my card to ensure it matched. I adhered my sentiment layers together and then placed on my card with Art Glitter glue. Now this card is already full of shine but I decided it needed just a bit more. My go-to gold embellishment is the Gold Coin Metallic Confetti from Trinity Stamps. I added a few of those with liquid glue and my Altenew Perfect Picker tool.

I cut another piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock to 5 1/4 by 4 inches. Then I embossed in the same gold embossing powder as the front but using the smaller floral image and a sentiment from the Billowing Peonies set. Again, I only used two of the three stencils to ink blend the image, stencils 9 and 10. I used the same three ink colors as the front. For stencil 10, I used Coral Bliss first and then Berry Mocha just around the center of the flower. The leaves were colored using stencil 12 and the same two colors as the front of the card. Then I cut another gold glitter cardstock mat for the inside and adhered behind my card panel and then to the inside of my card.

We have reached the end of this card full of sparkle and shine. I’m feeling inspired to use more of the mountains of glitter cardstock I have accumulated over the years. Anyone else? So many colors. So little time. Anyway, I appreciate you stopping by today. Now go get crafty!