Playing with gilding flakes

In a few of Chrissie's YouTube videos, she uses gilding flakes - and that set me thinking back to when I too used to play with flakes and double sided adhesive sheet - and so, this Christmas card came about:

 

A closer peep at the shiny leaves!

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" Pale Ivory Linen Silkweave card blank (using a sheet of A4 card)  

- then covered a panel of light brown card with a snippet of double sided self-adhesive sheet before applying a coating of Cosmic Shimmer 'Mulled Wine' gilding flakes, gently patting them on at first (you don't need much!) then spreading and buffing them using a piece of 'scoochy foam'

- next, die cut the leaves using an unbranded 'Fragmented Leaves' die bought for me by a special friend - and it's probably my favourite die in the whole world right now!

- the leaves felt slightly sticky after I'd finished, so after having a little think I sprayed them with hairspray and it worked perfectly as a sealant

- more die cutting - a snippet of brown card and a Memory Box 'Woodland Branch' die - which I glued onto the card front using a glue pen

- then die cut the 'JOY' frame onto the card front. It was cut from a snippet of Craft Perfect Pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card using a Die-namics MFT 'JOY photo card frame' die

- stuck the frame onto the card front using very narrow foam strip around the edge (again I used Chrissie's trick of running a glue stick over the sticky surface of the tape before popping it in place onto the background and pressing it down - it's a real game changer!)

- die cut a sweet little bow from the same Red Velvet card, using a Gummiapan 'Rosetta' die

- and finally, popped two leaves and the bow onto the card, to 'hang' from the branch

I made four cards in total - two of the one above and two where I used a pearlised gold 'Joy' frame with the same red bow, leaves and branch, and I like both of them equally.

I'm nothing if not a keen follower of others, possibly too easily influenced for my own good, and Chrissie's videos led me to the Swedish company 'Gummiapan'. Oh my word - their little dies are so detailed and adorable! I hopped over for something else altogether - and the little bows somehow fell into my basket! Their prices are actually very reasonable - so long as you factor in postage and try not to get stung at your end for Customs Duty etc. It was a treat I tell myself and not something I would do every day! 

So - I would like to enter my card into some challenges:

First of all, Charlotte of 'Lady Joyful' runs a super challenge called 'Christmas Craft Creations' - HERE. AND, this month the theme is 'snippets'! Yay! So, I'm entering my snippets card and hope you perhaps will also follow suit. The challenge is open for another couple of weeks and it would be really great if you could steal a march on your 2023 Christmas cards and join in. 

And, of course it's our lovely Mo's Rudolph Days Challenge HERE. This is one challenge I never miss.

Plus, another 'must play along with' challenge - Darnell's NBUS Challenge - HERE. The leaf die set and the little Gummiapan bow dies are both NBUS goodies!