My First Design Team Post!

Hi all! Today I’m sharing my very first design team post with you!! : ) A while back I met a crafty friend online by chance and she asked me to be a part of the design team for Southern Girls Challenge, based out of New Zealand. I was very honored and excited, so of course I said yes! Louise, my new friend who lives halfway around the world, is one of the admins of the challenge blog and I am officially on Team Lou! The theme this time is stripes, and despite the fact that it was Summertime here in Buffalo, NY (and a pretty hot one at that!), I was inspired to create a Christmas card with a sparkly, wintry blue effect. Here it is:

To create this card, I used Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Blue Topaz, a diagonal stripe stencil, the ‘Merry Wishes’ stamp set from Hello Bluebird, My Favorite Things sentiment banner dies and some clear sparkling sequins. The front panel is adhered to a dark gray, top-folding 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ card base using white craft foam. This is a trick I learned from Jennifer McGuire. First, it lifts your panel off the card base for a more dimensional look, and second, it makes it sturdier when sending it through the mail. I love how it pops up off the card base. It just really adds to the overall look. (p.s. I ordered mine from Amazon – 10 sheets at a great price point.)

This was my first time using Nuvo Glimmer Paste and I really like it. I’m not usually super keen on too much glitter or sparkly stuff, outside of your classic sequins or a touch of shimmer pen here and there, but I thought I’d give it a try. I laid down the stencil and taped it with masking tape to the edges of my card panel and applied the glimmer paste with a small plastic offset spatula made for arts and crafts. (I think I got it at Michael’s for $2.) I applied it in smooth, even strokes and scraped any excess back into the little jar. Be careful with this stuff as it dries quickly on your spatula and anything else it gets on! I wiped my spatula and stencil with a baby wipe right away and then took it to the sink and washed it with warm water and soap. There’s still some on my stencil, but that’s ok. Some also kind of dried onto my craft mat, but hey, crafting is messy sometimes. 🙂  I set the card aside to fully dry before applying the other elements.

If you’ve never checked out Hello Bluebird, you should! The have the cutest stamps and matching dies and I’ve found that their dies are very reasonably priced and are great quality. This particular stamp set has a variety of Christmas/holiday sentiments you can mix and match and I love how you can die cut the big words. It really creates an impact. And that loopy, hand-written style is great! They have particularly cute critter stamps, too! ; ) Visit them here.

So in the end, I really like the Glimmer Paste and want to try new techniques with it. It’s very brilliant and beautiful in real life. I even went to my local scrapbooking/stamp store and bought two more! 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first DT blog post and make sure you pop over the Southern Girls Challenge Blog to see what the other fabulous designers have created! Thanks for visiting!