First blog post … Sparkle & Shine – Yes Please PaperCrafts

I started a new online class on Monday and wanted a place to post my projects. I’ve always wanted to blog but was always too busy working. Now that I’m retired as of April 1st, I thought it would be a good time to give it a try.

I love papercrafts and everything that comes along with it (shopping, collecting paper, ink, stamps and everything crafty; and then organizing all the supplies and crafty goodies). I think sometimes I have more fun shopping and organizing my supplies than I do using them. I really struggle sometimes with using things that I really love, but sometimes you just have to take the plunge and use up your treasures.
To challenge myself to start using more of my stash, I decided to take my second online class at “OnlineCardClasses.com”. I took the Copics class a few years ago and it was so much fun and I learned a lot of really cool techniques. The instructors are amazing; I’m sure you’ve seen them if you’ve ever watched card making videos on YouTube. Two of my favorite instructors at OnlineCardClasses.com are Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner.

The new class is called “Sparkle and Shine”. It’s all about using your shiny, sparkly stuff, of course. My first day working with glitter was a little challenging for me. I love to craft, but getting really messy is just not for me; but I persevered and ended up having fun and making 3 cards. The best tip of the class was to use a Swiffer to clean up spilled glitter … With the Swiffer, I was able to keep the mess under control while working and at the end of the day the vacuum cleaned up the rest.

For my first card, I used versa mark ink and used the dots from the Simon Says Stamp Sparkle & Shine stamp set to create a random backdrop of dots. I added pink, blue, purple and green glitter from Martha Stewart to the embossed dots. In some lights, you can see the rainbow of colors, but in the picture it looks green (very strange how the lighting effects the glitter). Greeting and dots on butterflies was embossed with white embossing powder.