Bling Challenge

This months Gold Star Ink team challenge was BLING so imagine my delight to carve out some time this morning to get busy creating something to share with the team that features bling, glitter, smooch and well just WOW to anyone who gets this handmade card in their mailbox this upcoming season!

I was inspired to use the tag punches to create a snowflake I have seen making its rounds on the Internet to create an ornament.

 So to start I cut some brush silver cardstock and punched out 16 small tags leaving space on the strip as shown. Than using the lag tag punch I carefully re-punched the strip of tags ... creating the 'window' at the bottom shown here ... 

Than you use a 4 x 4 piece of velum and using glue attach 4 tag windows snuggle together at the corner edges to the vellum as shown below.

Please note my first one I used the two way glue as this is what someone online had said they used - however I noted that it did not stick as well to the vellum once I started cutting later so on my second one I chose to use the Multi Purpose Tombo which worked better IMO however is messier - so to each her own on glue choices ;)

Repeat the pattern with a second layer slightly rotated to the right ... as shown here ...

Once you have your two pieces of vellum with the tag pattern glued on and dry - than you need to take your paper snips and carefully snip away the flat edges to  reveal the snowflake as shown here ....

 Snip both pieces as shown here ...

Than I used the Northern Frost snowflake die to cut out a snowflake focal point  - however you could use any alternative 'focal' piece in the middle here. I used the paper pierce to pierce the focal point and ONE snowflake and attached a silver glimmer brad through and using fishing wire I tied a loop around the brad before 'closing' the prongs to secure it in place for use as an ornament hanger. Than attach the top snowflake to the second layer at a slight angle as shown here - I chose to use a 'dimensional' to give it a little more depth.

Now you could just use this as an ornament on your tree or hang them from a window as a sun catcher throughout the winter season - it really is striking and I am very please with my first effort ... however when I was done I decided I wanted more BLING for this particular challenge ;)

 So I repeated the entire process using the new Stampin' Up Silver Glimmer paper ... and well can you say BLING - photos do not do this justice but  you might need some sunglasses to view this baby in person!

 And well I wanted to create a card to go with it ... so that it could serve as both a Christmas card and a small token of thanks for someone special this season - so here is the card i created to hold the ornament

 There was so much bling going on here I was afraid a sentiment would take away from the glimmer - so thank goodness for the Tiny Tags sentiments and Jewelery punch ... cause a little Merry sends the message of Holiday tidings while not taking away too much from the snowflake ornament!

 Side view to show the dimension on the card ... the Framed Tulips and Snow burst embossing folders both smooched with some Vanilla smooch  really add some additional glimmer to the card in person

Happy Stampin'

Margaret