Aurora Borealis

Have you ever seen the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)?  For the first part of my life, I had always wanted to see them but was never lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.  After we moved to the Okanagan Valley,  we have occasionally been witnesses to this eerily beautiful natural light display.

It's as spectacular as these photos make it out to be.  I can imagine that the ancients had some interesting tales and  myths surrounding this phenomena.






When we were at the Creative Escape Retreat three weeks ago, I learned how to do the Northern Lights Technique from my up-line, Desiree Spenst, and I immediately had to try it out.

• Although not really authentically Northern Lights shapes, it still give a beautiful effect.
• You begin by sponging a random assortment of colours on Whisper White cardstock, die cut with the second-largest Deco Label Framelit.  You cover up the paper, starting with the lightest colours (here I used Daffodil Delight) and ending with a darker colour such as Rich Razzleberry.  I used Pear Pizzazz and Tempting Turquoise as well.  
• Then you take a really dark colour like Midnight Muse and begin to cover up the other colours, leaving little bits of them showing, trying to achieve that curtain effect.  
• You continue the process with Basic Black and sponge the bottom in more darkly for the ground.  To be honest, it didn't look like much at this point.

• Using the Lovely As A Tree Stamp Set, I inked up the images in StazOn Jet Black and stamped them as silhouettes on the background.  I varied the level where the images started to create depth.
• It still was kind of ho-hum, but what really brought it alive was using the White Stampin' Chalk Marker to create little pin points of light that could be stars or falling snow.  It's important to keep the dots randomly spaced, not an even array.  If you have the dots in the foreground, it looks like snowflakes.  If you keep them in the background, between the images, they look more like stars.
• Add a matte cut from Basic Black cardstock with the largest Deco Label Framelit and mount it on Rich Razzleberry for a "rich" contrast.  
• I used a little strip of Modern Medley DSP and a bit of Soft Sky 1/2" Seam Binding ribbon to give a backing for the sentiment, which is from More Merry Messages stamp set.
• The shape for the sentiment was created using an Oval Framelit and trimming the top and the bottom to give straight lines.

You'll have to give this a try yourself.  Let me know if you'd like a video tutorial.

Stamps:  Lovely as a Tree (w128655; c127793); More Merry Messages (w126400; c126402)
Paper:  Modern Medley DSP (126926); Whisper White (100730), Rich Razzleberry (115316) and Basic Black (121045) cardstock
Ink:  StazOn Jet Black (101406); White Stampin' Chalk Marker (132133); Classic Stampin' Pads in Daffodil Delight (126944), Pear Pizzazz (131180), Tempting Turquoise (126952), Rich Razzleberry (126950), Midnight Muse (126860) and Basic Black (126980) 
Accessories:  1/2" Seam Binding Ribbon in Soft Sky (131210)
Tools:  Deco Labels Framelits (130102); Ovals Collection Framelits (129381); Stamping Sponges (101610)

Deco Label Framelits

Lovely As A Tree Stamp Set

More Merry Messages

Ovals Collection Framelits

Stamping Sponges

StazOn Jet Black

Chalk Marker

Modern Medley DSP

Black Tie Challenge and Blog Candy Winner!

When it comes to class, there's not much that can top black tie and no one can top black tie like Daniel Craig, the latest 007!

I love the Black Tie Challenges over at Dynamic Duos, perhaps because they are so dramatic and, according to my husband, I'm the drama queen!

This week the Dynamic Duo Challenge #71, is a Black Tie challenge:  Basic Black and Crumb Cake.This is a very classy combination and made me think of Christmas for some reason.

Here's my black and tan Christmas card:

• I used last year's Christmas Stamp set, Keepsake Ornaments as my focus.  You can still order this stamp set though it is not in the catalogue.  I embossed the images on Very Vanilla with Black Stampin' Emboss powder.  They also have framelits that I cut them out with.
• To bring the design from boring to beautiful, I added the pop of silver glimmer paper along with the sentiment embossed in Basic Gray.
• The background crumb cake panel is dry embossed using the Modern Mosaic Embossing Folder.                                                                                             

• I like how the 1/8" Taffeta ribbon in Basic Black has silver edging!  It makes the cutest bows for the tops of the ornaments.
• The sentiment is from a set from last year, More Merry Messages, and it, as well, can't be ordered from the catalogue, but can be ordered on line.  That's good because it has some great Christmas sentiments, and some that are small enough for the Modern Label punch.

And now before I fall asleep at the computer, I want to let you know the winner of the Blog Candy from this post.  Thanks to everyone who left a wonderful comment about what they were thankful.  The winning comment comes from Holly Finney!  This is what Holly won:

I will contact her about delivering her prize to her.  Congratulations, Holly!

It was a crazy day in our household yesterday.  I spent most of my day at a   v..e..r..y.......s..l..o..w.. Vendor Fair.  My hubby picked me up there at 3 pm and we went looking at cars.  We wanted to get a vehicle where we are sitting up higher for ease in getting in and out, and also one that got decent gas mileage.  After trying out the seats in several SUVs, we were smitten with a Nissan Murano which had just come into the local Nissan dealer's lot recently.  We ended up buying it and we finalize and pick it up on Monday.  We were pretty excited and went out to dinner to celebrate, getting home late.  I had all my vendor fair stuff to unload (actually, my dear hubby did that for me) and then the card to design and the blog post to write.  Now I'm really done...no, really!  See you tomorrow!