bling it on (again!)

we're still celebrating all things glittery, glimmery, sparkly and shimmery over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this week. well heck, some of us (ME!!!) pretty much do that every week, but for our "bling on the holidays" prompt we are officially requesting that you use gems, jewels, pearls, glitter, stickles, beads, sequins or the like in your card. here's what i made:

ornaments: strathmore watercolor paper, watercolored with ken oliver's color burst in blues and purples and stenciled with silver viva decor glitter embossing paste (damask stencil= tim holtz; medallion=sheena douglass for crafter's companion) inked with colorbox chalk ink and outlined with a faber-castell pitt pen in xs; patterned paper: elle's studio, hambly; glossy white cardstock: paper accents; heart shaped sticky back jewel: eyelet outlet; bling lines: recollections; scraps of silver foil paper and blue seam binding from my stash; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots

it's no secret that i'm in love with embossing paste generally, and glitter embossing paste especially. i made a few cards last year which featured hand cut baubles, gussied up with stenciled glittery patterns, and i can tell you right now that this won't be the last time for this year, either.

i particularly love adding glitter embossing paste to ornaments i've painted with color burst, just because the range of colors and contrasts you can get is so awesome. in this case i've also outlined the embossing paste patterns to make them stand out even more. i'm pretty sure you won't be seeing that technique again in conjunction with the super-detailed damask pattern stencil anytime soon because it was fairly tedious to do. but it looks good, so i'm callin' it a win, lol!

it's a "fifth saturday" at sketch saturday, which means we could choose any past sketch between #215 and #396; so i went with #251:

stephanie also has a lovely bling-based card to show you over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and, should you need additional inspiration, i highly recommend a scroll through the gorgeous readers' gallery!