The Emerald Isle

It's the first Friday of the month and that means we use that month's birthstone as the inspiration for our cards over on the Daring Cardmakers BLOG.  I don't mind saying that a few of us had a bit of a struggle with this one - even Keryn, who's birthday is actually in May.   Bearing in mind the bit in italics below, I think her jewellery box would be glad if she should make more of an effort to like them hehehe!

May Birthstone; Emerald

"Prized since ancient times, a fine emerald can be more expensive than a 

high quality diamond of the same carat weight."

The May birthstone is the Emerald and we'd like you to use this beautiful gem as the inspiration for your cards this week. We'd like to see more than just a tiny spot of emerald green on your cards, too!
If you're looking for extra inspiration you can find lots of info about the myths and legends surrounding the Emerald HERE

As it's not a colour I particularly like and I didn't really have much in the way of inspiration for something "different" I thought I'd fall back on one of my favourite styles and layouts and see if something nice would happen.

In the end I was quite pleased with this - going for several shades of green helped me over the emerald issue and there must be some emerald in amongst them somewhere!

However, it did take ages because I had a lot of improvisation to do in order to get things to go together!

I started by embossing the whole front of the 14cm sq card with the Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes die - some dies are easier that others to use twice for covering a whole card - this one works great.

The easiest bit was making the grungepaper rose (thanks again Linda), but even that was a bit of a faff getting a colour I liked.  I've inked it with a right old selection of green inks, spritzed it with some Glimmer Mist - I only have a couple of colours, so I mixed a couple of drops of a green re-inker into the gold one in a mini-mister bottle.  

None of the green Stickles I had seemed right, so I mixed together some Lemon Ice and some regular Green Stickles and swiped the resulting mix over the petals.

None of the long pins I had worked for colour so another bit of altering was needed.  I managed to get the existing blobby bit (technical term ;-)) off the top and used beads and Glossy Accents to make a new one - I added a couple of beads to cover the sharp end once it was in position but you can't see those..  Actually, my first attempt involved Glossy Accents and green glitter....not only was it a total mess but I also managed to tip the whole darned potful over......not only was there glitter everywhere but "real" glitter and contact lenses don't mix very well - and it's impossible  to get rid of every speck from desk, clothes, skin....

The dark green coiled rose is made from a scrap of grungepaper, the paler one from Lokta paper.  The other flower is made from a couple of Priam flowers.

The quotation is one of my favourites and uses a variety of fonts.  I saved the original version and now just change the colours/sizes/widths as required.  In this case I made sure it would fit that Nesties Labels die

Other stash:  Green Satin ribbon, white cotton lace, white satin edged ribbon, tiny green gems

Please visit the DCM BLOG -  it looks a real picture of Spring with all those shades of green - and you can meet our newest Guest Designer, too.  We'd love it if you'd join in and not just go Green but go Emerald Green with us this week

Do you remember a card I made for Keryn's Die Cut Dreams dare a couple of weeks.  Well, I used some lovely red wrapping paper on the front of it.  After a while though, I noticed it was a bit "bubbled" because  the paper hadn't stuck down firmly all over.  I suppose it wasn't too bad but it caught my eye enough for me to have to put it right.  

This meant removing the ribbon strip and getting as much of the paper off as I could.  Luckily I'd actually stuck the ribbon onto a card strip before attaching to the card so that came off ok. .I decided against using the same paper and went for red card instead. I cut our nephew's name using Mr Robo to relieve the flat expase of red a bit.

However....somehow Mrs Messy here managed to get spots of red ink on the white bits inside, didn't she.  So in the way of these things, one job just makes another job and I had to think of something to cover the red bits!

I found some footballs clip art and printed them to the right size to use with a couple of my circle punches (I've failed dismally to master Robo's print & cut feature), glued them over the blotches and added a few extras to make it look as though it was meant from the start!

Well done if you made it right through to the end of today's Waffle!  I've got crafting I definitely need to do today, but after the mishaps I've had over on the craft desk over the last few days I'm a tad apprehensive!

I'll just have to be brave and face those crafty demons, though :-0

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