Gallery Idol Round 2 & Yoghurt!

Hey! How are you? So.. this is my submission for Gallery Idol Round 2. (If you want to cut reading the rest and just go straight and vote for me.. then go right here (ha ha!)

And boy, did it require a lot of head scratching. I had the idea very quickly, but getting the right colours and sentiment- it took forever! It’s one of those cards where you’re not entirely happy with, but I had to leave it alone and just go with it. It is, at the very least ‘happy’!

The theme of this round was ‘Die Cutting’. It’s actually an enormous category- think of the shapes, the techniques, how to be innovative?

Well, I couldn’t reinvent the well worn wheel, just play around a little. So for the rainbow? Super simple

I used my XCut circle nesting dies to create a set of circular frames that nested into each other, right down to the last one which I just punched a hole in the middle to create the teeniest one. I then trimmed each one, more or less in half and then added faux stitching using a white gel pen.

To add the embedded look, I just cut out the clouds from the Kinetic set (Xcut) from the patterned paper & then cut them out from the same cardstock that I’d made the card base from. by then fitting the clouds into the paper like a jigsaw, you get a pretty effect. I left one of the clouds slightly overhanging on the left side to give added interest to the card.

Next came the unbelievably faffy bit (there’s another phrase for you Amy T!). I love the Embellished Tag die set from Mama Elephant & the tiny confetti that go with it make a perfect set of miniature ‘raindrops’. Each piece is only about 3mm big & once I’d arranged them onto a board, I worked out which colours I wanted and suspended sets of them onto invisible thread so that the shapes ‘shone’ and not the thread. Labour of love, I tell ya’!

I wanted the ‘rain’ to hang ‘proud’ off the card so came up with an arch of acetate, secured on the inside. I simply adhered each piece of thread to the back of the acetate arch with tape runner & then sealed it with a piece of washi tape (see, can’t get enough of that stuff!!). So, my card looks like this All it needed now was the Happy Trio die from WPlus 9. I die cut it twice and used the grey ‘happy’ behind the blue happy to act as a shadow and give depth to the sentiment. I then added a couple of little gold stars and stopped.

I ummed and aahed about adding glitter and adhesive gems and tied myself up in knots mentally. I then thought I’d overthought this card for too long & I had to leave it well alone! I think the card was relieved I didn’t burden it with any more elements.

So ..that’s it. If you like it and want to vote for me (hate this part!!).. please pop along to the Gallery Idol page and register here – it’s a very quick process which means you can then see the entries here and then if you prefer mine (and here’s hoping!) you can vote here. It’s pretty quick and painless, and if enough people like it before Thursday evening, then I get to go through to Round 3.

I have however been enormously chuffed to get this far, so if it ends here, all’s well!

The kids were kinda unimpressed. I showed them my entry and they ‘glazed over’ a little.

Wow, they’re a tough crowd.

There was no family help in creating it, they were more interested in the yoghurt maker we’d bought. We did have beautiful fresh yoghurt this morning & I’m hoping the supposed millions of good bacteria that are now fighting the bad bacteria (in a super-hero style of course) justifies the cost of the yoghurt creator. We have unsweetened Greek Yoghurt to try next; who’d have imagined that the creation of yoghurt would be so exciting?! It wasn’t quite as exciting as littlie and me making popcorn yesterday. He could not believe how much you got from tiny kernels & the amazement on his face to hear the popping & then lift the lid was priceless. I’m a bit like that when I see a new stamp set (he he!).

Will be back tomorrow with my usual Tuesday post for Make The Day Special

Better go, it’s a bank holiday here in the UK- and it’s definitely a day for family & relaxing. (I’ll have plenty of one, and little of the other!) xx