PaperCutz Challenge #101 and new 2 me products

Happy Friday everyone.  Nugget, my dog, got me up at 7 this morning - I do believe she is worse than any of my kids.  However, since she is a 16 year old lab and doesn't talk back, we let her slide and even spoil her a bit!

This week at PaperCutz Challenge the challenge is a pretty easy one - anything goes!  Can't get any easier than that...I've been playing with some new products and my sample this week uses "build a blossom" from LaPashe that are available here.  I used a chrysanthemum on my card:

I played with it for quite a bit before I was happy with the look.  I started by spraying with a homemade yellow shimmer spray (polished pigments and simple solution) for some shine.  Then I decided to ink the back on each piece yellow in case it showed.  I spent some time shaping each piece and layered them.  The smallest piece I gathered up into a cone shape, glued it together to stay in this shape and filled the cone with butterscotch dimensional pearls.  I then thought it needed something else, so I used one of my top-secret "highly technical tools" (a bent paperclip) to add bits of glue in random places all over the flower and used PK Glitz Crystal glitter.  Then I decided it was finished.  Cheryl, the owner of my LSS gave me the highest praise, "I thought is was a regular silk flower".  For the card base I squeezed out butterscotch and terra cotta dimensional pearls (Ranger) onto wax paper, folder the paper over and swooshed the pearls around, I then added 2 white cs pieces inside the wax paper and ran it through my Big Shot using the Tim Holtz wood embossing folder.  When it was completely dry I patted Versamark on the raised portions and heat embossed with clear EP.  You can't tell in the picture, but it has a really nice finish.  The small horizontal strip was also colored with the dimensional pearls.  Of course, everything was going too smoothly...when I went to add the completed piece to a card base, I realized it was a 1/2" shorter than needed.  Now, I could have cut the card base down, but that would be too easy, so I glued a strip of ribbon top and bottom under the front panel.  I used a Clear Snap rub-on adhesive thanks and finished it off with brown glitter.
Cheryl also got in another LaPashe product "Nice and Easel which create 3D scenes for easel cards.  There is also a smaller 3D image for a second card.  I chose to make my easel cards 6" x 6" to allow me to mat the image.

I'm hoping you can see some of the dimension better in this picture.  The images had to be hand cut, which can be tedious, but this way I didn't have to worry about the leftover "nibs" from punch out pieces.  Each of the roses has at least one layer.  The bottom left rose has 3 layers so I used 1/16th foam dots for lift.  The saying on the bottom of the card is also part of the package.


This last card is made from the smaller pieces of a different Nice and Easel sheet.

I still had some alcohol inked vellum left from my previous post and thought it went well with these flowers.  I ran each piece through my Xyron so I didn't need to worry about adhesive showing through.  The bird embellishment is from a 12" border set from K and Co.  Most of my supplies are actually for scrapbooks, but it is fun to see how to "downsize" these pieces for cards as I did here.  More bang for my buck; if you've been reading previous posts, you know I hate to waste anything, even the packaging sometimes.

All of these cards are samples on display at Cheryl's store, Inspired Designs.  When they come down from display and if they are still in good condition, they go into my Operation Write Home box. 

As always, please leave a comment, good or bad, I learn from them all!  Why don't you play along this week at PCC?  Remember, anything goes!

Have a great week!