Golden Rocking Horse

I love the simplicity of this card, the contrast between the gold embossing paste on the really black card works a treat and it really sparkles.  Not unlike the diamonds in a jewellers display case.  

Hubby wasn't quite so sure about it  though....Eww... that's different for you, not sure about that.  I told him, I loved it and that it was made a long time ago,  I just hadn't turned the card front into a card until just now. He walked away totally unimpressed and said no more.  Which was probably just as well.

A tip I would like to offer now,  is to use a smooth really intense black card, this wouldn't have turned out nearly so nice if I had used the... umm.... black card  on sale in most craft shops that's pretending to be black.

I think this was a card I made using a sweet poppy brass stencil, which I picked up at a craft show some years ago, it retailed at around the £7.00 mark at the time. 

I used a gold embossing paste through the stencil to create this golden rocking horse, (after removing the stencil from the paste and dropping the stencil into a bowl of warm soapy water immediately to soak)  

 I sprinkled some ultrafine diamond glitter over the wet paste and let it set overnight. The glitter stuck well to the paste  and  many years later its still sticking well.

Once the paste was completely dry and had hardened off  I add a small red bow to the horses harness for a pop of colour. Then mounted the black panel onto a matching red paper and gave  it a very fine  1 /16th  of an inch border of red before adding it to my cream 7 x 5 inch  base card.

As much as I like the look and simplicity of these embossing paste cards, I do not have a lot of patience or space to spare when it comes to waiting for things to dry or set hard,  the consequences have usually been a total disaster so I mostly refrain from working with these types of products . Having said that...I am tempted to give it another whirl , that is, if my embossing paste hasn't hardened in the pot!

stamping a perfect wreath

 The other night I was watching a video on Youtube on how to stamp a wreath using a Gina K designs stencil for stamping in circles.  The stencil reminded me of a spinning medallion card I made many, many years ago. So I decided to reproduce the front of that card again as it was identical  to the stencil.


 Besides that I have never seen Gina K 's products for sale in the UK, so purchasing her stencil could mean a very long wait for delivery and I wanted to try this technique now.
 You 'll need a Misty or Stamparatus or similar tool to achieve this technique.


Here's how I made my stencil.

Using  a piece of heavy weight card  cut down to 6X6 inches,  I drew diagonal lines from corner to corner to find the centre.

 I   marked the half way mark on each side and joined up the marks so all the lines crossed in the centre.

 Taking a large square die, I lined up all four corners of the die over the diagonal lines and cut out the centre.

I then lined up the die corners with the second set of lines  making sure all the corners to be cut out were of  equal size and ran it through the Big Shot again.

I ended up with the 8 pointed star shape aperture below.
The stencil is now ready for use.


Using the same die,  I cut out several squares of  card suitable for stamping and colouring.

I  placed the stencil in the Stamparatus then positioned one of the pieces of stamping card in the aperture and marked one corner with a cross in pencil so I could remember which corner I started in and so that the cross could be erased later.

So now I am ready to start stamping....this is when I discovered my stash of unmounted stamps is very  limited.
 I only found three small stamps suitable for this demonstration, none of them are very impressive, but they will do the job.

 I placed the stamp on the card in the first corner to be stamped.
 I closed the plate on the stamparatus to pick up the stamp. I then inked the stamp while on the plate, and closed the plate again to stamp the first image.




Leave the stamp in place  on the plate.

Lift the card and turn it so that the crossed corner matches up with the next notch in the aperture.
Ink the stamp again and close the plate again.
Keep turning the card stock in the (same direction)  matching the crossed corner with the next notch  in the stencil and stamp again....repeat these steps  until the circle is complete.

When you have completed the circle choose another small stamp  to go with the first and position it on the card stock between the previously stamped images and repeat all the steps again with your second stamp.

Had my stamps been solid images I would have stamped the leaves in green, but as the stamps I  used are outline stamps I had to colour the images in after stamping.

It doesn't look bad considering.

On my second example I used a  small pine branch to create the second wreath.

I didn't have any more small foliage to complete the pine needle wreath so I ended up drawing in the berries and extra foliage.

I have to say it was easier to do as the basic wreath was already in place.

Now you know how to make your own stencil and how use it to stamp a perfect wreath and it wont cost you more than a piece of card.

Feeling of Christmas.

A simple card using a new stamp set from S.U for this Christmas called  

 Feeling of Christmas.