Sparkles Challenge – new beginnings

Hello there. We’re back with our first challenge of 2024 at Sparkles and it’s my turn to host! As we’re still in early(ish) January, I thought it would be fun to start off with ‘new beginnings’ – it works for so many occasions: New Year, new baby, weddings, new craft stash, etc. I’ve gone with the new plant growth that’s starting to appear in my garden – I’m looking forward to the first snowdrops pushing their heads up, so picked out the ‘snowdrop floral panels’ from ClarityCrafts and the sentiment from the ‘spring wreath’ set.  Time Out 

The lovely soft colours at Color Dare were ideal for my snowdrop, and it obviously also fits the ‘new’ theme at Time Out. I’m also sharing it with Simply Clean & Simple as it’s my favourite CAS style.

So, after all that preamble, on to my card! I started with a rectangular embedded frame on the front of a 5×5 card blank. Now the smallest of Clarity’s rectangle embedders was longer than I wanted, as I planned to put the sentiment outside the frame. I worked out how to shorten it, though! I lined up the embedder at the top of the card, then used my bone folder & ball tool to emboss round the top edge and part of each side. I then repositioned the embedder on the front of the card, lining it up with the embossed sides but moving it upwards over the top of the card. Turning back to the inside front, I could then emboss the rest of the sides and across the bottom edge. It was then simple to stamp the snowdrop panel into the frame and add the sentiment below it.

I pencil coloured the image, using a green Pergaliner for the leaves (it looks brighter in the photos than on the card), warm grey II Polychromo to shade the flower and the periwinkle Polychromo for the panel. I finished by running a line around the image with the periwinkle to create a drop shadow.

So what new beginnings are you inspired to create? Come on over to Sparkles challenge and share them with us – you have until 14 February to play along.

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16 thoughts on “Sparkles Challenge – new beginnings”

  3. Such a pretty card and I love that snowdrops are usually the first sign of spring. It will be a while before they appear here, but I too have a stamp so I may produce a card using it.

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  5. So beautiful! We have some of these in our garden… But still about two months need to pass before there’s any chance of seeing them! Wonderful CAS design. Thank you for joining us at Time Out!

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  10. Delicate and pretty card, Deborah! It’s too early in my climate but I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of my Tulips and Daffodils, followed by Iris. Great idea to add the embedding – a very effective technique. Thank you for playing along with us at Color My Heart Color Dare #583. – Melanie R.

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