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Yesterday, Nora and I attended two classes with Els Van de Burgt of Elizabeth Craft Designs at Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley. Cheryl (cgee) joined us for this second class. Els was accompanied by her daughter, and they had everything beautifully organized. Both classes were wonderful, and Els was an extremely good instructor–informative, friendly, and patient, and her daughter was a big help. Els had dozens of cards she let us early arrivers look through; her designs and choices of colors, patterns, and embellishments are exceptional.

We made three cards in each of the classes. Now that I've taken this class, I have new respect for stickers. These cards were labor intensive. I know that with practice I'll get better at this, but there are a lot of steps and techniques involved in making these cards. I love every one of them. I only wish the shimmer and shine would show up in the scans.

TIPS:
1. When using double-sided adhesive: Don't touch the adhesive with your fingers. Use a piece of release paper to hold it down or burnish something attached to it.

When applying glitter, just pull back a portion of the release paper, glitter some of the adhesive, and then hold onto the glittered part and remove the rest of the release paper.

To attach an outline sticker to the adhesive, first remove the release paper from one side. Lay it, shiny side up on the table. Put the sticky adhesive piece off to the side. Don't touch the adhesive. Remove the outline sticker from the sheet of stickers and lay it sticky side up on the release paper. (The shiny side of the design is against the shiny side of the release sheet so they can be separated later.) If you aren't going to cut the sticker out later, you need to use tweezers to position the sticker where you want it to be on the final project. Now pick up the adhesive sheet and place it sticky side down onto the outline sticker. Remove the release sheet. You're ready to add the glitter.

ETA: Video Tutorial by Els van de Burgt, Elizabeth Craft Designs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fp7GgH0L4 [youtube.com]

2. For all cards using microfine glitter: After applying the glitter, rub in a circular motion with your fingers to burnish the glitter and make it shine. If you use a Mr. Coffee-type of coffee filter below your pieces, you can easily pour the extra glitter back into the jar. Be sure to brush away any leftover glitter before changing colors. We used a mop paint brush or maybe it was a mop-style make-up brush.

3. When die cutting something from cardstock backed with two-sided adhesive, put the cardstock face up and the die, blades down, on top of it. That way you will cut through the cardstock and adhesive, but not the release paper. If you place the die on the release paper side, it won't cut cleanly through all the layers.

ETA: 4. Use black outline stickers when you plan to color with alcohol markers. That way the color won't show if ink hits the sticker. (Cards 2 & 3)


CLASS 2:
Cards were 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

SUPPLIES:
Cardstock: Card bases and mats were all cut and ready to use except for scoring. I had a bone folder, but some of the cardstock cracked. Next time I'll bring something to score the card base before folding it by hand.
Elizabeth Craft Design Dies: Branch from the Sprigs with Berries set
Elizabeth Craft Design Silk Microfine Glitter: Warm Diamond, Gold
Elizabeth Craft Designs Shimmer Sheetz: White Iris (the base of the ornaments)
Elizabeth Craft Design Peel-Off Stickers: Balloons, Winter Birds Circles, and many choices of borders, accents, and sentiments.
Elizabeth Craft Design Adhesive Sheets
Ranger Glossy Accents
Judikins Trio Tape (worked great on the glitter)
Copic Markers: I threw away the paper where I'd carefully written down what colors we used.

CARD 1:
We were given the same two Peel-Offs ornaments in black, gold, and silver. We began by placing the outline stickers from one color of Peel-Offs onto a piece of White Iris Shimmer Sheetz. Then we carefully removed pieces of the other two colors and inserted them into some parts of the outline to create a tri-colored ornament. Sound easy? Huh! It's easy to remove pieces if you first take away all of the backing, but since we were using different parts, I was afraid to do that. Little pieces kept sliding under the outlines of the other ornaments as I tried to remove them. A couple of pieces went flying when I pushed at them with my tweezers. One I found. One I replaced by punching a piece of the backing with a hole punch when I got home. I was not alone. Two other ladies at my table of six also spent time looking for errant pieces. Around the room, I'd see people searching for their pieces. The one man with us was funny in his exasperation. I heard lots of groans and laughter. Now that I think about it, I should have removed all of the backing. I'm pretty sure that would not have affected the pieces I needed to get at, but the remaining outlines would still in the way.

The rest of the card, my favorite one, went easily. I love the patterned papers Els chose for the background. I attached those to the card base, attached lines from the gold Peel Off Border Lines Sheet around the top piece, and attached the ornaments with Judikins Trio Tape.

We die cut the branch from a piece of cardstock backed by double-sided adhesive. (See Tip 3.) When I die cut my branch, Els told me not to remove the extra pieces that remained in the die cut until after I had glittered it. (See Tip 2.) I removed the release paper, put the branch in a coffee filter, and covered it with beautiful Silk Microfine Gold Glitter. It is gorgeous. I attached it to the card with Glossy Accents.

When I thought I was all done, the lady next to me pointed to the Peel-Off sentiment and my card. Just one more step. Finished.

CARD 2:
For the background of this card, we used a technique I absolutely love. Els calls it the Iris Shimmer Sheetz Magic Transfer Technique. You can make three card fronts with one piece of embossed Shimmer Sheetz. Here's a video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9He1kdAvcY. [youtube.com]

We had two narrow strips of Shimmer Sheetz, Purple Iris and Blue Iris. Els embossed those for us as we worked on the balloons. When she gave us the pieces back, we cut them into different lengths and used them, one piece at a time, to make the border on a piece of double-sided adhesive that had already been attached to a piece of cardstock. You put a piece down, place a piece of release paper over it to avoid touching the adhesive, and burnish it. When you pull the Shimmer Sheetz away, the iridescent coating remains on the adhesive. I used all of my pieces alternating sides and colors. You can only use one side once. Once the iridescence is off, it can't be used this way again. When the border was complete, we covered the entire piece with Warm Diamond microfine glitter. We burnished that with our fingers, and brushed off the excess.

To make the focal piece, we placed the outline portion of the Balloon Peel Off Sticker onto double-sided adhesive that had already been attached to cardstock. (See Tip 1.) Then we placed the entire sheet on top of a coffee filter, covered it with Warm Diamond Silk Microfine Glitter, and burnished it. (See Tip 2.) Once we'd brushed away the excess glitter, we colored them with Copic Markers. The lady sitting next to me was very helpful with her tips on how to do this.

The border and the sentiment are also Peel Offs.


CARD 3:
This was the easiest card of all. Maybe we're just getting better at this? We placed the Peel-Off outline sticker onto double-sided adhesive that had already been placed onto cardstock. (See Tip 1.) We put it in a coffee filter and poured on Warm Diamond Silk Microglitter. We burnished it and brushed away the excess. (See Tip 2.)

We colored the image with Copic Markers. I think I used Dark Brown, Redwood, Yellow Green and Prussian Blue (leaves), Sky Blue.

We added the borders and the sentiment with more Peel-Off Stickers.

TFL.
Daria


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