We're loving these jars of gilding flakes from Sue Wilson. There are lots of ways to use these lovely combinations of foil leafing. Yes, this is the same type of product you bought 10 yrs ago, that is still sitting in the back of your cupboard :-) . The easiest way to frame up a card or layer is to use your double sided tape, in any width, around the edges of your layer. Apply flakes and brush off excess.

Now that we have a million dies to choose from, every negative frame left over from your die-cut becomes a new frame for a foiled image. Once you've cut out a fairly solid image, apply double-sided tape to the backside of the opening. Now the tacky adhesive will show through the frame ready for foiling. Apply foil flakes gently, brush off excess and then burnish the remaining image with a nice firm brush (like a stipple brush).

 

The white card in the picture above is a good sample of applying the foil thru a die-cut negative. We then used the actual cut-out and used some distress ink to colour it before we applied it to the front of the card. The thin foil line on the left of the same card is a 3mm width of tape with the foil gilding applied.

On the black easel card, Bev has used a stand-up helper die-cut from Elizabeth Dies. The link below will show Els demonstrating the positioning of stand-up-helper dies. This is an older video showing small shapes rather than the new words, but the technique is the same. Although the Best Wishes has been cut from the black card, we have covered it with a silver die-cut on top of the black for a different effect. There are a number of the word-dies in this line that are salutations.

 

http://youtu.be/TA5I_YJQ_3Q

 

 



Sometimes a card base can be as easy as a piece of printed vellum on top of a card layer. The samples below are from Magenta. These are all 12 x 12 sheets, at $1 each. The designs are lovely and simple enough that they will work for many occasion cards. All you're left to add is a layered salutation with perhaps a die-cut or two, and you have an instant card.

 

In the card on the left, we have cut the vellum longer than the card, so we could fold over at top and bottom to adhere to the inside of the front of the card so the adhesive doesn't show. We then cut a liner for the inside of the card.



It is time to get out your alcohol inks again and make some really fun and funky backgrounds. Bev used Watermelon, Sunset Orange and Purple Twilight Rangers Alcohol Inks to create this vibrant background. The hollyhock stamp was stamped with black Versafine and clear embossing powder. The hollyhocks die-cut was cut from deep-pink cardstock. The layering of the die to the card is a little bit time consuming because she has used tiny foam squares, some of which needed to be cut to size.

Both the die and the stamp are from Impression Obsession. I really like how the companies are making dies and stamps that match well together.