Princess Oceana Easel Card

I've been working on lots of different cards for the Operation Write Home Blog Hop this coming Saturday, but I took a break from this to make a challenge card.  If you follow my blog at all, you'll know I'm infatuated with Michelle Perkett's designs!  Needless to say, this card will be entered in the Michelle Perkett Inspiration and Challenge Blog.

As usual, this card had to have lots of sparkle.  Princess Oceana was printed onto white card stock from my HP printer and immediately embossed with clear detail embossing powder & heat set.  The image was colored with my trusty Prang colored pencils and blended with baby oil this time instead of Goo Gone.  The card stock I use is 110 weight, so the baby oil doesn't seep into the paper.  Her hair was highlighted with Icicle Stickles for some added bling.  I've had these small shells in my stash to use for my dollhouse miniatures, but since I've been making so many cards my miniatures have taken a back burner.  The glue I used to attach the shells to the card is called Quick-Dry Adhesive by Scotch.  This was another score at Big Lots for only $2.00!  The gold border around the image & the design paper & additional dots are made by a Pilot extra fine point Gold Marker.  The pearls needed dimesion since I added the shells, so I used Sakura gold metallic Opaque 3-D Crystal Lacquer on all of them.

The flowers on this easel card were hand-made by moi'!  I couldn't get a good color match with my silk flowers, so I tore several circles of the design paper from DCWV called Pocket Full of Posies.  Next I crumbled them up and flattened them back out with my hand.  They looked just a bit to plain for me, so I used a Pilot extra fine point Gold Marker to make dots all around each petal to help them coordinate more with the card.  After poking a hole in the center of each one, I added a brad from my stash to hold all of the layers together.  The flower on the right was a bit different from the others.  The center of this flower was made by first tearing a spiral from the paper.  Then I started from the center of the spiral and wrapped the rest of the paper around until I reached the end of the paper.  I had to play with it just a tad so I could see all of the layers.  From there I added a touch of glue on the end of the spiral, a brad through the center or this & the other two layers and then I had a flower!  Last but not least, is the addition of the Best Occasions rhinestones.

I love that this card with fold into a 4" square for mailing.  The soldiers that are serving overseas deserve some extra special cards, so I would love to send this out with the bundle I'm getting ready to go to Operation Write Home.  Unfortunately, this card has glitter which is not allowed, but I'm making another without the glitter because of the positive response I've received about it.  Many of the cards I send to them are ones that I can reproduce quickly, but it's nice to put in some cards that take a little more work.  I know from personal experience that the soldiers are very appreciative of all of the cards that we send.  BTW, I still don't know yet when my daughter's leaving for Afghanistan, but I'll post it as soon as I know. 

Challenges:  Paper Sundaes 9th Challenge - Multi-Fold

Michelle Perkett 20th Challenge - Recipe Challenge  ~~I WON!!!!! ~~

Crafty Creations Challenge 58 - Make Your own Flowers

Cupcake Craft Challenges:  Challenge 81 - Flower Power

Don't forget to stop back on Saturday to join in the blog hop!  I'll have some blog candy to give to one lucky winner that participates in the hop!

~  Lee  ~