I found a snippet of white card and using starch I sprayed it onto my glass mat and added orange and brown Brusho Powders, and swept the card through it doing it several times to build up the colour. I am not sure how long they will last as they worked out at approximately 30p per pen but I did not want to spend a lot of money as this is something for me to practice on as alcohol pens are something that I have never used to any great extent, but having seen a couple of people I follow on YouTube using them very successfully I was tempted to give them a try. I decided to use the starch again as it works equally as well as water, and I think that the card doesn't warp as much and the starch makes it more viscous so it stays put better. I used the Fancy Rectangles frame around the piece using a snippet of orange card and added the die cut gold 'Congratulations' along the edge of the frame also cut from a snippet of gold mirri card. Glitzcraft's Stencil can be used with Glitzcraft Glitter Frosting Paste, Gels, Chalks, Inks, Paints, Glues etc.

I then remembered I have a Sakura Starlight Pen which gives a sparkly finish, and so I when over all the stitches with this and was happier with the look. I decided to mount it onto a piece of white card a little longer than the embossed piece and placed the sentiment at the bottom of this with the Copper EP. Finally I put it together on a 5" x 7" card, and added some foam tape to the back of this layer for dimension. I then embossed the Quilt EF and tried highlighting the stitched lines on it with some Pebeo Silver Gilding Wax using a piece of tissue over my finger and rubbing it gently, but as the stitches aren't very raised it did go on the background a bit, but decided it still looked pretty.The lovely Di Wray enabled me to get this one instead, which is really pretty too and has a couple of edges to cut out the star as well as the pretty central area which will cut into the card, so lots of ways of using it, so that you Di. Cards Creations Ltd offer a variety of design collections to choose from, including laser cuts, pocket styles, ribbons and bows, and glitter and gold. I stuck this together and added a piece of foam to the back to give it a bit more dimension, and also added some Wink of Stella around the outside edge. Having seen techniques using embossing folders and heat embossing on YouTube, I decided to give it a go.

I bought this Sue Wilson star die before Christmas which is getting its first outing here, after having been looking for the Aurora Star which was not available anywhere. I have added this as I don't think I explained properly that the usual technique with spray starch using Brushos then includes cling film laid over and left until dry and you can get a lovely textural look, but I didn't use the film as I knew I wanted to do the dry and heat embossing so thought any added texture would not really be seen.

This is a great book for anyone starting to make their own cards or who have been making cards for awhile and want some new ideas.

I tore my own cloud mask by just pencilling a rough shape and tearing it with my fingers which gives it a more random look than using scissors, and started adding clouds moving top to bottom with just Lucky Clover for the clouds and I then added some Twisted Citron over the top in places, and finished with Cracked Pistachio at the bottom, and the Lucky Clover round the edges. There were areas where the powder had not stuck sufficiently so I used the Versamark Pen to fill in the gaps, and added more powder and heated these areas, and did this several times until I was happy with it. This beautiful Birthday Verse and Sentiment die and stamp set has multiple functions, extending its creative uses.I took the kit on holiday in July hoping I might get a lot of it done whilst away, but that didn't quite work out. I thought the little bird looked like a wren so did the colours in shades of brown, and brown and three or four greens and a yellow on the branches and leaves. You may not print and sell individual papers or decoupage images, nor may you copy or sell the CD-ROM/USB.