Diwali bloghop–Day 2

I hoped you enjoyed the ideas and inspiration shared by the team on day one of the bloghop! Here’s another day full of creativity! Day 2 is devoted to anything-but –a-card!

I’ve had a banner on my to-do list forever! So when deciding what to make for the bloghop I figured that I should make a banner and check off that item from my list after all!

[My apologies for the poor lighting]

Instead of making something very specific like “happy diwali”, I chose to make something more generic based on the theme of diwali and which would also be an inspiration for everyday life. To me Diwali is all about celebration. Celebrate the festival, celebrate the homecoming of Lord Ram, celebrate with friends and so on. “Celebrate” is also an inspiration for me – it tells me to celebrate life. Everyday. As it happens. Celebrate every moment. Celebrate what you have.

Coming down to the mechanics of this banner: I used Cricut and SCAL to cut the triangles and the letters.

1. The triangles are 5” X 5” and cut on PTI cardstock.
2. The doilies are 4” white doilies. They’re sponged with various distress inks and then sprayed with glimmer mist made using Inka gold. Just add some Inka Gold to water in a mister and shake well. Then spray. If you don’t have anything to make glimmer mist, then don’t worry. This banner would look as good even without it.
3. For the letters: I used a double-adhesive sheet. Applied it to one of the cardstock. Then cut the letters. The letters are cut using the Samarkan font. From the cut letters, remove the liner from the other side of the adhesive sheet. Sprinkle glitter on it. Seal the glitter by rubbing glossy accents all over it.
4. I adhered the one doily to each triangle. Then glued the letter on top of it. Made two holes on either side of the triangle for the ribbon.
5. Thread the ribbon through all the triangles. Voila! Your banner is ready!

This banner is quite easy and quick to make; just that the glitter part takes some time and maybe a little messy but it’s worth it!

My second project is something that I plan to make for my friends this Diwali – little mason jars filled with some homemade treats! These jars are so cute and adorable!!

I used a 5” square of fabric cut using pinking shears. Here’s a closer look at the tag.

I cut the tag from white CS using Cricut and Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cartridge. Stamped it with a background stamp using versamark and then embossed in gold embossing powder. Sponged it with various distress inks. Printed the sentiment on vellum using Word. Cut out the diya using Cricut and SCAL.

That’s not all! All my other team mates have some wonderful creations to share too:

• Chaitali (Chaitali also has the linky to link your creations!)
• Smriti (You are here!)
• Gayatri
• Pooja
• Piali
• Isha
• Sanketi

Supplies

Banner: PTI cardstock, White 4” doilies, 65# cardstock for letters, Martha Stewart brown glitter, brown grosgrain ribbon, glossy accents, Inka gold platinum, Mini mister, Distress Inks – Mustard seed, dried marigold, broken china and peeled paint.

Tag: PTI white CS, Impression Obsession Damask cover-a-card, Vellum, Distress Ink – Fired brick, peeled paint and Dried marigold.

Diwali bloghop–Day 1

Welcome to the Diwali bloghop! I’m so excited to be a part of the two day diwali bloghop! We’re going to be sharing a ton of ideas for Diwali – from greeting cards to home décor, etc.! If you haven’t yet started your Diwali crafting, this is sure to get your creative juices flowing! Let me not hold you up with my chit-chat and get down to the real stuff! Note – if you’ve SCAL then you would be glad to know that I’m sharing all my cut files and you can use them for free!

Today, day one of the bloghop, we’ll be sharing greetings cards for Diwali. Diwali is my the most favorite festival and I love to make things for this festival close to my heart! So when I started to make a card for Diwali, I just couldn’t stop at one!

My first card is a more traditional take on Diwali. After all what is Diwali without Lord Ganesha and I find Lord Ganesha can be expressed in as many artistic forms as there are stars in the sky!

For the card above, I cut the outline in red, the solid in yellow and the mat in green. Adhered the red outline to the yellow solid using a glue pen. I’ve found a glue pen to be most helpful in gluing such intricate designs. You can use a toothpick or a glue bottle with a thin nozzle for the same. Stamped the Kraft cardsock with WMS Text-it in Walnut Stain distress ink. Put a strip of 1/2” double sided tape on either side of the CS and sprinkled martha stewart green glitter on it. Then burnished the glitter with a bone folder. Finally sealed the glitter by rubbing some glossy accents all over it, so that the recipient doesn’t have glitter all over him/her when he/she opens the card! Making this card was a breeze! So if you’re looking for mass producing diwali cards, then this is a great design and doesn’t it look b-u-tiful! If you don’t have an electronic cutter, you can print out any of the coloring pages from here and cut them out!

A stark departure from the previous card, here’s a more modern take on Diwali!

I cut the string of lights using the Create-a-critter cartridge. Stamped “happy” from a bigger sentiment. Cut out “diwali” from a self-made patterned paper. Popped it up on dimensionals and to dot the “I” used the rhinestones. I’d created the patterned paper, quite sometime back and it was just perfect for this card; now I know that I should just create some PPs when I’ve time and stock them up. To make the PP, I stamped polka dot background in versamark on white CS, embossed in clear embossing powder and then sponged all over with Borken China, Barn door and peeled paint distress ink. Another simple and quick design!

My last card was inspired from this photo.

I sponged white CS with Faded Jeans in a circular motion so that the center was lighter than the boundary. Cut the lantern base in yellow and purple; and the embellishments in pink and orange. Used white tissue paper to make the fringe. Popped the lanterns on dimensionals. Embellished them with liquid pearls. With white gel pen, doodled some fireworks and used stickles Crystal to make some stars. I used “happy” from a bigger sentiment and cut out “Diwali” using SCAL and cricut.

I hope the above designs have you inspired; but wait there’s more! Here are links to blogs of all the other lovely ladies who’ve created beautiful projects:

• Chaitali
• Smriti (You are here!)
• Gayatri
• Pooja
• Piali
• Isha
• Sanketi

Links to SCAL Cut files:

• Ganesha
• Lanterns/Kandeel

Supplies:

• Ganesha card: PTI Kraft and new leaf CS, 65# yellow and red CS, WMS Text-it, Distress ink – walnut stain, Martha stewart green glitter, double sided tape, dimensionals, SCAL, Cricut.
• String of lights: PTI Soft stone and white CS, 65# black CS and other colors for the light bulbs, CHF Polka dot background stamp, versamark, clear embossing powder, Distress ink – Faded jeans, barn door, peeled paint; rhinestones, dimensionals, Create-a-critter cricut cartridge, Cricut.
• Lanterns/Kandeel: PTI white CS, Distress ink faded jeans, stickles crystal, white tissue paper, 65# various color papes, Hero Arts Birthday, White gel pen, SCAL, Cricut.

Diwali bloghop!

Hello everybody! I’m so excited to let you all know that we’ll be having a diwali bloghop from Oct 25-26th! We’ve a team talented card makers ready to showcase inspiration for all things diwali!

We would be sharing free cut files too and there’ll be a linky for you to link up your creations if you would like to play along! Day one would be devoted to cards and the second day to anything-but-a-card!

So mark your calendars!!!

My first with Inka Gold!

When I was at Stamp-a-doodle in Bellingham I saw some samples using Inka Gold. This was the first time I came across this product and I was so impressed! It comes in a lot of colors so I figured I would give one a try! This is my first card using Inka Gold! I love that metallic look – isn’t it so cool???

I embossed Smokey Shadow CS with Textile CB folder. Rubbed Platinum Inka Gold over it with finger. At the back of the CS I drew a rectangle and then cut it using a craft knife. Stamped the sentiment on a scrap of yellow PP. Adhered it to the card base and the popped the embossed panel on top of it! Simple. Easy. And. Beautiful. I love such cards! I think this metallic look would work great for masculine cards!

Hero Arts Sketch Challenge – a scrap buster!

I used the sketch here. I haven’t submitted it to the contest as I’m not sure if all stamps need to be from HA or not. This sketch is perfect to use up all your scraps! And I got to use the new stamp set that I bought! Eeeeeeeeeks! {insert happy dance here} I went it to this heavenly stamp store in Bellingham – Stamp-a-doodle! If you’re ever in the area, you.must.go.there! It’s such an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G store. Next only to heaven Maybe living here in Redmond, deprived of a good stamp store, I was ecstatic!

I stamped the polka dot background in various colors on the colored CS strips. Sprayed them with the glimmer mist that I made using Inka gold (again a purchase from stamp-a-doodle) and water. Just mix a small amount of inka gold and water in a mister and spray. Stamped the sentiment in black on the yellow strip – touched it up with a black marker and highlighted the “birthday” with glossy accents. Here’s a close-up.