It's a Bugs Life at CCM

Afternoon Everyone.
Oh dear, it looks like summer has deserted us again. I haven't quite resorted to turning on the heating like some of the customers at work have been doing, but I have reached for a blouse with longer sleeves and closed my window up a little, if only to stop the torrential rain that we seem to have been having lately. I have dodged the downpours this very afternoon as I have finally made it back to the gym!!

Given the rather inclement weather at the moment, I thought that I ought to share a few summery style cards, we can but dream of sunshine and butterflies I guess.

The cards also fit rather nicely into the latest challenge which starts today over at CCM  where the theme is 'It's a Bugs Life'.

Unfortunately I didn't get my arse in gear early enough to pop my card on the challenge blog, but please do stop by and see what the rest of the DT have been up to, and maybe join in yourself.

I recently taught a class using some fabulous 3D Embossing folders, and while there were quite a few of them that we played with,

this has to be one of my favourites, as you can see by the number of samples that I managed to finish. 

Obviously one of the easiest ways of using the folders is plain cardstock with gilding wax lightly applied to accentuate the embossing.

But I think a bit of the letter press technique and added ink makes this particular panel my favourite card of them all.

I added stamped sentiments to the finished cards

as well as die cut ones.

Some I heat embossed with clear embossing powder,

and some I just painted with a sparkle pen.

And as you can see you don't have to use the whole panel on a card, you can always chop it up a little. 

Don't forget to pop across to the CraftyCardmakers blog, there are some lovely samples from the DT. I'm off to visit it myself. I've been very bad at commenting over the last few months, and so I am determined to start off the new challenge with some much needed visiting.

Have a great evening.

Happy Crafting and hugs

Kimx