make a glittery card in 12 snarky steps ;-)

1. dust off the fabulous die-cutting machine you just had to have (but haven't used in years) and clear off a nice big open space (yeah, right) to work on your kitchen table, dining room floor, or perhaps the top of your dryer in the garage. then dig through several drawers looking for that one cartridge that you remember had some cool shapes. once you find the cartridge, you're not through digging. you still need to find the sticky cutting mat and the little rubber keypad cover so you know which key to press for the shape you want.

2. curse just a tad when you realize your cutting mat has lost all its stickum, then do a little dumpster-diving to find that 40% off coupon that you tossed because you thought you needed more craft supplies like you needed a hole in the head.

3. drive to the craft store and fight the halloween crowds in the aisles for about fifteen minutes, then march to the checkout line feeling pretty good because you snagged the last sticky cutting mat hanging on the hook of their woefully understocked display (because that's just how old your machine is).

4. after waiting more than twenty minutes in line with "mommeeeee i don't wanna be a farmer for halloweeeeen" ringing in your ears, curse just a little more (under your breath while you smile) when the clerk explains why your coupon cannot be used on the mat.

5. leave the craft store with your full-price sticky mat, while shoving a snickers bar into your mouth that you bought for 40% off. before driving out of the parking lot, take a moment to appreciate the marketing genius of placing chocolate bars at the registers in a craft store.

6. once you're back home, curse a wee bit more as you try to remember how to program the machine to cut multiple quantities of a variety of shapes to fill up the whole sheet of paper, so you can go another couple years without having to use the machine again, but still feel good about your brilliant advance planning and multi-tasking skills. while your machine is buzzing away, you can trim a sheet of card stock to size for the front of a greeting card (mine is 4.5"x6.5") and prep it for the spray adhesive and glitter (see instructions here in my last post).

7. try to stay calm, in spite of a sugar high, as you carefully try to peel dozens of skinny little die-cut shapes off a very, very sticky new mat without tearing them. be very, very thankful for the little mini spatula that came with the machine, which you initially thought was the silliest craft tool ever.

8. lay the salvageable shapes (mine are rings) on your card stock as desired, in position for spraying adhesive. even though the spray coats better when you hold the can vertically, i opted for the shake, spray, spurt and repeat method of holding the can horizontally, so i could leave the card and rings laying flat.

9. once you have sprayed the card with enough adhesive, dart over to the open window to take a few gulps of fresh air, then run back to your card and dump, i mean sprinkle, a crapload of fine glitter on top of it, while the adhesive is still nice and wet.

10. move the card out of the glitter pile to a clean space, and using a pair of tweezers in each hand, carefully extract the rings, tap off excess glitter and set them aside to dry. then pick up the card, tap off the excess glitter and set aside to dry...takes about thirty minutes, depending on how much you sprayed. take a moment to revel in the beauty of the negative space on your glitter card.

11. now quickly brush all the excess glitter onto a creased sheet of paper and pour it back into the glitter jar, before your sugar high wears off and sends you crashing into that "i'm too tired to clean-up" frame of mind. trust me, you gotta clean up glitter immediately. i have worked around piles of excess glitter for three days before and it just gets everywhere, including places i'd rather not mention on a family blog.

12. once your card is dry, use a soft, wide paint brush to gently wipe away any last bits of stray glitter and embellish your card as desired. i glued on a couple of the glittered rings and added a gold sun button.

now you can send a sparkly sentiment to someone special...see now, wasn't that easy?


professional disclaimer that should not be necessary, but you just never know these days:
please take my humor in stride and rest assured that i really do love all the products and equipment i used in this project and creating glitter masks is a super cool way to use die-cuts and spray adhesive! now i'll add a smiley face emoticon so you'll know i'm sincere.  :-)