Shaker card with recycling - JCC #74

I seem to really have taken into these challenge blogs, this time I made a card for Jehkotar CardChallenge. The JCC #74 was to make a shaker card. Now, I've been wanting to try and make one for ages so I jumped at the chance here. I first thought of making an autumn card again, but somehow shaker card reminded me of snow globes and I switched to a winter card instead.

Stamp: Inkadinkado
Punch: Tiimari
Die cut: Cricut 'Accent Essentials'
Chalks: Pebbles Inc.
Tag: HOTP 'Earth's Palette'

I didn't have acetate and, to be honest, wasn't too keen on fiddling with it and foam tape, but I remembered a tip that some products come with plastic packagings ideal to be recycled for a shaker card. I had (of course!) stashed some clear plastic boxes from brads and found one that was just the right size. I took the lid and base apart and used the base here. It really was made for this project as it was raised into square dome shape and had flat edges (man, this is hard to describe...), so no need to use foam tape or pads to raise it, normal double-sided tape was enough.

I couldn't find a suitable paper for the card so I made one myself. I used peel-off snow flakes as masks and dabbed white acrylic paint, diluted with water, around them with a make-up sponge. I trimmed the paper to size and measured and cut out an aperture for the plastic dome. I marked where the plastic's edges were on the card blank (they naturally extended a bit further than the window on the snowflake paper), and stamped the image in the middle of the square.

I punched snow flakes from textured iridescent paper but wanted something else as well. At this point I didn't remember I had snow flake spangles in my stash (did found them later but by then it was too late). Would have used them otherwise, since the paper is too light weight. I found some largish silver heart and star spangles (freebies from a mag), though, and decided to have a go at punching these (I find spangles diffult to incorporate into projects). Stars didn't have large enough area where to punch, but hearts were easier. I turned the snow flake punch upside down, positioned the spangle by tapping and tilting the punch lightly and when happy pushed the punch knob against the table. It took a lot of pressure (almost all my body weight, to be precise) and the punch jammed every time, but in the end I managed to punch my silver snow flakes. I had to press the cutting edge back up from the underside and occasionally fish the spangle bits from the punch, so it wasn't exactly easy, and this may break (or at least dull) your punch, so don't try with your best and most expensive one. Mine was really cheap, and I was quite surprised that it didn't break.

Next I had to assemble my shaker box. I fixed double-sided power tape onto card blank where I had marked the edges of the plastic dome to be, piled my punched snow flakes and some clear micro beads in the middle of the stamped image, carefully peeled the backing from the tape and pressed the plastic dome onto the tape. The dome's edges disappeared under the patterned paper, which I fixed with the power tape again. I cut the white snow flake with Cricut, rolled it through Xyron and coated it with white/iridescent glitter. The plastic mesh ribbon had to be streched taut to narrow it enough, and my mistake was that I didn't attach it before fixing the patterned paper onto card blank. Stupid, stupid, stupid... It took a lot of battle to actually manage to hide the fraying ends, and it'll definitely be a while until I use it again. To finish, I chalked around the edges of the dome, fixed the glitter snow flake with a foam pad, wrapped a piece of silver ball chain around the foam pad and secured by locking the balls against each other, and added the greeting tag.