Casual Fridays-An Old Technique With A Twist

So glad you are here!  Today I'm up on the Cas-ual Fridays Blog and I'm showing you how I made this cool shaving cream background!  And after we'll talk about that tag!

Some of you may already be familiar with this type of background and it may be new to some of you.  I just learned it last year and it's quick and easy and just a little bit messy!  You'll need some shaving cream (dollar store is just fine), some water based re-inkers (I just used my old CTMH ones), a paper plate (or a plastic one like I have here which would be re-usable), an old credit card, some paper (a bunch of white 5 1/2 x 4 1/4" sized pieces are just right), and also a plastic knife which isn't in the picture.  You'll want to have some paper underneath you too because as I said... little bit messy!

First you just spray a big blob of shaving cream onto your plate.  Then drop some of the reinker around into the blob... I had two different shades of blue so I made sure to make my drops in kind of a random pattern, interspersing the two shades.

Then you will use the knife to move the shaving cream around... "fold" in the inks.  You don't want to mix them together too much unless of course you want less contrast and swirl... but you'll see you can make multiples from this and as you go there is less and less contrast so you get a fun and varied set of backgrounds.

Next, lay your piece of paper on top of the shaving cream blob and make sure it gets covered with the mixture.. you can move it across the top, push it down into it more than once... lift it up and smoosh it back down if you've got more open spaces than you want.  When you lift it up and it's covered, you'll need to flip it over onto your protective surface:

You'll notice here I have some blank spaces, but everything turned out ok.. you just take the credit card and holding the card firmly against the paper scrape across the paper:

And as you scrape it across to remove the shaving cream, your piece of art is revealed!  Cool right?  

I made four backgrounds with this one plate of shaving cream and probably could have made a few more!  Notice the difference between the top and bottom ones... as you work with the shaving cream, the ink will blend together more and you'll have a little less white and a little more of whatever color you've used.  Then once they're dry you can use them as they are or I gave it a twist and I smooshed Versamark over the entire top.. sprinkled some Wow Sparkling Snow Glitter Embossing Powder over the top... just a little because the stuff will pretty much cover the swirlies (ask me how I know).. and then covered the rest with some Clear Embossing Powder and heated it.  And you don't have to use these as just backgrounds... I have a bunch that I use with diecuts... like the leaves I used on my Autumn Shaker here!

And that's how I got that pretty sparkly swirly blue background for my card!  And you may have visited me for the CAS-Fridays day over at 25 Days of Christmas Tags when I told you I made a 2nd tag inspired by Jane Taylor's beautiful tag because I wasn't able to use the snow mounds I'd created on my tag for that day... so here it is!  I used the Scalloped Tag Fri-Dies (to cover the scallops on the tag) and the Bubble Box Fri-Dies (to create my snow mounds).

I colored up these sweet fox from the Bushy Tail stamp set and did some no line coloring... but decided to make him a gray fox this time... such a cutie!  And this time he's holding a snowflake.

And left my sentiment short and sweet.  I used the Merry word from the Merry Christmas Fri-Dies and decorated with a few snowflakes from the Funky Flakes Fri-Dies!

Originally I was going to keep this just as a tag... but I loved it so much I decided to make a card out of it and it was a great way to use that shaving cream background!

And I'm playing along with the Sparkles/Christmas challenge over at the Wow Embossing Powder Fans Group.  You must join the group to play along but you'll love it... there is lots of inspiration over there!  I'm also playing along over at Color My Heart Color Dare where they have a Monochromatic Blue challenge going on and you should check that out too!

Hope you enjoyed your visit and thanks for sticking around until the end!  See you again soon!

Don't forget about the special that is going on right now too!

So here are the details regarding this stamp set!  It will be available for purchase for $6.50 or you can get it free with a qualifying order of $50 placed November 20-26th!  Your order must total at least $50 after discounts and shipping.  No code is needed-it will automatically be added to your order when it ships!  On the 27th, the set will be offered in the shop for $7.99!  You can find this set here!  And you can check out the tag I made using this set here if you'd like!  I have a giveaway for this stamp set going on at my blog here and all of my DT sisters are doing a giveaway too!  Find links in the main 25 Days of Tags post at CAS-ual Fridays here!

Woo hoo there is a sale going on here too!  With deep discounts on retiring items and all items in the Christmas/Hanukkah section are on sale through the 26th!

And if you feel like shopping here's this for you: