CASual Fridays - Wonderful In Pink

I'm up on the blog over at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps with a quick and easy but pretty in pink Holiday card!

Hope you'll hop on over there and give me a visit!

Thanks so much for stopping and hope you'll come again soon!

 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Alcohol Ink Fun

I'm up on the blog over at CASual Fridays and playing with some alcohol ink and some new to me papers!

The EVO Synthetic Paper from Etc Papers are perfect for playing with alcohol inks and the Holographic paper was perfect for these beautiful snowflakes!

Join me over at CAS-ual Fridays for details and links to all of these fabulous CAS Fridays products!

Thanks so much for stopping and hope you'll come again soon!

 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps-Merry Christmas!

I'm up on the blog over at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps with this one.  Hope you'll hop on over there and see how I created this background.

Thanks so much for stopping and hope you'll come again soon!

 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Holiday Wishes

I'm up on the blog over at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!  Hope you'll hop on over there and give us a visit!

Thanks so much for stopping and hope you come again soon!

 

25 Days of Christmas Tags - CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!

Did you know that the 25 Days of Christmas Tags is going on right now?  And CAS-ual Fridays is a sponsor and today it's our turn to share some Holiday tag inspiration using some of our favorite CAS-ual Fridays products!

Here's how I was inspired:

The Scallop Tag Fri-Dies are my favorite all time tag dies!  The large one is a fantastic size and leaves lots of room for embellishing!  I cut it out of watercolor paper and stamped various snowflakes from the Snowy Sayings stamp set with Versamark and heat embossed in white and then blended some blue and purple Distress Oxides over them.  I wiped off the embossed snowflakes with a dry paper towel and then sprayed the tag using some water mixed with Inkon3 Liquid Pixie Dust.

I stacked a purple and white die cut "Snow" from the Snow Fri-Dies together.  Next, I stamped the "Let it" from the Dashing stamp set onto a strip of white cardstock and trimmed it to the shape of the tag.  Then I placed the Snow diecut underneath it to complete the sentiment.  I just added a few sequins and a snowflake from the Funky Flakes Fri-Dies and some blue and purple ribbon.

I'm playing along with the Simon Says Challenge on IG!  It's all about Happy Holidays!

And did you know that CAS-ual Fridays has 50% off of some retiring items??  You can find those here!

And even better, I have this for you:

Thanks so much for stopping and I hope you enjoyed your visit!  Now be sure to hop on over to today's post at the 25 Days of Christmas Tags and you can check out all of the details including how you could win one of the many sponsor prizes being offered at the main 25 Days of Christmas Tags post right here!  Check out all of the sponsors!

Come again soon!

CAS-ual Fridays Release Day 3-Stars A2 Panel

Welcome to Day 3 of the CAS-ual Fridays Release!  Today we're sharing inspiration for the new Stars A2 Panel Fri-Die!  Here's how I was inspired:

For this one, I created my background using some distress oxides in a couple different blues.  Then I cut the Star Panel from some white cardstock and splattered some shimmery watercolors over both pieces.

While that was drying, I cut two sizes of the Bubblebox Fri-Dies and used an embossing folder to emboss the smaller one.   I also cut the Happy Hanukkah sentiment from the Happy Hanukkah Fri-Dies once out of glitter paper and two more times from regular white cardstock and stacked them.  Then I popped up both layers of the Bubble Box and added the sentiment over the top.  I had already cut a Stars panel from glitter paper as well so I used some of the pieces to embellish here.

Love those shimmery watercolors!   And love the design of this die and how some of the stars wandered off into the outer edge!

I was inspired by yesterday's Snowflake embossed panel and decided to the the same with the Stars panel:

I cut the panel from some very thick watercolor paper and only ran it through my die cutting machine once so that it wouldn't cut all the way through (normally with thicker paper, I'll run the die through at least twice-once band and forth and sometimes more if it's really thick or has a coating that I think mmay not cut through easily)  The edges fell right away, but the inside pieces didn't fall apart which was exactly what I wanted.

Once again, I sprayed the front of the panel with water that had some Inkon3 Pixie Dust solution in it and then used my Daniel Smith Glitter Watercolors to first color the panel and then I used the same blues and some white and even a bit of purple to splatter on it while it was very wet.

While that dried, I cut a tag using the largest of the Scallop Tag Fri-Dies from some blue vellum.  I heat embossed a sentiment from the Snowy Sayings stamp set directly onto the vellum and then cut the Happy from the Happy Hanukkah Fri-Dies from some glitter paper and cardstock and stacked them.  I cut some Funky Flakes from glitter paper as well and layered three of those together to add to the bottom of the tag.

So that's me for today!  Be sure to hop over to the CAS-ual Fridays blog and find out how you could win one of three $25 gift codes to the shop and see what my teamies have created for you today!

Should you decide to shop, I have this for you:

Be sure to come back tomorrow for some more Release Inspiration!

Cas-ual Fridays-We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

Here We Come A Caroling savings days are still going strong!  Today we're singing (to ourselves) and featuring the Merry Christmas Fri-Dies!  Here's how I was inspired!

I just love the size and font for the Merry Christmas Fri-Dies!  They make for the perfect focal point on a Christmas Card. 

I started with a pretty plaid and then added a white layer using the Bubble Box Fri-Dies to frame the focus of my card.  I just love the shape of these dies ... simple enough to not take over the card, but so pretty to complement whatever your design!

Then I cut the Merry Christmas Fri-Die once from red cardstock and twice from white.  I smooshed the red onto my Versamark pad to cover it completely and then added some pretty glittery embossing powder (more on this in a bit) and heated it up.  Next I stacked the sentiments together for some dimension.  It turns your flat die cut into something that seems a bit like chipboard!  And I almost always use some kind of gem for any of my word die "I"s ... lol... I can't be expected to keep track of those little dots!!  And I always have some kind of embellishment or Nuvo drops that I can use to dot my "I"s so it's all good!

I stamped and die cut the cute bird from the Partridge In A Pear Tree Stamp Set so I could nestle him in amongst my flowers.  I stamped the outline in Versamark and embossed with gold EP and stamped the fill in stamp in red.  I popped the red up a little inside the outline for some dimension and used a fine pen to define his eye.

 And I love to use the 4 Petals Fri-Dies for all kinds of flowers!  With their pretty and simple design, just by changing the colors you can get all kinds of looks.  I knew I wanted to create poinsettias with them and was at a crop when I realized I'd forgotten to throw my glitter paper into my bag.  You think you're all prepared, right?  Well, luckily I had my box of embossing supplies with me (can't be without it!) and I was all set! 

I've found the easiest way to add embossing to small die cuts is to use some repositionable adhesive and attach them to a piece of scrap paper after smooshing them into some Versamark.

Once they're all attached it's easy to sprinkle some pretty glittery embossing powder on them, tap off the excess and run your heating tool over them all at once!

Since they are adhered to the paper with repositionable adhesive, it's easy to remove them once the embossing is cooled.. it only takes a few seconds!  Then I layered all of my sizes together and added some pretty gold pearl accents!

Ta.  Da.  Lol!  I actually had the already glittered snowflakes in my CAS-ual Fridays goody box.  I never cut just one.  I've left all of the Funky Flakes attached to each other and if I'm cutting one, I'm cutting all of them and just save the extras for later.  It was fun to be able to tuck them in under the flowers.  I cut some leaves from gold vellum using the Garden Fri-Dies and tucked those around as well.

A couple sequins later and I was done!  One more Christmas Card in the pile and ready to send!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  And don't forget today's special!  Plus all of the Christmas and Hanukkah products in the shop are on sale AND there are some items in the Retiring section that are 50% off!!  And the cream cheese frosting on the red velvet cupcake.... you can use this if you'd like!

Check out the Sale section here!

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: