Blessings! Foiled Again!

I had to have another play with these beautiful Bella Flora dies from Ink Road Stamps and this time I decided I was going to foil them!  I had an idea last night...yeah... while I was supposed to be sleeping.  I remembered that there was a glue stamping pad in my drawer that I bought a loooooong time ago and hadn't ever used.  I wondered if I could use that to glue up these dies and then run it through the Minc with some rainbow foil while it was tacky.  Luckily, the pad didn't come "inked" up with the glue solution so it hadn't dried out... and the set I bought had the little bottle right in the package all sealed up and I was able to "ink" it up no problem.  Then I cut the dies in white cardstock and smooshed them onto the ink pad and let it dry for a bit.

Through this whole process I let the Minc heat up so it was nice and ready when it came out.  The die cuts came out pretty, but some spots were bare. I can only assume I didn't have good coverage with the glue or some of the areas had dried too much maybe.  So I repeated the process and when it came out, it was very cool how of course the colors in the rainbow didn't match up perfectly so rather than blocked lines of color, the color was mixed in.  It still didn't cover completely, but you know I don't mind the distressed look AT all... in fact I really love the way it came out!!  

I wanted the florals to be popped up, and I was going to cut a couple extra die cuts and stack them when I though of the outline dies that come with this set, that not only are fantastic to cut out the stamped images in the stamp set but work wonderfully to cut an outline for the stand alone dies!  And white glitter paper was just the ticket!  I cut the two outlines using the outline dies and used liquid glass to adhere the rainbow foiled florals to the glitter paper.  Then I used foam tape to pop them up and trimmed off the edges that hung over.  I did use a couple of those pieces also to extend  the floral and tucked them underneath.

Then this sentiment die from the set... I cut it in purple foiled cardstock and two in white and stacked them and then attached them with liquid glass.  Isn't that plaid embossing folder by Tim Holtz so cool!!  It added just the texture I wanted.  Then three sequins... because I'm playing along with the Outlawz Twisted Thursday with an Optional Recipe Twist to use three of something.

One last peek... it's so hard sometimes to take pics of the shimmer and shine on these foiled projects but this one was surprisingly easy!  Just love that rainbow Decofoil!

Now... keep this in mind... I will definitely play with this technique again, but I can't speak for whether it's ok to use the glue and run it through the Minc...lol!  My transfer folder is a mess!  Might be a good thing to use parchment paper with or maybe not at all... but I love it and I'll definitely try it again.  Another thing... you could probably do the same thing with the pen or with the gel (scraped lightly over the top of the diecut), but I had the glue pad in my stash so I decided to give it a go!

Thanks for stopping!  Come again!

Ink Road and Some Alcohol Lift!

Quick one this morning!!  A couple weeks ago, my friend, the awesomely talented Jean Chaney came to our monthly crafty playtime with an arsenal of Alcohol Ink goodness!  I played quite a bit and this is one of the backgrounds I created that day.  (I have another special make from that day that I'll be sharing soon.. soon!).  When I opened up my recent order from Kat Scrappiness which contained my Alcohol Lift stamp pad (and re-inker of course), I pulled out my Ink Road Bella Flora stamps and dies and then flipped through the backgrounds I made that day, because I knew it would be the perfect pairing!  I chose this purple one because I thought it would look lovely with some florals.

I love the Bella Flora die set!!  It's a huge set that includes outline dies as well as stand alone dies that coordinate with the stamp set!  It's awesome!  It's like getting two or three sets all together!  I decided on this sentiment in gold.  And I set it against the yummy alcohol ink background and even in gold it got a little lost.  So I decided a purple vellum banner was in order and I also picked up on the blue in the background and cut the sentiment from a deep blue cardstock and offset them just a bit from each other.

So the Alcohol Lift works just as it sounds!  You ink up your stamp with the clear solution on the pad and stamp it firmly onto your alcohol inked background.  Lift it and you can barely see the image.  Then you take a soft cloth and blot the area first (very important!) and then buff the area after it's blotted and your image starts to appear.  Don't worry... there are instructions right on the pad!  And be sure to clean off your stamps right away!  The bold lines on the Bella Flora stamps are perfect for this!   I stamped a couple different images in each corner this way.  Love the beautiful, ghostly images that are left!

One more peek!  I'm so excited!!  LOVE all of these things I've used to create a really quick, simple, but I think lovely card!  

I'm playing along with the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge which is Spectacular Backgrounds this time around!  You should check it out!  And you may or may not know that Ink Road has a monthly challenge on Instagram!  Just post something you've made using their products or even a pic of an order you received for a chance to win... use #inkroadstamps when you post!

Thanks so much for stopping by and don't forget to checkout today's Cutting Cafe Post here as well and find out how you can enter to win three Cutting Cafe files of your choice!

See you soon!

Ink Road - What the Frapp!

Quick post sharing a card I made this weekend... was so excited to get my order in from Ink Road I HAD to play!  I've had the Bella Flora set for some time and LOVE it and even love it more now that there are matching dies... and these dies ... this set... it is huge!  You get all of the outlines for all of the stamps in the stamp set AND a whole 'nother set of Stand Alone Dies!  14 Dies in all... so worth the price and then some!

Updated to add:  This one was a top pick over at Outlawz!!

And can we talk about the Mug Life stamp set??  As with so many of the Ink Road stamp sets.. the sentiments are SO fun and funny!!  Love that many of them fit on the coffee images in the set which are also quite awesome!

I was coloring up these flowers over the weekend, not really sure what I'd use them on, but knew I wanted to use a different color than my norm so I chose the orange and yellow... I wasn't planning on using them here, but when I laid it against that pretty plaid paper from my new Amy Tangerine Better Together paper pad that I picked up over at Our Creative Escape in Goodyear AZ.  And those floral pieces I cut off on my right bottom corner cluster... see what I did with those?  I'm not telling... you can find them I'm sure.

The pretty stitched frame is from Paper Smooches and cut from beautiful Hero Arts Woodgrain Cardstock.  And that beautiful stitched background was cut using a die from Stamplorations.  And one of my most used dies... that banner from Craftin Desert Divas.. not to mention the pretty sequins!

So I'm linking up to the Twisted Thursday over at The Outlawz which goes through tonight!  The twist is Taste of Summer... this challenge is always Anything Goes with a twist and you can use the twist or not (but if you do you get extra chances to win some great prizes!)  You should check out this Ning group for sure!

Thanks for stopping!  Be sure to checkout my Paper Sweeties post for today here and see what's going on for Release Day!

A Yappy Birthday Card for My Puppy Loving Son

So what do you do when your son wants a dog of his own for his birthday.. that's it... whether he's got to steal yours or rescue one but he can't have one where he's living?  You make him a birthday card with some puppy balloons!

I'm also up on the Three Amigos Blog with this one announcing that our July challenge will be a little late because of vacations and the holiday!  We will have our new challenge and winners post up by July 6th!  Thanks for your understanding!  (I have used a die cut using an MFT die for the "birthday" word since our June challenge is Machine Die Cutting but I also included a hint to what our July challenge will be... can you guess??)

When I was trying to decide what his card would look like, I thought of the Balloon Alpha set from Little Acres Creations and then I thought of the adorable Bork (Stubby Pup) stamp set from The Ink Road.

I took some inspiration from our resident artist over at Little Acres, Miko (check out her awesome card here!) and stamped my balloon alpha letters in versamark onto vellum (I used vellum that was already colored because I had it and I knew it would be easier) and heat embossed in white.  I let it cool and then fussy cut them out

Stamped, colored and cut out my pups and then I arranged all of my "balloons" on the card and when I had the look I wanted, I attached everything using various levels of foam tape... letting some overlap (love the way the vellum let's some of the puppy parts show through...lol!)  I added liquid glass to my pups eyes and noses and added some highlights on the balloons, Miko style, using a white gel pen.

Finished off my sentiment by adding the MFT Birthday die cut.. I cut it three times in Glacier cardstock and stacked them.  Then I added some liquid glass to make it stand out.  After all was dry, I cut a few vellum balloon strings using the Craftin Desert Divas Party Die Set and added those in tucking some behind, cutting some short and letting some of them lay across another balloon or the sentiment.  LOVE it!

SO!  I created this using the colors I did to fit the Double Trouble Challenge and the Color My Heart Color Dare challenge which both use these colors!  I may have added the twist of "strings" for Double Trouble, but I'll let them be the judge of that... while I have no ribbon or twine or anything... I DO have balloon strings!...lol!  But honestly I'm good whatever the verdict because I wouldn't have done anything different.

Thanks for stopping!  See you again soon!

Caffeine Fueled Paper Play - The Ink Road and Rubbernecker!

I'm up on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog today and playing along with the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge using some products from a few of our hop Super Sponsors including The Ink Road and Rubbernecker Stamps!  Hop on over there and check out the details!  Here's a Sneak Peek!

Coffee Lovers Blog Hop Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of the 2018 Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Bloghop!  If you're unfamiliar with this most awesome event, please do click here to check out all of the rules (after you're done hanging out at my place of course!)  Today, I'm playing with some brand new stamps from a pretty new stamp company Ink Road Stamps!  Here's what I have for you today:

So I came across this non descript light blue watercolored background piece in my pile of abandoned pieces.  It really wasn't exciting at all... so light in color and I could have added lots more, but I decided it would be just right as a backdrop to this one.  So I stamped those beautiful flowers from the Bella Flora stamp set... beautiful flowers and so easy to color as well as a couple beautiful sentiments... you must check this one out!  **Note: I've provided a link to the Ink Road website, however at the time that I'm writing this the shop is temporarily closed for updating and will re-open later this morning and at that time I'll add links.  Be sure to check back on Lara then because there are some cool things coming!  Until that time, you can join the Ink Road Roadies group on Facebook here to get notifications and share your Ink Road creations**

So... this cup from Cas-ual Fridays... one of my very favorites!  You know I judge a coffee cup die by whether the handle is cut out...lol.. and this one has an awesome heart shaped cut out handle.... can you say perfection!  And the opening where the coffee goes cuts out separate and it's easy to just cut that part in white so you can color it your favorite shade of coffee :)  I LOVE this cup!!  (And there is a sale on Coffee/Tea themed items in the Cas-ual Fridays shop right now through June 1st!)

AND... that sentiment from the Majestic AF stamp set from Ink Road??  Perfect for a coffee card ... in fact!  But this set is not a coffee set:

IDK... the fact that I'm up right now is pretty Majestic AF and I do believe I deserve some congrats... don't you love this Sassy Unicorn??

Speaking of Unicorns, I'm playing along with the current Cupcake Inspirations Challenge #447

It was fun and easy to watercolor these big bold blooms from Bella Flora with my watercolor pencils and a water brush.  And to finish it off, I added lots of Nuvo Drop "splatters" and a few sparkly gems to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping today!  Be sure to come back because I'll be back today with another one!  Happy Hopping!  If you play along, I'll be visiting your place "soonish"...lol.. I think I'm almost to 400 right now.. on my way back to start visiting this morning!