CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Girl Friday Post #2 for October

 Hello there!! Its the start of a long weekend here in New Zealand (Monday is a Public Holiday) and its usually the official start of 'get your garden ready for Summer' time. I have LOADS to do in my garden after sorting out everyone else's. The weather this week has been like Summertime and the weekend is supposed to be even hotter, so I better start doing my hedges early in the morning!!

I've got my second card of the month for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps to share with you. I was actually inspired by my friend Coni of Which Craft? who does the most amazing splatters on her backgrounds. Its something I don't think of doing very often, as I like a lot of control and 'clean lines' with my cards but I decided it was time to dip my toe in the 'uncontrolled' pond. So thank you Coni for your amazing inspiration:

I tell ya, this background scared the c**p out of me as I went a long. I loved it and hated it at the same time but the splatters over top made me fall in love with it.

I started by stamping the large dragonfly from the new 'Everyday Dragonflies'  set with Versafine Onyx ink on Strathmore watercolour cardstock. I did this 3x and then immediately clear heat embossed. I then used a fine brush and my Schmincke Aqua Drop 'Cyan Blue' which is INCREDIBLY strong. You only need a teen tiny bit mixed with water. I coloured different images on the dragonfly using differing amounts of water to darken or lighten the effect. I then did a light wash over the rest of the area. Once this had dried I die-cut with the 'Dragonflies Dies'.

Since I was going to do some splattering, I decided to go the whole hog and do some 'smooshing' as well. I added the same watercolour to a clear stamp block, sprayed on some water and smooshed onto a panel of watercolour CS. I did this a few times, drying with a heat gun in-between and even moving the ink block around. Once it was dry I used a brush to flick over some Gansai Tambi 'Blue Gold' and 'Black' paint. I also added some touches of gold to the dragonfly flowers. I cut the panel down and added to the white card base with a piece of white foam. 

To add some definition to the dragonfly, I die-cut some black CS with the large dragonfly die and glued it behind the painted one but slightly down so show the bottom edges. It was popped up on foam tape and the sentiment (from the same stamp set) was gold heat embossed on black CS using WOW 'Metallic Gold Sparkle Embossing Glitter'. I backed it with white CS and put on foam tape, along with some Studio Katia Gold Pearls.

I hope this has inspired you to get 'messy' with your crafting this weekend and maybe try a technique that you've always been scared of too. If you love the stamps/dies and embossing powder I used today, you can use my special code to save 15%. AND you can also use it with all the Clearance Items too on top of already slashed prices...how cool is that!

Thanks so much for stopping by, enjoy your weekend and I'll see you back here very shortly with some more card ideas.

Take care

Shona