Hi there everyone! Hope you've finally made it to the weekend and have lots of relaxation and crafting time planned. Max is celebrating his birthday with two of his friends here for a sleepover and Phoebe has her friend Ella too. Its pretty noisy here but they are all such great kids, its fun to have them around.
I'm up on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog today with a Autumn-inspired card. Its actually Spring-time for us here in New Zealand so its hard to imagine all the Autumn colours but had lots of fun using a new to me stamp and matching die set:
I grabbed some of my warm-coloured Distress Inks first because I knew I wanted to create some blending for a warm background. I cut a panel of watercolour CS and used my mini-blending tool to blend 'Spiced Marmalade', 'Mustard Seed', 'Barn Door' and 'Gathered Twigs'. Once I was happy with the colours I sprayed it with Imagine Crafts Sheer Shimmer Sparkle Spritz, doing it close up so there were lots of blobs of liquid. I gently dabbed them with tissue to remove the colour and dried with my heat gun. This was then adhered to the card front.
I cut a panel of white CS the same size as my card front and die-cut the second-largest die from the Bubble Box Fri-Dies set. After adding lots of foam tape to the back of it I popped it over the blended panel to create a frame.
For the sentiment I cut a circle of white CS using a die from the Ornament Tag Fri-Dies set and heat embossed the sentiment in gold from Autumn Blessings. To add a bit of interest I die-cut some leaves using the Acorn Fri-Dies from different brown shades of paint chips. I adhered them to the back of the circle and then to the card front. And for a bit more bling I added some orange and gold sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I hope I've given you some inspiration for your Autumn cards and if your interested in purchasing these products from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps don't forget to use my Girl Friday code to save yourself 15%!!
Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you have lots of sunshine for the rest of your weekend!!
Take care
Shona
Hello there and welcome to a very special November Release at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!! We have two new sets to show you today, one that everyone has been asking for and another that Michele couldn't wait to show you!!
Introducing Sugar Plum Fairy:
The extremely popular floral ballerina's have been given a Christmas theme, with a snowflake tutu and tiara. I've always loved the snowflake tree and the 'Night Before Christmas' worded Christmas tree is genius!!
And also introducing Ballerina Fri-Dies:
So many people have asked for these dies that Michele just had to create them!! No more fiddly fussy-cutting for the ballerina cuties!!
For my card I wanted to try using the snowflake tree image in a different way, it was a bit of a risk but I'm really happy with the final design:
Silver, blue and white....my favourite Christmas card colour combo!! This took a bit of time to blend and heat emboss but was so worth it!
I started by cutting a panel of watercolour CS the same size as the card front. Then using my MISTI, I stamped and heat embossed the snowflake tree along both top and bottom of the panel, using silver embossing powder. Using a mini-blending tool I started at the bottom of the trees with Distress Inks 'Salty Ocean', then 'Mermaid Lagoon' and finishing with 'Peacock Feathers', blending only around the tree itself. Once the trees were finished I used 'Salty Ocean' again and very gently blended over the areas between the trees.
After drying the panel with a heat gun, I die-cut the ballerina from the middle. I put the tree panel over the top of the card front so I could stamp the Sugar Plum Fairy in the middle of the die-cut area and then heat emboss it with silver powder. The panel was then popped up using foam tape. I also silver heat embossed the sentiment on a strip of white CS and put that on foam tape as well, along with some blue and clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.
These two new sets are available today and would be so perfect for your Christmas cards. If your planning on purchasing them or any other CAS-ual Fridays Stamps products, don't forget to use my special Girl Friday code to save yourself 15%!!
I'm going to link this card to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge as their theme is 'Snow White' and my card is covered in snowflakes!!
I hope you love these new sets as much as I do and don't forget to pop over to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog to see what the rest of the Girl Fridays have created with these new goodies!!
Take care
Shona
Hi there everyone!! Unfortunately we didn't have a very good start to the weekend. Max started coming down with another cold on Friday night which then turned into severe vomiting from 1am Saturday morning till around 3.30pm when he finally fell asleep. He's so exhausted but thank goodness he's no longer feeling nauseous. The horrible part is that we had the school Gala on Saturday and he was to perform with the Maori Kapa Haka school group. He missed everything and was very upset. Dave took Phoebe though and she managed to win him some chocolate, so that made him feel a bit better and gave him something to look forward too Its his 11th birthday on Monday so fingers crossed he is better by then!!
So, without further ado here is the theme for this month at The Flower Challenge is:
That's right, its 'Clean and Simple', which makes me extremely happy as I love a good, clean card. There are many ideas about what makes a 'CAS' design. For me its about a central focus point surrounded by lots of clean space, and not layer up on layer of cardstock and embellishments. I can't wait to see your interpretation of CAS!!
I was desperate to use a floral stamp set I purchased a while ago and hadn't used, so couldn't wait to get it all inky:
I'll be honest, I was so happy with this design when I photographed it and linked it up to the challenge post. However, the more and more I thought about it, the more I decided I had really pushed the 'CAS' design of this card. Unfortunately I was too late to create another card but totally understand if you don't agree that its 100% CAS.
I started by stamping the flower and leaves from Altenew 'Build-a-Flower: Anemone' using Altenew cube inks. I then fussy cut them out and put them to the side. I was going to create a Distress Ink background but felt like some 'out of control' ink smooshing for a change. So I grabbed Distress Ink 'Mowed Lawn' and a stamp block. I spread the ink on the block, sprayed it with water and then pressed it down on the card front. To get the coverage and different gradients of ink colour I did it a few times.
Once the card had dried I adhered the leaves in place and then the flower on some foam tape for dimension. The sentiment (from the same stamp set) was stamped on the card front and some co-ordinating sequins added for shine from Neat and Tangled. I also added some Wink of Stella to the middle of the flower and along the veins of the leaves for extra sparkle.
You have until Saturday 25th November to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and if your trying to get your head around 'Clean and Simple', pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. Your sure to get inspired!! I can't wait to see what you come up with and I'll be back on the 15th with a very CAS card for you!
Take care
Shona
