Create A Smile Stamps Challenge..Mood Board.

Hello and welcome to the final challenge of the year for Create A Smile Stamps!! I am so sad my term has come to an end on this team. I'm so thankful to Christine for giving me this opportunity to show my love for her products. Also, this team of designers are absolutely amazing and I have so much love and respect for them all. It has been a fabulous year!!

But enough sadness, let's get on to the card!!  We are playing with this stunning mood board:

Everything about this is stunning but I took inspiration from the bottom right photo and came up with this...

I love the pink and golden combination so I tried to replicate it using Antique Linen, Tattered Rose and Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide Inks. To create the bokeh effect, I used a dot stencil from my stash and used a baby wipe to remove some of the ink. It worked perfectly!!

I did spray the background with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and water to give it a gorgeous, subtle shimmer. I die cut the panel using the second largest Scalloped Rectangle die.  To up the cuteness factor, I coloured up that sweet fox from the Cool Buddies Stamp Set, fussy cut him/her out and adhered it to a die cut snowbank.

Before adhering the snowbank to the panel, I gold heat embossed the berry sprigs from the Floral Decorations set.  The sentiment was also heat embossed and comes from the Santa Clumsy Set.

I foam mounted the panel onto a white card base that measures 3.5X5 inches.  I added a few white gel pen details to the fox and some shimmer pen to the scarf.  I was going to add some gold sequins but thought I'd let that background shine on its own!

Thank you for stopping in today, I hope you enjoyed this card!  Remember, up for grabs is a €25 gift certificate to the Create A Smile Stamps online shop! Please upload your creations to the Create A Smile Challenge Blog so we can enjoy and marvel at your talent!!

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #215

Hello and welcome back to another Challenge for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!! Unfortunately, this will be the last challenge for the blog.  While this makes me sad, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be on this team as I was incredibly inspired and blown away by all the amazing talent I seen!  Thank you all who participated!

We're featuring a fun technique this time around...Embossing with Dies!!

I love all things related to dies and die cutting so this was a real fun challenge!!  I used the set of dies called Flurry for my project today!

To emboss with your dies, it is crucial that you have a rubber embossing mat. This is what prevents the die from actually cutting the paper.  It provides a durable, yet forgiving surface for the die to press into.

I used Mixed Media paper for this as I find that thicker cardstock yields better results.  After die cutting a panel with a stitched rectangle die, I placed the 3 snowflake dies that are included in this set face down (just as if you were going to cut them!).  I use a Sizzix Big Shot so I opened the first tab (as if I was going to use an embossing folder), placed one cutting pad, the rubber embossing mat, the cardstock with die and another cutting plate on top.  I ran it through twice, but once would have been enough!

The snowflakes are now impressed into the cardstock which made it easy to do some loose watercolouring!!  

I heat embossed a couple of snowflakes and a sentiment from the Snowy Saying Stamp set in silver and foam mounted the embossed panel onto a white card base.  I thought a few clear sequins would look pretty and add a bit of sparkle!

I hope you're able to give this technique a try and I can't wait to see what you make!  Remember this is our LAST CHALLENGE so let's go out with a bang!!

Here's what you're playing for...

(Link your creations up on the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge Blog!)

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #214

Welcome back to another awesome challenge for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!!  This week brings holiday inspiration with this photo...

I knew immediately that I wanted to try to recreate this gorgeous Christmas ornament.  However, instead of an ornament, I made a snow globe!  CAS-ual Fridays has an awesome die set called Ornament Tag Fri-Dies. It's perfect to create a little scene like this or make a shaker card!  

I started by white heat embossing a bunch of snowflakes onto the large circle die from the set and did a bit of emboss resist with a light blue ink.

For the trees I used the Casual Trees Fri Dies and inked them up with shades of green Distress Ink. To create the base of my globe, I used the Bubble Box Fri-Dies, with a couple snips here and there. It created the perfect rounded corners.

The fact that the sentiment fit perfectly on the base was a total fluke and made me so happy!  I repeatedly stamped the snowflake border stamp from the Snowy Sayings Stamp Set  in a light blue ink onto a white card base and foam mounted my snow globe.

I added some glitter pen to the trees and a few clear sequins inside the globe to give almost a faux shaker-card look!

And that's my project for this challenge! I cannot wait to see what you create!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Here's what you're playing for:

Remember to visit the CAS-ual Friday Challenge Blog for all the details and to link up your project!!

Laurie

Challenge #213 for Cas-ual Fridays!!

Hello and welcome to another challenge for Cas-ual Fridays Stamps!!  This challenge asks that you use shades of gold on your project!

With the holidays fast approaching, gold is always a favourite colour to create with!  I kept my card fairly clean and simple, using only one stamp set.

I had some gold, shimmery paint in my stash that I have never used so this was the perfect opportunity. To create the striped background, I painted all over a piece of cardstock and trimmed strips from it.  I didn't measure or keep the strips even in size.  I also went for a random look when adhering the strips to the panel.

The snowflakes and sentiment are from the Snowy Sayings stamp set.  I wanted to incorporate a touch of black into this card, so I used Versafine Onxy Black ink for the sentiment.  The snowflakes were heat embossed with Metallic Copper Embossing powder from WOW!.  This is actually my favourite colour of embossing powder at the moment!

I fussy cut each snowflake and also directly stamped and embossed a few small flakes onto the card front. The snowflakes were adhered using foam adhesive.

And that's my take on the "Shades of Gold" Challenge!!  Now here's how to enter and what you're playing for:

What are your playing for? 10 winning entries will be highlighted on this blog each Thursday before a new challenge is set to go live the next day.  In addition, Michele has generously offered up a $25 gift certificate to the overall winner at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. And if that weren't enough, if the chosen winner has used CAS-ual Fridays stamps and/or dies as the main focus in the card, that gift certificate will increase to $50. 

Please link up your creation to the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge Blog!! Have fun and I cannot wait to see what you create!!

Laurie