CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Sneak Peek "Floating"

Happy Sunday!!  I hope you are all having a nice weekend. Today is my husband's birthday. We celebrated last night at a French Restaurant  that he wanted to try. Everything was delicious-especially the profiterole I had for dessert!!

Today I am excited to bring you a sneak peek to "Floating" one of the new CAS-ual Fridays Stamp sets that will be released on March 31, 2017.

I had fun creating a simple card with it this weekend. I should not call it simple, though, because it took me over an hour to color!!

I started by stamping the balloon from the set onto a piece of white card stock. I then used Copic Markers to color in all the different flowers, as well as the basket.

I then took a brush and lightly brushed Distress Ink in "Tumbled Glass" around the background for sky. I apologize for the photo as it is pretty gloomy here and hard to get a great photo.

I mounted the stamped panel onto an A2, top folding aqua card and added a sentiment that I had embossed onto a piece of black card stock.

Next I used Glossy Accents, Stickles and Nuvo Crystal Drops inside the flowers to give them a bit of zing.

Like this sneak peek? There will be more from the Ink Squad all this week with the rest of the release.

On Friday, we will have a blog hop and every designer will use a new CAS-ual Fridays Stamp set in their designs. There will be prizes, fun projects and special guests. Please join us at the CAS-ual Fridays Blog for all the festivities!!

I thank you for stopping by today. Have a  FABULOUS day!!

Supplies:
Stamps-CAS-ual Fridays Stamps "Floating"
Paper-Neenah Solar White, PaperTrey Ink "Aqua Mist," and Bazzill Black
Ink-Memento "Tuxedo Black," and Hero Arts Unicorn "White" Pigment Ink, Ranger "Tumbled Glass" Distress Ink
Other-Wagner Heat Tool, Sizzix Big Shot, Wow Opaque White Embossing Powder, Stickles in "Cool Mint" and "Glam Pink," Nuvo Crystal Drops in "Dandelion Yellow," "Red Berry," and "Ripened Pumpkin," Glossy Accents, 3M Foam Adhesive, Ranger Multi-Matte Adhesive, Scotch Dot Adhesive, Ink Duster Blending Brush
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On the Blog With CAS-ual Fridays Stamps: Stretching Your Stamps

Happy Thursday everyone!! It is my turn on the CAS-ual Stamps Blog. I created a card that took a look at my stamps in a different way.

As a crafter, I am sure you have oodles of supplies. However, what if you didn't? Would you be able to look at the stamps sets you have and create something that you didn't have? I sometimes challenge myself to do this to see what I could come up with. I wanted a large butterfly so I looked through my CAS-ual Fridays Stamp sets and used "Sassy Smiles" and "Pretty Posies" to create one.

I started off this card by stamping four leaves from the "Pretty Posies" stamp set with white pigment ink onto vellum and heat embossing with white embossing powder. I then colored the leaves in with gold and green sparkle markers. I cut the leaves out and gave them a second layer of color. I set them aside to dry.

While the leaves were drying, I stamped the heart from "Sassy Smiles" in black, overlapping to create the butterfly body. I then used scissors to cut the body out.

On the card base, I used embossing paste and a stencil to get a lace overlay. I then flicked green and gold mist spray over it to get a "messy" look. I placed a blended panel that had a sentiment from CAS-ual Fridays "Be" stamped in black.

I took the leaves and arranged them to look like the top and bottom of butterfly wings and adhered them to the sentiment panel. I adhered the body over the wings and used floss to make some antennae. The body needed a bit of oomph so I added some clear sparkle marker on top and then covered it with Glossy Accents.

My last step was to adhere some sequins on the butterfly wings, as well as on the card front.

Do you like the stamps I used? Use my code nora2017 to get 15% off your next order at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.

I thank you for stopping by and hope that this helps you look with a new eye at your stamp sets.

Supplies:

   

Stamps-                                       "Be"                                "Pretty Posies"                       "Sassy Smiles"


Ink-Tim Holtz Distress Ink "Squeezed Lemonade," "Scattered Straw," and "Spiced Marmalade," Hero Arts Unicorn "White" Pigment Ink, Hero Arts "Black"
Embossing Powder-Ranger Detail "White"
Paper-Neenah Solar White, PaperTrey Ink Vellum
Other-Tim Holtz "Ornate" Stencil, Wagner Heat Tool, Prima Mist Spray "Emerald" and "Gold Foil," Spectrum Noir Sparkle-"Gold" and "Blue Ocean," Ranger Small Blending Tool

Tag You're It Challenge #67

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Ours was surprisingly quiet. We started off by going to Cirque du Soliel on Friday night. We saw "Toruk." It was a more theatrical production then I expected but really good. The sets for the show were AMAZING!

It was a good ending to a very bad week. It was a great way to set up the much needed weekend.

Today I had some time to make a tag for the "Tag You're It Challenge: #67." I had colored in the flowers that I wanted to use over the week but never had the time to put together the tag.

Please excuse the bad lighting on this photo. Once again I was playing around with lighting and still do not have it right. I only have so much time these days so re-taking photos is not a priority!! The tag that this was inspired by is below.

The inspiration tag had a flower so I decided to use the Altenew "Beautiful Day" set to stamp and color in. I have had this set sitting on my desk for a while but never cracked it open.

The inspiration tag also had a blue background with a doily like element. I used Tim Holtz's "Ornate" stencil with Hero Arts "Tide Pool" dye ink.

I layered everything on the tag and used Altenew's "Label Love" stamp set for the sentiment. I finished off the tag by covering all the flower elements with Spectrum Noir "Clear" Sparkle Marker.

I thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous week!!

Supplies:
Stamps-Altenew "Beautiful Day," and "Label Love"
Paper-Neenah Solar White
Ink-Memento "Tuxedo Black," Hero Arts "Tide Pool"
Dies-Altenew "Beautiful Day," and CAS-ual Fridays "Tag Buddies Fri-Dies"
Other-Copic Markers, Prismacolor Pencils, Pretty Pink Posh Sequins, Ranger Multimatte Adhesive, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Marker, 3M Foam Adhesive, Seam Binding, Sizzix Big Shot, Seam Binding, Tim Holtz "Ornate" stencil by Stamper's Anonymous
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Calling All Sistahs!

Hello everyone!! It is the 17th of March and that means another CAS-ual Fridays Stamps "Calling All Sistahs" Blog hop!! You should have come here from Mary's blog.

This blog hop is to encourage women to remember to get their yearly mammograms. One in eight women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer. Early detection is so important for treatment. Make sure to make appointment to get the girls SQUEEZED!

The owner of CAS-ual Fridays Stamps, Michele, is a Breast Cancer survivor herself. She developed a line of stamps to promote Breast Cancer awareness. Fifty Percent of the proceeds of the "Calling All Sistah's" product line will be donated to causes that promote Breast Cancer awareness, as well as research for a cure.

Along the way their will be prizes!! Three Random commenters will be picked from the comments on the hop to receive a prize but you must comment by March 19, 2017 to be eligible.

Now that the particulars are done, lets get on with the details about the card I created for the hop!!

I chose to create a simple card and used two CAS-ual Fridays Stamps sets on my card-"Be" and "Word Ribbon."

I started off by stamping a white A2 card base with two sizes of butterflies from the "Be" stamp set using three types of pink dye ink. To be honest, this was the second card base I stamped for this card due to the dropping of a stamp. Hate when that happens!!

I then used a sentiment from "Word Ribbon" and stamped it over the butterflies in black dye ink. I layered a scalloped die cut panel in white wrapped with metallic floss over the pink, using foam adhesive to give it a bit of dimension.

I finished the card off with a few sequins from the "Sistahood Sparkle," an exclusive mix of sequins made for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps by Pretty Pink Posh.

The next blog on this hop is Ceal's blog. If you get lost along the way, the complete blog list for the hop is at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.

Would you like to go on a shopping spree? Use the code nora2017 to save 15% off your total order! Have fun hopping!!

Nora

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Another Wine Card for Mojo Monday #488

Happy Tuesday!! We have had a snow day today due to a Nor'easter but all is good. It has warmed up to 41 degrees and is now raining. Supposed to freeze again tonight, though, so here is hoping we don't lose power due to ice!!

Since I am home bound, I have been hanging out in my pj's doing laundry and did make a card for the Mojo Monday #488 Sketch Challenge. I used the pile that is on my desk that I put in yesterday's post.

Once again, I used Simon Says Stamp's "Time for Wine" stamp and die set for my card.

My inspiration was the sketch below, which I flipped 180 degrees.

I adored this sketch because it was very simple. I also liked it because it let me layer my stamped and die cut images.

All the images were colored in with Copic markers. I used Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Marker over the Copics and then added Glossy Accents over that.

I used a piece of gold and white polka dot paper for the strip that was in the sketch.

I really like how this came out.

I thank you for stopping by today. Stay safe and warm all my friends that live in the Northeast!!

Nora

Supplies:

Stamps-Simon Says Stamp-"Time for Wine"
Paper-PaperTrey Ink Stampers Select White Card Stock, PaperTrey Ink Foil (retired)
Ink-Memento "Tuxedo Black" and PaperTrey Ink "Smokey Shadow"
Dies-Simon Says Stamp "Time for Wine" and My Favorite Things "Die-namics Stitched Round Rectangle Stax"
Other-Copic Markers, Glossy Accents, Spectrum Clear Sparkle Marker, Foam Adhesive, Ranger Multi Matte, Sizzix Big Shot and Scotch Dot Adhesive

FTC Filing, Police Stations and Just Add Ink Challenge

Hello!! It is Monday night here and we are expecting a blizzard tomorrow so school has already been called off. In some ways I am bummed because we will have to make it up in June but in other ways I am relieved.

I thought I was in the clear filing my taxes but we were informed last night that someone did file in my name. I spent the afternoon after work filing all sorts of forms and going to the police station to file a claim against identity theft. This is such a nightmare and I hope none of you will ever have to go through this. I still have lots of letter writing to do tomorrow with all this that I am not looking forward to.

I was able to do a couple of cards, though, for the "Just Add Ink" Challenge #350. It was a sketch challenge this week and I made two cards. I chose images from a pile on my desk.

I call this "creative chaos" and it takes up half the area where I put together my cards. I don't usually have this much in this pile but yesterday I spent some time fussy cutting as well as die cutting images out that I had stamped and colored in.

If I put it away, I will never use it so often when I do a sketch, I go through the pile and pick things out to layer with each other. Anyone else do this or am I the only messy one?

Here is the sketch I played with:

My design is very similar for both cards. For my first card, I not only used images from the pile but used all paper scraps that were in my file drawer.

I combined envelopes from CAS-ual Fridays "Special Delivery" Stamp set with a panda from Mama Elephant's "Incoming Mail" and a sentiment from the "Happy Mail" set.

The images were colored with Copic markers and I used my MISTI to stamp the sentiment.

Kind of dark but I have someone in mind that could us this card.

My second card is a bit brighter and I combined pieces of patterned paper from Bo Bunny's "Head Over Heels" 6" by 6" paper pad with some scraps.

Again I used a Mama Elephant Panda that I had on my desk to enhance the sentiment.

I actually think I like this card better then the first but I was not trying to use up scraps and chose the patterned paper to match better.

I used foam adhesive to pop up the sentiment strip and the little border of letters.

Well that is all from me tonight. I thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog. Comments are always welcome!! Have a fabulous night!!

Nora

Supplies:
Stamps-CAS-ual Fridays Stamps "Special Delivery," Mama Elephant "Happy Mail," and "Incoming Mail"
Paper-Bazzil Black Card Stock, PaperTrey Ink "Raspberry Fizz," Echo Park (checked and pink sentiment), Bo Bunny "Head Over Heels" Collection
Dies-Mama Elephant "Incoming Mail" and My Favorite Things "Die-namics Inside Out Diagonal Stitched Rectangle Stax"
Ink-Memento “Tuxedo Black”

Other-Copic Markers, Glossy Accents, 3L Scrapbook 3D Adhesive Foam Squares, Sizzix Big Shot, MISTI

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Freshly Made Sketches #278 and Seize the Birthday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Hello everyone!! I hope everyone has been enjoying their Sunday!! Bitter cold here after a little snowstorm we had on Friday. Spent the day snuggled up inside the house, not doing much of anything.

Today I am going to show you a card that I created for the Freshly Made Sketches #278 Sketch and Seize the Birthday "Anything Goes." Once again I have been playing with my camera, trying to get better shots of my projects but all my experiments were bad. I wound up going with the darn light box again, and I need better lights!!

I know that this card is not exactly like the card but my card was inspired by it. My shape, aka balloons, are a little higher then I would have liked but it didn't work any lower. This is an example of what is in my head does not necessarily translate into reality.

Here is the Freshly Made Sketch that I used for this card:

 

I started off my card by cutting a blue scrap of pattern paper and adhering it to the card. I then created a background using CAS-ual Fridays Stamps "Shenanigans" stamp set, stamping in light gray on a white background. I knew I would be putting another sentiment over it so I didn't want the paper to be too overwhelming.

I added the paper over the blue and then adhered the little streamers that I had stamped and cut using PaperTrey Ink's "Birthday Style" stamp set. This set is as old as the hills but it worked for what I wanted it to do.

I die cut and blended the balloons, adhering them over some die cut strings. The sentiment is from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps "Frankly'isms" stamp and was stamped last.

I chose the colors to be more masculine in nature. I have a hard time making cards for men and wanted to do something a little more funny then cute.

On a more personal note, I had a really bad week. Payroll fell for a phishing scam and all my district's information is out there now. Some people filed tax returns, finding out that they already had been filed falsely. My husband did ours and ours were not. Probably because I would have owed if I filed myself!! Now I have an eagle eye watch on all things credit related and am just so frustrated. I really, really dislike people who steal on the web-and I really don't care the reason.

Also worried about budget cuts on our local, state and federal level. I find it so annoying that on a state level, that our government cannot make the cities be more fiscally responsible. We pay A LOT of property tax and it annoys me that I have to bail out cities like Hartford due to stupid financial decisions. I thought I was able to let go of some of the stuff I cannot control but budgets do effect whether I have a job or not so all this uncertainty gets to me after a while. I have been so grumpy and irritable the whole week and my stomach has started to hurt. Even working out has not helped me!!

Anyway, finally had a good cry yesterday and today I feel a bit better. I also did some color therapy, joining in the Thirty Day Coloring Challenge, which also helped.

Well that is all for me today. I will post the cards I create from the coloring sometime this week. Just have to get the mojo working!!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and for reading this LONNNNGGGG post. I appreciate all your comments that you so generously make. Crafters ROCK!!

Nora

Supplies:

Stamps-CAS-ual Fridays Stamps “Shenanigans” and “Franklyisms,” PaperTrey Ink “Birthday Style”

Dies-PaperTrey Ink “Birthday Style,” Lawn Fawn “Party Balloons”

Ink-WPlus9 “Fairy Dust,” Simon Says Stamp “Island Blue,” Stampin Up! “Certainly Celery,” Ranger “Jet Black” Archival Ink

Paper-Recollections “White,” PaperTrey Ink “Select White,” Stampin Up! “Pistachio Pudding,” Bazzill Black

Other-MISTI, Big Shot, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, Scotch Dot Adhesive, Foam Adhesive, Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool

Fab Friday #107

Hello! I am here today with yet another card that I created this weekend. Again, I used stuff on my desk to layer together using the "Fab Friday" Sketch #107 as my inspiration.

I think I have said this before that I am having fun with sketches as of late because you can use any kind of product on them. I would love to do some color challenges but find them really...um, challenging.

I used Simon Says Stamps "Time for Wine" stamp and dies to create my card. I colored a bunch of these images in awhile ago and never used them. I don't know why I am obsessed with this set but I am. It is not like I send out wine cards that often. (I could, though. I have A LOT of friends who enjoy a nice bottle, oh I mean a glass of wine!!)

The sentiment is from PaperTrey Ink's "Fillable Frames #5." I have used this sentiment a ton because it just seems to go with everything!! I also stamped a matching envelope for this card. This is my new "thing!"

I used Glossy Accents and Spectrum Clear Sparkle Marker over these elements. The doily is a retired MFT die.

Here is the sketch I used:

This is one of those sketches I could have made a ton of cards from. I think I might duplicate this card with some purple wine images I have from my last color spree. (though it is purple and wine is not purple!)

Here is another angle of the card. I cannot tell you how much I love how this came out!!

Well, enough of me today. I thank you for taking the time to stop by. Comments are always welcome!!

Nora

Supplies:

Stamps-Simon Says Stamp! "Time for Wine," Paper Trey Ink "Fillable Frames #5"

Ink-Memeto "Tuxedo Black" and Tsukineko Delicata "Golden Glitz" Hero Arts "Soft Green"

Paper-Recolletions "Kraft," Neenah Solar White and Stampin Up! "Cool Cucumber"

Dies-Simon Says Stamp "Time for Wine" and MFT "Doily Duo" (retired)

Other-Glossy Accents, Copic Markers, Spectrum Clear Sparkle Marker, Sizzix Big Shot, Wagner Heat Tool,  Ranger Gold Embossing Powder, Scrapbook Adhesive Foam