Thursday, October 26, 2017

Ellen Hutson & MFT - Good Friends

 
Hi Folks! I am so happy to help show off the adorable new United We Flourish Good Friends Stamp and Die set created in collaboration with My Favorite Things and Ellen Hutson! Can't decide between your cat-loving friends and your dog-loving friends? No need to ... this set has both!

   
In fact, they are so cute that I wanted to use all of them on one card. So here they all are in a cat & dog patterned paper. They are colored with Derwent Inktense Colored Pencils in a super-basic way, so you know the cuteness is from the actual stamp and not from some fabulous coloring : ) The sentiment is one of several themed sentiments included with the set.
  
  
I was excited to see that this new set matches perfectly with an existing MFT set called You Make My Tail Wag. I used the dog house from that set here, but that set has several other dogs that are the same scale as these dogs so you can really create your own little army of pets.
 
   
There are also coordinating dies that go with the Good Friends images. I die cut the watercolored cat and dog and arranged them on the dog house. The bone on the doghouse is a perfect place to add another sentiment so I lettered some x's and o's there.

 
He's so cute peeking out of his house!
  

Finally, we have a crew of stripey dogs! I thought these guys needed a sassy sentiment to go along with their sassy stripes, so I had them carry the TREAT YO SELF sentiment from Totally Awesome.
   
 
This would be an easy card to mass produce, as once it's stamped all you need to do is loosely swipe a few lines across the dogs' bodies with some Copics and you're done. I overlapped the lines slightly to get an additional stripe of color.

Sure hope you enjoyed this new set; I know I had a blast playing around with it! And remember, this set is part of the United We Flourish program, so it will only be available for a limited time.

Thanks for stopping by,
Kelly

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Tuesday, October 24, 2017

CFS Calling All SIstahs

   
Hello girlfriends! Here's a friendly reminder for you, and all the lovely ladies in your life, to check yourself or schedule a mammogram if you're due.
 
 
For the entire month of October, Michele at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps will be donating 75% of the profits from her Calling All Sistahs collection to nationalbreastcancer.org to support their early detection, education and support services.
      

This card is over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today if you'd like additional information. Feel free to use my code "KELLY2017" which will save you 15% off any purchases at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Monday, October 23, 2017

CFS 5th BIrthday

  
I'm not sure how the time has flown by, but CAS-ual Fridays Stamps is FIVE YEARS OLD this month! WOW!! We are celebrating with 20% off all birthday stamp sets this month. That's in addition to the 15% off you get with my code "KELLY2017"!
 
 
Five years deserves five candles...these were made with just strips of scrap paper, silver thread for the wick, and metallic paper die cut with the flame from Festival Fri-Dies. I cut a rounded shape for the cake on the bottom.

   

This card is also over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today,
  
Thanks for looking!
-Kelly


Saturday, October 21, 2017

CFS Release - Chanukah


Our last set to be released this week for CASual Fridays Stamps is Chanukah. I've always been confused on the difference between Hanukkah and Chanukah, and it seems they are just different spellings because the Hebrew language is difficult to translate to English (although if that's not the case please let me know!) So now CASual Fridays has a set that features sentiments with the "Chanukah" spelling.


This sentiment was easy to cut out since it's already got a solid border, so that means you can layer it onto patterned paper to finish your card. Since the sentiment has to do with lights, I wanted a bokeh-looking background.


No blue bokeh paper in my supply (surprise, surprise!) so I made the patterned paper by swirling my Tim Holtz ink blending tools in place. Lots of fun!!! And can I tell you how much I love all the texture it creates?! I'm pretty sure I saw this technique somewhere recently, and I thought it was from Miriam Prantner, but looking back on her blog I don't see it. If you recognize this from somewhere please let me know so I can give credit. I would highly recommend this technique!
 

 Check out the rest of the Ink Squad to see more awesome projects with these stamps. All the stamps you see this week are now available in the CASual Fridays Stamps store! And don't forget, the code KELLY2017 works on everything, including these new release items.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Friday, October 20, 2017

CFS Release - Joy


Hi Folks! This is my favorite set of the release. Love the two large sentiments in the new CASual Fridays Stamps Joy set, and today I've got a card featuring each of them!


The middle of each Christmas-y word has a large snowflake substituted for the "o" to make it look even more festive. On this card I further embellished the snowflake with a large, faceted brad for some extra sparkle.


Because this sentiment is fabulous enough, I didn't want to add too much else to take away from it. I settled on adding a tone-on-tone border behind the slightly smaller panel so it would look like it's on a sheet of lacy cardstock. The die from Lovely Links was cut in half and adhered to the card base.



The extra texture is just enough, but not distracting. I also decided to add "to the world" from Snowy Sayings and cut it so that it would hug the curve of the "y."



Here's the other snowy word in this set ... Noel. It's embossed in a copper on top of a cream cardstock.


The curve on the end of the "N" looked like a wonderful place to hang an ornament, so I did! I stamped the snowflake a second time on silver paper, punched it out, added a hole in the circle and two on either side of the N curve, and then tied the ornament to the card.

The edge of the card is stamped with several of the extra snowflakes from this set and embossed in glitter from Catherine Pooler. A little hard to see here, because it's all sparkle, but you can see them better in the prior photo.
 

 Check out the rest of the Ink Squad to see more awesome projects with these stamps. All the stamps you see this week will be released on Saturday, October 21st. And don't forget, the code KELLY2017 works on everything, including these new release items.

Thanks for looking! We've got one last set to show you tomorrow, and then the stamps will all be released!
-Kelly


Thursday, October 19, 2017

CFS Release - Bomb Diggity


Hi Folks! What a fun set this is from CASual Fridays Stamps! I'm quite sure that there are no other "bomb diggity" sentiments on the market, so you know your cards will be unique. Michele is the best with coming up with fun, current phrases for us to use on our cards, right?


For a sentiment this sassy, I knew I had to have an equally sassy background. I saved last year's Easter invitation from the church who hosts my mom's group and thought it would be fun to replicate that. So I got out all my Catherine Pooler Inks, post it notes, and ink blenders, and went to work.

 
It was kind of fun to see what it was going to look like as I kept creating new shapes of color. With no planning or decision making, I was happy with how it turned out.
 

To finish it off, I added the card-sized sentiment and embossed it in gold several times so it was nice and thick. Fun!


 Check out the rest of the Ink Squad to see more awesome projects with these stamps. All the stamps you see this week will be released on Saturday, October 21st. And don't forget, the code KELLY2017 works on everything, including these new release items.

Thanks for stopping by! My favorite cards are coming up tomorrow, hope to see you then!
-Kelly



Wednesday, October 18, 2017

CFS Release - WTF 2

 
Hi Folks! Great news, it's back! The famous WTF stamp set, which was one of the first ever sets from CASual Fridays Stamps, has been retooled and is now being released as WTF 2. This one is even more versatile, with large open letters for you to color and really draw attention to it.  
 

For all of the cards in this post, I used this stencil I made from copy paper to help me color in the letters. After stamping on the copy paper, I cut out the inside spaces with an exacto knife. Then I placed the stencil over the letters on the card and start sponging ink through the spaces.


This set can be used for so many birthdays, thanks to the little "somethin'" stamp that's included in the set. So now, instead of just having a card for your friends turning 40 or 50, you can have a card for anyone turning 40 all the way through 59! Brilliant!


I added a few sequins for good measure to all the WTFs. The nice thing about stamping several of them is that they overlap and create new colors in those areas.


Another direction you can go with this set is "Who's Totally Fabulous?" This would be great for a thank you card, or congratulations card. 


The brush stroke and the scripted "fabulous" are from another set that you'll see later this week.

For the stripes on WTF, I stamped the brush stroke through the stencil.


Or, you can stamp a small image through the stencil to create some texture, like these ink splatters, which are also from a different set that you'll see later this week.


The large font sizes on these words really help the sentiment take center stage. And make for a quick card to make!


 Check out the rest of the Ink Squad to see more awesome projects with these stamps. All the stamps you see this week will be released on Saturday, October 21st. And don't forget, the code KELLY2017 works on everything, including these new release items.

Thanks for stopping by, and look for more stamp sets to be unveiled every day this week!
-Kelly