Kindred Stamps February Release - Be a Doll

Hello, hello! How exciting that it's almost time for the Kindred Stamps February release!?! The release will hit the shop on Friday, February 28th! I got to play with the Be a Doll stamp set and it's the cutest!

I just love these little nesting dolls, don't you! They're super cute! I wanted to have a sparkly background for these dolls, so I sprayed the back of the Long Hair stencil with Pixie Spray and adhered it temporarily to the front of a piece of black cardstock. I used a Stencil Pal to spread Gold Gina K Designs Glitz Glitter Gel over my stencil. Seriously this gold and black background is stunning! And I love the thick lines in the Long Hair Stencil!

I stamped out both images from the Be a Doll stamp set and colored them with my Copic markers. I colored them mainly purple because I just love purple and gold together! I stamped and heat embossed a funny sentiment onto black cardstock and popped everything up with foam squares. That's it! I hope you love it! And enjoy the rest of the February 2020 release from Kindred Stamps!

Dream Big Birthday Card

Hi! I'm so in love with the February 2020 release from Pink & Main! It's bright and happy mixed with a bit of pastel and dreamy!

I ADORE the papers in the Enchanted Garden 6x6 Paper Pad! The patterns are stunning! The perfect mix of greens, purple, pinks, blues, and more! Perfect for Spring and all through year when you want a punch of happy! I chose a tone on tone leafy background paper and die cut it with the largest die from the Stitched Rectangle 1 die set. I wanted to bring in more of the Enchanted Garden papers in a fun way, so I chose two coordinating patterns and die cut them with the Stitched Top Note dies and arranged them in a diagonal pattern across the card. The ones on the top and bottom I adhered with tape runner and the middle I popped up with foam tape to be a focal point.

I wanted a cute critter to be the center point of my card, so I colored the elephant and balloons from the Ears to You stamp set and die cut them with the Ears to You dies. I also stamped the "dream big" sentiment from the Ears to You stamp set and trimmed it into a sentiment strip banner. I added the sentiment with tape runner and the elephant and balloon with foam tape.

I love how adding the Enchanted Garden papers diagonally across the card makes that cute little elephant really stand out! See you soon!

Stamping with i-crafter Dies

Hi! Stamping with dies is one of my favorite techniques! I'll be creating some flowery backgrounds with the i-crafter Floral Garden die set!

I love the Floral Garden dies from i-crafter, but honestly all that die cutting is intimidating. I'm much more of a stamper than a die cutter. That's why I'm so happy there are so many simple ideas to do with dies! And my favorite is stamping with dies!

I chose a couple of flowers, a leaf, and some centers from the Floral Garden die set and die cut them once from fun foam. I added some tape runner adhesive to the back of the foam die cut stamps and adhered them onto acrylic blocks. Now they'll work just like stamps!

You can stamp the foam die cut stamps with any kind of ink - dye, hybrid, even Versamark with embossing powder -  but I like to use hybrid inks because they are thick and opaque. For my first card I used Wild Honey and Fossilized Amber for the flowers and Peeled Paint for the leaf.

I only intended to make one card, but since I had pieces die cut I decided to make a couple more! I just cleaned off the fun foam stamps with stamp cleaner and stamped again! This second card is with Shaded lilac and Wilted Violet.

I did one last card with Tattered Rose and Abandoned Coral. I kept the Peeled Paint for the leaves on all three cards and Black Soot for the centers of all the flowers. I finished off each of the cards with a simple die cut sentiment. I die cut the "thanks" sentiment from the Pop Up Wiper Insert die set three times for each card and stacked up the sentiments for dimension. I covered each of the sentiments with clear shimmer and Glossy Accents.

I hope you've enjoyed this look at stamping with dies! It's such a fun technique and the possibilities are endless with the Floral Garden die set! See you soon!

Spring Themed Cards with Deco Foil Flock Transfer Sheets

Hello! It might still be super super cold, but Spring is on the horizon! I paired some cute floral papers and stamps with a few of my favorite colors of Deco Foil Flock Transfer Sheets to create a set of flocked Spring cards!

I started by picking out some colors of Deco Foil Flock Transfer Sheets that just sang SSPPPRRIIIINNNGG to me! Haha! I ended up choosing two original flock colors and two new flock colors - Sunshine Yellow, Purple Punch, Blue Sky, and Pink Carnation. I chose the Pink & Main Garden Gate Stencil to use for my backgrounds and sprayed the back of it with Pixie Spray and temporarily adhered it to some white cardstock. I used a Stencil Pal and spread some Deco Foil Transfer Gel DUO over the stencil. I repeated the process three more times so that I had four stenciled backgrounds.

Although the Deco Foil Transfer Gel DUO only takes a few hours to dry, I always find it best to let it sit overnight to fully cure. You'll know it's good to go when the DUO Gel changes from being white and opaque to clear and shiny. It will still be slightly tacky, but that's how it's supposed to be! I trimmed down pieces of Deco Foil Flock to be a bit larger than the stenciled backgrounds and put them flock side DOWN on top of the DUO Gel stenciled backgrounds. The fabulous thing about the new Deco Foil Transfer Gel DUO is that you don't need heat to transfer foil or flock onto the gel - you just need pressure! I ran each of the backgrounds through my die cutting machine and peeled away the Deco Foil Flock backer sheets to reveal the stenciled and flocked backgrounds!

What's more Spring than pretty flowers?! I stamped the two flowers and three leaves from the Altenew Build a Flower Dahlia stamp set four times and die cut them with the coordinating dies. I stamped the leaves in the same colors all four times, but I switched up the colors of the flowers so that each card would be slightly different. I wanted to throw even more springy vibes into the mix, so I chose four different floral patterned papers from the Lawn Fawn Spring Fling 6x6 Paper Pad.

I die cut the patterned papers with the largest die from the Pink & Main Stitched Rectangle die set and trimmed down the stenciled and flocked background pieces to mat on top of the patterned paper. I wanted there to be a more "frilly" or "pretty" element, so I die cut frames from the Pink & Main Reverse Scalloped Rectangle die set and layered the frames on top of the stencil backgrounds. I started adhering all of the pieces together using iCraft Ultra Bond Liquid Adhesive and iCraft 3D Foam Squares behind the flowers.

I switched up the background papers, Deco Foil Flock stenciled pieces, and flowers to make four different cards with the same Spring vibe! I kept the color of the patterned papers the same as the flowers on top and a coordinating Deco Foil Flock color in the middle! I hope you love this set of Spring cards with Deco Foil Flock Transfer Sheets! See you soon!

4 Cards Using a Two for One Stencil Technique

Hi! You all know how much I love techniques that give me multiple backgrounds easily and this one uses one of my favorite tools - stencils from Simon Hurley Create.!

This technique is so easy and actually uses up the remaining ink that is left behind when blending over stencils. Most of the time this ink is wiped up and never seen again! It makes me happy to use it!

And bonus!! You get two backgrounds from one ink application! And you will get different looks depending on if you use a fine detailed stencil or a stencil with less detail.

The card on the left is the "original" card and the card on the left is the "extra" card you get from this technique! To start off I taped the Backsplash Stencil from Simon Hurley Create. onto some Stark White Cardstock and blended on some inks. I used a mix of Simon Hurley Create. new and older inks - Guppy, Tropical Tango, Remember Me, and Crown Me. I love the way these inks overlap and create new colors! I removed the stencil, but didn't wipe it off. There's all that inky goodness sitting right on top of the stencil! I used my Distress Sprayer to lightly spritz the stencil with water and pressed a second piece of Stark White Cardstock over the stencil to pick up the excess ink.

I'm left with a distressed background with the reverse pattern of the stencil! The cardstock just picks up the ink off of the negative part of the stencil. The ink will be much lighter than the original application, but I like that it's a totally different look! I finished off these two cards with a sentiment from the Encouraging Words stamp set (available at the end of this month)!

I wanted to try this technique again, but this time with a stencil that wasn't as detailed. I chose the Stargazer Stencil from Simon Hurley Create. because there is a lot of negative space - lots of area where the extra ink will sit. I taped the Stargazer Stencil to some Stark White Cardstock and blended on the same inks over the top - Guppy, Tropical Tango, Remember Me, and Crown Me. Again I removed the stencil, spritzed it with water from my Distress Sprayer, and placed a piece of Stark White Cardstock over the top and picked up the excess ink.

You can see this background is quite different from the first time because there is a lot more negative space on the stencil. Think of all that ink that would have been wiped away! Shocking! Haha! I finished off these cards with some cute images and a sentiment from the Space Training stamp set.

I hope you'll give this two for one stencil technique a try!

With All My Heart Stenciled Cards

Hi, there! Today I'm using the same dies and stencil from LDRS Creative to create two cards! I love to use the leftover pieces from one card to create a second - it makes me feel so accomplished! Haha!






As with so many of my cards ... this duo started out as an idea for one card and I had pieces left that were perfect to make a second card! Don't you love it when that happens?!

I started out with the idea for the purple card. I temporarily adhered the With All My Heart stencil onto a card base and blended two colors of hybrid inks over the top - Plum Crazy and Mrs. Periwinkle. I kept the Plum Crazy ink towards the left and blended the lighter Mrs. Periwinkle ink on the right side of the card for a gradient of color. I wanted to create a dimensional frame using the large heart die from the Open Heart die set, so I die cut five heart frames and glued them together. You could just die cut one and then use foam tape, but I like the solid look of stacking die cuts together.

I stamped a bunch of images from the Friends stamp set with Raven Hybrid ink and colored and then die cut them with the coordinating Friends dies. I glued the Open Heart die cut frame onto my stenciled card and arranged all of the Friends images inside of the frame. I stamped a sentiment from the Anytime Stack stamp set with Raven Hybrid ink and die cut it using the coordinating Sentiment Stack die and added it to the bottom of my card.

So here's my second card! When I was die cutting from the Open Heart die set one of the heart frames cut perfectly into a card front and just looked too good to throw away! I decided to use the same With All My Heart stencil, but I didn't want to cover the whole card - just the inside of the heart. I tucked a piece of computer paper under the heart and on top of the card front so that it was sandwiched in the little slot of the negative part of the die cut. I'm terrible at explaining things, so watch the video above and you'll see what I mean haha! I used a piece of masking tape to mask off the quarter inch or so strip of cardstock that was left on the left side of the card front and then adhered the With All My Heart stencil on top. I blended Pink Tutu Hybrid ink over the stencil keeping the ink darker towards the bottom and lighter towards the top.

I cut a piece of black and white patterned paper from the Love Birds 6x6 paper pack and added it to a card front and then mounted my die cut and stenciled piece on top with foam tape. I stamped some images from the Panda Play stamp set with Raven Hybrid ink and die cut them with the coordinating Panda Play dies. I also stamped a sentiment from the Love Stack stamp set with Raven Hybrid Ink and used the Sentiment Stack coordinating die to cut out the sentiment strip and added everything onto my card.

I hope you enjoyed these stenciled and die cut cards using products from the LDRS Creative Open Hearts collection! See you soon!

Pink & Main February Release Sneak Peek

Hello! It's hard to believe that Easter is already right around the corner! Never fear! There's a new release from Pink & Main hitting the shop February 20th and it's full of all things Spring and Easter! Yay!

I started with the Petals Stencil and tacked it onto a card base with Pixie Spray. I added a few drops of orange pigment to some White Gina K Designs Glitz Glitter Gel to change the color to a happy orange color and used a palette knife to spread it over the Petals Stencil.

I stamped out three of the gorgeous eggs from the new Easter Egg stamp set. Don't you just LOVE those flower eggs!? I colored them with alcohol markers, and die cut them with the coordinating Easter Egg die set. I stamped a sentiment from the Easter Egg stamp set and trimmed around it with my scissors. I added everything to the front of my card with foam squares.

This is just a tiny peek into the new Pink & Main February release! Be sure to come back February 20th to see the full release! See you there!