More Cowbell CAS-ual Friday Stamps Reveal Day 2

And we are back... with a whole lot of fun from today's new stamp set by CAS-ual Friday Stamps...

Wait for it... wait for it...

bwahahaha!  And there it is folks!  This classic SNL kit has now been immortalized with this super fun Cowbell Stamp Set and Fri-Die.  And this fun cowbell on the inside also wobbles.  Love it!

Stop by the CAS-ual Friday Stamps Blog for more peeks and inspiration from my fellow Girl Fri-days, and Happy Crafting!
Lisa

CAS-ual Friday's Release Week Day 1

Hello!!!!  It is release week over on the CAS-ual Friday Stamps Blog, and there are so many fun new goodies to share with you!  Today we are showing a peek at the new stamp and die set (yes! She is adding dies to her stamps now!) called Somebunny and Bunnies Fri-die...

Aren't they so sweet?!  I decided to create some fun bookmarks for my two kiddos, as we are a huge book reading family, and this set was perfect!  I started by adding a mix of distress oxide inks to my backgrounds.  I knew the minute I saw this set, which bunny was going to be with which kid as my son and I have always said "Love you to the moon and back"since he was little, and my daughter is celebrating her 7th Birthday this week!  Perfect I tell ya!  After my backgrounds were inked I stamped the sentiments and a few hearts and stars.  Finally, I stamped, colored and cut the bunnies out.

Make sure you stop by the CAS-ual Friday Stamps Blog for more peeks at this new set and to see what the rest of the tea has created.

I also have a coupon code to save you 15% off of your total CAS-ual Friday Purchase, woot woot!

Thanks so much for visiting me and Happy Crafting!

Lisa

Winnie & Walter Spotlight #2

Hello!  I am so happy to be back with all of you again!  If you were able to catch my first Winnie & Walter Leading Lady post here, then you might remember that I am planning on having a theme for each of my posts through the month of March.  Today's post I am titling "Off the Page",  and I am going to focus on various mediums you can stamp on besides paper.  Don't get me wrong I love paper, and my collection can totally attest to that (as can my husband! lol), but there are lots of mediums out there that give beautiful and unique results that you may not have considered using.

For my first off the page project I'm going to share stamping on cork.  This tends to be a more common medium when stamping, and with good reason as it is easy to come by, gives great results, and adds fun texture...

 For this card I stamped this coffee cup and steam from the Warm Wishes to You Stamp Set right onto a piece of adhesive backed cork.  I then die cut both with the coordinating Cutaways.  I then added this onto a few sheets of patterned paper.  As a final touch I added glossy accents to represent the liquid in the cup, and I love the touch of shine too!

For the next medium I chose to work with adhesive Wood Veneer.  I love the look of wood and woodgrains on projects, and so I decided to see what else this medium had to offer in two very unique ways.  First, I wanted to stamp so sweet little critters and color them in. Here is what I came up with...

Isn't she too much fun?!  This image comes from the Purrfect with Evelin T Designs, and I've used the matching Cutaways too.  My cat is always trying to fit in the smallest boxes, or game boxes when we have them out, it's just too funny!  Now I knew I wanted to color my images in, but I also knew that wood soaks and spreads with the touch of inks so markers were out.  The same went for watercolors, obviously they would spread as well and I wanted a nice clean image.  That's when I looked over and saw my Spectrum Noir Blendable Pencils, and I have to say I'm hooked!  I was surprised at how easy it was to blend my colors as well.  After creating this card I already have all kinds of plans on coloring in some of those larger floral images onto this Wood Veneer, doesn't that just sound lovely?

As I stated before I knew that inks would spread easily on the Wood Veneer so I wanted to give it a little test.  Alcohol inks are all the rage right now, so I thought why not start there?  And friends I LOVE it!  They blend and spread like butter...

 For this card I started by blending purple and pink alcohol ink colors over an entire piece of Wood Veneer.  Since the ink dries quickly I was able to die cut my hearts from the True Dotty Heart Cutaways right away.  And of course I had to fill all of those little dots with a fun mix of flat back gems.  While these were drying, I created my background panel by stamping various sentiments from the Sentimental Love Stamp Set.  And viola!

I have one final card for today that mixes the Wood Veneer with a new medium: Craft Metal.  I have used Craft Metal before to emboss and die cut with, but I had never tried stamping on it so I gave it a go... and it worked!

I wanted to color my stamped flowers in with Alcohol Markers so I used a Alcohol friendly ink and set it to dry for a bit before working with it.  If I were to stamp onto this Craft Metal and try to color on it right away it would do nothing but smear the images.  I also heat set the images just to make sure they were fully dry (make sure you use tweezers or something besides your hand to hold it when you are heating it up, or the metal may burn your hands).    While you may not be able to layer your coloring on Craft Metal or blend colors, it will give you a watercolor look as the coloring dried, and I love it!  For this card I used the In Bloom: Ashlee's Rosie Posies with Lydia Evans, and it's coordinating cutaways, as well as left over Wood Veneer heart from the True Dotty Heart Cutaways.  I then finished it off with the Hugs and Kisses Cutaway layered in black and silver.

Whew!  And there you have it!  Lots of ways for you to go off the page with your crafting.  Do you have a favorite medium other than paper to work with?  Thanks so much for stopping by today, the amazingly sweet Shay is letting me do a $30 giveaway to one of my readers! Yay!!!  So leave a comment below telling me something you enjoy stamping on besides paper and you'll be entered to win.  Also, if you would like to follow me on my Instagram page, or if you already do leave me a little love to the corresponding Instagram picture and I'll give you an extra entry! :)

Happy Crafting!

Lisa

Watercoloring on the Crafty Doodle Chick Blog

Goodmorning!  It's Friday, and that means you can find me on the Crafty Doodle Chick Blog getting crafty!  I'm posting a little peek at my project, but I really hope you can take a minute to pop over there and see the full thing and how it came together...

Thanks so much and Happy Crafting!
Lisa

New Challenge On The Block

Hi!  If you are looking for my Winnie and Walter Leading Lady Post please click here.

And today I am so excited to share a new challenge with you  that is being hosted and sponsored by Crafty Doodle Chick! Yay!  These challenges can be found on their FB group page, and we would love to have you play along!

Since this is our first challenge we are making it very easy and saying Anything Goes!  And here is what I've created...

I might have gone a little flower crazy, but I couldn't help it!  The Altenew Rose Flurries 3D Die Set is so fun to play with, and pretty too!  Since I didn't feel like trying to find lots of matching colored paper to create my flowers I used White paper and my Spectrum Noir Markers.  I was also inspired by Lydia Evans and an earlier video she did for Altenew.

Once I diecut and colored in the floral images, I adhered them together and set them to the side to dry.  I then stamped the sentiment from Altenew's Beautiful Quotes Stamp Set  with MFT Extreme Black Ink, and then added the flowers and leaves all the way around it.  I finished my card with a few flat back gems.

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope to see you play for a chance to win a $10 gc to the store!
Happy Crafting!
Lisa

Emboss-abilities With Winnie & Walter (Giveaway too!)

EEEEKKK!!!!  I can not believe I am Guest Designing for the whole month of March,  on the Winnie & Walter Blog!  This is a dream come true, and I am so very grateful to Shay for this amazing opportunity.  For my posts throughout the month I've decided to go with five various themes, with the hope of inspiring you and maybe even showing you something new so that you can get your Winnie & Walter goodies out and loved! 

Today's theme is titled Emboss-abilities, and I have three specific forms of embossing to share with all of you.  The first being the most typical method of embossing: Heat Embossing.  This technique never get's old when you get to watch the magic of your image coming to life as the embossing powder melts.

For this first card I've used the For Luck Stamp Set (this set will be available soon for purchase!), and I've heat embossed the three clovers within the set.  While the smaller two clovers are embossed with Gold Embossing Powder, I chose to give the largest clover a little more interest by embossing the top in Gold and the bottom half in Rose Gold.  I also chose to emboss these clovers onto vellum rather than plain cardstock.  I knew that I would be popping these up on patterned cardstock, so the vellum was perfect for allowing the patterned paper behind it to look softer around the clover.  I also chose to emboss my sentiment strip edges with gold embossing powder by rubbing the edges with my Versamark ink pad.  Finally, I cut my background panel with the Essentials: Lana Cutaways, adhered my clover, and added a few Metallic Gold Cupped Sequins.

The second type of Embossing that I wanted to share with all of you is Embossing Paste.  Embossing paste comes in lots of various forms, including with glitter as I have used here.  This specific Embossing Paste is called Glimmer Paste by Nuvo and this stuff sure shines! (I swear you're going to think I'm a Raccoon by the end of this post with all this glitz! And you might not be wrong lol)

I really love how this card turned out.  First, I needed something to run my embossing paste over so I created my own temporary stencil of sorts by using the negative of the large Love cut from the In a Word: Love Coordinating Cutaways and masking paper.  Once my mask was cut, I covered 3/4's of the word with Tanzanite Lavender and the top most part with Golden Crystal pastes.  After I had applied both colors I then removed the masking paper to reveal my embossed word.  You do not want to wait long to remove the paper as you will run the risk of the paper sticking to the paste and not giving you the crisp lines.  Another tip is to make sure your masking paper is pressed firmly onto your background, so that no paste can get under the paper.

Various embossing pastes have different drying times.  While mine was drying I worked on the rest of my card.  I wanted to layer my sentiment, so I chose the thin script love sentiment in this set and die cut it with Gold Cardstock.  I then stamped, heat embossed, and cut some floral images from the In Bloom: Ashlee's Rosie Posies with Lydia Evans and with it's coordinating dies.  I love the whimsical look of the flowers in this set, and I went with complimentary colors.  Once everything was dry I cut the panel from the Essentials: Audrey Cutaways.

For my final card today I chose to Dry Emboss the main sentiment using the In a Phrase: Hugs & Kisses with Angelica Suarez Cutaway.  Now, I know that this almost looks like it has been in-laid rather than embossed, but I promise you it wasn't I simply used the deep emboss technique with my Gemini rather than the lighter one. You can also tell it is embossed by the impression of the dies outter edge lines.

I love the dry embossing technique as it gives your dies one more way to be used!  Along with the hugs & kisses sentiment I also chose to dry emboss some hearts from the Essentials: Audrey Cutaways, and a small border die from the Georgette Border Cutaways.  I then stamped a few words from the Sentimental: Love Stamp Set in a contrasting black ink, and adhered my panel onto some patterned paper.  Next, I stamped, colored and die cut that sweet little pup from the Dog-gone Cute with Evelin T Designs and it's coordinating cutaway set.  For a finishing touch I added a few sequins.

Thank you so much for stopping by today for my first post as a Winnie & Walter Guest Designer!  I hope I've inspired you to get crafty, try something new, or pull out an old trick.  I would love for you to stop by my blog, Lisa's Creative Niche,  for a chance to win a $30 gift card so generously donated by Shay to the Winnie & Walter Store.

Happy Crafting!

Lisa

Inside Surprise...

Have I piqued your interest???  Good!  Head over to the Crafty Doodle Chick Blog to see the surprise  for yourself! :)

Hmmm... I wonder what could be hiding on the inside...

Click here to find out!
Happy Crafting!
Lisa