Its never too early to make Christmas cards!!

Hi everybody and thanks for popping in. Hope you've had a fantastic week so far and your weather is treating you well. We hit Autumn in New Zealand on the 1st of March so we are desperately hoping that some rain will come our way. Its only rained twice so far this year, both times in the middle of the night for around 30 mins, so you can imagine how dry everything is!!

Even though its only March I decided that its never too early to start on your Christmas card stash, as for the past few years I've run out of cards each time. Not sure if the card today is one where I could churn out many at once but I just love the way it turned out:

 

For some reason I keep seeing lots of 'cardstock strip' cards wherever I look and I like what I see!! So thought I would give it a try. My strips got on a bit of a lean towards the end but have worked out to correct that for next time. Definitely a great one for using all those leftovers!!

I used the Bring on the Snowflakes images for the background and one of the large sentiments from the Joy stamp set, with a bit of fussy cutting. To find out exactly how I put this together pop over to my blog HERE.

Only 8 months to go before you need to get your Christmas cards in the mail, so hopefully this has given you a few ideas for yours. And I'll see you back here later this month with some new projects.

Take care
Shona

 

Sneak Peek of the NEW "Snow Angel" Stamp Set coming Thanksgiving Day!!

HELLO CRAFTY FRIENDS!! 

Larissa here today to share a SNEAK PEEK of the NEW "Snow Angel" Stamp Set that will be available on Thursday Nov. 27th!! 

SWOON!! You're just going to LOVE the NEW Set!! 

If you missed my share as part of the 25 Days of Christmas Tags, here's a Photo of the Tags I created for the Holidays, using the same set!!

You can find my post HERE and to join in on the 25 Days of Christmas Tags FUN with chances to WIN some AWESOME Prizes HERE!! 

So for my Card today I wanted to create an Encouragement Card for a SWEET friend who's battling Uterine Cancer!! This Lil' Snow Angel is PERFECT for so many occasions!!

 

 I wanted a BEAUTIFUL Sparkling Snowflake background to go along with both the Snow Angel Image and the Sentiment I wanted to use on my Card!! I Started by Inking my Background using some Distress Ink in Royal Velvet!! I added some Water Droplets for some Texture and then used an Anti-Static Tool to run over my entire Panel!! I Stamped and Embossed Several of the Snowflake Images from both the Joy and Sugar Plum Fairy Stamp Sets using Versa Mark Embossing Ink then I Embossed them with WoW Glitter Embossing Powder in Fools Gold!! It's a STUNNING Gold Embossing Powder with a Mauve/Rose Gold Glitter!! In real life its just GORGEOUS!! I added some White and Black Paint Splatters using some Distress Paint in Black Soot and Picket Fence!! Then I added some Shine and Dimension to several of the Snowflake Centers using Pretty Pink Posh Snowflake Sequins and some Tonic Studios Nuvo Glitter Drops in Summer Sunrise!! I Stamped and Embossed the Word Ribbon Image and then Die Cut it out using the Ruffled Ribbon Fri Dies!! I used WoW Gold Pearl Glitter Embossing Powder and I just LOVE the look against those Snowflakes!! I really brings out the delicate detail of the Snowflake Images!!

I Stamped ans Embossed the NEW "Snow Angel" Image and Colored it on using Copic Markers!! I used (Skin: E00, E11 & E13  Cheeks: RV11  Hair: E31, E33 & E37  Halo: YR23  Robe: RV00, RV11 & RV34  Wings: W0, W2 & W5)  I added Glitter Nuvo Drops in Summer Sunrise to the center of the Snowflakes on her Robe and then I Stamped and Embossed the sentiment onto some Black Cardstock and Embossed it with some WoW Embossing Powder in White!! I added some White Pigment ink to the outside edges of the Sentiment strip to make it not as harsh against my background and then add some more Glitter Nuvo Drops to the center of the Snowflakes!! I used some Foam Tape to add the Ribbon, Angel and Sentiment strip onto my card and I just LOVE the way it turned out!! 

I hope you come back on Thursday to get your hands on this SWEET NEW "Snow Angels" Stamp Set, and Stay Tuned for even MORE SURPRISES for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday!! If I were you I'd get my WISH LIST ready and don't forget to visit the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog often Next week/weekend for TONS of AMAZING Inspiration and to shop the NEW, Old and Sale Products in the CFS Shop!! You can also use my discount code LARISSASENTME to SAVE 15% off anything in the Shop!! 

WHOOP WHOOP!! 

THANKS SO MUCH for stopping by today and I hope you have a FABULOUS WEEK!! 

Larissa 💗

Christmas Card Production Line!!

Hi there everybody!! I can't believe that there are only just over 5 weeks till Christmas!! I've done no shopping, haven't even have any lists yet, haven't started my Christmas baking and haven't made all my Christmas cards......so to say I'm not prepared is an understatement!

I'm also trying to make lots of cards for a group here in New Zealand that send Christmas cards to rest homes around the country called 'Sending Love NZ', for people who don't have any family. Last year I made 50 cards, this time I'm aiming for 100. I really needed a design that looked good but that I could also turn into a 'production line' and create many in a row, so decided to make that the basis for my post today.

To start with, this is the card design I came up with:

This is a one-layer design with loads of stamping, so thank goodness for my trusty MISTI!! It took a bit of organising with the different snowflakes but once I had it done, it was quite easy!!

 

I started off by using a marker pen to make marks to show how big my card base was on the inside of my MISTI door. I grabbed snowflake stamps and arranged them within that area. I found this handy instead of doing on top of the card base itself. I also did the same on the stamping area paper, so I could put my card in the right place every time. I used snowflake stamps from:

Bring on the Snowflakes 
Dashing 
Joy 
Merry 
Snowy Sayings 
Sugar Plum Fairy 

And since the card is completely covered with images I couldn't hold it in place with the magnet, so I added a little removable tape to the back of each one. 

Now I was ready to start stamping!! I used inks from Waffle Flower and Hero Arts. All I did was press the ink pads on different areas of the stamps and it didn't matter if they overlapped and stamped each card twice to get the best coverage. I did 25 cards in blue.

And 25 cards in pink. I'm so happy with how they turned out, especially the way the colours blended together!!

Now it was time to add a sentiment. I was going to heat emboss one but my card stock isn't very thick and didn't want to warp all my stamping. So I decided to use a large sentiment with the darkest ink I used on the cards:

I'm really happy I stamped the sentiment, it still stands out against the background and the cards are nice and flat. I also decided not to add any sequins to these either as there is already a lot going on with the design. Now all I have to do is write a message in each one, wishing them a wonderful Christmas and happy, healthy New Year. I'll add these to the other 50 cards I've made and put them in the 'Sending Love NZ Drop Box' in town and they will distribute them from December 14th. Hopefully they will make lots of people happy!!

Whew, sorry that was such a long post but wanted you to see how you can create one design and then crank out lots of cards with different colours. I hope its given you a few ideas and if your still needing to buy some Christmas products, don't forget to use my special code to save yourself 15%!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and we will see you back here tomorrow for a rather fabulous blog post.....you won't want to miss it!!

Take care
Shona

 

Have you ever set out to make a card and ended up with something totally different than you planned on making? Or have you ever been close to finishing a card that is perfect in every way and then you drop ink where it's not supposed to be? It happens to all of us! Even the Girl Fridays! 

Check out this gorgeous card from Lisa and her story of how it came to be...

"I have to admit something before I tell you how my card was created. This card was originally meant to show off as masking background technique... I failed and had ink outside of the masked area. But I loved the red and the splotches so much that I simply trimmed out my masked area and adhered it to another cardbase. Project saved, yay!!! For my sentiment I heat embossed the joy from the Joy Stamp Set in silver and fussy cut it out. I love how large this sentiment is and that it works as a focal point all in itself! I popped the sentiment up with foam adhesive to finish it off."

October Release Day 3

It's Day 3 of our October Release!! 

We've showed you 2 fantastic sets so far this week! There are still 2 left to see!

Today we debut our new Christmas set and tomorrow a new Hanukkah set!

They'll ALL be available in the store for you on Saturday!

 

On Wednesday you saw WTF 2. On Thursday you saw Bomb Diggity!

Today we bring you Joy!

Isn't it pretty? The words will be gorgeous on their own, or you can stamp backgrounds for them with the 3 pretty individual snowflakes. You will be able to create stunning Christmas cards with Joy!

Let's see what the Ink Squad came up with

Vicki's cards using Flurry and Noel Fri-Dies

Maureen's card

Shona's card using Tag Buddies Fri-Dies and Snowy Sayings

Jeanne's card

Lisa's card

Kimberly's card

Nora's card with Starlequin

Kelly's cards

So what do you think?

Leave a comment here for your chance to win a $15 gift code to the store!

Then be sure to leave a comment on the first 2 release posts this week for 2 more chances to win a  $15 prize code.

That's three $15 prize codes! But wait, there's more!

For our facebook friends, there is one more opportunity to comment for a prize on our fb page, and for our Instagram friends, there will be an opportunity for you to win a prize on IG tomorrow!