In this video I combined the Flamingo Die from issue 132 of Papercraft Essentials, with the sentiment stamps included with issue 153 of Simply Cards and Papercraft :D I then used the 'Shaving Foam Technique' in a slightly different way to how I've seen it done before :D :D
When using shaving foam through a stencil to create a coloured image or pattern, it is important to first colour your shaving foam so that you get a defined image! I use my Dylusions spray inks (I water mine down, I saw Joggles.com do this years ago, and its so worth doing because it makes your sprays go sooooo much further!!! I tip about an eighth of the bottle into an empty spray bottle, and then I top it up with water, and to be honest I don't think that there's much difference from the original colour :D) for the blue cards I used Polished Jade and for the pink cards (which I made off camera) I used Cherry Pie :D The whole process is very easy! and slightly addictive, hence the 6 cards lol :D I find that any time I use shaving foam, I like to use analogous colours so that I can keep re-using my foam and I won't get a muddy colour! plus for me I prefer the more mono-chromatic look rather than complementary colours for a technique like this :D
To get my flamingos, I used the flamingo die to cut some acetate to make my own stencil, I use heat resistant acetate as its much thinner than most other acetates, I still struggle to cut it in my Cuttlebug, but its much easier than trying to cut thicker acetate! Top Tip, I've found if I put a piece of printer paper underneath my acetate it cuts more easily :D To keep my stencil down flat when spreading the shaving foam over the top, I use Crafter's Companion Stick and Spray (this is extremely helpful for the little triangle between the flamingos legs!) To create my 'marbled' effect I used a combination of re-inkers, Brusho (I was experimenting) and mica powders :D and I just used a ball tool to swirl around my colours, I was also only working in a small glass bowl, as for this technique you are only scooping the foam out, not laying your card into the container, and I found that a glue spreader was really handy for smoothing off the top surface of my shaving foam :D
I used a scraper tool I got years ago to spread my shaving foam through my stencils, but you could just as easily use an old gift card too, and all you do is scoop up a pile of marbled shaving foam and place it on top of your stencil, you then use your scraper tool to pull the foam across your image, much like screen printing. Try to remove as much of the excess as you can, then remove the stencil, I then take a ruler and scrape off the remaining foam, this does smudge some of the colour, but I think that adds more to the effect so I don't mind that this happens :D When you've finished doing all your focal elements, you can then move onto the backgrounds, on the ones where I was experimenting with Brusho and mica powders, I didn't even add anything to the shaving foam I just pulled the colour I had over the top of the stencil :D I felt like I wanted a little more detail in the background, so I used a tropical leaf stamp, I stamped these in Hero Arts inks in Tide Pool, Lime Green and Bubble Gum :D One of the flamingo toppers was quite light in colour, and I felt like the flamingo wasn't defined enough, so I simply placed the stencil back over the top and then blended a little bit of Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink over the top :D
To finish these cards off I added a sentiment stamped in black to each, and then I added some black splatters to the background so everything tied together, and I also used a positive die-cut of the flamingo to mark in the eye and as a guide for drawing on a black beak :D It did look fine without, but I think these little details just bring everything together as bringing in the black just makes it all coordinate well :D :D :D Hope you liked the cards! I will deffinetly be doing more techniques with shaving foam! You can see the size of the can I brought, so I have plenty to play with lol :D :D :D
To see the process behind this set of card, please watch my YouTube video below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D
Plenty more photos below :D
