CAS Mix Up with Poppystamps

Happy New Year, friends and welcome to my first post for 2021! I have been working on Valentine's cards and wanted to play along with:

In terms of the CAS Mix Up challenge, I not only splattered and stamped, but also heat embossed and die cut.

I am also playing along with NBUS #22 for January 2021.  This challenge is helping me go through my stash and to keep using Never-Before-Used-Schtuff, which is a good thing. 

The die cut (NBUS) is from Poppystamps called Tumbled Heart Balloon Collage. At the time of this posting it is on sale for $5.00! Think of all the cards you can make with this: birthdays, celebrations, graduations, retirement, anniversaries...many. many uses. Such a versatile die.

The background was created by ink blending on Blick Art Bristol Smooth Paper with Distress Oxides inks. Not a traditional Valentine's red, but more of a coral-red. I like to change it up! I splattered with water and blotted with a paper towel after about 30 seconds.

Once totally dry, I ran the Tumbled Heart Balloon Collage Die through my Big Shot and kept all the pieces. I used my Hero Arts Square Infinity Dies to cut the perfect square for a CAS (Clean and Simple) card. The image was popped up with foam squares and some smaller pieces of foam squares between the hearts. I placed it on the upper third of an A2 card base of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110 lb. card stock. Then, I put a dab of Tombow glue in each one of the open spaces and dropped in the small pieces like a puzzle. Really gives nice dimension.

The sentiment is from a clear set by Tim Holtz called Just Sayings that I have had for probably 10 years. It has it own sentiment outline and the matching die. My favorite of these sentiments is "From the Heart". I think that is just perfect for Valentine's Day. Not too mushy. I found it in red rubber on Amazon called "Saying Stuff". 

For this card, I stamped the sentiment in Versamark Ink, sprinkled with Ranger Princess Gold Embossing Powder and heat set. Next, I used the matching die to cut it out. 

Instead of foam to pop up the sentiment, I die cut 3 more sentiment strips from scrap paper, glued them together and used that to pop up the sentiment. It is supposed to be a way to use up scraps and go through the mail better. We'll see!

The inside sentiment is again from my stash and yet NBUS! The set is called I Love Chocolate by Your Next Stamp. I don't believe it is still available. 

Thank you for joining me today and thank you to the challenge hosts, CAS Mix Up and NBUS! Come play along!!!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.