October 2020 Technique Blog Hop – Shaving Cream Technique

Welcome to the October 2020 Technique Blog Hop! I’m excited to be a part of this fun collaboration with fellow Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators. This month’s theme is the Shaving Cream Technique. Keep reading to see my project below, then make sure to hop over to the other blogs to check out more great projects featuring the Shaving Cream Technique.

Shaving Cream Technique

The Shaving Cream Technique is where you use shaving cream and the ink refill bottles to make a marbled background design on your cardstock. It can get messy, so wear something you don’t mind getting dirty, and put some gloves on to protect your hands from being stained by the ink (…ask me how I know…it will wash off your hands after a few washings; I didn’t get any on my clothing, so I’m not sure about how that would wash out).

To get started, I cut pieces of Whisper White Cardstock to the 5-1/4″ x 4″ size. Next, I squirted shaving cream in a cakepan-sized foil tray and smoothed it out a little with a plastic knife.

Then I picked out which colors I wanted to use and started dropping the ink randomly on the shaving cream. I used Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, and Old Olive for this first round, for a fall-inspired color combination.

Once I was satisfied with the number of ink drops, I used the plastic knife to swirl the shaving cream and ink around. Don’t swirl the ink around too much or the colors may over blend and turn into a muddy sort of color.

Then, I pressed my cut cardstock pieces into the marbled shaving cream.

After pressing it down, I used the plastic knife to help lift the pieces out of the tray and set them on some paper towels. I used another paper towel to wipe away the excess shaving cream off the cardstock. In the photo below, the one on the left has already been wiped off, and the one on the right still has shaving cream on it. When the shaving cream is wiped off, it reveals the marbled design left behind. I let my pieces dry overnight, but you could probably use the Heat Tool to speed up the drying time.

Since I had another tray and everything out for trying this technique, I decided to test out using a bunch of colors. For this next round I used all 10 colors from the Brights Color Collection – Poppy Parade, Melon Mambo, Flirty Flamingo, Mango Melody, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Pacific Point, and Gorgeous Grape.

Rather than dropping the ink randomly all over, I dropped the colors in columns, overlapping slightly.

This time, instead of swirling the ink around, I used the plastic knife to swipe up and down the columns of colors. Remember, don’t overdo the blending of the colors.

Then I pressed more cardstock onto the shaving cream, lifted it out, and wiped it off just like before. Since my rainbow of color was so wide, one piece had the warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) and the other piece had the cool colors (green, blue, purple).

While I liked how the pieces turned out, I wanted to get the rainbow all on one piece. So, I scraped all the colored shaving cream to one side of the tray, and tried the same 10 colors again, this time with a smaller width of color. Then I swirled it more like my first round above rather than up and down. I forgot to take some photos of that process, but you can see the finished look in the cards further down.

Like I mentioned earlier, I let all my cardstock pieces dry overnight. The next day there was some slight curling of the edges, so I used the Bone Folder to smooth them out. Here are the finished cards I made.

Fall-inspired Cards

My first round of backgrounds was used for some fall-inspired cards. I used Old Olive for the card base since it was one of the ink colors I had used. The images (from the Country Home set) were stamped on a piece that was die cut out using the Stitched Rectangle Dies.

Die-cut Rainbow Cards

For this pair of cards, I chose to die cut the colorful background paper using the Banner Blooms Dies. After I adhered the die-cut piece to the card base, I thought it was too plain (even though the colors are so bright). So I added 5 of the Artistry Blooms Sequins to each card. I love how it fills in some of the white areas.

Stamped Rainbow Cards

This final pair of cards use my third round of the Shaving Cream Technique. I really liked how the colors turned out with the swirling. For this one, I decided to stamp an outline image (from the Hand-drawn Blooms set) over the marbled background. I wasn’t totally in love with the look. I think the image I chose was too fine of a line drawing. So, maybe a thicker lined image would have stood out on the colorful background better. It still makes for a very unique card though!

It was fun playing around with the Shaving Cream Technique. This is one that you will need to experiment with because no two backgrounds will come out exactly the same. Which is all part of the fun!

Thank you for hopping to my site and checking out my project! If you saw something you love, please contact your demonstrator to place an order. If you don’t have a demonstrator, I would love to help you!

Click the NEXT button below to head over to the next blog to see their awesome project.

Here’s a list of all the other demos participating in this hop. Check out all of their posts for more great projects.

October 2020 Technique Blog Hop Roll Call

• Nicole Mahler
• JoAnn Pollock
• Mackenzie Grimme (currently here)
• Kristie Strum