Online Card Classes: Stretch your Dies Day one

Hello Everyone,
I am so happy to be participating in another Online Card Class. It just happens to coincide with my March Break, so I can play along without having to juggle work too! Today Jennifer McGuire showed us this great way to "shrink" fun foam die cuts. Essentially, you cut your fun foam with your chosen die and then heat it up with your heat gun - magically it shrinks... Tons of fun! Here is my first card (pretty much a direct case of JM's - different word die):

I die cut the hugs sentiment from black fun foam and punched the flowers. I cut extra hugs from white cardstock to make the background. I shrank the foam pieces and adhered the card together. The black strip at the side was stamped with Hero Arts "Swirled Background" and then heat embossed with white and attached to the back of the main panel and finally, I added the strip of gold paper. I also coated the Hugs with Wink of Stella.

You can see a bit of the shimmer in the close-up. I am thrilled with this new technique - I just added a whole bunch of fun foam to my collection - gotta love the Dollar Store! I had some extra fun foam die cuts left over so I made this simple card:

Thanks for stopping by; I love to hear your feedback, so please feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Stamping,

Meg