Cat Birthday

Here's a birthday card I made for my daughter who loves cats.

Supplies:

• Alcohol Inks
• Glossy cardstock - colored pink with alcohol inks.  This was used for the stamped images as well as to mat the patterned paper.
• Stamps - Frames from JustRite's "For all You Do" and "Grateful Heart" sets, cat from small Inkadinkadoo set, name created with my Teresa Collins stampmaker.
• Black powder, VersaMark ink, and heat tool for heat embossing.
• Patterned paper - from my stash - edges were inked in black before adding
• Dark and Light Pink Jewels - from my stash

This had to be a really quick card and after I was finished I wished I had used a black ribbon or border of some kind running across the card behind the name.  I think that would have finished it off nicely and sort of "grounded" the card.

Dance Birthday

Here's a birthday card I made for one of my dance instructors.

Dancing Figures: were cut on my Silhouette.  I cut one in turquoise and one in black and offset them to give a bit of a shadow effect.  Then I added them with foam tape for extra dimension.

Greeting Focal: Starting with a piece of glossy white cardstock, I colored it with Broken China Distress ink from an ink pad to get a coordinating color.  I stamped the sentiment with VersaMark ink using stamps from JustRite's Grand Sentiments set & heat embossed it with black powder.  I framed this with a beautiful turquoise mirror Dazzle (HOTP) and then hand cut around it to leave a bit of the colored cardstock as a mat.  Next, I made a bit of a mat effect using black die cuts and punched pieces.  I cut several pieces using Spellbinders Persian Motifs and Accents dies and arranged them as you see.  Alone they didn't frame the focal as well as I wanted at the top and bottom so I added a bit from a punched strip (EK Success Medallion Chain)

"Ribbon" Strip: I found a turquoise border piece in my stash and stamped the word "Dance" in black several times.  This time the stamp was one I made myself using my Teresa Collins Stampmaker.

Decorative Strip:  The decorative strip in the upper left corner started with another piece of the mirrored turquoise Dazzle. I put this on a piece of black paper and cut around it to create a bit of a border.  I added a few flower-shaped gems from my stash before adding it to the card.

Christmas Card Focals

There are times when one needs to make some quick cards - and Christmas is often one of those times.  It helps to have card focals prepared ahead of time and ready to go.  These were inspired from a challenge on the Paper Wishes Message Board. The reindeer was a small stamp from Hot Off the Press.  The word "Magical" was a part of it, but the word "Christmas" came from another set.

These were made by stamping with VersaMark and then heat embossing in various colors - gold, copper, red.  I used Smooch inks to color in the images - and added a bit of Stickles for the nose and eyes where I wanted a bit more of a "pop".  

I look forward to using these to make some quick Christmas cards, and I hope to find time to make a lot more using other stamps.

Christmas Minis

Now that I've gotten so many Thanksgiving cards made, it's time to turn my attention to Christmas cards.  I usually want a LOT of Christmas cards, so I need to get busy with them.  I decided to start by making a couple of mini cards (3" x 3") since I had so much fun with the Thanksgiving ones.  Here is the result.

For this first card I started with a black piece of cardstock, folded it into a card, and then used a stencil (purchased from Paper Wishes) and white dimensional paint to create the focal design.  After the paint dried, I colored the design with metallic cream chalks.  At this point the card looked like this:

It was nice enough, but I decided that adding some greeting stickers would finish it off nicely.  I didn't want silver (which was the color of the only ones I had that ran vertically), so colored them gold by placing them on my craft mat and applying gold ink directly from an ink pad.

For my second card I started with a yellow card (bad choice - this technique seems to look better on a darker background).  As you can see, I outlined some of the features with a black pen to try to give it a bit more contrast.  I used a different stencil (also from Paper Wishes) but used it the same way.  After the focal was done, I added a greeting - this time using a stencil & chalk (pastel chalks this time).  I had tried to leave enough room for a greeting, but the stenciled greeting I found was a bit bigger than I expected.  All in all, it's an okay card, but not quite what I had envisioned:

3 x 3 Minis - Part 10

This is the last of the ten 3" x 3" mini-cards that I made for a swap.  I decided to make this one a Christmas theme, using a plaid card I got from HOTP and cut to size. For the focal I used a stencil I purchased from Paper Wishes.

I have quite a few family & friends who like cats, so I like making cat cards, but was not sure how this stencil would work out.  I started with a piece of white card stock, taped my stencil to it, and applied white dimensional paint just for the greeting, the eyes, the fuzzy parts of the hat, and the cat's paws (yes, those are two paws by her face - hard to tell, huh! - maybe we'll just say she's wearing a collar! LOL).  Anyway, before the paint dried, I added white fun flock to the tassel and brim of the hat, and ivory Flower Soft to the paws, leaving the greeting and eyes as they were.

After everything was thoroughly dry, I cut a rectangular shape using my paper cutter with a fancy blade. I put the stencil back on top and used chalks to color in the rest of the image.  Then I added a bit of chalk around the sentiment to help it show up better.

Next I took a green pen and outlined the leaves, adding some vein lines; and then used a red pen to outline the hat, berries, the letters in the greeting, and the outer edge of the focal.  The fuzzy parts of the hat weren't showing up as well as I liked, so I outlined them in pencil and then ran a pencil line around the cat's "face" to help better define it.

Finally, I added just a couple of dots of green stickles to make her eyes glow.