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: