Glam Cat

 

For this card I used an older Altenew set with layers for the whiskers. To add a bit of fun I took a rose stamp from another set for kitty to hold in her teeth. I added a bit of glamour and bling with two layers of silver embossing powder for the cat's fur, with a tiny bit of white on her tail and paws, and some glitter pen on the rose, lettering, and heart background.

Cats are just naturally glamorous but a little help can't hurt!

Supporting Ukraine

Sunflowers and Sky Blue Heart

 The war in Ukraine has become more real to me, as one of the card designers who has inspired me over the past few years is a Ukrainian citizen. Yana Smakula and her husband Oles are not just Ukranian citizens. They are active resistance members who regularly purchase and deliver medical, food, and military supplies to the front in spite of now spending their nights in bunkers. I admire their show of strength and determination in the face of the bully Putin.

I made this card with the only sunflower (Ukraine's national flower) stamp I own, which is vintage Stampin Up. The flowers were done in watercolors and alcohol inks, the heart in Distress Oxides.

Floral Silhouette

It’s really been awhile since I posted to this blog. I’ve nearly forgotten how to do it! And I see I need to practice my card photography skills.

Coming out of a kind of creative slump, I decided the best therapy is to join a card challenge. This one is for the AAA cards challenge “silhouette,” a perfect opportunity to creat a clean and simple card with just three features.

For the sun I made a template from a circle die, then blended Distress Oxides in two shades. For the flower silhouette I dug back into my old Stampin’ Up stash and found a solid stamp. I used Versafine onyx ink for that and for the sentiment, which is from a Simon Says Stamp collection. Then I die cut the picture and adhered it to a card of 110# bond.

Making this card was great therapy!

The Mythical, Mystical Llamacorn

Today I’m playing along with the challenge over at AAA: use up to 1/3 white space with optional twist. I stamped the mystical beast using the Flora and Fauna Mermaid Animals set. I challenged myself to practice my alcohol marker skills, which are very basic, to give her some color. Then I trimmed the 80lb card stock with a A4 die and mounted it on a 100lb Neenah vertical card using foam tape.

Sparkly Diamonds

Code Word: Diamonds

Today I'm playing along at the Less is More challenge. I used a cube creator stencil from Altenew for the diamond-shaped goldfish, swimming into a net of "diamonds" created by using a generic fishing net die as a stencil. The ink is Distress Oxide in Spiced Marmalade and Mermaid Lagoon. I smooshed some GinaK clear Glitz glitter gel on the goldfish to make them sparkle, then gave them sparkly blue eyes. Thanks for looking!

Rainbow Swirl

It's been well over a year since I replaced card making with mask making! Now that I have a good mask inventory to share with people (should they be needed!) I'm getting back to my favorite craft/art, card making. It feels good.

Stencils and dry embossing are lots of fun, so I've tried both here. I masked off a 1" strip on the left of a piece of Neenah Classic Crest, and blended on distress oxide inks in rainbow colors. Once the ink was dry, I ran the card through my embossing machine using a Hero Arts stencil. I love the result! I added a sentiment using one of CZ Design's word stamp sets, then dressed it up a little with just a few pieces of bling. I kept it CAS to enter AAA Card's current challenge.

Stenciled Rainbow Dahlias

I created this card with Altenew's Dahlia stencil and distress oxide inks. It needed a little something more, so I ran it through my embossing machine using one of my favorite texture plates. Then I added some "dew drops" using crystals to match the rainbow colors of the petals. Easy, simple! Thanks for looking.