Birthday Card

Another card using the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch #204. 

Lots of white space again which I'm loving!

Using Mama Elephant Stamps (Pandamonium) and distress inks.

Here's another look at the sketch:

Thanks for looking!

Sending Birthday Thoughts

I'm entering this card in Freshly Made Sketches this week.
I'm also entering it in Colour Throwdown #425 - black, mustard and blue.  This is not a colour combo that I would normally use but it is really lovely!

I used Mama Elephant Pandamonium Stamps and Happy Everything sentiment stamps.

Thanks for looking!
 

Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

 

Entering this card in the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #269.  

I forgot how much I love card sketches and I really enjoyed having a clean and simple card sketch to follow.

Couldn't decide whether to use a blue strip or a pink strip...so I joined them together and used both!

Stamps:  Altenew Vintage Roses; Stampin up Watercolour Wings (sentiment)

Inks:  Stampin up and Distress Inks

Thanks for looking!

Snow Cool - Christmas Cards

I've been having a play with my new Lawn Fawn stamps and they are rather cute! So many possibilities and combinations of very cute creatures.
I was inspired to create a card using the masking technique demonstrated by Michelle at The Card Grotto - she has a great video on her blog showing how to mask part of your card.  All her cards are beautiful - well worth a look.  I used masking to create the white snowy hill and used similar colours to create the sky.

I'm entering this card in the Christmas Card Challenge Blog - anything goes challenge.


I also got busy making some fun tags today.

Inspiration for my tags came from Rachel at RBergfeld Card Designs.
Really love these stamp sets!

Thanks for looking!

Stamps:  Lawn Fawn Snow Cool; Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin
Distress inks:  Peacock Feathers; Salty Ocean; Seedless Preserves

Watercolour wash card

I had a lot of fun with this watercolour wash challenge.  I created a birthday card with a watercolour wash background to create a scene.  I am in love with the little bird stamps that I got the other day and can't stop using them!  They are so cute!

Once the background watercolour wash was done I simply stamped the birds, added the die cut fence and some twine and I was done! 

I am entering this card into two challenges:

The Friday Mashup: Challenge 167
Create a project with a watercolour wash.



AAA Cards: Challenge #10
PLAY create a card with watercolour techniques.













Thanks for looking!

Supplies: 
Watercolour paints; Distress inks
Stamps:  'Tweet Bird' Woodware Stamps; Sentiment:  Amy R stamps 'Critter sentiments'
Fence diecut: MFT

Distress ink scraps - what to do?

What to do with all of my distress ink scraps?  I hate wiping up lovely bits of distress ink off my mat, seems like such a terrible waste of pretty ink!  I always have scrap pieces of paper lying around so I dip, scrape and dab the scraps into the ink to see what happens.  Sometimes my nicest colour combinations are the happy accidents that happen when soaking up the leftover ink!

The scraps were too pretty to throw out but not really big enough to make a background for a card or a tag.  So I decided to die cut flowers from them and I love how they have turned out.  I left the cards without a sentiment as I couldn't really decide what to put on them.  They could be birthday, thank you, hello, thinking of you....I htink I'll leave them blank until an occasion arises and then I'll stamp the appropriate sentiment on.

 

These backgrounds were made with distress inks stamped on my craft mat, misted with plenty of water, and then 'smooshing' the paper in the water.  I like how random the backgrounds are and I thought that these ones looked a bit like grass and sky so I went ahead and added some flowers to them.

I die cut the flowers using MFT dies, then added a button and some twine to the centre of the flowers.  I drew on the stem and black border by hand, no need for a ruler, I prefer the hand-drawn look.

What do you do with your leftover distress ink scraps?  I'd love to hear how you use them.

Rainbow birthday card

I made this birthday card for a lovely girl who I work with.  She is celebrating her birthday at the end of the week.  She is very arty and creative so I thought that she would like the painted look of this rainbow card.  Bright colours always make me feel happy!

I'm going to enter this card into three challenges:

4 Crafty Chicks:  Challenge - Stripes
The Paper Players:  Challenge - #202 Sandy's Tic Tac Toe Challenge. 
Seize the Birthday:  Challenge - Anything Goes


I am going horizontally from the top and using - twine, a shade of blue, and the card is for a birthday.


Supplies:
Stamps:  Kaisercraft (bird cages); Amy R (sentiments); Hero Arts (bird)
Inks:  Distress inks

Friend card

I made card for my girlfriend who has two sick kids at the moment - she is housebound and ready to tear her hair out I think! 
I made the tag using Tim Holtz distress inks - the wrinkle free technique.  I love how these colours turned out on the tag.  I then stamped some images on the top.  The sentiments are Amy R stamps, the images are Basic grey stamps.

I am entering this card in the Perfect Sentiments challenge - Challenge/Twist: create a card to recognize that special someone. Be sure to include a sentiment on the front.

Thanks for looking!

Some distressing with my boys!

My boys (aged 5 1/2 and 3 1/2) have been eagerly watching me use my new distress inks and were not too happy that were not allowed to touch them under any circumstances!  In my defence, I share almost all of my scrapping supplies with my boys and am happy to sit with them and help them make their special creations and cards.  They have their own inks to use and free access to my stamps, they have plenty of lovely scrapbooking paper (my leftovers).  I decided that the cost of distress inks was too much for me to share with them...but I had a weak moment yesterday and decided that under careful supervision, they could have a go at the wrinkle-free distress ink style.  And boy did they love it!

They chose two colours, spritzed with water (so much fun!), and smooshed their tag in the ink.  They oohed and aahed when they lifted their tags up and saw the results, then had fun dipping the tag back in the leftover bits of ink...anyway, they did a super job and I thought I'd share their little creations with you.  Two of these are heading to their Gran for her birthday in a couple of weeks.

Pretty, aren't they!

Thanks for looking!

Distress ink cards

 

Still playing around with my distress inks when I get the chance.  I got my new pink and blue distress inks (worn lipstick and broken china) so they are adding a nice touch of colour to my cards now.  This card was inspired by a Christmas card I saw and loved on this blog. 

The background was made by sponging on distress inks then spritzing with water.  Once dry I stamped a sheet music stamp in a light yellow/gold colour, then stamped some swirls in sepia ink.  Finally I stamped the butterflies and sentiment in black Staz-on ink.

 

 This second card was inspired by one I saw and loved on Pinterest.  A link to the original card can be seen here.  I copied the colours and stripes of the distress inks.  I then stamped the flower stamp in black ink.  I restamped the flower sections on a scrap of paper that I had covered in 'barn door' distress ink, then fussy cut the flowers and stuck them on the card.  The largest flower was stuck up with pop dots to add some dimension.

Thanks for looking!

A little bit of inky fun

I've still been playing around with my distress inks - they are so much fun and very addictive!  I have had mixed results while mucking around with the inks - some turned out lovely and I was thrilled, others had colours sort of 'smoosh' together and turn a kind of 'murky, browny, blah' colour!  Ah well, you live and learn!

Here are some of the results of my inking fun:

I really love how this 'Friend' card turned out.  It is my favourite so far - love the colour combo and the marbled effect.  Once the ink dried I simply stamped the bird cage image (Kaisercraft) and the 'Friend' sentiment (Amy R) and it was done.

 This next card I like too, although I wish the colours were brighter and not quite so brown.  I love the splatters of colour all over the panel, just wishing that background was lighter and brighter.

And a little close up of those lovely, inky splatters!

 

 This little birthday card has me torn.  I love the yellow and I quite like the red splatters but I wish the green was a lighter shade, it just seems too dark next to the yellow and too dark for the stamp that I placed on top.  I also wish that I'd placed the sentiment just a little further to the right of the card.

 

And this last card, well, I almost didn't post it because it is pretty awful!  And no, I'm not after sympathy comments and I'm not looking for sympathy praise...it's just one of those cards that turned out NOTHING like I had pictured in my head!  And here it is, hold your breath...if it were a plant it would be called something like 'Cardeous Horribilious' or 'Cardeous Totally Muckedupeous'...you get the picture!!

My grand vision was this:  I masked off an area for a sentiment, then I wanted to marble the lovely colours of yellow, orange, green and purple.  However, I think I smooshed the purple way too much with the other colours, causing a bit of a murky, horrible browny colour.  But the worst part of it all?  Well the worst part was that I had said to my husband, "Hey, come and watch this, this is so awesome.  I'm going to make this really cool effect on my card, it's going to look so good".  Yes, I talked it up and then I did my excellent demonstration in front of my attentive hubby, who really didn't know what to say once I lifted up the card and had these feral looking colours all over it!!  He simply said, "I think you might have mixed the colours a bit too much!" 

Anyway, I let it all dry, pulled off the mask, sat the card down (face down unfortunately) and got a few little splotches on the white masked area.  So annoyed!  So of course I tried to fix it by adding some yellow splotches to make it look deliberate...you know sometimes when you just keep trying to fix something and you just need to tell yourself to stop, there is nothing more I can do to fix this!!  Well, this was one of those times!

So, what have I learnt from all of this? 
1.  Don't brag about your work until it's finished and you actually know it looks OK!
2.  It's much easier to use the distress inks onto a panel than directly onto the card itself.  You can attach the panel if it looks good, but you can't fix the card itself if you muck it up.
3.  Use the darker colours a bit more sparingly than I have been.
4.  Practice makes perfect!

Thanks for looking!

CASology 'Orange' challenge

Here is my first attempt at using distress inks.  I have seen then used lots and lots on different blogs and on pinterest and LOVE how they look, but I've always been a bit scared of them!  I finally decided that I HAD to have them, and yesterday I made an investment (as opposed to a large impulse purchase!) at my LSS and bought five distress ink pads and some of the basic tools to use them.  Here is a link to two of the cards that I found very inspiring:  MASKerade blog and Made Marion blog.  Both are gorgeous blogs, I spent plenty of time drooling over their cards!  The MASKerade blog though, oh boy, I think I pinned just about every card that she has made!  WOW!  Her cards are absolutely stunning...I could look at her board on pinterest all day long!

The card is far from perfect, I made a number of errors, but given that it was my first ever attempt, I am so pleased with how it turned out!  I used post it notes to mask off the area of card that I didn't want ink on.  I used the red, orange and yellow distress inks to create a sort of 'sunset' backdrop.  I then spritzed it twice with a mini mister to give it a gorgeous, slightly distressed look.  Once it was dry, I simply stamped the bird cage image, took off the post it notes and stamped the sentiment, then it was done!  So much fun!

Some of the errors I made included not having one post-it note stuck down properly at the top, therefore you can see where I accidentally got red ink at the top left corner of the card, kind of spoiling the whole 'nice straight line' effect that I was going for!  When I pulled off the post it notes, my three year old immediately informed me that "Mum, look, you made a mistake at the top.  You need to rub it out!"  Thanks for pointing that out mate!  I also forgot about the back of the card and so when I'd finished inking and I sat the card back down on the 'messy mat', I got little ink marks on the back!  Oh well, I'll call them 'character marks'!  Also, the second birdcage didn't stamp as well as it could have, I need to make sure I press harder near the edges.

Anyway, all in all, not a bad first effort, and I am dreaming of all the possibilities!!

I am going to enter this card in the CASology challenge - I have been quietly drooling over this blog for weeks and weeks but been too scared to enter!  The cards on here are just incredibe - so inspiring and so beautiful.  Their challenge this week is:


 so I think my card will fit in nicely with this challenge.  Click here for the CASology blog - definitely worth a visit!

Stamps:  Kaisercraft bird cage image
Sentiment stamp:  Amy R stamps
Distress inks:  Barn door, Spiced marmalade, Mustard seed

Thanks for looking!