Ingenious Inkling

It Was Enough

This morning's card was inspired by the Just Add Ink Just Choose Two Challenge.

 

 

I chose to combine Sequins with Metallic Foil together with the Sketch Saturday Layout.  My background is Gina K. Designs Dazzling Orange Foil  with her Holiday Foil Mates ... and there is Gold Foil in my alcohol inked rectangles in the sketch.  I added a scattering of orange sequins.

 

The leaf is a 3-D sticker and the stamped sentiment is from Essentials by Ellen You Should Know.

 

 

And a bonus card inspired by my childhood memories of the Undertaker roaming through the grounds at Silver Dollar City when I was a kid measuring us for his coffin.

 

The skeleton is from vintage Cosmo Cricket and the sentiment is pure Cathy Zielske Hollaween for Simon Says Stamp.

Mwahahahahaha

This afternoon I enjoyed another virtual card-making session with friends ... I am so very grateful for these meetings across the miles. 

The first card I made was for this week's CAS(e) this Sketch! Challenge. 

 

 

I flipped the sketch on it's side and used several vintage stamps for the Retro Rubber Challenge to use only Orange, Black and White.

 

 

The pumpkin is from Cosmo Cricket Haunted (from 2011) with some fun eyeball stickers.   I circled the pumpkin with a vintage Spider Stamp from Inkadinkado that's likely just as old.

 

 

I'm also linking-up at the Trick-or-Treat Challenge at the TGIF Challenges.

 

 

Hero Arts Mad Modern Christmas

The current #staycraftywithHero Challenge is to create a Slimline Holiday card.

 

 

I decided to combine it with the Challenge at A Blog Named Hero to Use a See-Through Element.

 

 

I got some new Maribu Alcohol Inks in the mail today, so I decided to use them on a piece of pearlescent Vellum to create a See-Through background for my Slimline Card.  It's a bit hard to see but after inking the background with a combination of Arctic & Apple Ink, I used more Apple ink through the Hero Arts Every Which Way Stencil.

 

I used fun Retro stamps & dies from Hero Arts Meowy Christmas.   I added some marker coloring to the pile of gifts, embossed the silver star for the top of the tree ... and decorated my tree with four sizes of turquoise gems.

I love how full my box of holiday cards is already.

Run Run Reindeer

This week is our annual Creature Feature at Jingle Belles ... so break out the animals for your holiday cards.  It could be a sweet little sheep, a cuddly puppy, or perhaps a Reindeer … okay, or even a monster or a Yeti if you're in a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme a bit (which you know we usually do).

I couldn't resist creating a background with an entire sheet of Baby Reindeer Stickers from {a vintage girl} & her daughter (you can use my Discount Code SMILYNSTEF to save 15% on your order). 

 

 

After positioning all the stickers, I decided the little guy on the left in his bright blue scarf was trying to steal the show, so I highlighted him with a red punched circle frame and a tiny little vintage sentiment (Stampin' Up 2008).  I finished by filling in some of the blank space with red foam dot stickers.

Thursday Link Love

Another week of skipping through blogland:

• Easy Pumpkin Pie Crisp
• lovely 500 Square Feet Walk-Up
• Noodles with Sesame Chili Dressing looks so good
• love this vibrant rainbow layout
• at our house, we have a weakness for a good Coconut Cream Pie (the restaurant that made our favorite went out of business, and I've never been able to quite replicate, even though I got the recipe).
• Free Wanderlust Landscape Downloads (shown)
• I've been fascinated by Embroidery Techniques lately
• 50 Best Cake Recipes sounds like a plan for 2021
• cool braided edging for fleece blankets
• this Broccoli Cheese Soup has been on repeat at our house with large heads of Broccoli from our CSA
• Home Organizing Hacks
• Southern Living was my cookbook of choice growing-up .. Fresh Apple Cake would be the first one I'd make.

Have a tremendous Thursday!

Mixed Media Gellinktober

When I saw the current Mixed Media Challenge at The Funkie Junkie Boutique was Purple, Orange, Green! Eek! It's Halloween!, I thought it would be fun to try a gel press print for #gellinktober with three colors that didn't blend.  I applied the ink to the gel plate, but didn't do any brayering.  I used Distress Oxide Inks and got two pulls from the inked plate.

Unfortunately, I failed to read the entire challenge description until my card was done to realize they wanted Shabby Chic or Vintage designs, so I'm not quite sure my mixed media card qualifies as either, but I'm just proud of myself for stretching myself again with a Mixed Media design.  The stickers and ghost die cut are pretty old, so technically it could qualify as vintage.

 

 

I used the first pull for my card base and splattered it with black paint to tie the colors together. 

I used the second print for some of the other elements in my layout.  The Sketch is this week's Paper Craft Crew Sketch Challenge.

 

 

I embossed the lighter purple with an embossing folder that reminded me a bit of spider webs, and then went direct-to-paper with my ink pad to bring out the embossed texture.

I added stickers, gems and die cuts to decorate my Halloween design.

 

Gellinktober Rainbow

I have had a lot of fun this month joining Birgit's Gellinktober Challenge - #gellinktober ... I've been working through various color combinations making my own rainbow of inked gel prints.

I tried Alcohol Ink on my Gel Press for the first time, doing the pulls with manila tags.

 

My favorite unexpected side-effect was the roll-off of my brayers onto white cardstock using blending solution squirted directly on the brayer.

 

Here's another with Alcohol Ink in pinks.  I did more drops and less blending for this attempt.

 

 

Again, the cool roll-off on white cardstock.

 

One more Alcohol Ink color combination, this time pulled with a metallic gold paint.

 

 

I also loved the effect with inks from The Stamp Market and a Texture Plate from Carabelle Studios.  

 

I didn't get the ombre effect I wanted on my first pull, but inking the texture plate with cherry ink produced exactly the contrast I was hoping for.

 

I also had fun with Distress Oxide inks ... it's so cool seeing how different the inks react and combine on the Gel Press Plate.

 

 

Again another Texture Plate from Carabelle Studios.

 

 

One more Distress Oxide Color Combination.  

 

The Versafine Clair inks produced a lovely ghost print.

I've been doing all of my prints on my round plate since I'll be trimming them down to card size.

Joy on Dictionary Day

When I saw the Dictionary Day Challenge at Daring Cardmakers, I knew I needed to join the fun.

 

I started with my Joy Definition Stamp from Catslife Press stamped in brown on ivory cardstock & the joy page out of one of my dictionaries ... and my base is a gel press print made by my friend Mona.

 

 

I went to my collage drawer and combined stickers, birds, vintage gold sequins and trading stamps to finish my collage.

 

I took my color inspiration from the Pick of the Paperback books at The Library Challenge.

Life's a Witch

I built my card around a fun snarky sentiment from Haunt It from The Project Bin.

 

 

I stamped it in Pink and added some fun Pink Paper that reminds me of a Terrazzo Floor for the H is for Pink Halloween at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.

 

I used the layout from the current Fusion Card Challenge and finished with the Witch's Black Cat and some enamel dots.

 

 

I'm also joining the Aud Sentiments Challenge to use a Halloween or Fall Sentiment.

Most Favorite Human

The current Seize the Birthday Challenge is to use your Scraps. 

 

 

I decided to combine it with the Color Hues Challenge and make my scraps Blue & Orange.

 

 

I created a paper pieced stripes background and then used scraps to die cut my sweet little Simon Says Stamps Large Gnome.

 

I finished with a Simon Says Stamp Birthday Sentiment Strips.