Ingenious Inkling

Gina K. Designs Eye Shadow Blooms

Tonight I had fun trying to replicate the Eye Shadow Technique that Gina K. shared in this video.  My eyes are pretty much allergic to everything, so I have no eye make-up in my house, so I had to stop by the Dollar Tree and pick some up, so I could give it a try.  I grabbed the same one that Gina used and one with lots of purples.  The light colors work best on the darker cardstock colors to get the cool effect with Gina K. Designs Embossing ink.

 

 

I started with a dark green scrap of cardstock and blooms from Gina K. Designs Elegant Asters.

 

Next I tried red cardstock with flowers from Gina K. Designs Stately Flowers 10 ... this one was my favorite.

 

 

And my final one was Purple cardstock with the new Gina K. Designs Natural Silhouette Blooms.

 

Here are all three together.

 

I kept the cards really simple so the backgrounds could shine.  The sentiment is from Gina K. Designs Whimsical Wildflower Frame.

 

I used another sentiment from the same set for the red card.

Then for the purple card, for some reason, the eye shadow rubbed off and I got this sort of shadow effect.  Rather than fighting it, I embraced it.

 

 

I just burnished the eye shadow into the cardstock and stamped the same wildflower stamp directly onto the background.

 

 

The sentiment is from the same Gina K. Designs Natural Silhouette Set.

 

So if you've got some great 80's eye shadow in your stash (or you make a stop at the Dollar Tree) give this technique a try ... it was a lot of fun ... and looks super-shimmery-cool.

Sketches, Stickers, and Scraps ... Oh My

Last night, rather than doing a Makeover Monday card, I challenged myself to make cards using this week's Sunday Stamps Sketch, Orphan Stickers in my overflowing Sticker Bin and Scraps from my Paper Bin.

 

 

The sketch just seems perfect for playing with stickers and papers.  It reminded me of when I used to have a big box of things I'd cut from magazines to make collages that I would hang around my room.

I started with this cork typewriter sticker.  The background paper is something I know I stamped more than 10 years ago using acrylic blocks that I had wrapped with rubber bands (which turned out to be today's Try a New Technique Challenge at SplitCoastStampers - making the old new again and stamping with what we have on hand) ... makes me want to try that technique on a Gel Press Plate.

 

I cut two 3" circles in from coordinating cardstock scraps and then added more smaller stickers to finish the design before mounting it all on a kraft card base.

For the next card I started with that adorable orange monster.  This time I cut slightly smaller circles from two designer paper scraps to coordinate with the polka dot background.  The dimensions seem a bit more balanced in this one, especially with him grounded on the longer sentiment.  

 

I couldn't resist adding the stack of books and his own little potted plant.

Then when I had the final pink monster and scrap of pink Eiffel Tower designer paper ... I sort of fell into an 8th Grade-cover-my-binder-with-stickers creative craziness.  I have no idea who I'll give this card to (who am I kidding, I'll mail it to Lauren at some point ... probably not on her birthday) ... I had a ton of fun making it.

 

Sometimes it's fun to remember why I started this hobby ... as a creative outlet for play.   And I still like stickers as much as I did in the 8th grade (hint hint ... big sticker news coming soon).

Smile a Little Brighter

The current Stay Crafty with Hero Arts Challenge is to create a one-layer card (#staycraftywithhero).

 

 

I thought it would be fun to start my single layer with a piece of watercolor paper sprayed with Distress Oxide Sprays.

Next I stamped the large cover image from the Hero Arts / PinkFresh Studio You Make a Difference Set using three colors of Ranger Archival Ink - Orange Blossom, Poppy & Tiger Lilly moving from light around the outside to darker around the inside.

 

I used Potting Soil Archival Ink to stamp the sentiment from Hero Arts Color Layering Iris in the Center.  I finished with some orange gems in the center of the cone flowers.

Makeover Monday - Special Delivery

Today's Makeover Monday was inspired by this card from the My Sweet Petunia & My Favorite Things Blog Hop in January 2019.

 

I used the same My Favorite Things Lots of Hearts and Lots of Hearts Outlines in different colors to coordinate them to the Gel Press Print that I chose for my background.

 

 

Rather than a solid paper for the border, I chose a coordinating glitter paper for a bit of sparkle.  This is the perfect card to send some love across the miles, which I've been doing a lot of lately ... have you been mailing your cards?

The Creatalicious Challenge is Anything Goes with an Option of no Designer Paper, so I'm linking-up there.

Love You More

The theme at the June Reverse Confetti Stock Your Stash Challenge is Just Because.

 

 

I started with the Reverse Confetti Love You More Confetti Cuts on a piece of Cheerful & Kind Designer Paper.  I mounted it with foam tape on another piece of paper from the collection.

 

Using the layout from Atlantic Hearts Sketch, I added a strip of paper from the Winter Wonder Designer Paper Collection under the tag and a sentiment from Reverse Confetti A Friend Like You across the top.

 

I finished with a scattering of enamel hearts.

 

Lemon Meringue Glitz Smile

The June theme at the Taylored Expressions Maker Challenge #TEMakerChallenge is a unique one - something from your junk drawer or purse, hexagon & yellow. 

 

I've been thinking about the junk drawer one for several weeks and finally settled on this little plastic piece that I received from one of the local massage businesses.  Not exactly sure what its actual use is supposed to be, but I decided I could use it to apply some kind of paste to a stencil.  Next I discovered that somehow I only have one Taylored Expressions Stencil and it is a Christmas one ... I wasn't really in the mood for a yellow Christmas card, so I tried die cutting one of my cover plates from a transparency sheet to use that as my stencil. 

 

Next discovery was that I had no yellow glitter paste ... I refused to be defeated by this challenge.  I added some Taylored Expressions Lemon Meringue Liquid Watercolor to Gina K. Designs White Glitz Glitter Gel and voila ... unfortunately, my die cut stencil hack did not fare so well (my paste was a little dried out and thick and didn't want to work with the super-thin transparency), so I grabbed my Taylored Expressions Poinsettia & Pine Stencil and used my tinted paste with it.

 

 

After it dried, I used a hexagon die to cut out part of the glittery background and then decided to see if I could do something with my other failed glittery stenciled piece.  I die cut it with a rectangle die and embossed it with the Taylored Expressions Plaid Embossing folder to use as my background.

 

I decided by the time I put it all together and added the bling for the Tuesday Morning Sketch Challenge that with all that lemony yellow, it didn't really look like I had used Christmas products ... so I finished with a sentiment from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips Background.

I'm also taking my inspiration from the Inkspirational Challenge ... because this card is all about yellow aka Lemon Meringue.

 

Kitty Hugs

The June Challenge at Poppy Stamps is all about Clean & Simple.

I die cut the cute little Poppy Stamps Peek a Boo Kitty three times from gold cardstock.  I lined them up on dark green cardstock and then added some gems to the kitty-in-the-middle.

 

I framed the kitties with pretty leaf paper from Memory Box Cottage Meadow papers.  I used my Poppy Stamps Tidings of Joy Sentiment (with a little stamp surgery) to finish my Clean & Simple design.

I'm also linking-up at Cute Card Thursday where the theme is Masculine.

Alcohol Ink Rainbows

A few weeks ago during a crafty video call, I had fun making sheets of alcohol ink covered Yupo Paper (with one silver paper thrown in for good measure) and before I knew it, I had created a rainbow. 

With suggestions from my crafty friends on the call, I added Therm-o-Web Silver and Gold DecoFoil to quite a few of the Pieces (you just place the foil on top of the Alcohol ink and it sticks where the bits of ink are still wet around the edges of pools) and some Alcohol Ink metallic mixatives to others.

 

This week, I decided I wanted to find a way to turn my rainbow of beautiful papers into cards.  I settled on the My Favorite Things Snow Drifts Cover Up Die because it had 8 pieces, which worked perfect for my 8 colors.  I used the Jennifer McGruire trick if using a piece of tape to hold each die together as a removed it, so I could easily remove the pieces I wanted as I assembled each card.

I die cut a 9th time using black card stock, so I could use the black frame to position the pieces on my heavy cardstock white card bases.  I did some facing both directions.

 

I wanted to keep the overall card design fairly simple and mailable, so I started with a single Greenery Die from The Stamp Market cut from heavy white cardstock.

 

I paired with with a simple sentiment flag from Essentials by Ellen Pure Magic.  These will be going out to crafty friends who have been the color in my world during the past few months.

 

I just love how they turned out.  Here are a few more up close.  The finishing touch was adding some clear adhesive dot embellishments.

 

It doesn't matter what order the rainbow is in ... it still makes me smile

 

When was the last time you played with your Alcohol Inks?

Snarky Stampers I is for Ink

I was crowned the Queen of the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers a few weeks ago, so I have the lovely pleasure of guest designing with their I is for Ink Challenge today.

 

I had fun taking the Online Card Class Spring Card Camp with Jennifer and Kristina and learning how to create my own inky striped background using ink blending and tape ... it was so relaxing and fun. 

I paired my stripes with the lovely big bloom from Gina K. Designs STAMPtember set from Simon Says Stamp Amazing Flowers ... I love how the open blooms look with my stripes.

 

I added a Sticker from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Big Talk Snarky Stickers, which is how I feel a lot of days unfortunately ... but I am so grateful for those who do.  I finished with a sprinkling of black bling and multiple mats.

I'm also joining Cute Card Thursday where the theme is Stripes.

 

And at the Inkspirational Challenge it's all about Funny Sentiments ... yep, I'm linking-up there too.

Paper Weaving

It's the final day of Spring Card Camp, and when I realized that I had the same feeling I used to have on the last day of Summer Camp ... a sadness that it was over and that I wouldn't be hanging out with my friends having fun every day. 

It's been so fun learning so many new techniques and trying new things with all of my existing supplies.  I want to take more time and go back and re-visit many of them and see what else I can make.  Huge thank you to Jennifer and Kristina for the inspiration and the jump start that my creative spirit needed.

Today's technique was paper weaving.  I had the scrap of sprayed paper paper leftover from these two cards (Fusion & Hexagons) that I was just able to get enough strips cut to weave.  I love how the weaving was all done from the back, so I had no idea what the front was going to look like until I turned it over.

 

The randomness of the purples and blues was just what I was hoping for.  I tried a variety of word dies like they used in the samples, but I felt like they covered up too much of my gorgeous paper, so in the end, I went with some 3-D paper stickers from my stash that I thought coordinated perfectly and brought out the subtle pinks and blues from the sprayed paper.  The colors in the paper really reminded me of the pinks, purples and blues of my Grandma's hydrangeas.

 

A bonus holiday in my studio today ... While I have missed eating out and really enjoying the hustle and bustle of our neighborhood during quarantine, I have relished all of the extra studio and creative time.  My card stash is box is bulging, so it's time to get some more cards in the mail.