Ingenious Inkling

Happy Happy Joy Joy

The June #TEMakerChallenge has the following elements:

 

As I hunted through my various holiday stamps, I saw the repeating Joy stencil in the Holiday Stencil Strips and immediately started singing Happy Happy, Joy Joy in my best Ren & Stimpy voices, and I knew what my card was going to be ... I just needed to find a coordinating Happy. 

I did some stamp surgery on the Happy Valentine's Sentiment from the Flip the Lace Stamp Set (a 2x Holiday repurpose) and stamped it four times with my MISTI moving my paper 2 squares on the MISTI platform each time, and then I blended using the same Carnival Color Palette.

 

And for the Letter D, I went with the Dancing Birthday Cake from the Party Pals Stamp set and finished with the birthday sentiment from the same set.  I colored the cake with the same colors and added some fun googly eyes to finish my card.

You Are Beautiful

I was thrilled to get some of the 2021 early Hero Arts Stamp Shop Box releases from The Ink Pad (which are so super-cool they sold out but are now back in stock).  I am also thrilled to be Guest Designing at the Ink Pad Blog to share my first card.

 

 

I had lots of fun playing with the new Cut & Color Layering Flower Power Set.  There are actually 8 different layering stamps in the set.  I used them all, but you can certainly use different combinations to create lots of possibilities.

 

 

Some things I learned in my stamp layering process were to use the centers of the flowers to help you align the hair layers ... and use the eyes to help align the face.  

I also re-inked the lips on that stamp with a slightly darker color for more contrast (yay for the MISTI).

I paired her gorgeous face with a background created with Karin Markers and another Gel Press Print cut with Hero Arts Nesting Dies.

 

 

I love how there was a separate stamp for the iris of the eye, so I could match them to the colors in her hair.  

To finish the design, I couldn't resist adding tiny bits of purple bling in her hair.

Who in your life needs to hear that they are beautiful?  What better way to tell them than a card they can treasure.

Holiday-Palooza Mittens

The current Waffle Flower Challenge is a Holiday-Palooza.

 

I inked-up the new-to-me Waffle Flower Warm Hands layering stamps that I got in my recent grab bag purchase in the hues from the Color Throwdown Challenge.  I added some nubby twine to keep the mittens from getting lost and white epoxy dots in the center of the Mitten design.

 

 

I used this week's Global Design Project Layout flipped on its side place punched snowflakes behind the oval and using a sentiment from Waffle Flower Classic Holiday Sentiments.

 

The marbled background designer paper is from Waffle Flower Modern Neutrals Paper Pad.

 

Dashing Through the Snow

For our next prompt at Jingle Belles we're asking you to create projects that celebrate the white fluffy flakes of snow … it might be snowmen, snowflakes or just snowfall, but include some snow on your cards.

 

I used my new Mini Swirly Snowflake Stamps and my MISTI to create a snowy background.

 

 

I found a left-over die cut background on my studio table, so I used it for this week's Sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges by adding some Snowflakes punched from glitter paper and topped with Eyelet Outlet Bling.

 

 

 

 

I finished with a tiny Peace on Earth sentiment.

Jaded Blossom August Challenge: Ask for Salt and Tequila

The August Challenge at Jaded Blossom is Feeling Fruity ... I am thrilled to be Guest Designing for the month of August, so I'll be sharing lots of fun projects for their awesome new release this month.

I made both a card and a fun little gift pocket for the Fruity challenge.

 

 

For the card, I used my MISTI and three different small Lemon stamps from Jaded Blossom Happy Hour Candies and Food & Drink and stamped them repeatedly using Hero Arts Lemon Drop Reactive Ink. 

 

I finished with several sentiments from Jaded Blossom Let's Toast.

 

 

For my little gift pocket, I die cut the Jaded Blossom Ticket Book Die from black cardstock with the inner pieces die cut from Lemon Glitter Cardstock.

 

 

I folded the ticket forward and attached it with a staple at each side to make a little pocket that perfectly holds a packet of lemonade.  I finished with a sentiment & lemon slide from Jaded Blossom Food & Drink.

We hope you'll break out your favorite fruits and join the fun.

You Get Underwear

This week at Jingle Belles we're still making cards inspired by this Colorful Inspiration photo.

 

This week I took my inspiration from the multiple banners.  I used Taylored Expressions Party Pennants Background inked and stamped with my MISTI with different colors. 

 

Sentiment is from Taylored Expressions Spoiler Alert.

 

I finished with red bling on the top banner and purple bling on the bottom one.  Hope you'll come join us.

You Inspire Me to Be Better

Today I discovered that the PinkFresh Studio Facebook Group has a Sketch Challenge, so I decided to join the fun.

 

I used the PinkFresh Studio Floral Cluster set for my card.  I stamped the Floral Cluster image in Versafine Black ink on Watercolor paper.  Next I used a transparency sheet and three colors of Distress Ink (Speckled Egg, Evergreen Bough and Wilted Violet) to do some Watercolor Smooshing ... i just love, the messy free-form effect that you get.

 

I used my MISTI to curve the top sentiment and then hand-cut the large word and popped it up with foam tape, so it wouldn't cover-up too much of my beautiful watercolory blooms.

This card is so true of many people in my life ... but it's also true of my many artists in the paper crafting community who take time to share tutorials and videos that allow me to learn and grow my own artistic skills ... so very grateful that people are willing to do that.

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.

Gifted Birthday Cards

At Taylored Expressions Stamp Joy last year (did you see Stamp Joy 2020 is going to be virtual this year, so if you aren't able to travel to Iowa, you can finally attend), one of the favorite cards I made at the Make and Take Room was using the Gifted Background and Gifted Stencil.  When I was cleaning my studio this week, I found some of the leftover sentiments from the Make & Take, and decided to break out the set and make a few more quick cards to re-stock my Masculine Birthday Card Stash.

The concept behind these sets (Taylor has quite a few in her collection ... I ordered the Starry Background set and a few other things this week to get the very cool free-with-purchase stamp set this month) is a coordinating background stamp, stencil and die cut that offer all sorts of possibilities.

I started by stamping quite a few of the backgrounds in Versafine Ink on Bristol Cardstock with my MISTI.  Next I used the Magic Blender Brushes to apply different combinations of masculine ink colors (seriously, this is basically fool proof).  This one combined teals and greens.  I cut down the panel a bit to fit on a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch card base with the leftover sentiments from Simple Strips Birthday.  Since I'm mailing my employee birthday cards now rather than hand-delivering them, mailability is more important.

 

 

I'm linking this one at the TGIF Challenge for Stamping Your Own Background Paper.

 

For the second one I used the coordinating Gifted Cutting Plate and cut a coordinating panel of card stock to place over the inked panel for a slightly different look.

 

 

And the final one used a more monochromatic ink combination.

 

I love how quick it is to put together a set of cards that is similar ... yet different.  This is truly one of my favorite sets in a long time and one I will continue to use over and over.

All The Feels

I wanted to make a card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches and started looking through my stamps to see if I had any splattery background images.  I decided I could make the several small images from Paper Smooches Positive Strokes Two work for the job.

 

I used several colors of teal inks on white cardstock to create my background.  And since the theme at the Paper Smooches Challenge is Anything Goes, I used a sentiment I've been wanting to ink-up from Paper Smooches Inhale Exhale.

 

Given the size of the sentiment, I felt if I stamped it on a strip of paper like the sketch shows, it would cover too much of my splatters, so instead I used my MISTI and Versafine ink to stamp it directly onto the white cardstock creating a single layer design.

 

I finished with a pair of tiny aqua hearts near to the bottom right corner of the sentiment.  I have certainly been feeling all the feels this weekend ... it's like all of my emotions are just right on the surface ready to spill out at any moment.  

And here is an out-take from tonight's card making experience ... this is what happens when you make a poor ink color choice for your splatters ... your card ends-up looking like it belongs on an episode of Dexter.  Of course it wasn't until I stepped back and looked at the finished product that I realized the error of my ways.  My husband said, "all the feels alright ... all the feels of a knife wound" ... yeah, not quite what I was going for.