Ingenious Inkling

Alcohol Ink Glittery Yeti

I had a piece of alcohol ink colored glitter paper left over from this morning's card, so I thought it would be perfect for the Glitter & Sparkle Challenge at A Blog Named Hero.

 

I am also joining the Let's Squash It Challenge to use a Holiday Embossing Folder with some stamping.  The white cardstock base was embossed with the 3-D Textured Impressions Winter Snowflake Folder.

 

 

 

I pulled out my Hero arts Stamp & Cut Yeti Set by Kelly Purkey (because where there's snow, there's got to be a Yeti) and went with a simple card design.

 

The Wonder of the Season

The November Stock Your Stash theme at Reverse Confetti is all about Holiday or Winter.

 

 

I started by playing along with Jennifer Maguire's Video about using Alcohol Inks on Glitter paper.  I used DCWV Glitzy Cardstock, which has a completely smooth glittery surface, so my results were a bit different than hers, but it sure was fun to play.  I also didn't have white glitter, so I used pale silver with Ranger Pink Sherbet, Couture Creations Wisteria & Couture Creations Lake Pearl Ink together with blending solution.

 

 

I die cut my glitter paper to use as the background for my new Reverse Confetti Away in the Manger Confetti Cuts.  I die cut the star from glitter foam, which has a great dimension.  

 

I felt like I needed something in my Manger, and I settled on a messy wrap of Old Rose Metallic Thread for the "hay".

 

The sentiment is from Reverse Confetti Seasonal Say It All stamped in Versafine Clair Purple Delight on Silver Metallic paper and Clear Embossed.

CLEARly Christmas

This week at Jingle Belles we're asking you to make a holiday card that contains at least one see-through element, whether that be glass, a transparency, some vellum, acetate or "ghost" shapes, clear stickers, lucite buttons, shrink plastic... whatever you like... if you can see through it (& figure out how to attach it!) put it on there and link it up!

For my card I applied Marabu Alcohol Ink in Cherry Red & Cinnamon to a transparency sheet and blew it around with air.  When I was happy with the result, I flipped it over and attached it to my white card base with Vellum Adhesive. 

 

 

I added some Clear Drip Drops and clear Stars to the tops of my holiday trees.  Super-easy and super-fun.

What The Phở (Faux)?

This is the kind of card you end-up making when you spend your afternoon on a video-call with some of your favorite crafty, snarky, punny cardmaking friends.

It all began with a small strip of Faux Leather made from Masking Tape and Ink that was leftover from this card I made in February 2012 (yes, I saved it for 8+ years for the perfect opportunity to use it) and the X is for fauX Challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.

 

 

When I asked my friends what I should pair with said piece of Faux Leather, that led to punny discussions of Phở (aka Faux), which reminded me that I actually had a Waffle Flower Food Adventures Pho Stamp that had never seen ink.

 

Then of course my girlfriends helped me with two stickers for the perfect Snarky Sentiment to finish the card.

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.

Color Block Christmas

The October Monthly Mix Challenge at Gina K. Designs is Color Blocking.  I started with one of my #gellinktober prints (I used the middle one, which was the brayer roll-off print).

 

 

I inked an Acrylic Block with Gina K. Designs Powder Blue Ink, spritzed it with water, and then created the color block design on my Gel Press Print.

 

 

I stamped the Gina K. Designs Winter Flower in a combination of Powder Blue and Wild Lilac on White Cardstock.  I painted the center of the flower with purple watercolor and then went over it with shimmery silver paint.  

I used the sentiment from the set inked with the same two colors (I stamped twice with Powder Blue and then went in with one stamping of Wild Lilac).

 

Stamp Joy 2020

Often this weekend of the year I am hanging out in Ames, Iowa with the Taylored Expression Crew at Stamp Joy, but this year we all had to hang-out virtually.  I was thrilled that Mona (aka @MyCraftyDreams was able to travel to Cedar Rapids, so we got to craft together with 900 of our closest crafty friends through Facebook Live classes (how did we not remember to take a picture of us together).

 

Friday's class was four cards using an adorable new stamp set Social Butterflies.  It included both a red rubber set & a coordinating clear set to stamp the color on the butterflies.

I think the first card we made was my favorite of the day ... I love the simple combination of masking with a bit of splatter.

 

I messed-up the next one a bit (what's new), so had to trim down my panel a bit to get it straight ... so I rescued it by putting it on a colored card base.

 

 

The next one involved fussy cutting and masking with Heather Nichols signature neutral color palette.

 

 

The final one for the day included textured embossing with ink blending.

 

 

Saturday's classes started at 9am and we were able to complete 10 cards through 7 different Facebook Live Classes.  It was a full day of paper and ink.

We received this Full of Flowers red rubber stamp set together with coordinating clear set & stencil to use throughout the day.  I loved this color combination (so much so that I had to add that Peaches 'n Cream ink to my collection).

I added some clear bling to the finished card.

The next card included three things I usually avoid - dogs, glitter & a shaker design - but I embraced all through and it actually came together with no mess due to Taylor's assembly tips, which was a miracle to me.

 

 

I added some red peel-off stirps and silver bling to finish my design.

Card #3 was our mass produced card.  Taylor provided enough to make 4, but I pulled a bit extra from my own stash and was able to complete 6 cards, which was an awesome way to stock my holiday card stash.

 

 

The inking of the embossing folder was a long-forgotten technique that produced such a cool look with the snowflakes ... and I also love Taylor's Drip Drop Embellishments.

We got this fabulous color blocking stencil in our class supplies that produced this stunning ink-blending effect ... and miracle-of-miracles, my white gel pen actually worked.

 

I didn't really like the font for the sentiment chosen for the next card, so I used one of the other stamps that was in our set.

Next we created with rainbows and had some fun with foiling using 1/8" score-tape.

 

 

How do you not love googly eyes.

I have the Life of the Party set that we used for our next card, so I may have to make some other variations using the different animals.

 

 

I did not have Taylor's Dotted Stencil, so I used a similar one from my stash.  I also put the sentiment on white cardstock rather than stamping right on top of the dots for a bit more contrast.

And the final card featured water coloring with Taylor's intensely colored liquid watercolors.  I went over the top with some shimmery watercolors from my stash for a bit of sparkle.

 

 

I swapped out the sentiment again because I needed more Birthday Cards for my stash.  I loved how we trimmed the water colored panel for a inset sentiment.

IT was a super-fun weekend and creating ... and even more fun by getting to create with person with a crafty friend.  I'm already looking forward to next year.

Halloween Monsters

Today's Stay Crafty with Hero Arts theme is Halloween or Fall ... since I need about 20 more Halloween cards to get my list covered, that's the theme I chose.

 

 

I also wanted to incorporate the {PIN}spirational Challenge which is one of my favorites ... Monsters.  Don't you love that little guy??

 

 

I started with the Hero Arts Nesting Monster Fancy Dies and die cut the three tiny Monsters from one of my hand-marbled papers to get a similar color feel to the inspiration Monster.  Next I added a variety of eyeball stickers to bring them to life and matted my white strip of paper with more of my hand-marbled paper.

 

 

 

I finished with a sentiment from the extremely versatile Hero Arts stamp set Celebrate Everyday using the layout from Freshly Made Sketches.

 

Are you making Halloween card yet?

Pop Rocks Happiness

Today I am Guest Designing at the Jaded Blossom Blog with products from their new "I Love the 80's" release.

 

 

I wanted to play with the blending properties of some new Distress Archival Inks and the Jaded Blossom 80's Stencil ... I love the inky tie-dye effect of blending these colors using Alcohol.

 

 

I started with two scraps of watercolor paper and three colors of Distress Archival Ink - Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade & Mermaid Lagoon.  I applied the ink directly to my blending surface and then sprayed with Isopropyl Alcohol (I keep one bottle filled with alcohol just for ink blending) before dragging my paper through the ink to pick-up the colors.

 

 

I repeated that process until the ink was all picked-up from the surface, and then did it a second time for my other piece of paper ... and these were my finished pieces of inky paper.

 

 

Next I sprayed my Jaded Blossom 80's Stencil with Pixie Spray for Stencils and positioned it over the inky paper.  I used Dusty Concord Distress Archival Ink for one and Black Soot Distress Archival Ink for the other.  I used my blending brushes and found that on the different swirly parts of the stencil, its best to ink straight down (vs. brushing across), so you don't move the inside pieces of the swirls for a cleaner impression.

 

 

Next I die cut both pieces of stenciled paper using the Jaded Blossom Fancy Topper Die ... I just love the stitched edge around the die ... makes it perfect to use as both a Topper and a card mat.

 

 

I initially planned to use my Fancy Topper as intended, but it covered-up the word "Pop Rocks" which I wanted to be visible to the recipient.  So I solved that problem by adding a staple to each side of the Fancy Topper and made it into a Pocket Holder instead ... the Pop Rocks Packet fit perfectly.

 

 

For my sentiment from Jaded Blossom Pump Up the Jam & Falling Star from Jaded Blossom 80's Icons, I used the scraps of inky paper leftover from die cutting, and stamped on the inky back of the paper. I finished with a mirrored star embellishment in the center of the star.

For the card, I attached the die cut Fancy Topper as a mat on a black card base.

 

 

I stamped a second sentiment from Jaded Blossom Pump Up the Jam and the same Falling Star from Jaded Blossom 80's Icons on the back of the inky paper.  I finished with some epoxy dots and another mirrored star embellishment.

I hope these projects gave you some ideas about how you can have some inky fun with this month's Jaded Blossom "I Love the 80's" release.

Howl at the Moon

The current Stay Crafty with Hero Challenge #staycraftywithHero is to watch a Card a Day with Hero Arts video at Creativebug and make a card inspired by it.  I chose Day 16 - Color Layering because I knew I had several Hero Arts Color Layering sets in my stash that had yet to see ink.

 

I bought this Hero Arts Color Layering Howling Wolf Stamp Set and Die because my sister loves wolves.  I used several of the tips from the video including using a die template in my MISTI to position my stamps and dies for the various layers.  For my Wolf I used Sand, Watering Can & Onyx Black for my layers.

 

I tried several color combinations for my moon, but finally settled on another tip Libby gave, which is just to use only the detail layer of the stamp (on a lighert grey cardstock).   After stamping, I used a brush to add some golden ink to the edges for a little moonlight glow.  The sentiment is from the same set.

I used my new Cloud Edger Stencil with Watering Can Ink to create both the ground and the sky (love it) and then attached the wolf and moon with foam tape.