Inkyfingeredcat

This is the 315th ATC of the year… which means I only have another 50 to do to meet my target! Whoop!!!

So without further ado… it is a simple one and very much based on the theme of the last week… Happy Celebrations meets jazz musician! 

Yellow cardstock, fossilized amber distress oxide and black soot distress oxide… three stamps and a label made on my little labelled! Jobs a good’un! 

Love love love this … so vibrant and such fun! 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

A few days ago I shared some Inchies that I had made which gave me an idea for a card using the silhouette jazz musicians and the Happy Celebrations stamps.

I started with stamping the colourful ‘splodges’ with bright colours of distress oxides (I love the intensity of the colour you get with them). Then I chose a musician for each colour and stamped him using Black Soot.

I then did the sentiment in Black soot too. 

I decided the inside needed colour too… 

I chose the long brush stroke stamp and stamped it three times in different colours and then overstamped using the Happy in Black soot and then added some little musical elements to keep with the theme on the front. 

And finally… I used the same sets to ‘Jazz’ up the envelope too! 

Really really happy with this … it looked like I wanted … in fact even better than I thought it would! I can see me using the Happy Celebrations set with other silhouette stamps to do this again! 

And as for distress oxides… you all know how much I adore them… they really are the best ink I’ve ever used. Perfect stamping, beautiful blending and fun inky techniques. So yes another one for the Paperartsy challenge.

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Hi

I made this card a few weeks ago for part of the parents stash… a golf themed card! 

I used a Bugaboo digital image thay I’ve had for a while and coloured it with promarkers. 

I then distressed a piece of brown cardstock with Distress Oxides and some stencilling and added wax paper and some bakers twine. I then mounted it onto blue card to bring out the colours in the focal image.

Cute! 

The sentiment is a die cut from a pack I added the distress oxide to so it teamed up with the rest of the card. 

So even though this is not at all Paperartsy style… I did use my oxides in two different ways so going to add this to their challenge blog. 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

Another day… Another swap to share. This time a tag. 

Of course it is Distress Oxides and also probably one of the most vibrant things I have ever made! And then on top of this the challenge over at Paperartsy is using hybrid inks… So of course this is perfect for joining in their challenge. 

Stamping and stencilling and wrinkle free distress method for the background … then washi tape and some die cuts for the next layers. Finished with a stamped and watercoloured flower and a printed quote.

Lush! 

Love how this turned out. 

Happy crafting!

Catherine  

I managed to grab some more crafting time at the weekend and made a postcard for a swap over at UK stampers forum where the theme was buildings. 

I knew I wanted to use the city scene stamps I had so created a lovely sunset with Distress Oxides and then did my stamping. I finished it off with the layering the Love quote stamp.

A lovely dramatic card. 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

I have three ATCs made for a swap and also six inchies for a swap in the same group to share with you today. 

All three ATCs started as blue cardstock and scraps of paper on from the desk and finished up quite differently! 

I used distress oxides and a range of different stamps to achieve the different effects. 

Then the inchies all had a theme.. distress oxide background with a jazz musician stamped on each one and then heat embossed. 

Love how these came out and looking forward to playing with these stamps again. Doing these inchies had given me an idea for a card! 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

… so this beautiful girl, my princess, finished primary school today. And boy am I emotional! I actually started the crying at 8am writing the card to the teacher.

This was her before the school prom on Monday… she is definitely the loveliest creation I have ever made (obviously with some help from the hubby!).

Today it was gift giving and card giving time for the teachers and the princess and her friend raided my card making stuff for their cards and I made this special card for the best teacher that we could have asked for!

Distress oxides (of course!) and summer silhouettes stamps are the main ingredients for this card!

Now off to lie down in a darkened room and recover from all the emotion of my baby growing up!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So of course whilst in Harrogate I had a little spend… And bought some of the new distress oxides and some other goodies too…

I was quite reserved. I only bought 7 of the new colours not all 12 and once again … I love them!!! And at some point may have to buy most of the other 5 I didn’t get!

I had a little play with them on Sunday night with some panels of watercolour paper I had cut into squares (And a scrap of cream card too top right hand side but thats for another project!)

I then grabbed my new Tim Holtz stencil to add more pattern to some and a Gummiapan stamp (my current favourite text stamp!) to add yet more texture.

Once I had got them like this I knew I just wanted something simple to finish off the panels… Tim Holtz wildflowers stamps are the perfect accompaniment.

So these are perfect panels as card toppers. Will finish them off another day with appropriate sentiments etc… but for now the distress oxide obsession continues!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yesterday I had a fab day over in Harrogate at AFTH at a Teesha Moore style artjournalling class led by Tracy Scott. It was such fun to create some very different style pages to my usual stuff.

I used my Dylusions square journal and chose pink and blue as my base colours. These look very bright in the picture but they are slightly more muted in real life. And after this coat of paint… It was magazine cutting and sticking happy time pretty much until the end of the session.

I took these photos at various stages of the layers.

And the discovery of focal images to use.

Then it was time to get pens out and start doodling.

I haven’t finished both pages yet but this is how I’ve left them.

As per usual I am not 100% happy with my writing but sure I can do something to fix that at some point and at a bit of a loss as to how to finish the one on the right. But again I will get there eventually I am sure!

A lovely day of being creative ad pushing myself out of my comfort zone in terms of style.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I finally get to share what I made for Chris’ circle journal. She had made her journal using cardboard envelopes… so fab and very unlikely to fall apart with using mediums on them as they are nice and sturdy. She also had a fab idea of giving some prompts and the one I had for mine was to include numbers of different kinds on it. So I went to town with the numbers!

Here was the first layer I created.

I used plenty of soft and earthy colours of Fresco finish paints to create the background and then added stamped numbers from lots of different Paperartsy sets.

Then using an Andy Skinner stencil I added some iridescent medium. Then I left it to dry.

The next day I added some more paint to tone down the background a little and added some stencilling, splatters and marks with the edge of a credit card.

I must admit I still wasn’t sure what to so with this page next. I grabbed some paper that had an index from an atlas on it, ripped it and added distress oxide in fired brick and vintage photo and then the mojo started to work properly. Next thing I knew I had been sewing on the machine and by hand, stamping the main image. Stamping and embossing with frantage and I had this lovely sewing themed page.

The finishing touches were to add some Tim Holtz stickers (including some number ones) adding some inktense to them.

I am so pleased with how this ended up. I really had no idea where to go with it but it came together beautifully and I enjoyed making it immensely. Just hope Chris likes what I did.

Happy crafting!

Catherine