Inkyfingeredcat

Hello… it’s March the first… so happy St. David’s Day and even more importantly … Happy birthday to my Auntie M! X

Today I have my contribution towards the Craftyhazelnuts patterned paper challenge blog.

I found this fab paper (Print poetry from stampin up) in the stash and realised that the writing stamp from Paperartsy would work well with it! 

I decided to emboss the image and sentiment to add some texture to the card. I also made the card blank out of the soft suede cardstock that goes so well with the paper.

Now off to see what my team mates on the design team for the blog have been making… 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

I used a scrap of textured cardstock that I had got some pattern and colour on already. Not entirely sure how I did this to be honest… it might have been gelatos? 

Anyway… I added the stamping using White acrylic.  Then added the shading using Inktense pencils and blended with water. I also added the little scrap of fabric and the stamped bird. 

Finished off with doodles and a stamped quote. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Well this post is a bit bittersweet for me as it was meant to be accompanied with a YouTube video. The only problem is that during the edit I managed to delete some of the video which meant it no longer made sense. So now no video! 

I loved playing with these inks for the first time and came up with some interesting backgrounds. This first one is the usual wrinkle free distress background but using distress oxide.

I then used a Lynne Perrella stamps and water coloured it using the same inks and made this card. 

Next up is a splash background…. I saw this on a Jennifer Maguire YouTube video. This provided a fun confetti background … perfect for this Zinski stamped bird and sentiment. Once stamped the bird was coloured using the oxide ink too.

This next one was using the oxide inks and blending tools… I love this so much as so creamy and smooth a finish. I then also stamped with the oxide ink and again when adding a small spritz of water they also oxidised. 

Whilst playing with these inks also did some comparisons with distress inks and stains… 

From that I ended up with a really interesting panel which I finished with the bird from the Hot Picks Paperartsy stamps.

And finally I also did a distress ink version of the wrinkle free distress background. 

This I finished off with these Clarity stamp garden stamps… love it! 

So yes I love what I made just frustrated that the video didn’t work… of course I couldn’t let it be… and so late on Saturday I filmed another video… 
And from that made a card and a background for another project I can’t share yet! 

 here is the link to the video!

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

My lovely friend Helen has got me scrapping again… and courtesy of her class and Missy Widden YouTube videos it is a lovely mix of traditional and mixed media. 

So this is a page in finished from Helen’s class a few weeks ago. 

Helen had designed this using the heart cut file she had got and then using some Stampin up stamps and papers. I’ve finished mine off with thread and lots of word stickers from the stash box and some dots of liquid pearls. 

The techniques we employed were lots of smooshing of inks using packaging  (as per Missy style!) and spritzing inks. This was such great fun! 

I chose to place my picture (my princess when she was a tiny little cutie!) towards the bottom right of the page whereas Helen chose the top right… she also did lots of inking on hers. I had meant to do that too but stuck it down before I had a chance…  me and my eager sticking down! 

Here is a pic of Helen’s original…. isn’t it lovely?

I have two more pages to finish that we started in the class… looking forward to getting them done and really enjoying getting my scrapping mojo back! Thanks Helen… fun times make something big and not just an ATC! 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Hello…. another couple of ATC’S to add to the tally… 

Again scratch paper cut up and used as the base. Over this I added texture paste through a Finnabair stencil. When dry it was time to add more colour.  I used Distress crayons in blue and green to cover the whole card, then used another stencil to remove some colour using a baby wipe. 

I then used both Inktense and pens to add doodling around the shapes and a little bit of white paint on a sponge to add some different tones. I decided against adding an image to these and instead stamped a Stampotique sentiment onto paper to cut out and added to the cards. 

The same sentiment for each but both done differently.

Really love the colours in these… and the fact that the layers underneath are still visible in places to give the cards some depth. 

So that’s 99 made… wonder if I can get another 1 in before the end of the month? 

Happy crafting !

Catherine 

A change of pace tonight and instead of atcs I have some cards to share. I am not the biggest fan of making cards for males… they don’t seem to appreciate pretty things like flowers and ribbons and bling! Grrrrrr… so I have instead resorted to robots and spaceships! 

A simple robot stamping experiment… and finished with a little doodling. 

And this is a repeat of the card I made back in early Feb for my cousins sons’ birthday. 

Pretty happy with these even if they are missing some bling !!! 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

I found a little bag I made with my friend Helen some time ago at the back of my craft shelf and decided to take it apart and use part of it for an ATC… 

I can’t remember the stamp set name or the dsp the strip of lemons comes from but the technique we used was black embossing and then colouring the words in. 

I added it to a base made from packaging onto which I stamped the Dictionary stamp. 

Love it. 

Gave this away as a RAK a week or so ago. 

And as for my challenge…. so close to 100 and well ahead of schedule too so may be able to take an ATC holiday at some point. 

Happy crafting! 

Hi there

I’ve been participating in a few random atc swaps over the past few weeks … all part of keeping my inspiration going for this 365 challenge.  Now is the time to share some of these… 

This is the first one… the theme was monsters! 

I used the Make a monster Stampin Up stamps and scratch paper and distress stain, clear glossy texture paste and a whole host of different random mediums to create this cool atc. Fun! 

I also made this second one for the same event…

For this one I used the cute digital stamp from All dressed up and coloured them with distress inks. Then tore it out and layered onto a prepared atc which had tissue paper and black gesso on it. I then edged it with embossing powder to give it a metallic finish. I love how cool this looks.  

The next challenge I joined in was a purple themed one… I did share a couple of ATC’S I made for this a few weeks ago but I also made this one… 

This was a piece of cardstock I painted with the deco arts fluid acrylic paint and some white Dylusions paint.  I added some tissue paper and some scraps of white paper to the base and then stamped and embossed around the edges.

I added the finnabair butterfly (my princess actually coloured this is for me) and then the sentiment. I added some Inktense to edges and to define the features.  

And another one for the purple on purple swap…  I used scratch paper and Inktense pencils and the fab art alchemy paints to create this and then used a piece of book print as the base. 

 

Finally I have two cards made for the #52cafecards challenge…. eclipse and folk art. 

This was so satisfying and easy to make. Black gesso on the base with white gel pen and then torn black cardstock with silver paint wiped on the rip. Then a sticker circle and the words.  Done! 

And the folk art below was hand drawn using pictures on the Internet as inspiration and the painted with the art alchemy paints then doodled over the top.  Fun and shiny! 

OK so I think that’s the random ones caught up for now! 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

Hello dear blog reader(s)

Today I have the swaps I made for February’s Artful ATC swap group… the theme was weird and wonderful. 

I don’t really have too many ‘weird’ things but then my lovely friend Darcy creates some pretty wonderful images to stamp with … so I turned to her designs. 

I actually started with the day of the dead stamp she created for Craft stamper magazine a while ago and I confess I hadn’t used it at all!  I created a background first using scratch paper and distress stain, gesso through a stencil and some strips of canvas. They reminded me of bandages which sort of goes with the dead thing! 

I then coloured the mask decorations and then glazed it with some opal magic paint. This gave it a lovely sheen and magical finish.  I then tore the background to add to an ATC base I had coated in black gesso. 

The final touches were some distressing with the black gesso, some splatters and white pen dots to frame. Then finally a Tim Holtz stickers quote which I thought worked perfectly. 

The next one had to be the steampunk snail! 

This time I used some tissue paper as the background onto card I had coated in black gesso. Once that was dry I added some spots using the Kim Dellow Paperartsy stamp and heat embossed them. Then I stamped the Darcy snail onto white cardstock and embossed that too. Then I added colour using distress stains and a paint brush. 

I tore the picture out and glued it to the background and then edged the picture with some watercolour pencils. Finally some Tim Holtz stickers to finish! 

Love how these turned out. Of course then I turned into a complete ditz! I sent them to the wrong person. Doh! 

Fortunately I did have two more ideas in progress that would work so I could send them to the correct person and these became RAK. 

OK… this critter was gifted in another swap as was the Seth Apter die cut which provides the bars for his cell! 
I thought he worked perfectly as a weird little critter.  

The next one was similarly a piece of scratch paper which I stamped and added some texture paste to through a stencil. I then added distress ink to it ad the wonderful Banksy image (my secret santa gift from a member of the group this swap is organised through).  I figured this counted for both weird and wonderful!

Love how these two came out too… hopefully the recipients of both sets likes them too! 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Just a single ATC to share today. 

I used some Gelli printed dsp for this one… it was a spotty paper and then has some fun patterns printed on the top. of course I forgot to take a picture of that! So to start this one I added some stamping using White acrylic.  Next I added added lovely circle die cut I got in added swap. Next the script bird stamp which I stamped on another piece of scrap which had some ink on it. I added shading and depth using the Inktense pencils and then the sentiment I inked using the alphabet stamps. 

Really love how all the colours work together and the white paint pops on the background. 
Happy crafting! 

Catherine