CAS 2, Day 8, Salted Watercolor

This did not turn out great, but I did it:

The technique was to use Distress Ink on watercolor paper, and then further distress it by sprinkling it with salt, which wicks away some of the color to make patterns.  It worked, but the grains of my salt left large dark spots in the center of each wicked spot. Not attractive.  I covered some of them up with pearls -- which I don't usually use, but I thought they tied in with the watery color scheme and set off the white sentiment.  I  got carried away with the pearls, but they are stuck down there now, they aren't coming up -- I tried.  It looked better when I added a final one to get an odd number. It looks kind of like a constellation to me. And like pearls under the sea. Whatever. It's very late. It will do for now.

CAS 2, Day 8, More Inking Techniques

Yes, I am jumping around. I am very behind, and doing what catches my eye.

In Day 9 Jennifer McGuire showed us how to make a rainbow ink pad from cut-n-dry felt and reinkers. Which certainly looks fun, but I don't have enough reinkers to do that. I do have a few rainbow ink pads, though, so I made some cards with them, like this:

I stamped this card with my ColorBox Petal Point pinwheel ink pad, like this, although the primary colors. The stamp is from Inkadinkado and is supposed to be a doily, although in this color scheme it looks more like a mandala to me.  I stamped it and heat-embossed it with clear powder. The card is from Doodlebug Design, and has a scallop at the bottom, so I inked and added a strip of paper under it in the same colors. I treated the colored strip with some Judikins Microglaze, so it wouldn't smudge up the inside front cover of the card. There is a rainbow-colored rhinestone in the middle of the mandala.

No sentiment; when it comes time to use this card I will stamp an appropriate sentiment inside.

Becuse of the scallop on the front it won't stand up straight, so i had to photograph it lying down.

CAS 2, Day 9, Texture

The techniques for this day of the Clean and Simple class demonstrates adding texture to CAS cards.  The first technique, demonstrated by Julie Ebersole, adds texture with glitter.

Here is my version:

Which is basically a CASE of Julie's card, but glitter is tricky so I thought I'd better stick pretty close to the sample.

Green and gold is a color combination I have always liked. But I wanted to take my color farther down the card than Julie did, so I thought, why not use green paper then?  And I remembered that I had a set of Hero Hues Foliage cards and paper that I hadn't yet used.  So I used that.

The glitter is Martha Stewart Peridot, which is a combo of green and gold.  The sentiment is Inkadinkado, stamped in the same gold Delicata ink Julie used.  It is a good gold ink, I like it.

CAS 2, Day 4, Blackboard Technique

This involves white heat-embossing on black cardstock.  The stamp is Hero Arts.  I used my Sakura Souffle pens to add some pops of color to the flowers -- and bling in one place where the pen didn't work right and just pilled up the paper. I had to cover that up.

Now my husband is sighing and complaining, so I have to finish up and go watch the Superbowl with him.  Men are such babies.  But I made 3 cards in one afternoon, I think that's pretty good.

CAS 2, Day 3, Gradient Stamping

I don't know why, but I am really struggling with this class.  I am finding it hard to carve out the time to work, and more often than not, my cards are going wrong. And I'm trying to be careful, too!  It's discouraging.

I had a heck of a time with Jennifer McGuire's gradient inking technique.  My Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink pad will never be the same, I fear. Jennifer's cards looked absolutely perfect. But then, I'm not Jennifer McGuire, am I?

I had the best success with the Hero Arts Neon inks, which are dye inks.  Here is one of many iterations and abortive attempts. It's OK. I've had enough of this technique for now.

The handwriting is my own.  I don't have a stamp of that sentiment, but it was what I wanted to say. People are always complimenting me on my handwriting, so I thought I'd try it.

CAS 2, Day 1, Card 2

The lesson in this first day of class was about the craftsmanship of CAS cards, so I tried extra hard on this one. Got out my cutting mat with gridlines to stamp against, to try and keep it straight, which I don't usually do.  This card uses reverse masking -- the mask was made with a Martha Stewart paper punch. The inks are Brilliance metallic pigment inks by Tsukineko.  The cardstock and pearls are by Recollections.