Weekend card

This is a card using Shari Carroll's watercolor technique with Gelatos, in one of the alternate color schemes from Friday.  I matched the colors as closely as i could from the Gelatos I had.

I can't say i love it.  But once I start a card, I feel obligated to finish it, unless it really is turning into a  total disaster.  I often find that when I look back at cards later, I like them better than I remember.

I do love that Picasso quote!   It seemed to need something more.  I see that sequins are very "on trend" right now, so I added a butterfly sequin.  Butterflies are a common image of the soul.  I don't usually follow trends, but I had these sequins, so I used it.

Variation on the Last Card

I really liked how well the flowers and the sentiment went together on that last card.  But I thought the Neon inks needed more pride of place. So I did a variant layout on a black card:

I swiped the Hero Arts Neon inks DTP, then stamped the flowers in Versafine Onyx Black and fussy-cut them out.  I white heat-embossed the sentiment on the inside of the card behind a cutaway.  

It occurs to me now, I should have stamped and embossed the flowers in white, to match the sentiment. Oh well.  Still came out pretty good.  If I feel up to it I might try it again -- but not tonight. :)

I will also enter this one in the Casology Neon Challenge.

Another card

For the Card Camp, we were given a color challenge t use, so that's why this card and the last card have the same palette.

I really like how this turned out. Simple and cheerful.  I think that sentiment goes really well with those flower stamps.  I think I might enter this into the Casology "Neon" challenge, which I found through a classmate's blog.

The inks are Hero Arts Neon inks. The raised diecut is an embossed resist flower from Studio G/Ditto, painted with turquoise craft paint.

More cards

I've joined the Summer Card Camp 2 class over at Online Card Classes.  It runs for three whole weeks. I had today off from work, so I made a card.

For such a simple-looking card, this took me half the day to make.  Some projects are just doomed from the start.  But at least it's done. :) Now i can upload it to the class gallery!

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.

Clean And Simple Cardmaking 2

My first card for the Clean and Simple Cardmaking 2 class at Online Card Classes.

Winner!

Hey, check it out, I won the random draw at the Wicked Wednesday challenge blog.  Cool, I never win anything, it feels like.  Thanks Jenn & company! They gave me a badge, and I will happily display it, there it is at the right. :)

The prize is a ten dollar gift certificate to DRS Designs.  Thank you DRS Designs!

I hope it's a good sign, that I won my first time playing.  I didn't make the top three, though.  I guess that's a lot to expect for the very first time.

My First ATC Challenge

I also make ATCs (artist trading cards), and I found an ATC challenge blog, Wicked Wednesdays, so i am going to try that.

This week's challenge is to do a Full Moon ATC, so here is my entry:

I call it Crow Moon. (My husband pointed out that I should have called it Raven Moon, because my last name, Corby, means "raven," but I've already written Crow Moon on the label, so that's that.)

The moon is punched from DCVW glitter paper. I punched a corresponding hole in the black cardstock and fit the moon into it, so it would lie flat and smooth.  I fussy-cut the tree and raven from a Recollections stamp. It was quite a production.

I wondered if it needed more, but no, I like the stark look of it.  Rather Halloweeny I think.

If you can't tell, the card is propped up against the front of my Macintosh computer.  I couldn't get a good shot of it lying flat.  I never knew the Mac had those air grilles on the bottom.  The camera catches thing the eye does not. :)

Kraft Cards for Challenges 2

Here is a second card for CFC 76 -- Kraft On.

This card uses no stamps at all - just stickers.  These stickers are from PSX. They were a free gift with an order from, I think, Addicted to Rubber Stamps.com, and have been in my stash for FOREVER.

If you have been following my card-blogging at all, you can probably tell that this country, quilty style is not my style at all, but I thought these stickers went well with the kraft cardstock. And I am trying to use more things from my stash. (Frankly I need to make some room.)

Also, I was planning to submit these last two cards to the Waste Not Wednesday challenge, but I find it has been discontinued. :(  Does anyone know of a challenge for using up your old stash?

So that's it for CFC this week. We'll see.

Kraft Cards for Challenges

Here is a card I am submitting or the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge 76.

The CFC challenge is to use kraft paper, and since I just bought a pack of kraft cards, it was a natural.  These copper foil leaves have been in my stash for forever.

This card took a couple tries to get good. Here is the first one:

I had just bought these leaf gems at Michaels, so I was eager to use them.  And I heat-embossed the sentiment in gold, but it does not show up well on the kraft paper. That, plus, the black tree, the gold sentiment, the different colored leaves -- it's too much.  (I'm not submitting this version of the card for the challenges, just showing it for illustrative purposes.)

So I started again, with the copper foil leaves. And as I did, I suddenly decided I liked the single leaf falling better -- it was like a statement, the last leaf of autumn falling.

But the first version of that card I stamped with Versafine Vintage Sepia, and didn't get a great impression of the tree. The final one, above, uses Memento Tuxedo Black ink for the tree (Which is Recollections) and the sentiment (Annie's Attic.) The leaf sticker is also Recollections.

I will have another kraft card in the next post as well.

CFC 75 -- Over the Edge

Here is my submission for the CASual Friday Challenge # 75 -- Over the Edge.  The card should have an element extending over the edge of the card base.

Looking at the submissions so far, I saw a lot of butterflies and hearts, so I wanted to try something different, more graphic.  I also wanted to use my new Hero Arts Neon inks. So this is what I came up with. I fussy-cut the pink flower to hang over the edge. Fussy-cutting is a technique I quite like -- I think it gives dramatic results, but I don't use it much because I really don't have the patience.

If you like the sentiment to be vertical, you could also present it this way:

And here's a close-up:

I'm pretty happy with it. We'll see.

CASual Friday 74

Whew! This card may look clean and simple, but it was a nightmare to make! It wore me out.

It is for CASual Friday Challenge 74.  To use a heart.

I will write more about it tomorrow. Right now I just want to get it up onto the challenge. Whew.

Here's another view.

UPDATE: Here's what happened.

I wanted to make this card as CAS as I could, and I wanted to play around with my new favorite Designer Woodgrain stamp from Hero Arts, to make a card suitable for a man, or a couple. I could see it in my mind so clearly, the crisp white card with the crisp red heart impression.

I cut a heart shape out with my Cricut and used the leftover paper, the negative space, as a mask to stamp the woodgrain stamp onto the card.  But I couldn't get a clean impression through the mask!  I tried five different times, and it never came through.

Then I turned the inked stamp face up, lay the mask on it, and lay the card on the mask, and rolled it with a brayer. That got a clean impression, finally! -- but I could never get it lined up right. It was always off-center.

So finally, completely frustrated, I took one of the clearer, but hopelessly off-center, impressions, fussy-cut the heart and stuck it on another card.  It was the best I could do.

And the card does have a little bling on it, because my cards always have to have a little bling on them. I love bling.

So that's that.  I have never had such a hard time trying to create such a simple card.

WCMD 2

Here's another card I made fro World Cardmaking Day.  I had to photograph it flat, as it won't stand up, being round.  I hope you can see all the tiny gemstones on it.  This wreath is another Hero Arts stamp I wanted for a long time.

Here is the sentiment inside:

This will be a birthday card for my Mom. (Don't worry, she's a total Luddite, she'll never see it. She doesn't even know I have a blog.)

World Card Making Day

Here is a card I made for World Cardmaking Day, which was yesterday.  I had liked that Hero Arts Silhouette Grass stamp for a long time, so I finally went along and got it.  This is emboss resist with the Tim Holtz Seasonal Summer Distress Inks, Moved Lawn and Salty Ocean.

I was going to put the sentiment on the inside, but when I was done it seemed to need something, so I put a Jennifer-McGuire style banner on the front.  I like how it turned out. I may submit this to the Paper Crafts magazine WCMD blog contest. We'll see. The yellow is supposed to evoke the sun shining down on the fields of grain, ripening them for a bountiful harvest.

CASology Challenge card 2

Here is my second card for the CAS-ology Challenge.  It's even more green!

I hope you can see how sparkly that sticker is. It's from Sticko.  The sentiment is Studio G, and the background stamp, which mimics the sticker, is from the Ditto line by Hampton Arts.