Let's Begin

Taking another online card class, it really does help with creativity. Class I'm currently taking is Stencils 2. Day 1 and it's chock full of ideas. 

Here are 3 cards thus far.

Holiday Cards - Day 6

 Today is all about using your tiny stamps. So many stamp sets as well as the stamp sets themselves are small and when creating a larger card it's hard to know how to use all of them, well today was a perfect example of using tone on tone (paper and ink) to create a fun background to showcase all those stamps. 

This was definitely a very simple and easy card to make but packs a lot of punch! I loved how it came out. 

Holiday Cards - Day 5

Todays lesson was all about using your scraps, which is always a great thing to do because they seem to accumulate faster than we use them. 

I thought this first card was a fun and different approach basically taking squares and incrementing them by a quarter inch (i.e. 1, 1.25, 1.5, etc) and then scoring or folding them diagonally (think corner to corner) and then 1 time in half. The two corners get squished together causing the middle section which was your half score mark to be pinched inward. Thus you get a triangle. You start with the smallest glue it down to you card base then take the next largest size and trim the pointed edge so it will lay flat up against the glued down triangle and you just keep going till your happy with the height of your tree and finish it off with the embellishments. While it was a lot of fun for me to make I don't care for the wonkiness (for lack of a better word) that the pop up creates. Super cute though and you can make ornaments using the same method except with 4 circles that become quarters of a pie (no trimming required)

The next card had us use circles and dry embossing folders to give it textures then turn those into ornaments with bow dies and drawing a string to create the ornament. I thought it would be fun to try and replicate it using scraps of silver mirror cardstock and an embossing folder that already had ornaments on it. Then I just colored in the already present string and bow with a silver pen afterwards. I did distress some cardstock first before I embossed it to add more interest. 

The last card is kind of a repeat but I like the making the strips and then assemble those and either using them behind a diecut object or diecutting the strips themselves. I choose the latter. 

Holiday Cards - Day 4

Today was all about ink blending backgrounds. The first example was blending inks and then die cutting them into whatever shape you wanted to use. The instructor had some stitched triangles that she used. She masked off sections of the card so she could have different blends of similar inks. Her card was awesome, she layered the cards in a strip added some white enamel dots to act like ornaments and added a heat embossed simple sentiment. I was truly inspired but alas I didn't have any stitched triangles but I decided to just cut some triangles not as pretty as hers but it should work. I also used some crystal stars  and instead of enamel dots used sequins then added a foil sentiment. I really wanted to make these trees in pinks and purples but I didn't have any foil to match so went with blues (inks I used were salty ocean, peacock feathers, evergreen bough, salvaged patina, iced spruce and speckled egg). 

The second example was to create a background using two or three inks on a colored piece of paper that was similar in color to your inks, thus saving you time. This example was also given last year and was a mind blower for me. I like it! Then the instructor embossed stamped some lovely snowflakes and I thought her background looked pretty good but then that's where it stopped for me. The layers were cut into strips and layered in various arrangements on the bottom half of the card. I just couldn't grasp why you would take a beautiful background and cut it up..this was definitely not for me. Her other example was similar to her first she left it untouched..whew this I could handle. 

I used the same colors from the first card, heat embossed a snowflake set from Simon Says stamp then added my diecut and sentiment strips (I'm loving these) and a few sequins. Viola my snow themed card. 

Holiday Cards - Day Three

Well I will fess up, I was not much of a fan of todays lessons. While I love watercolor and alcohol inks  I don't like messy type things especially my cards. But I wasn't going to be a party pooper and did my best. 

The first technique used gel pressing which I do not own nor have much interest in but I tried several things to make some sort of resemblance as best as I could. I took 1 stencil which I just purchased from Scrappy Boy at the Expo and used it two ways. 

For the first card I ended up laying down the stencil on top of cardstock then squeezed out various alcohol inks on my glass mat, added a generous amount of alcohol blending solution and allowed those to meld together then used a rag I blotted the inks onto some photo paper. I have learned alcohol inks are always the most vibrant when applied to glossy paper. I then cut my card down to my usual 4.25 by 5.5 card and wished I hadn't only because as you can see my diecut letter is a bit crowed on the card but I felt a large sentiment was needed here. Using some silver matte paper I added that layer onto several white cardstock layers then glued that down to the base purple background and again using a quick black sentiment from the Simon Says Stamps sentiment strips. I also diecut some pine branches from some pink glitter paper along with a few pink daisies. 

This next card was created using watercolors. Same stencil but this time using watercolor paper I sprayed it with water then used distress ink refills to drop various colors onto the paper then flooded the paper with more water which allowed me to dip the stencil onto the paper and inks and then transfer the watercolors onto a secondary water color piece of paper. A bit messy if you ask me. But sucking it up made a card. I did it twice and choose the better looking of the two, although the colors all seem to have faded into one. I kept this one simple just a sentiment, some more pre made strips and a few silver baubles. Not sure how I feel about this card. 

This last card is definitely my favorite, using up washy tape as a background is awesome, other than my tape was so old it stuck to the roll and shredded to pieces but I managed to find a few that worked. I added in some glitter snow as well as a foil sentiment and topped it all off with a few diecut sprigs. 

Holiday Day 2 - Plaid Backgrounds

For today it was all about making plaid backgrounds using various tools and techniques. The first one I loved which used the Concord and 9th turnabout stamp which is a very simple way to use 1 stamp and then just rotate your card panel to get the plaid stamped design, very cool. 

The next method was using various width stamps that come in a set from Simon Says Stamp to create your own plaid background which while not as easy as the turnabout stamp method it was pretty straight forward and I like how you had different widths instead of just one. 

The next technique shown was with a stencil and have to say that is also pretty easy to replicate and lastly using masking strips of post it type paper you just mask off areas and then using you inks from lightest to darkest and rotating your card you create the same effect. This method was probably the most involved. 

Sadly I did not own anything to make this lovely backgrounds but I dug through my stash none the less and found a very small Tim Holtz plaid stencil which I used to create a tag then used it to make a card. 

The black sentiment strips are premade from Simon Says Stamp and then I just used my Penny Black Joy die to cut the word out twice, once in black and once in a mirrored cardstock and then combined the two for an offset look. A few touches of sequins, ribbon and diecut leafs helped finish off this card. I did learn to use an accent pen (either gold or silver of which I had neither so used black) to add additional lines placed through block lines or next to them to give more depth. This is one technique I will definitely be using with all my plaids. 

Holiday Card Making TIme - Day 1

Well it's been a long time since my last post and a lot of sadness in my life for most of this year but I am trying to take some steps towards healing and signed up for the Online Card Class Holiday Workshop to help me gear up to normality. This is a great way to launch yourself into making Holiday Cards as well as just ease yourself into being crafty. It's a two week class so if you wanted to joing we are only on day 4.

I was blown away on Day 1 which was a two fold class. One method was focused on faux laser cutting techniques and another on making plaids. 

First up are not 1 but 3 cards focused on using 1 large die to cut out on your card and then using other smaller type dies that you layer behind the the larger one. 

Then there was different techniques for your background of your larger dies, from using stamps to hombre ink tone, to using just cardstock. There were were four samples given, but I only made three. 

The first card I used a heart along with a holy die cut from Penny Black. I think it worked nicely. This is layered on a mirror cardstock

This second  card uses a leaf die behind a square bracket shape and I felt it was a little too naked so I added in a deer cut from matte gold cardstock. The sentiment was made using foil. I actually love using this tool instead of embossing as it is less messy. 

I really loved this card and needed to create a 5 x7 which I don't normally make but in order to get the full effect of the snowflakes I went with a large star which required plenty of space. I created the background using a stencil and some distress inks. I diecut 4 star cardstock panels for a fat stack to give this card some heft. The various snowflakes were layered behind the first panel. Again I think this was by far my favorite of the three.