World Card Making Day inspiration - Day One

Recently, card makers around the globe celebrated World Card Making Day on the first Saturday of October.  The paid membership site I belong to, Stamp Nation, celebrates this holiday every year, but instead of on just one day, they make it a weekend long event!  This year, their Creative Team members posted a favorite place around the world that they have either lived or visited.  Each post had a collage of their photos from their travels.  It also included what the flag looks like from that particular place.  These photos and flags served as inspiration for other members to make cards based off of the original post.  There were eight posts over the course of the weekend and playing along with the challenges was so much fun!  I thought you might enjoy seeing the cards I created for these challenges.

DAY ONE: England
The first post was by the owner/founder of Stamp Nation, Catherine Pooler.  She and her husband visited England earlier in the year.  She posted lots of photos of her travels.  There were pictures of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, lots of architecture, and flowers.  Having visited England myself, I so enjoyed seeing her pictures of her trip.  The picture that I used as inspiration was of a chalkboard sign that was on the sidewalk in front of a store.  The phrase on the sign said "Do more of what makes you happy."  It had some nice flowers drawn around the phrase and I thought the message itself was inspirational!  Here is the photo I used as inspiration:

Sometimes, when I used "mood boards" for inspiration, it's hard for me to NOT create a literal replication of what I see in the pictures...it was sort of the case here.  Below is my take on this sign.  I found an inspirational sentiment among my stamp sets and knew that I had to recreate the chalkboard look.  I white heat embossed the sentiment onto black card stock.  I have lots of flower die cuts in my stash, so it was just a matter of finding the right sized ones to cut out of some cheery colors.  It may be hard to tell from the inspiration sign, but the name of the store looks like it is a gold color...so I used some baker's twine that had some gold in it to tie at the top of my card.  I felt this was a pretty literal take on the inspiration, but it got me started on my World Card Making Day weekend of fun!

DAY ONE: Hungary
There was a second post on day one and this time, the place of inspiration was the country of Hungary.  I have never been to Hungary, but the photos were still inspiring!  This post was by Kelly Martin, a member of Stamp Nation's creative team.  Most of her photos were of the beautiful, old architecture of that region.  But what I was inspired by, was the Hungarian flag as seen here.  It seems like a pretty simple thing to be inspired by, but that's what caught my eye in her photo collage!

I have used a technique once or twice in the past that I knew I wanted to try out with this flag as my inspiration.  I took a rectangular acrylic block and applied some red ink to one edge and green ink to the opposite edge.  I took my water spritzer and sprayed some water onto the block.  This made the ink sort of pool up on the block.  I then quickly turned the block upside down and pressed it into the middle of a piece of watercolor card stock and held it there for a minute or so while the water and ink absorbed into the paper.  The tricky part was lifting the block straight up so as not to mix the wet ink too much.  I had a paper towel on standby to blot up any extra pools of ink that may have run together.  After that dried, I stamped a globe from the new Catherine Pooler Amber's World stamp set.  I used Versamark ink to stamp it and then applied WOW Embossing Powder in Rose Gold.  After I heat set it, I was done!  I didn't feel like I needed to add any more embellishments to the card except for mounting it onto a card base.  I really like how this one turned out and after posting it on the Stamp Nation site, I received many compliments and some members even used MY card for their inspiration!  Here's a look at my finished card:

I will post day two and three later.  Day two had four challenges: Portugal, Hawaii, Canada, and Italy.  Look for more posts coming soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Stretching background stamps

I don't know about you, but I love geometric designs.  I suppose it's because, to me, they look all neat and orderly....and that's my thing!  Another thing I think draws me to geometric patterns is that they are mostly symmetrical...and again, that's my thing!  Recently, Catherine Pooler came out with a new release which included a background stamp called Angled Squares.  Here's a picture of the full stamp.

While I love the geometric pattern, it's slightly offset from the center.  What am I to do with this non-symmetrical design?  I have no problem using it as is, but I wanted to see how I could create something that WAS symmetrical.  So, off I went to my craft table to brainstorm!

What I ended up doing was stamping only the square portion of the stamp onto vellum with Versamark ink three times.  I then used rose gold embossing powder from WOW! embossing and heat set it.  After cutting the three squares out, I arranged them onto a black card stock panel.  Since they overlapped, I ended up cutting away the portions that were behind the middle square.  I have yet to decide if I want to add anything else to the card...maybe a sentiment strip or a word cut die.  I think as it is in the pictures below, it's kind of striking without anything added...what do you think?

I really like how the rose gold embossing powder looks on the vellum.  It reminds me of the art deco era.

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges for inspiration

I had some time to craft this weekend and with no special occasion to make a specific card, I decided to check out the challenges at Simon Says Stamp's blog.  They have two weekly challenges...one on Monday and one on Wednesday.  The Monday challenge theme this week is Sprinkles and Splatters and the Wednesday theme is Back to School.

The first picture below is for the Monday challenge. I had already made up the background using a new stamp from Catherine Pooler called the Canvas Grunge stamp.  I used Over Coffee ink from Catherine Pooler as well.  The other brown ink colors, also from CP, are Icing on the Cake and Sand Castle.  I used the coffee cup, lid, and sleeve die cuts from My Favorite Things as well as the sentiment from their Perk Up Stamp set.  I thought the card could use a little dimension, so I wrapped some raffia ribbon around the Grunge layer to offset the coffee cup.

The second picture is for the Wednesday challenge.  The Back to School theme could be taken several different ways.  I decided upon an encouraging sentiment from Catherine Pooler's Zen Feather stamp set.  The set also contains the feather stamp and I thought they coordinated perfectly.  I used three CP inks, Juniper Mist, Daydream, and Skylight.  I found some patterned paper in my stash that made a nice background and added the tag stamped with a dotted background in Twilight ink from CP.

One card, two looks

Have you ever created a card and wondered what it would look like if you made it again, but just changed the colors?  Recently, I was inspired by a blog post by Catherine Pooler where she did just that...so I thought I'd give it a try.

I love using Catherine Pooler inks for stamping.  There are so many color choices and the saturation and vibrancy of the colors are amazing.  Currently, she has four different collections of ink under two categories...Life of the Party as well as the Spa Collection.  As you can imagine from the names, Life of the Party ink colors are very colorful and bright while the Spa inks are more muted tones.  Even the names of the ink colors relate to the collection themes!

My cards below were made with four colors from each ink collection.  The first card used colors from the Life of the Party collection.  I used Tiki Torch, Lime Rickey, Aquatini, and Pixie Dust.  I used the direct to paper method with the Pixie Dust ink pad to add color to a panel to create the purple frame for the backdrop to the card.  In both examples, I used the Catherine Pooler stamp set called Say it in Diamonds.

On my second card I chose four colors from the Spa Collection that were similar to the inks from the first card.  I think the Spa inks lend themselves wonderfully to use for masculine themed cards.  I used the colors Sauna, Eucalyptus, Daydream, and Royal Treatment.  Again, I used the purple ink, Royal Treatment, direct to the paper to create the frame for the card panel.

I hope this inspires you to create something two different ways!

Challenge Inspiration

It's been a while since my last blog post...busy busy busy life!

There's a challenge going on right now over at Stamp Nation.  It's called Tag You're It!  Basically, someone posts a card and if you're inspired by it, you tag yourself in and then CASE that card.  CASE stands for Copy And Share Everything.  Sometimes, when I'm lacking in the inspiration department, I'll use a card that someone else has posted as the inspiration and CASE it!

The following card was posted from Catherine Pooler.  I decided to use three things from her card to come up with my own design.  I used the same three colors, repetitive sentiment, and black and white patterned paper.

This is the inspiration card:

 

And here is my card:

Since I pretty much only use Catherine Pooler inks, using the same three colors was an easy choice.  I took each ink pad and colored directly on white paper to create my own colored card stock.  Then I used a STAR die cut word and cut it four times into black card stock.  I also cut the STAR word into the colored card stock I made and used the inlay die cut method to put it in the black card stock.  Doing this was also using the repetitive sentiment inspiration from Catherine's card.  Finally I added a strip of black and white patterned paper to the bottom and embossed a white sentiment on the card and it was complete!

This challenge was fun and a good way to be inspired by others!

Stamp of Approval

Every quarter or so, one of my favorite card makers/stamp business owners puts out what she calls a Stamp of Approval collection.  Catherine Pooler and her team of amazingly creative minds put together a box of stamps, stencils, dies, and sometimes mystery ink, for sale.  I've bought quite a few of these boxes over the past year or two.  What I love about the box and its contents is that everything in the box coordinates so well.  Each box has a theme and all the contents are meant to go together so well.  I think it's a perfect way for any level of stamper/card maker to jump right in and create from the minute they open the box!  You can check out Catherine's blog HERE and her online store HERE.

The latest box theme was Celebrate with Friends.  It was the first time the purchaser had a choice between two stamp sets being offered...one was a tea theme and the other a coffee theme.  Of course, there is always the "I Want It All" choice for those of us that just can't choose!!  When it comes to Catherine's products, I simply can't pass up anything...so yes, I bought it all!  😊

Here are the card panels I made the first time sitting down with this box of goodies.  There are so many things that could be done with these products!  In the ice cream card, I think I used stamps from three of the sets to create the bowl and the ice cream scoops!  And with the rainbow card, I used a long pom pom border stamp and curved it to make the rainbow.  With a little imagination, these stamps can be just about a million things!!

Mixed Media Joy

I'm a member of an online paper crafting community called Stamp Nation.  On their site, they have recently been having some classes focusing on mixed media and how to bring that look into cards.  Admittedly, I'm not a mixed media crafter, however, the classes and videos have been inspiring and I've taken inspiration from some of the techniques.

While watching some of the videos on mixed media, I found myself thinking that I didn't have that particular supply or tool and so I couldn't try to replicate what I was seeing.  It's quite easy in paper crafting to see someone use a certain medium, stamp set, or tool and immediately want to hop on a website and place an order for the exact products...ask me how I know!!  However, if I take a moment and deconstruct a technique, I usually find that even though I might not have EXACTLY the same mediums or tools to use, I have plenty of supplies that can be used to achieve a similar outcome.

Take for instance this card below.  In making this particular card, I didn't go out and buy anything special...I looked around at my supplies and decided to use what I had...and believe me, I have a lot to choose from!!  The video I watched used acrylic paints to achieve a background...well instead, I chose to use my re-inkers for my Catherine Pooler ink pads and create a water color background.  Once that was dry, I used a pretty background stamp sprayed with water to achieve the sort of stenciled effect on top of the water colored background.  This wasn't exactly the technique used in the video, but close.  I believe they used a stencil to achieve a similar layer on the background.

One thing I think of when it comes to mixed media is layers.  Since I wanted to add another layer, but yet not cover up the background, I chose a lattice die cut from my stash and cut it out of plain white card stock.  I figured that this would add a layer, but yet allow the background to be a focal point as well.  I wanted to add a sentiment, but again, not cover up too much...so I added a smaller sentiment.  Once I added the word JOY, I couldn't help but add some sparkle as well!  I hope you enjoy my take on mixed media!

Water Colored Floral Background

I've experimented with water coloring lately and I thought this background stamp would be perfect for this technique.  I first created a water colored panel and after it was completely dry, I stamped the Doodle Garden background stamp from Catherine Pooler onto the background using Versa Mark ink. 

I then used bright white embossing powder and heat set the stamped background.  I could have stopped there, but I wanted to water color some of the flowers even more, just to make them stand out a bit.  While that was drying, I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment onto some vellum.

I cut the panel and the vellum out at the same time so that the edges would match up when I used a postage stamp die to cut them out.  I decided to mount the panel using foam tape onto some green patterned paper I found in my stash.  I mounted it all onto a white card base.  I love the soft look of water color and think I'll probably be using this technique in the future!

Here is a look at the finished card as well as a few close ups.

Cover plate die as a stamp

I recently purchased my first cover plate die from a Catherine Pooler release.  It's a beautiful stained glass die.  This cover plate die is pretty when used as intended, but I wanted to see if I could turn it into a stamp!  I've watched some You Tube videos on how crafters take their die cuts and make stamps out of them, and I thought, how hard can it be?!  So I tried out the technique.

First I used the cover plate die to cut white fun foam, instead of card stock.  After removing all the pieces from the cuts, I glued the fun foam to a piece of white card stock and backed it with a thin piece of chipboard to give it some stability.

I put some temporary adhesive on the back side of the chipboard so that I could adhere it to the door of my MISTI.  I then inked up my new "stamp" with Versamark ink and stamped it onto some new vellum from Catherine Pooler.  After stamping it a few times to be sure it was all good and inked, I used some white embossing powder and covered the vellum.  After heating up the embossing powder, I had the below...I was so excited that it worked as a stamp!

 I then took a rainbow of colors from my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and started coloring the image from the BACK side.  This allowed me to go over the lines and not have to worry about it!  You can see the back side view is kind of messy looking.

Once I was finished coloring, I turned it over and cut it down to fit the front of a card panel.  I didn't want to add any sentiments to it as I didn't want to cover up any of the beautiful stained glass look of it.  The panel was a little time consuming, but it was a lot of fun trying a new technique by turning this cover plate die into a stamp.  And who doesn't like to do some coloring from time to time!?!

Thank you stencil card

In the latest Catherine Pooler release there was a stencil designed by Shawna Clingerman.  It was called the Square Dance Stencil.  It's pictured below in it's original form.

 
When I stared at this stencil for what seemed like forever and tried to decide how best to use it, my eyes were drawn to the patterns within the design.  Sometimes this is easy to do depending on the design.  Whether she knows it or not, my mother, who is a quilter, taught me to see patterns within intended designs.  So in THIS particular stencil, I envisioned a rainbow pattern.  I used Distress Oxide inks to sponge on the color as I meticulously masked off areas of the stencil so each color had its own distinct place.

I added a black die cut thanks, adhered it to a black panel and then to a white card base.  It's a 4 1/4" square card, smaller than the typical A2 size I normally make, but it packs a punch!  Enjoy!

Welcome to my blog!

I took the plunge and started a blog!  It's been simmering in my mind for a while now and I've finally decided to just sit down and do it!  As my header says, my blog will have a variety of posts ranging from my creations from my craft room to the kitchen and anything in between.

One of my hobbies includes card making.  I consider myself an amateur card maker and take a lot of inspiration from following other card makers on Instagram and You Tube.  I've learned many techniques and styles over the past few years from these fellow card makers.  And now I want to share my creations with all of you!  If you'd like to see my Instagram page, you can find me at karenkcreates.

The latest card from my craft table is pictured below.  It was a post on Stamp Nation for a CASE (copy and share everything) challenge.  I hope you like it!