Inky Fingers

A three-card class last week with Katie, and then two three-card classes this week with Kathy and Nancy!

The swirl was stamped tone-on-tone; the clouds are actually on the inside of the card, with the card front pieced with a strip of acetate. The butterfly was colored with Spectrum Noir alcohol pens and painstakingly cut out. The antennae are craft wire.

Katie's original was a fathers' day card, which I'm not going to make. The tools are a Technique Tuesday set which make me wish I had more males to make cards for. I placed the clear stamps randomly (and, I hope, artistically) on an acrylic block and stamped tone-on-tone twice, flipping the block around for the second impression so that it looked a bit more random. I don't remember the name of the set which came with that wonderful auto image, but I've asked Linda to order it for me, as it had other images I liked, too. The "screw head" brads are from Creative Impressions. A more or less coordinating strip of pattered paper was also used.

More images from the Technique Tuesday set. The darker blue layer is a Hero Arts/Sizzix set that we stamped with embossing ink then heat-embossed with clear powder. The cardstock piece is then "dry embossed" with a matching embossing folder.

I can't even remember the last time Kathy had a Saturday class, so this was a rare treat! Unfortunately, I forgot to let Kathy and Linda know I'd be attending, so I didn't get prepared kits for my cards. The photos are from a Tim Holtz collection, and we had to choose 4 from a selection of around 30 or so. We matted those onto black card stock and hand-lettered our labels. I distressed my labels, sentiment piece, card base, and first layer with the Ranger Tim Holtz "Old Paper" ink. The rest of the class used black "film strip" die cuts where I used the net-looking stuff. The picture labeled "Wacky One" is on a springy mount that makes it wiggle and wobble.

Two pieces of coordinating patterned paper, a bit of ribbon, and the chandelier stamp and die combine to make this one quick and easy.

Two pieces of coordinating cardstock, the join between them covered with die-cut border strip, a bit of ribbon (the same one used in the chandelier card), and a Hero Arts cling stamp. I used more of the "Old Paper" Distress Ink on the stamped image and the border strip, then very lightly colored the flowers, bird, porthole, and the sky (?) seen beyond the porthole with more of the Spectrum Noir alcohol pens.

When I saw the photos of this one on the store blog and found out she'd be offering this one in a separate session, I signed up for it. The poppy image is a die. We die cut the yellow patterned paper and the white card stock, then carefully put the white card, including that little strip between the two flower stems, into a dotted-swiss embossing folder. Back at our work stations, we turned the card stock over so the raised dots were down, placed the yellow poppies into the hole we'd punched out of the white, and replaced the white strip between the stems, then carefully taped everything into place. Then we smeared our preferred adhesive onto the back, flipped it over, and adhered it to the card base. Then we popped (with pop dot adhesive bits) the sentiment strip (which we'd stamped and heat-embossed with black powder earlier).

Then we used the flower we'd punched out of the white layer on the previous card! We colored with the Spectrum Noir alcohol pens. Then we stamped Hero Arts' "Old Letter Writing" onto a piece of white card stock. I used the "Spun Sugar" Distress Ink because I'd colored my poppies a pinkish lavender; the sample card Nancy created was stamped with the new yellow distress ink because Nancy had colored her poppies to look more like our state flower. We used glue pens to adhere the poppies to the card stock, then stamped the sentiment with Hero Arts' Shadow Ink "Cup o' Joe." We had to be really careful with that because we only had one chance to do it! A twine bow and some "pearls" which I also colored with the Spectrum Noir lightest lavender pen so they'd coordinate better with my color choices.

The easiest and the most difficult of the bunch today. The only stamping is the sentiment at the bottom of the card, which was also lightly colored with a grey pen. Nancy brought in a couple of quart zipper bags of patterned-paper scraps from her stash and bade us make our selections. Some of the beiges I chose have taken a slightly purplish cast in this photo. We punched out a bunch of butterflies and glued them to the die-cut black card stock. A slightly smaller butterfly and two tiny ones complete the selection.

All in all, a fun couple of days!!