Kool Kitty Musings

2018 card challenge - October card

This month's card challenge is all about pen and ink and here's my take:

Paper: My Mind's Eye
Stamp: Lil' Inker Designs - Have a Nice Day
Die: MFT - Wonky Stitched Squares
Other: Distress Oxide inks, rose gold embossing powder

For this card I had the opportunity to borrow some lovely product from my crafty friend's stash - the wonderful Have a Nice Day greeting is from Lil' Inker Designs, and I just love the hand-lettered style of it.

It looks even more glorious in real life with the rose gold embossing powder (also a borrowed item for this project). ;)

It's such a simple combo for creating custom card designs: just some neutral background paper (my stash of this design by MME is slowly dwindling, but it has been so versatile and the perfect warm grey for lots of projects), a square cut from white cardstock, a few Distress Oxide inks to paint that watercolour background and the heat-embossed greeting.

Oh and a few splatters of Lawn Fawn bubblegum pink ink for good measure!

Clean and simple! :D

Whatever your plans this weekend, have a great one!

I'm hoping to get crafty again!

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MFT - Wonky Stitched Square STAX dies Shop at: EH | SHC | SSS	Distress Oxide ink pad - Fossilized Amber Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS	Distress Oxide ink pad - Tattered Rose Shop at: AZ | SBC	Distress Oxide ink pad - Worn Lipstick Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS
Lawn Fawn - Bubblegum ink pad Shop at: EH | SBC | SHC	Neenah Classic Crest 110 lb smooth Solar White cardstock Shop at: EH | SSS	My Mind's Eye - Find Your Wings & Fly - Sky's the Limit - Layered Ephemera paper (r) Shop at: SBC	EK Success powder tool Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS
MISTI precision stamping tool Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS	Ranger - Artist brush set Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Tim Holtz - Distress Sprayer Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS	Sizzix - Big Shot machine Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC

 

A productive week

Before I log off for the day I thought I'd share some snaps from the past week, as it's been so long since I did a crafty stash blog post or similar.

It all starts with my October calendar:

I was definitely channelling the lady in this image. Waiting for some goodies to arrive in the post.

I finally made up for my whole patterned paper embargo and scrapbook purchasing drought... Yes, it had been well over a year since I'd last purchased any paper other than a couple of 6x6 Lawn Fawn paper pads. I'd bought no new embellishments or 12x12 papers... that was, until I fell in love with this year's Crate Paper Christmas release – Merry Days.

While waiting for the collection to come into stock in the UK at Hey Little Magpie, I'd been trawling the Internet for last year's Crate Paper Christmas release Falala, and a few other items that had caught my attention in the past few months enough to be added to my wishlist.

I found lots of Falala in stock at craftelier.co.uk and was also recommended this store by a fellow crafter. Many of the papers were really well priced so into my basket they went. I bought multiples of some sheets as I knew I'd easily use those versatile designs with basic supplies.

Over at Hey Little Magpie I'd also loaded my basket with more festive supplies from Pebbles:

Yes, festive sloths were added into the mix.

I also saw that the Willow Lane embellishments had come back into stock as they were unavailable everywhere else, so they were added as well:

They will go very nicely with the choice papers I'd ordered from Craftelier for this line:

And also in my Craftelier order I'd included some fun unicorn stuff from Simple Stories, just too fun to pass up!

So it was just a matter of finishing the work week so I could get crafty this weekend. I hadn't even realised that it was world cardmaking day yesterday until I saw some Facebook posts, so it was lovely to wake-up all ready to go Saturday morning, with my focus definitely on getting those Christmas cards started.

I'm glad to report I did get my first 10 cards made, all unique and different (I really struggle with making multiples of the same design unless it's simple repeat stamping):

Sadly not quite as productive today, as I seemed to be channelling my inner-sloth when trying to come up with some card designs for that sloth paper by Pebbles:

But I have managed 4 cards today so I am just happy that I'm a step closer to getting my Christmas cards made this year as it really wasn't looking good the past 9 months of this year!

I'll hopefully get time and light to photograph my makes soon, but I still have a pile of non-Christmas cards to photograph and blog so not sure when all that will happen! lol

I hope all you cardmakers enjoyed a crafty weekend!

2018 card challenge - October prompt

Good morning all!

Well, it's officially October so it's time for a new prompt.

This month I'm challenging you to look to your colouring supplies.

The theme is:

Pen and ink

You don't need to use both together but consider how you can showcase these humble supplies on your cards.

• First up, colouring with markers - it can be a really quick way to bring drawn images to life, or you can add detail by incorporating blending and shading techniques.
• What about hand-drawing/hand-lettering with pen?
• There are loads of techniques out there on YouTube for using different pens in crafting, whether Distress Markers (for stamped watercolouring techniques), Copic markers, Promarkers, Zig Clean Colour pens... Perhaps you've had your eye on one, but haven't had chance to give it a go!
• Ink... well, what is there to say? I'd be totally lost without my ink collection. First stop: stamping solid images. Try and see if you can give the black ink a rest and use other colours for sentiments as well.
• Ink blending techniques for backgrounds or to make die-cut elements really pop.
• Dye inks like Distress Inks can be used like watercolours for colouring and background washes.
• Ombre ink pads from Hero Arts are very popular, do you have one in your stash? If so why not use it in combination with some stand-out sentiment stamps.
• Ink layering - another great way to really put your ink pads to use is to combine different shades with ink layering techniques. You don't necessarily need 2-step stamp sets for this.

I hope you enjoy crafting for this month's challenge!