An attempt at a shaker card

Today I tried to make a shaker card. I don't have the technique down yet. My die for the frame is a little small for my taste. Made it difficult to add dimensional adhesive. I used paper from Lawn Fawn & the stamps are from Mama Elephant. I colored with Inktense Watercolor pencils. 

I made the card for my sweet little nephew Jamie. He's going to summer school & had a bit of a tough week.  Your Aunty loves you Jamie & she made this to make you happy.

Love creating for my stack of cards. 

I love distress inks!

I was practicing blending distress inks for this card. I was just using different inks to try & get a smoother blend. I'm happy about the way it turned out. I used Lawn Fawn stamps & dies. A simple idea, but it's so cute in real life!

Really good distraction from my pounding headache I can't get rid of because I'm still, yes still coughing! Ugh!

I'm trying to avoid getting super grumpy by adding to my stack of cards.

A simple thank you card

I made this simple thank you card using Hero Arts Shadow ink & Colorbox chalk ink, some circle stamps & some googly insides. It was so much fun! I got ink everywhere but I loved adding to my stack of cards!

Thwarted by a cold!

In my efforts to start this blog, wouldn't you know it? I got a cold. So a big ick on the inspiration issue.

Anyways, I've been motivated to make cards for Operation Write Home founded by Sandy Allnock.  She is an amazing person.  If you knew what she does & accomplishes it would knock your socks off. So, I've made about 50 cards for heroes but I haven't sent them off yet. Feeling a bit of trepidation around the fact that my cards look nothing like the ones I've seen.  I will take the plunge.

On the OWH site, there are card sketches for layouts.  I didn't know that so I made my own for the thank you cards I made last night. I tried to think of the color wheel in picking papers from my HUGE scrap folder.   Since I'm sick even the OCD side of my personality didn't help me line up paper exactly- I couldn't see! So what I did is what I'm including.

I am secretly wanting to spend a ton of money on Copic sketch markers. Hmmm.  I also need a new computer. Ah the wish list of this card marker grows as does my stack of cards.

Here I go!

I can't believe I'm starting a blog about card making. I've only been at it for a couple of months, but I'm head over heels in love! I love the techniques, the media, the possibilities & most of all I love paper!

I have always loved to draw. One of my fondest memories of my dad was he knew & understood how much I loved drawing. He was extremely artistic himself. Dad had a friend who worked at a big paper company and somehow he managed to snag me big boxes of colored paper & cardstock. I adored doodling, teaching myself how to shade, constructing boxes, containers - I'm actually surprised that my major wasn't in design or illustration or even engineering.

Fast forward. I became an elementary school teacher, raised a family - in other words worked my butt off!  My free time priority was to lavish my kids with attention & lots of opportunities to see the world.  That left little time for art. Last summer I finally started to dabble in mixed media & found it filled me up in a different way. Then school started again & I yearned to create but had limited time. Then it hit me - I'd make cards! A perfect little canvas for trying out techniques. 

My first tries were so amateur & primary. Ugh!  But I practice everyday even if it's just to stamp an image & color it. I'm getting better & I hope that this blog will serve as a record to show growth as an artist with my stack of cards.

 

P.S. The flowers I did for the header on my blog was a technique I learned from KWerner Designs. She is amazing.  I wanna be her...