Last week Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner, along with other instructors, taught another Online Card Class. This was Clean and Simple Cards 4. As always, the content of this class was awesome....so many ideas and techniques. For a change, I have managed to do some homework and not just watch the videos which is what I usually end up doing.
Am afraid that I was not disciplined in my creations and ended up making ones from the latter part of the week rather than the first few days. It seems that even with all of my craft items, I couldn't come up with what was used for the first part of the week or even find substitutions. Maybe I will re-visit those videos and try again, now that I have established a little bit of momentum? Some of the other class participants are very clever in this respect.
Jennifer Rzasa demonstrated a technique called Ink Patterns. Since I love using Distress Inks, this was right up my alley. Thus, I made two cards. On the first one, I made a free hand shadow for the tree and am not sure if I like that element. Jennifer's stamp set included a shadow. For the second card I didn't include the shadow, but felt like the scene needed something else to complete it so I added the ribbon.
On Day 6, Julie Ebersole showed us how to make a tri-fold card. I love this very simple, yet effective look and think it would be a great card for a guy!
On Day 6 there was also a technique taught by Tasnim, which she called Masked Stripe. This was another fun getting inky process. For the main element of my card, I used a Penny Black die, which I also inked with Distress Inks.
So, I am very pleased with myself to do homework AND do a blog post! Perhaps there is hope for me yet??? Now I just need to get the cards in the homework gallery.....
Where does the time go these days? It looks as though I just cannot get into posting my cards here, even though I really do have the best of intentions. I think the last time I posted was before going out of town again (did a lot of traveling in 2014) and then it was Thanksgiving already. The holidays have come and gone with all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready for them, and then getting over them. During this time, I managed to make holiday cards, but the majority were made from a painting which I did in an art class. It did make for easier cards in that I just cropped, matted and stamped a greeting on the inside.
This month I have concentrated on making thank you cards and these were very simple designs.
The first ones were made with stamps from a company called Rubber Necker Stamps. I fell in love with these stamps at the stamping convention back in October but didn't have time to play with them until recently. I used Distress Inks and markers on the flat stamps and then spritzed with a mini mister before stamping on cardstock. The outline stamp was inked with Versafine Black Onyx ink and then stamped over the colored image and it is not meant to be exactly lined up.
The next set of cards was made with Impression Obsession stamps (CL505 Botanical Collection 1) which I picked up at the annual sale at Impression Obsession in Williamsburg. That was also held back in the fall, but I had not used the stamps until the last few weeks. The technique I used was one which I saw somewhere online, but cannot remember now where I found it. Again I used Distress Inks (is there a trend going on here???) and masked a rectangular area on white cardstock with post it notes. I applied various colors of the Distress Ink with a blending tool. Then I stamped the floral image with Black Onyx Versafine ink after removing the masks. Adding the sentiment was the last step for this supper easy card.
I also needed a birthday card for a good friend and wanted something besides what I had on hand so used the Penny Black hydrangea from the Flower Festival clear set.
Hopefully, I will be more attentive to my much neglected blog in the coming year.
