Dancing Cat Best Wishes

This was a quick, easy card to make.  I stamped the kitty, stamped the sentiment, and added a piece of gold glitter ribbon.

Kimono Wishes

This is another co-worker farewell card.  This was for an older man who's wife is Japanese, so I tried to do a simple design with minimal colouring.

I stamped the girl (Cho With Parasol by Lily of the Valley Stamps), then the sentiment and added a piece of green glitter ribbon for 'grass'.  I used pencil crayons to lightly colour the image.

Anime style card

This was another best wishes card for a co-worker who loves anime and manga.

The image was a commission for Kairou no Kimi by Sureya on Deviant Art.  It's called Li Dong Hua and is part of Sureya's 'colouring book' of free images.  All she asks is that you credit the artist and the person who commissioned the work if you use any of her images.

I printed the image out, die cut it with a Spellbinder's die, inked around the die before removing it and coloured the image with pencil crayons.

I die cut the sides of the base cardstock and attached the anime panel.

Rockin' Wishes

This is another farewell card, for someone who likes rock music.  It was pretty easy, as the main image was a sticker.

I started out by stamping and heat embossing 'BEST'.  It wasn't as clear as I wanted, so I simply stamped the rest of the sentiment, giving it some contrast.  Then I added the stickers.

Musical Best Wishes

Here's another farewell/best wishes card I made.  This was for a co-worker who sings in a folk band who likes vintage stuff.

I don't normally do distressed cards, but I thought it would be appropriate for her, so I embossed the musical notation and then sanded the edges so they'd be a little torn up.  The microphone was cut in 3 pieces on my silhouette, with the solid band around the microphone glossy accented, so it would stand out.  I used a graphing paper backing stamp which I heat embossed for the microphone itself.

Best wishes was stamped in white ink on black paper, with a little white ink used on the label for contrast.  I kept the card black and white to make it look a bit classy, despite the distressing.

Hero Wishes

Here's another farewell Best Wishes card I made for a co-worker.  She's into comics, so I thought Kenny K's Huge Hero would be perfect.  I printed the image and cut it out with my silhouette, then coloured it with pencil crayons.  I cut the town out on my silhouette, then cut the blue paper manually to mostly fit the gaps so the neon yellow would shine through the windows.  I glued the papers on and pop-dotted the hero over top, then added my sentiment.

Typewritten Wishes

This is a clean and simple farewell card for one of my co-workers who's working hard at writing a few novels.

I stamped the typewriter and the sentiment, then wanted a bit more pizzaz, so I added the fireworks with 'SUPER' in a typewriter font, and some black lines with a marker.

I cut around the front leg of the typewriter to slip the ribbon behind it.

Best Wishes Rose

This was my second attempt at my complex background.  I used a lace edge stamp for the corners, masked them and the centre label, then used the background stamp.  I edged the label with a gold marker.  I went over the lattice with a red marker to give a hint of shadow, and used some more red marker on the lace.

For the label I did another gold edge, stamped the sentiment and roses and coloured them with markers.

Die Cut Best Wishes

This was a simple card that was surprisingly difficult to get right.  The edge die refused to cut the pieces all the way (even with wax paper and running it through my machine several times in different places).  I finally had to add a shim to force the cut, afraid of the creaking noises as I ran it through.

I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment on the inner circle.

Best Wishes Homemade Background Card

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few weeks.  The store I work at is closing so I've been busy with other things.

I stamped the background card a while ago.  I saw a background I loved that looked similar and wanted to get it, then realized that since my cards are a little smaller than the stamp, the corners would either get cut off or look odd.  So I tried making my own background.  It's not perfect, but I like how it came out.
I'm using wax paper to hold the masks so I can reuse them in the future, if I want to try this again.

I started by laying the center shape die on two pieces of end to end glued sticky notes (for my mask).  I wanted to add the die cut later, and still have a border, so I traced the edge of the die (which is rounded).  I laid that in the center of the card so the trellis stamp wouldn't affect that area.  I then stamped and masked the 4 corners.  I used a trellis background stamp to fill in the background.  With the trellis shape just stopping around where the mask was it looked a bit odd, so I laid down the die and traced the edge with a black marker for a solid frame.

I was hoping to blend some colour into the shapes, but didn't think to test how it looked first.  My original idea was to use water based markers (as I don't have any bright coloured Copics) and then a water brush to spread the colour.  Luckily I tested that on scrap paper because it didn't work.  I then filled the areas around the darker marker with a lighter one.  I'm not thrilled with it, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

I die cut the center shape and inked it, then stamped the sentiment.  I die cut a TON of hydrangea blossoms, using a tool to round them a bit before gluing them onto the label.  I attached the label with pop-dots and finished the card with a die cut butterfly, inked a bit around the edges and gussied up with some glitter glue.  I didn't like the line the markers made around the edge of the corners, so I added som blossoms along those too.