Friendship Cards – Page 23 – SkyPaperScissors

Happy National Pet Day!

I love animals, but I especially love my two cats. They came home with me as half-pound kittens and grew into 20-pound beasts. They’re from the shelter and my best guess it that they’re Norwegian Forest cats. So today I have a simple card to celebrate my cats and the many times they’ve saved me over the years.

I started by die-cutting a piece of Neenah Solar White 80# Classic Crest cardstock with the scalloped rectangle die from My Favorite Things Blueprints 27 Die-Namics. Then, using stamps from the My Favorite Things Cool Cat stamp set, I stamped the cushion and sentiment using Copic-friendly Hero Arts Intense Black ink.

I colored in the cushion in two shades of blue (B32 and B34), doing some very simple blending. On a separate piece of cardstock, I stamped the cat image and colored it using W1, W3, and the colorless blender to make a virtually all white cat. I added a bit of R30 inside the ears and on the nose. Then I cut out the kitty using a Brother ScanNCut2.

Then I adhered the scalloped panel to an A2-sized piece of Recollections kraft cardstock. I backed the kitty with foam tape and adhered her onto the cushion. I adhered the card front onto an A2-sized card base and that finished today’s card.

I hope you have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping in!

Animal Cards, Encouragement Cards, Feel Good Cards, Friendship Cards

We Can Weather Any Storm

April 10, 2018June 23, 2018 SkyPaperScissors

Hello there! I know winter is digging in its heels in many parts of the US so I hope, wherever you are, you get to see a glimpse of sunshine today!

Today I’m playing with the new Rain or Shine stamp set from My Favorite Things. I’m a sucker for encouraging sentiments (and ducks!) and this set has a few great ones. I also pulled out a couple of stencils for the background, as well as some standalone dies for the clouds and sun.

I started by stamping out the girl, ducks, and water elements in Copic-friendly Hero Arts Intense Black ink onto Neenah Solar White 80# Classic Crest cardstock. I then brought out what is essentially my entire collection of Copics to color in all of the images, doing some very simple two-color blending. When I was done, I cut out all of the images using my Brother ScanNCut2.

For the background, I used another piece of Neenah Solar White. I used Tombow Mono Removable Adhesive to temporarily adhere the panel to a piece of scratch paper and then I used washi tape to hold the My Favorite Things Drifts & Hills stencil in place while I used a foam blending tool to apply a heavy layer of Salty Ocean Distress Oxide ink on the top half of the card to create a blue sky. Then, on top of the inked area, I used more washi tape to hold down the Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow stencil.

I misted water over the stencil using a mini-mister (Ranger sells these, however mine is from Tombow). My thought here was that the water would touch the paper at the open areas of the stencil and lift the Distress Oxide ink, creating lighter colored dots that would look like rain (I hoped) and not snow. I let the water sit for about 15 seconds, and then used a paper towel to wipe off the stencil and pick up any excess water.

Then I cleaned the Drifts & Hills stencil and re-arranged it over the blue side of the card and proceeded to ink up the remaining white space with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink to create the ground. The curve of the stencil didn’t line up perfectly but I was able to make some micro adjustments to match the curve of the sky.

For the clouds, I used Lawn Fawn’s Simple Puffy Clouds die set to cut out clouds of varying sizes from some scrap Neenah Solar White. The sun is a piece of yellow Recollections cardstock die cut with My Favorite Things’ Sunny Skies die.

Next I laid out all of the elements onto the background and got a sense of where I wanted to stamp the sentiment, which I stamped in Versafine Black Onyx ink. I ended up using only one of the three little ducks that I’d made.

Then, I got out the adhesives. I used Tombow Mono Liquid Glue to adhere pieces flush to the background. For the splashes, I used Zots Bling Clear Adhesive Dots because I wanted just a bit of dimension but couldn’t bring myself to try to cut tiny pieces of foam tape. And for the the clouds in front of the sun I used foam tape. I left most of the rays of the sun glue-free so that they stand up a bit from the background. To finish, I adhered the card front to an A2-sized card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel Good Cards, Friendship Cards, Just Because Cards, Love Cards

You + Me = Awesome

April 4, 2018May 21, 2018 SkyPaperScissors

Good morning, I hope you’re having a great week!

Let me start by apologizing for any duplicate blog post emails you may have received over the past couple of days. I’m still learning about this blog platform and I made a couple of mistakes that caused the extra emails. Thanks for your patience!

Today I have something a little different. I felt challenged by this Simon Says Stamp You + Me set which has a lot of linear elements and bold sentiments. I decided that I wanted to use the “You + Me = Awesome” sentiment and then somehow weave together strips to resemble a knot, or “we.”

I started with Neenah Solar White 80# Classic Crest cardstock and stamped the L-shaped strips (the stamp has three stripes) four times in Altenew inks (Rose Quartz, Puffy Heart, and Purple Wine).

I fussy cut the strips and then wove them together, using washi tape to temporarily hold everything still while I got all four pieces spaced and lined up properly.

For the background, I created a pink splatter on an A2-sized piece of Neenah Solar White. I started by smooshing my Picked Rasberry Distress Ink mini ink pad onto an acrylic block, and then I used a Pentel Aquash Water Brush to mix a bit of water into the ink and to pick up some of the color. Holding the brush over the paper, as if I was turning a key in a lock, I used a finger of my other hand to tap the middle brush and splatter ink onto the card front. By moving closer or farther from the paper, I was able to create splatter drops of varying sizes.

To finish, I adhered the “knot” to the card front and then removed the washi tape. I stamped the sentiment using Versafine Black Onyx ink and then adhered the card front to an A2-sized card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

Friendship Cards, Thank You Cards

Thank You For Helping Me Grow

March 29, 2018June 23, 2018 SkyPaperScissors

I just love the look of watercolor, don’t you? I love the soft and loose feeling of it, but I have a really hard time achieving that look. I’m a complete amateur when it comes to watercolor. So, I like big stamps which are easy to loosely paint, like this bunch of flowers from the Fleur 1 stamp set by Pinkfresh Studio.

I started by stamping the floral image with Versafine Black Onyx ink onto Canson XL watercolor paper. Versafine is watercolor-friendly, so I knew the ink wouldn’t bleed when I added water. I also added a sentiment from Hero Arts.

Then I taped down the panel to a board with painter’s tape, to prevent it from warping as I painted. Using a few colors from a small set of Windsor & Newton Cotman pan watercolors, I very loosely painted the flowers and leaves, intentionally going outside of the lines. If you’re like me, ignoring the lines is not easy! I used Alizarin Red and Purple Lake for the flowers, and Sap Green for the leaves, applying the wet watercolor directly to the dry watercolor paper. Once those were dry, I wet down the area around and among the florals and dropped in a bit of watered-down Cerulean Blue.

Once everything was dry, I removed the painter’s tape and cut down the panel using a Stitched Rectangle die from My Favorite Things. Finally, I glued the card front onto an A-2 sized card base.

The closeup photo shows just how messy it is, but I’m happy with it.

Thanks for visiting!