You Make Me Feel Existentially Dizzy Card

So, I'm pretty excited about this card! I came up with this (minorly sentimental, majorly off-kilter) sentiment when I was walking in the rain a few weeks ago, actually. I love thunderstorms, and I was trying to come up with something that described my exhilaration. And then a few days ago, an idea for a card popped into my head! Ta-Da! Low on products, high on impact, what is up?! 

 I used a stipple brush, something like this to put the paint on, and now looking back at the picture, I see you can really tell near the bottom of the circle where the paint pattern gets a little repetitive, as if I had used the clone tool in photoshop really poorly.  Gah, note to self: turn the stipple brush, Antonia, turn it!

Anyway, I started out with a basic card base, and just started stippling blue and black acrylic paint onto the card directly. It bowed out a little so I heated it with my heat gun.

You can really see the effect the stippling motion has on the paint here: it brings a sort of rough texture to the card, which I really liked the look of.

I just put some paint on a post-it (for easy clean up) and mixed light blue and black together to create a deep blue and put that on the card in a rough circle. After I filled the circling in with a straight up and down stippling motion, I added some black paint without mixing to give the paint a varied sort of sky-gradient. I just love how it turned out!

Then I hand-lettered the sentiment, taking care to keep everything centered, while embracing a sort of free-er look by not drawing any guidelines ahead of time! I also made a mistake, which you can see in the picture above a little. I accidentally wrote "YOU" instead of "MAKE," but I wiped it off with a baby wipe before it got too dry.

Then, once the letters were dried, I added in stars and dots. Done.

SUPPLIES
Stipple Brush
Black Acrylic Paint
Light Blue Folk Art Acrylic Paint
Gold Sakura Gelly Roll Pen
White Sakura Gelly Roll Pen
Recollections Value Pack Cardstock Paper in Kraft 

Heat Gun

Bone folder

Provocraft Paper Trimmer

(Explicit) Third Badass Card

So this is the last card in my series of 3 badass cards. This is the fastest, and, I think, has the coolest lettering.

I wanted to do this rather explicit card mostly because I thought it'd be fun! Like the concept of "badass" cards that I've been running with the last several days, this card promotes a sense of irreverence, for that best friend who really is totally BA. And I also wanted to write this out because there is a certain grandeur about cursing. It's rare to see it just one the shelves of your Hallmark card section (although can you blame Hallmark? Overprotective mothers would throw a fit!) But I definitely think there is something about saying these phrases that are rather taboo (and yet aren't hurting anyone, especially in this context.) It feels freeing, and therefore recursively self-reinforcing of the message. What I'm saying is, you feel like a badass, just saying the word badass because it's taboo. Doubly so for motherfucking badass.

Also, I think this is a good sentiment because it's a tiny bit vague and therefore the intent of the card can be whatever it needs to be: just saying hi, a congrats card, a happy birthday card, you name it.

This card is embossed with embossing powder, and melted, giving it that really nice 3D texture. I sketched out the words ahead of time with a mechanical pencil, lightly. Then I traced the pencil with a Zig 2-way Embossing Pen. I had to do it in sections, because otherwise the ink from the embossing pen would dry out and the embossing powder wouldn't stick to it. (I wrote out, "motherfucking" first, covered it in powder, and then wrote out, "badass," and covered it with powder.) Then I hit it with a heat gun, and that's all there is too it.

You can see in the pictures how there is a little bit of embossing powder that stuck to the page. I could have gotten rid of stuff like that by wiping down the page with a powder tool or embossing buddy or something, but on this card especially, I kind of like it. I think it brings a little interest to an otherwise very simple card.

I was saving this for a while, because I couldn't decide if I should try to put something else on the card, but as of yet, nothing's occurred to me, so for the foreseeable future at least, there are no embellishments on the card. I guess that means it'd be a good card to mail, haha!

Since this is such a simple card, expect another card soon, today or tomorrow!

Supplies
Zig 2-way Embossing Pen (I used the purple pen)
Gold Embossing Powder
Recollections Value Pack Cardstock Paper in Kraft 
Heat Gun

Bone folder

Provocraft Paper Trimmer

Second Badass Card

So, after I made the last card I posted here, (this one), I was still feeling like I hadn't achieved my goal. I was trying to create a card that spoke to me, personally, and would be the kind of thing that my best friend would buy for me...(or vice versa!)

I had the labeling tape out on my desk from the previous card, and suddenly a super simple design occurred to me, a flash of inspiration!

I used my T-square ruler to measure out the center of the card, aligned my Martha Stewart Crafts Circle Cutter to the center of the circle, and instead of cutting a circle, used it to create a perfectly centered circle. Unfortunately, that circle cutter is extremely sensitive to angles, so the circle came out a tiny bit lopsided. So I decided to fix the situation by drawing several circles, so visually it would look like all of the circles were fine, just not exactly centered.

And from there it was a walk in the park. Create labels. Cut at appropriate length. Adhere.

I really really really love how this one turned out. It probably took 3 minutes to make, but it  looks fantastic. Bold, modern, clean and simple. Sooo coool.

And I know this seems like a bizarrely specific and altogether odd card to make. But, I kind of see it as a version of those "Thinking of You" cards or "Sending Love" or "Just Because" cards. I think people ought to give more cards to people on days that aren't Christmas or their birthday, and this seems like the perfect thing to give someone on a Wednesday, just because. 

Also, check it out! I finally have a pen that I didn't take from a Realty agency, so I can link to the actual pen I used!

SUPPLIES

Pilot BeGreen Precise V5 Roll Ball Pen

Martha Stewart Crafts Simple Circle Cutter

DYMO Label Buddy Embossing labelmaker

T-square Ruler

Bone folder

Provocraft Paper Trimmer

German Happy Birthday Card

So early next week it's my grandmother's birthday! My mom usually asks me a week ahead of time to make a card really quickly and send something, and usually, because she waited so long to ask, I don't make it in time. But this year, I preempted her, and brought it to a family gathering so we could all sign it, even though I live five hours away from home.

Also, important note: my grandmother lives in Germany. So I wrote "Happy Birthday" in German, instead of English.

Because I don't have many stamps that say "Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag," (read: I own ZERO stamps that say that), I decided to write it out by hand. I drew horizontal lines, and prewrote it on scratch paper to find the middle of the writing (and still ended up a little off center, grrr!)

But I don't use the Martha Stewart Peg Stamp Starter Kit stamps very often, and I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to bring a little class to the one-layer stamping.

 I actually thought this could be only a one layer card, but the bright teal of the marker really brings out the printed quality of the black and white so nicely, that I added that in.

I did the stripes by masking off the center writing and stamping with sticky notes, and then very carefully inking up the rectangle stamp from the American Crafts "Thanks" set so that I avoided the dotted line part of the stamp. Then I stamped each line individually! Gah! (I really need to get some background stamps.) As you can tell, I still got some of the dotted line stamped, but I liked the printed quality. It makes it look like an old school printed piece.



Materials:
Recollections Value Pack Cardstock Paper in Kraft
Recollections Value Pack Cardstock Paper in Neutral
Martha Stewart Art & Craft Marker in
Black Pen
Martha Stewart Peg Stamp Starter Kit
American Crafts Thanks Stamp Set
T-square ruler
Tombow Mono Adhesive
Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue
Tsukineko Versafine in Onyx Black
Bone Folder
Provocraft Paper Trimmer

Triangle "Thanks" Card

Hey, everyone! 

Today I'm bringing you the triangles en masse!

Sometimes, fads come and go fairly quickly, but they’re really fun to play with. If you want to keep your budget low, and your stash small, duplicate these patterns by using what you do have a lot of: paper. And your favorite stamps can even create patterns for you.

So this week, I'm doing triangles, a trend I'm seeing quite often!

I’ve been living with less and less pattern paper, the more years I live at college, and that’s never stopped awesome cards. But I still want to play with today’s trends. This card was inspired partially by bold prints in clothes like this, but also there's a triangle die-cut that was released  recently by Simon Says Stamp that I saw all over Wednesday's blog hop that I have been dying to copy. Hence this card!

I originally had glued all of these triangles to my card base and stamped a tiny "thank you" next to it, but then the stamp didn't transfer, I tried to stamp twice, and was off, and was forced to rethink the whole thing. But I like the circles, I think it made the whole thing a little cooler, a little more off-kilter. In my next post, I'll share a card that was inspired by the salvaged remains of the card, even though I ended up actually not using any of the rest of the card!

Supplies:
Recollections Value Pack Cardstock Neutrals (Cream and Gray)
Colorbök Cool Earth Toness & Warm EarthTones (Orange and Green Shapes)
Cutter Bee Scissors
Black Pen
Martha Stewart Simple Circle Cutter
American Crafts Thanks 
Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink in Charcoal
Tombow Mono Adhesive Dispenser
Bone folder

Collage Card: Joy is Yours

Hey guys!

Today I'm bringing you a card I made this weekend! I wasn't actually planning on making this card so soon (I've got a list of trends I want to cover soon here) but then this weekend, I was in my dorm room, and I was just really in the mood for some crafting

I 'm really into this collaging look right now!

 So this week, I've combined two really hot trends in cardmaking right now: collaging and chalkboards.

I really dug deep into my stash of randomness to pull out some of the stuff I have in here. Some of these elements are created with regular stamps and scrapbooking paper, but I pulled a feather out of my stash that I got from a jewelry making class I took about a year ago. I always planned on turning it into an earring or something, but I'm pretty happy with how this worked out. 

The other unusual element here is that sort of kraft-colored strip of paper running underneath the tag. That's actually an unused twist-tie, like the kind you get at grocery stores. A while ago, I stashed that away, thinking it would look really cool.

So today I'm going to talk about Collaging, but check back tomorrow for a explanation for how I created the faux chalkboard look! 

Collaging

This is crazy trending right now. For example Kristina Werner just did a card in her latest post with this sort of look.

And Emily Branch, of Emily Branch Designs does this all the time in her cards too:

Check this card out at her website.

You'll notice that many of these designs often use a lot of horizontal elements. Because cards are such a small canvas to be working on, stacking and overlapping strips of elements makes the collage easier to handle so it doesn't have to take over the entire cardfront.

Then, to break up the visual monotony of a lot of stripes, you can place individual, smaller elements on top of the strips of paper or ribbon.

I think another really good example of accenting stripes with smaller elements to create a collage is Emily's card that she made for a Spread the Love color scheme challenge.

Check out Emily's post here.

Oh, I just love collages. I know my obsession is NOT over yet!

Don't forget to keep an eye out for my explanation of the chalkboard effect I did!

Antonia

Supplies


Provocraft Trimmer
Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue
Tombow Adhesive Runner
EK Success CutterBee Scissors
Paper: Colorbök Cool Earth Tones paper (Teal & Dark Gray); Recollections Kraft, Cream & Gray, 
Found Objects: Feather, Twist Tie
Stamp Sets: Hero Arts Clear Design: Everyday Sayings, TPC Studio Hot Air Balloon Collage, American Crafts Stamp Collection: Thanks, Recollections stamp set watches and keys
Punches:Single Hole Punch (1/4 inch), Single Hole Punch (1/8 inch), Marvy Uchida 3/4 inch punch, EK Success Small Butterfly Punch
Recollections Faux Pearl Stickers
Inks: VersaMark, Versafine in Onyx Black, Distress Ink in tea dye, and Colorbox Chalk ink in Charcoal and Colorbox Pigment Ink in Frost White
Inksentials Foam Blending Tool & a baby wipe 

Transistor Radio Card

Today’s card was inspired by a transistor radio.

I was looking at an iPod Touch case, and it occurred to me that I could use it to create a card from. (I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need an iPod, but usually fail miserably and spend a lot of time looking at the Apple website and checking out iPod accessories.)

Anyway, I saw this iPod case, which got me thinking about cards…

Wouldn't that be a cool iPod?
And I love the texture on it!
This picture is from RedBubble.

I did some quick google searches and found some pictures of transistor radios I liked. I particularly liked ones with a lot of horizontal lines going across them—I think that translates really well into card-making.

This Slovakian page has some really nice pictures. I ended up using this picture to get some fun details onto my card.

This close up is a really useful high definition shot
so it's easy to read all of the lettering and numbering on there.
picture from Radio Historia

And the other big element of this card was hand-lettering. I’m completely obsessed with it, and have been, ever since Kristina Werner made a card with hand lettering on it. Check that out here: 

Kristina did all of that by hand! Check out that blog post here.

Kristina's video on that card is just phenomenal, and it clearly explains how to thicken lines of handwriting on cards so that the lettering looks really cool. 

Check out her video on it below!

So I took what I learned from that video and did some nice hand-lettering around those "buttons" on the speaker of the radio. Check that out below.

The top button says "tuning," and
 the bottom button says, "volume."

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but it's also pretty tiny in real life! I also did the same lettering style on the band right underneath the tuner to write out the city names.

Supply List:

Recollections Cardstock (Kraft, Tan & Cream) from Michaels

Colorbox Chalk Ink in Charcoal

Random black pen on my desk

Gray Stabilo Pen

Martha Stewart Crafts Marker (blue)

Tiny Hole Punch (probably vintage) I found at a garage sale

Hole Punch
Paper Cutter (I got mine from Hobby Lobby)
Blue Textured Paper
Paper Trimmer
Bone Folder
Tombow