Bloodless Halloween

I listed a last minute Halloween swap: Bloodless Halloween just because I desperately wanted to carve these images.  I found them on a blog called Uncle Ernie's Creature Ink.  The artwork is by Ernie Kwiat.  

I colored this image in with Tim Holz distress markers and mounted it on a mustard colored patterned paper.  After that I painted it with Ranger distress paint  in clear rock candy and finally I used mini round blending tool to blend in some black soot distress ink over the outer edges of the card.  

All in all, I was happy with how this card turned out.  I enjoyed making it so much that I made several extras and sent five copies out in Marjorie's Potpourri for October. I can't wait to see my suprise cards from that tracker!  I really love the MP trades because they are like the box of chocolates in Forest Gump. You never know what you are going to get!  Often times I get cards from swaps I wanted to join, but, was not able to so it can be a fun suprise to get those cards in this monthly swap.

Spotlight On Badegg

Badegg created a really ingenious card for a Recycled Art swap.  When I first saw it I sat back and had a good laugh.  Two playing cards were glued together and a circle was cut out in the middle where the King's tummy would be.  A trio of hand carved eggs was then inserted between transparent sheets of paper and glued together.  You can even shake the card and watch the eggs jostle about in there.  The effect gives you the idea that the King wished he did not have eggs for breakfast!  

Badegg is a really cool individual.  She is covered in tattoos and has a particularly striking half sleeve of her cat and the cats purple castle on her arm.  She is also fluent in sign language (seriously how cool is that?!?) and loves all kinds of eggs from the pickled variety to fried.  

She was a rebellious kid which is where the fun trail name came from.  Many of her cards are tied in with the trail name which I really like.  It's kind of like having a trademark.  

I can't wait to see more fun cards from this LTC maker! 

Harry Potter and a Hot Girl

For my Harry Potter cards I wanted to do something different.  There have been so many Harry Potter swaps and I was afraid my image may have been done before in a more traditional manner.  

I broke the alcohol inks out and decided to make this showdown between Harry and Valdemort appear like it occurred in the middle of a color run.  I used three colors of inks to make the background for this image and I also used distress inks in Orange Marmalade to make the orange mat layer.  Plain black paper was used for the outer frame and lastly I painted the entire card in Ranger Distress Crackle Paint in hard rock candy to give it a more crackly effect.  I was pretty happy with how these cards turned out and can't wait to see the rest of the cards from this swap!

A few friends talked me into signing up for the Babes tracker at the last minute, so I did not have a lot of time to pull this card together.  I needed an easy peasey carve so I could spent more time working on the card itself.  

I decided to customize my paper for this card by using distress paint in black soot for the outer frame.  The inner frame was made using salty ocean distress ink.  I used a blending tool to make the blue background and then stamped a polka dot rubber stamp on top of that in the same color to create a cool handmade background to highlight my hand carved stamp.

Next, I stamped my babe using versa fine ink and colored her dress and tattoo with a Prisma marker.  I gave her some shimmery eye shadow using a clear stardust gelly roll pen and added a fabric flower to her hair.  

For the final touch I carved the words "Hey Daddy-O!" and stamped them on some red paper, then layered them on top of the card.  

With the final touches done, my babe was ready to mail out and I was happy to check this card off of my to do list.  Producing a card in one week can be very stressful!  

Spotlight on Team Awesome Pants

Team Awesome Pants created this card for an Idioms swap. The card is entitled "Mum's The Word".  I was immediately drawn to this card for two reasons.  First, I absolutely love stamps with a lot of negative space (meaning the part of the stamp that takes ink, or the dark part).  Even simple stamps can be very striking when they have a lot of negative space and they have the ability to make very impactful images that stick with you.

The other thing I really love about this card is the layers of paper which were very carefully picked by TAP.  She spent eons in the craft store holding up sheet after sheet of paper in all sorts of combinations before she settled on this trio.  Adding layers to frame your stamped image is truly one of the easiest yet, most striking things you can do to really make an image pop.  

The back of this card has been "finished" as well.  I'm a real sucker for cards that have a finished back.  A finished back can include anything from extra stamped images, some extra color or even an extra layer of paper.  I think it really helps to make a card extra special when the card maker takes a little bit of time to tie the back if the card in with the front.  In this case TAP added an extra layer of paper to the back using the patterned papet from the front of the card. She also hand wrote her trail name, card name, box number and date between the lines to give the card a finished look.  

I think this card is a perfect example of how to compose a great card with a simple yet striking stamp, perfectly matched paper and a well done back.  Great job Team Awesome Pants!