Corpse Bride LTC

I absolutely love Halloween.  It is easily my most favorite day of the year, so I was so excited when a last minute spot opened up in a Halloween swap. I did not have much time to pick a subject, carve and create a card so I decided to go with a Corpse Bride theme.  I am a huge Tim Burton fan and never get tired of carving his work.  

For this card I made a tripple layered mat and added a fourth layer of the cut out stamped image.  For the mat I used coordinating paper from a paper book.  I know those $20 books look so expensive ; but, if you use a coupon you can buy them for a decent price and to be honest the paper is usually a lot nice than the loose card stock. Also the paper almosr always coordinates well with other sheets in the book, so that helps take the guess work out of things.  

I colored parts of the stamp with Prisma, Marvey and Distress markers.  It took forever and reminded me how much I hate coloring.  Finally I cut heart shapes out with my Cricut and painted them with Black Soot Crackle paint.  Even though the card took forever to make, I wouldn't change a thing.  I'm hoping next year to get in a swap much earlier and go with a more intricate carve. Hard 

Spotlight on The Boxing B's

This is one of the first cards I received in a small individual trade swap that I organized to get my feet wet again with making and trading cards.  I instantly loved this card when I saw it.  I love sparkly things and I especially love the monochromatic look when it is done well.

    I have passed over the sparkle cardstock at the craft stores so many times thinking there is NO WAY I could use that stuff to make a nice card; but, this card totally proves me wrong.  

"Color Wheel: Blue Fishy" was designed by trying to use as many shades of blue as possible.  The Boxing B's were looking for colors of the ocean when deciding on the cardstock, glitter embossing powders and well matched bubble stickers.  The end result was a very streamlined look with a sparkly twist.  This design would make a great greeting card!  

Rainbow Fish

I joined this swap at the last minute after seeing S and D's card on her blog.  I really wanted a copy of that card and I was all caught up on my current swaps, so I figured I would challenge myself to carve and create a card in a week.  It turns our I work well under pressure.  My original design idea for this card was quite different; but, when I colored the image in by hand it looked more like a 70's style image rather than the more streamlined look I was going for.  In the end I settled for something entirely different.

 I almost abandoned this design idea; but, Sharkboy declared it to be the best thing he had ever seen, so I walked away from it for a bit and came back to view it with fresh eyes and only then did I realize it was pretty neat.  I had intended to add another accent stamp at the top and bottom, embossed in black;  however, I had an allergic reaction to the embossing powders, so I will be avoiding that medium for a while till I determine if any embossing is safe for me.  

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise; because, I think the additional design would have made the card too busy.  I actually really like the way this card turned out.  The orange layer was stained in Orange Marmalade distress ink. The inner two layers were created using alcohol inks. I used two colors for the water and three colors for the fish.  The stamp was stamped in archival ink.  Instead of carving an additional stamp for the back I included an image of the un-embellished stamp. It has such a different feel to it when stamped alone and I really wanted to share that since it was much closer to my original design idea.  

27- The Completed LTC

I really struggled with the design for this card.  My first concept was to do something in bright colors and include shading with paints; but, I am just beginning to learn how to shade and paint, so I was not able to make my design come to life.  I reinvented the card three more times before I settled on the final design.  I have mixed feelings about this card.  I do like the end design; but, it will always be the card that never was for me because I could not make the image in my mind translate to paper.  In the end I used water colors to paint the background and used distress inks to stamp the image.  It's kind of hard to see in the photo's; but, I cut thin strips of paper to use as a border on two sides of the image. Finally I carved Kurt Cobain's signature and embossed it in black embossing powders onto black paper.  For the back of the card I carved a stamp of six amazing artist who are considered to be part of the "27 Club".  They all died at the age of 27.  I don't know what heaven is like; but, I sure do hope these people will be there.  They all left us far too soon; yet, their music lives on and continues to inspire us in new ways.  Art never dies.  The creators may leave us; but, their artwork takes flight and continues on to such great heights. 

Spotlight On Ninjahara

I recently swapped cards with a new favorite letterboxer Ninjahara and I wanted to showcase one of my favorite LTC's made by her.  The card is from the April Fool's Quicke Stamp swap entitled "Go Directly To Jail"  When I first saw the card my mind immediately went to one of my favorite childhood games, Monopoly.  It looked just like the cards from the game except this one includesd a hand carved stamp!  

Ninjahara is a relatively new LTC maker who has been making cards since about February of 2014.  She carves with a gouge on the pink stuff and much like myself enjoys all aspects of letterboxing from hitting the trails for traditional finds to meeting new people at events to learning new techniques for card making.  

I think the thing I like best about her Monoloply card is how simple yet, striking the card is.  She picked just the right shade of orange for the paper and managed to print the words in perfect proportion to the stamp.  The compostion could not have been better!   The end result was the perfect rendition of an iconic piece of American pop culture.  Bravo to Ninjahara!