Pretty Kitty

I was experimenting with mixed medias this morning. Asela had given me a few tips regarding markers and pencil crayons. For this image I coloured first with markers, just colouring the image in. Next, I went back in, with the markers, and added 2 layers of shadows where I thought there ought to be shadow. Next, I added some more highlights and texture with pencil crayons. The bits of lighter colour on the cat is actually some texture for fur. My favorite part of the whole image is how the face turned out. I love the eyes. If you have this stamp, you'll know it doesn't come with eyes like that. I coloured a bit of green around the pupil, then outlined it with black, then added that glimmer with white gel pen.

I changed the photo- poor lighting today, oh well...

Supplies:

Stamps: Pink Cat Studio (cat plate #1), Dotted background

Ink: Basic Black, Taken with Teal

Paper: Pixie Pink, Taken with Teal, Chocolate Chip, copy paper

Accessories: Art markers, prismacolor pencil crayons, white gel pen

Tools: circle nestabilities

Markers & Ribbon!

So, all the copic rage has started to get to me, but I refuse to give in 100%. I saw these "Professional Graphic Artist" markers at Michaels for a fraction of the price of copics and prismacolors. I decided, with coupon in hand, why not give them a whirl. They are not bad! I could blend pretty good with them. I don't have an actual blender pen yet, but on this sample, I squiggled some green ink onto a piece of acrylic and while it was still wet, I dipped the yellow marker in it. You can see that on the turtle's body (by Pink Cat Studio, by the way). These markers aren't completely streak free, but they are good for the price. For now, you don't get to see the completed card, because it's not done. In the middle of it, the ribbon arrived! Well, most of the ribbon. Two of the colours are a little behind (grey and celery). So I've got it all cut. I figured I'd spend the evening winding them up in front of the television. I was going to contact the manufacturer tomorrow on the status of the other 2 colours, I'm sure it shouldn't be more then a week behind.

Announcing...

The opening of Pink Cat Studio Digital Scrapbooking store! For the past few months, I've been making pages with these delightful products. If you're into digi-scrapping, take a look here Pink Cat Studio . Here are a few fun pages I designed. The first one uses parts of the

Tropical Delight Kit. I used the papers and the brads from this kit for this layout. The picture is from a walk I took one weekend. There were some gorgeous lilacs, so I had to photograph them!

The next one features the Pink Diva Kitty. The page features two of my diva kitties: Gizmo and Sammi. The photo didn't totally go with the papers, so I applied a pink filter, and look at that, it goes perfectly! To see more of my creations and others on the design team, check out the online gallery: http://www.pinkcatstudio.com/DigitalGallery/.

New Toys!

I was very disappointed to come home to no crafty packages. I have several things coming from several places, so I was a little sad. My UPS shipment was held up at customs. Boo! I had forgotten about the fact that customs would've been closed Friday and Monday, so there was probably a backlog today. Here's hoping it finally arrives tomorrow. In the mean time, I picked up a few other items. I got a few of the Fiskars texture plates. They are pretty neat. I was a tad annoyed, the packaging says it contains these 2- bubbles/dots, but instead it contained snowflakes/raindrops. However, the snowflakes are pretty neat. I'd never used this tool before, so it took a few tries for me to get it right. I found that I needed to actually tape down the piece of paper. I used masking tape, after de-stickifying it a bit more. I figured with the downward pressure from the embossing, the masking tape would stick too much. In case you're wondering how, just touch the sticky side against your hands. The natural oils in your skin do a good job at taking away some of the sticky. I also finally figured out the right motion, it says circular motion, I found that very small, hard motions worked best.

The other item I picked up today.... was the cropodile. This is one of those items that I had heard tons of crafters rave about, but I didn't really know. I had never tried it. Oh my goodness. It's amazing. Just the silent eyelet setting alone is worth the money. I had these large flower eyelets from Stampin' Up! and I could not get them to set nicely without severely warping the front and/or back. Well, now I can finally use these! I love it!! It's so nice not to have to hammer, that always left my hands kind of tingly. I can see why eyelets made a bit of a come-back. They are as easy to use as brads, with the right tool!

Here's my card. I used a Pink Cat Studio stamp, the blossoms texture plate, and my retired SU! eyelets.

Retro Cat

One of my other favorite stamp companies is Pink Cat Studios. The stamps are very fun and cute! I really like the cat sets. This one, the retro kitty, is especially fun to colour. I chose the classic 50s colours, even gave the cat a sparkly pair of glasses. This card all started however when I was browsing Jeanne's blog (found here ). She inspired me to try and make my own oval shadow stamps. I too, have the bag of rubber scraps. It's really old stuff too, I don't keep the new ones, unless there's a big size. Anyway, so since it's aged rubber, haha (sounds like fine wine or something), the rubber part peels away from the sticky foam stuff really nicely. It didn't even have any grody sticky residue. Now, this rubber is thin enough to fit into SU! larger stamps. I could easily cut through the rubber with my large and small oval punches! Woot! I had some EZMount lying around, so look at that, 2 fantastical shadow stamps that cost virtually nothing. I love it! The paper on the card is from one of Costco's paper packs (#3, I believe).

Can you handle this Gel....Card

Yeah, bad title, I know, but I couldn't help it. I've been in the mood to make a gel card for quite some time. This seahorse stamp by Pink Cat Studio worked nicely with the size of bag I wanted to use. It's a pretty simple card as far as layout goes, but when you make gel cards with the focal point so big, there's not really a need to add loads of layers or accessories.