Good News about Art Neko

Hi everyone!  I know I promised to share another sneak peek of card with brand new Art Neko stamps today, but guess what?  The Art Neko store is moving to a brand new website and it is offline for at least a few weeks while they get that all fixed up.  So please don't freak out if you try to go shopping there or check out the Art Neko blog and you get error messages.  We will be back with lots of great artwork and some fun giveaways with prizes!

I'll let you know when the store and blog are back up and running.  In the meantime, here's some of my past Art Neko artwork to feast your eyes on.  :-)

Vintage Skeleton Leaves - Thinking of You

Hi everyone!  Are you enjoying your weekend?  I'm popping in to share a bunch of brand new stamps from Art Neko.  See those skeleton leaves?  The sentiment?  The gorgeous frame?  Those are all brand new stamps, and they are here just in time for all our fall projects.  Aren't those leaves GORGEOUS??  I'm in love!!!

I started by stamping the leaves with a taupe ink onto white cardstock.  I cut these out and basically drooled over them for a few hours.  LOL  Honestly!  Then I pulled out some of the other brand new fall-themed stamps and formulated an idea to showcase the gorgeous leaves.  I stamped the ornate frame with the same taupe ink and cut that out.  The leaves were arranged on the side of the frame, and then I stamped the sentiment, cut it out, and placed it over the leaves inside the frame.  

I loved the taupe and white color combo, so I just added some taupe lace and placed the frame with the leaves and sentiment right over the lace.  I kept my background white so it would show off the gorgeous leaves.  Here are the links to the brand new stamps that I used:

Skeleton Leaves

Ornate Frame

Thinking of You sentiment

There were so many ideas going around in my head for these leaves, and I have another card that I can't wait to show you.  Come on back on Wednesday and I'll share a totally different card using the same skeleton leaves.  Enjoy your weekend!!

Jellyfish Shadowbox Card

Hi everyone!  I made this fun Jellyfish Shadowbox Card to share with you today along with a fun little sand-filled necklace.

Have you ever seen a Shadowbox Card?  It lays flat so you can mail it, but when you push the sides in, it expands the middle so it becomes a shadowbox.  There is a great tutorial on SCS here if you’d like to try making one.  The picture below shows a different angle on the card – you can see the “box” part better.

I started this card by stamping the beautiful jellyfish image with Faded Jeans Distress Oxide ink.  This jellyfish stamp is from Art Neko's P041 Japanese Fishing Scenes sheet.  I cut the paper down so it would fit inside the blue shadowbox.  Once the shadowbox card was assembled, I had a better idea of where to place the sentiment.

I stamped the kanji “Friend” with the same Faded Jeans Distress Oxide ink and trimmed it down.  This kanji stamp is from Art Neko's A337 Friendship, Get Well, and Thank You sheet.  With the shadowbox standing up, I carefully placed the kanji inside right on top of the stamped jellyfish.

When i was shopping for the ocean and mermaid stamps, I also found these adorable little glass vials with cork stoppers in the Art Neko store.  I filled one with the Galveston beach sand and a few of the tiny little seashells available from Art Neko.  After I secured the cork in the top, I wrapped some twine around the vial and tied it with a large loop.  This will be a cute little necklace to give to the friend who receives this card.

This is my last summer-themed project for this year.  I am already working on some fun new fall cards using brand new stamps that you will soon see in the Art Neko store!  Come on back this weekend for a fun sneak peek!!

CAS443 Birthday Bear

Hi friends!  This week's CAS challenge is to create a sweet birthday card that will make you say "awwwww........."  I pulled out my Baby Bear stamp that I bought from Stampin Up last year and never inked up.  Now I'm wondering why I waited so long!  LOL

This is a 3 step stamp, so I used three different colors of blue on this little guy.  I stamped the 1st layer (solid) with Soft Sky, then the second layer with Lost Lagoon.  The final layer was stamped with Tranquil Tide which is more of a blue-y green color.  This is a great color combo for monochromatic cards.  :-)

I added some Soft Sky Classic Weave ribbon and the birthday sentiment (from SU's Special Reason set) to this clean and simple card.  If you want to make this even simpler, you can always leave the ribbon off.  

Do you want to play in this week's CAS challenge?  Upload your card to SCS today and share with us!  Make sure you use keyword CAS443 when you upload your card to the SCS gallery.  

I hope you have a GREAT week!

Indigo Dragonfly Love

Howdy, y'all!  I am playing along with a challenge with my UBlue teammates where we are creating 15 cards in 15 days(#team15in15).  This is my card for today (#6) and I thought I'd share it here on my blog with y'all.  You can see the first five cards on my Facebook page.

I had a vague idea of stamping a wood background and putting a dragonfly on it, but as I was working, it morphed into this.  I have to say, I am in LOVE.  I stamped the Hardwood background with Island Indigo ink and then I sponged the same color around the edges.  The ferns were stamped with Tranquil Tide ink and I did some second-generation stamping for those faded ferns.  The dragonfly was stamped with Island Indigo ink and then cut out with the matching die.  Finally, I stamped the sentiment with Island Indigo ink and cut it out.  

I keep looking at this and envisioning this in all kinds of different colors.  I would love to have an entire rainbow of cards like this in my stash.  It would be fun to send this out to all my friends.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Stamps (all Stampin Up) - Hardwood, Dragonfly Dreams, Butterfly Basics (fern), Wood Words (sentiment)

Ink - Island Indigo, Tranquil Tide

Paper - white, Island Indigo

CAS442 Healing Thoughts

Kia has a wonderfully interesting CAS challenge for us this week - CAS442.  She wants us to go monochromatic with a little twist.  Basically, your design should be mostly black and white, except for a pop of color on just one element.  So if you had flowers and leaves stamped in black, you would only color the flowers or the leaves, not both.  Or you could go really bold and just color one flower, and leave all the rest of the flowers and leaves alone.  

I decided to try something a little different.  I printed this gorgeous digi from Power Poppy called Graceful Still Life onto some Xpress It Copic paper. Instead of coloring the flowers or the leaves, I decided to color those little balls in the center of the flowers.  I used a combo of yellow and green Copic markers to color in those balls (stamens??).  

I also used a couple of gray Copic markers to go inside and around the flowers and branches.  I've become more attentive with my coloring and light sources, and it's been an interesting journey to finally be able to lay down my shadows.  Can you see the shadows I was attempting to color? I went very subtle with the shadowing because I didn't want to overwhelm the delicate yellow/green balls.  

To finish off my card, I stamped the healing thoughts sentiment from Power Poppy's Nice Things to Say clear stamp set with Versamark and embossed it with white embossing powder.  Because I've used both a digi and a clear stamp set on this card, it qualifies for entry into this month's Mix and Match challenge over on the Power Poppy blog. 

Check out the CAS challenge this week and play along with us.  If you have Power Poppy stamps, check out their challenges over on their blog as well!  Have a great week!!

Feel Better Azaleas

I'm back with another Power Poppy creation.  They have a fun challenge this month where they are asking us to mix and match their stamps on our creations.  On my other two cards from Friday and Saturday, I mixed a digital stamp with a regular clear stamp.  On this card today, I'm mixing images from two different clear stamp sets.  

I stamped the vase of flowers from the Azalea set and colored it with Copic markers.  This was cut out with an oval die and layered with a lacy scallop oval cut from green cardstock.  The sentiment, from Power Poppy's Daffodils set, was stamped in black ink, cut with scissors, and adhered below the vase of flowers.  

Have you checked out the Mix and Match challenge over on the Power Poppy blog?  Pull out your Power Poppy stamps and play along with us this month!