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!!

Mermaid Dreams on Oil Pastels

Hi folks!  We are in our hot days of summer here in Texas, and the temperatures are hovering around 100 every day now. I want to dive into the sea like this mermaid from Art Neko and cool off!

For this card, I was playing with some water soluble oil pastels. I scribbled some blue and green pastels onto watercolor paper, and then I dipped my fingers into water and blended the colors together. After the piece dried, I stamped this beautiful mermaid image from Art Neko's Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set (A198) directly onto the oil pastels. I had never tried stamping on oil pastels before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it worked! :-)

For the blue card base, I used Versamark to stamp the collection of seashells and starfish (also from the Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set A198) in each of the four corners. This stamp is a perfect fit for stamping onto the corners of your cards. I cut out the mermaid piece with an oval die and matted it with a matching scallop oval. This oval fits beautifully inside the stamped corner frame.

The sentiment is also from the same Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set A198. I stamped the sentiment onto white cardstock and cut it out with scissors. It is adhered with some foam tape to give the sentiment some dimension.

There are 36 stamps on this Mermaids and Ocean Life sheet A198 from Art Neko. That's a lot of stamps! This set has so many wonderful coordinating stamps all on one sheet for a great price. I love all the fish and the seashells as well as the variety of mermaids on this sheet. The "crab shack" stamp is awesome! I can't wait to use that one! Go check out the stamps at Art Neko by clicking on this link - Mermaids and Ocean Life A198.

Have a great week!

Iris Mini Altar

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful and safe day celebrating the 4th of July yesterday.  I ordered these really cool mini gatefold chipboard pieces from Art Neko's B-Muse website, and I'm sharing my Iris Mini Altar with you today. These gatefold chipboard blanks are called Mini Altars, and I paired it with an ATC iris stamp from Art Neko. The Mini Altars look like this when you order them from B-Muse:

The fun begins when you start to decorate these! I stamped some soft green paper with the branch from the A151 Japanese Floral 4 sheet from Art Neko. You can see the branch on the left and right sides of the green paper. I sponged some Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint distress inks along the edges before I adhered it to the inside of the Mini Altar.

The iris ATC stamp from the A292 Flowered ATC's sheet (Art Neko) was stamped with black ink onto some white Bristol cardstock. I colored it with Prismacolor pencils, taking the time to add the special details like the yellow areas and the pinkish hues on each flower. The ATC was cut out and adhered to the center of the Mini Altar.

On the outside of the mini altar, I stamped some soft green paper with the same iris ATC stamp from the A292 Flowered ATC's sheet and adhered them to the two front flaps. I found some purple ribbon that matched my colored flowers and I tied the mini altar closed with the ribbon.

These mini altars are a lot of fun to decorate. Grab some from the B-Muse store and select some stamps or papers from the Art Neko store and enjoy!

Cherry Blossom Woman in Oil Pastels

Hi everyone! I'm back to share this card I made using this sweet Asian woman under a cherry blossom tree from Art Neko. This image is watercolored with water soluble oil pastels. That sounds like a strange contradiction, doesn't it?

This woman under the cherry blossom tree collage is from the A411 Asian Influence Sumi-e Paintings stamp sheet at Art Neko. I stamped this with Tuxedo Black Memento ink onto white cardstock and let it dry completely. Then I scribbled a little bit of color from the oil pastels onto some of the larger areas and used a wet paintbrush to move the color around. For the smaller areas like the little ball, I touched the wet paintbrush to the end of the oil pastel stick and picked up some color from there. This was a fun experiment to see what it was like to watercolor with oil pastels.

The background is something I made while I was at a retreat last month. I was introduced to oil pastels while making this, and I fell in love. We dabbed some white gesso through a stencil onto some watercolor paper and let it dry. Then we scribbled the oil pastels all over the piece and used baby wipes to blend the colors together. Isn't that a fabulous background? Now you see why I fell in love!

I hope you've enjoyed my oil pastels experiment today. Have a wonderful week!

Chocolate Flower Squares

Hi everyone!  I'm back after a bit of a hiatus from stamping.  My puppy tore her ACL and had to have surgery, so I spent a couple weeks helping her get around during her recovery.  Then I was packing up stuff and I went to a stamping retreat which was a lot of fun.  Here is the aftermath......  LOL

Yes, my studio looks like this right now as I'm typing up this post.  I have a lot of unpacking to do, but I was able to whip up a sweet little chocolate flower card to share with you today.  This card is a cute little 3x3 notecard, and you can put together a set of these in less than 30 minutes.

I stamped the Peonies Squared from Art Neko's A281 sheet (Bold Nature Scenes) with some chocolate ink onto some vanilla cardstock.  I trimmed the stamped image out and glued it down onto a chocolate card.

It really helps to have a well-inked inkpad when inking up a solid stamp like this.  If you find that your images are coming out blotchy, try reinking your inkpad first.  You can also make sure you clean your stamp really well - sometimes there is a little residue left on the stamps from the manufacturing process.  Using a stamp positioning tool such as a MISTI is a big help when you need to re-stamp your image.

I'm going to get back to unpacking, so hopefully everything will be put away before my next Art Neko post.  Hee hee hee!  Have a great week!

Koi and Kanji Wall Hangings

Hello everyone!  Remember the gorgeous collage paper that Art Neko created based on one of my cards?  I’ve used that sakura collage paper on this trio of wall hangings to share with you.  I stamped an assortment of koi and kanji on each of the three pieces.

I started by cutting out the Spring Summer Collage Sheet with scissors.  I trimmed each one to fit onto the ATC Masonite Blanks from B-Muse.  Next, I stamped the 3 Bold Koi and the kanji on each piece with a dark blue ink.  Then I glued the stamped collage sheets down onto the ATC Masonite Blanks, being careful not to get any wrinkles or bubbles in the paper as I pressed it down.

For the hangers, I glued them on with some liquid glue to the back of each piece.  I set some heavy blocks on them and let them dry overnight.  These are ready to hang up in my studio as soon as I finish hammering some nails into the wall.  I still have 6 ATC collage pieces left from the sheet, so I’ll be making more projects with those soon.  You can stamp anything you want on these collage sheets, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the different possibilities.

Items used on my project today:

Spring Summer Collage Sheet

3 Bold Koi stamps

Assorted Japanese Kanji stamps

ATC Masonite Blanks with Wall Hangers from B-Muse

Vintage Flower Box

Hi everyone!  Today I'm sharing a handmade box that I created for Art Neko.  Art Neko actually sells several different kinds of boxes in their store, and I used this Hinged Pine Box with Magnetic Closure today.  I stained it with a vintage oak stain and let it dry, and then I stained it again for a deeper coverage.  Once it was completely dry, I rubbed some Antique Bronze gilding wax over the box and buffed it with a soft cloth.

To decorate the top of the box, I used this gorgeous floral scene from the Antique Seed Catalogs collage sheet at B-Muse.  There are TONS of gorgeous collage sheets over there - go check them out!  Seriously, they are stunning!  The best part is they are already colored, so all you have to do is cut em out and glue em down on your project.  :-)  

That's what I did with this one.  I cut out this sweet floral scene and glued it to a dark brown mat.  I then glued this piece down on my box, leaving some room on the side for a handmade flower bouquet.  I simply tied the bouquet with some linen thread and glued it down onto the box.

This will be perfect to give to my mom for her earrings and bracelets.  She loves antiques, and this will fit right in with all her vintage items.  :-)

ATC Butterfly Fairy

Hi everyone!  I am here bright and early this morning to share this fun mixed media Butterfly Fairy ATC with you today.  An ATC is an acronymn for Artist Trading Card, and they typically measure 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.  They are miniature works of art and many people like to trade them with other ATC artists.

Did you know that Art Neko recently bought the B-Muse store?  There are lots of fabulous items in the B-Muse store, such as collage sheets, ATC supplies, dominoes, and other ephemera?  I’ve used several of those B-Muse items on this ATC today.

I began working on this ATC by painting a sheet of ATC watercolor paper with some Raw Sienna Daniel Smith watercolor paint.  I love that warm brownish/orange-y/yellowish quality of this color.  While that was drying, I cut out these fabulous wings from the Fantasy Wings collage sheet from B-Muse.  The colors on these particular wings coordinate beautifully with my painted background.

This collage sheet was printed on Premium Laser Paper, but you have so many options with the collage sheets from B-Muse.  You can order them printed on canvas, vellum, fabric paper, transparencies, and laser paper.  The canvas collage sheets are gorgeous – they look and feel just like a real painting!

Once my watercolored piece was dry, I adhered it to an ATC Chipboard blank (pictured above).  This provides a wonderful sturdy backing for my painted watercolor background.  I sponged the edges with some Brushed Corduroy distress ink for that aged look.

My next step was to get my fairy ready.  I stamped the Dreaming Fairy from the A145 Fairies and Seasons sheet with Rich Cocoa Memento ink onto some white cardstock.  After I colored her with Copic markers, I cut her out, making sure I cut the stamped wings off.  Once I determined the placement of the collage wings and the fairy, I glued them down onto the prepared ATC.  I added the stamped sentiment on the side – it says “Be yourself.”  This sentiment is also from the A145 Fairies and Seasons sheet.

I loved creating my own custom fairy by pairing a stamped figurine with the wings from the collage sheet.  I have plenty of other wings left on the collage sheet, so I can make all kinds of fairies and other winged creatures.

Check out all the great items in the B-Muse shop and jump-start your creativity.  The collage sheets are gorgeous, and I love the ATC supplies (both the watercolor sheets and the chipboard blanks).  I have a few other supplies from B-Muse that I’m playing with, and I’ll share those with you soon.

Springtime Flowers and EXCITING NEWS!!!

Hi friends!  I'm back with another watercolored Art Neko card today.  It got up to 85 degrees on Saturday, so it definitely feels like springtime around here.  

I pulled out the Spring in Paris (A407) stamp sheet and stamped the beautiful flowers randomly around the edges of my hot press watercolor paper with Versamark ink.  I covered that with white embossing powder and melted the powder with my heat tool.  I had just enough space in the middle for that beautiful sentiment (also from the Spring in Paris set), so I stamped that with Versamark ink and embossed it with white embossing powder.

Next, I pulled out a couple of blue colors of Daniel Smith watercolor paint.  I watered the paint down to make a nice watercolor wash and I painted that over my paper, carefully avoiding the flowers.  I let this dry for about an hour, and then I went back over with another wash of blue paint.  I set this aside to dry completely.  Then I pulled out my Zig Clean Color markers and watercolored the flowers and the stems.  Those bright pink flowers just pop against that blue background.

Once the paper was completely dry, I burnished the white embossing with a tissue to remove any leftover paint.  I also sponged the edges with a blue dye ink before adhering this piece to a white card base.

I had so much fun painting this card, I sent a sneak peek of this to Annette at Art Neko.  She liked this so much, she turned my card into an ATC Collage Sheet!!!!!!!!  How exciting is that????  You can see the Spring Summer Collage Sheet HERE in the Art Neko store.  I love how she edited my card to remove the sentiment and put those watercolor blue blocks all over.  It has such a modern, artsy vibe to it!

I have some of these collage sheets on their way to me in the mail, and I can't wait to play with these!  All you have to do is cut these apart and use them on your projects just like regular patterned paper.  If you are an ATC trader, you can use these as backgrounds on your ATCs.  You can stamp the centers with a sentiment, add more flowers, add birds or butterflies, add a die cut, whatever you want to do.  There are so many possibilities!!  Go order your Spring Summer Collage Sheet today along with the beautiful Spring in Paris stamp sheet and have fun making some gorgeous art.  :-)

Chocolate Tulip - two ways

Hi everyone!  This week's CAS417 challenge is "chocolate."  We can use the colors of chocolate, images of chocolate, or even make things like chocolate treat holders for this challenge.  I decided to try my hand at pencil coloring.

I stamped this gorgeous tulip from Art Neko with some kraft ink onto kraft paper and then colored it with Polychromos pencils.  I only used three colors of pencils: a dark brown, a medium brown, and then a pale gray/brown color.  These represent dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate.  :-)  I then glued the tulip piece onto a dark chocolate card base.  Three chocolate pearls were added to the lower left corner and I also added some thin strips of kraft cardstock to ground my image.

I added some ribbon to the top of the card as you can see in the picture below.  Then I couldn't decide if I liked it better with the ribbon or without, so I am posting both pictures for you to see.  Which one do you like better?

Valentine Hearts in Watercolor

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!!!!!  I'm sharing this Valentine card with all of you today.  This sweet double heart stamp and the sentiment are from Art Neko's A405 Valentine and Love Stamps sheet.  I watercolored them with Daniel Smith's Pyrrol Red paint.  Yup, I just used the one color of paint.  The variation in color is achieved by adding more or less water to the paint.  Once the piece was dry, I filled in the alternating stripes in the corners with a black Sharpie marker.  I also added some white buttons tied with baker's twine before I affixed the sentiment.

I cut out a piece of white cardstock and put it through an embossing folder that had some vertical stripes.  Since I angled my paper for the diagonal stripes, I had to run the paper through twice to emboss more stripes on the other half of the paper.  After I matted this with a piece of black cardstock, I glued this down to a red card base.  I cut out my watercolored hearts and adhered them to my white embossed panel.

I had fun experimenting with just one color of watercolor paint on this card.  Come on back next week for another fun experiment with watercoloring!  Have a wonderful Valentine's Day today!

Dabbed Shimmers Happiness

Hi everyone!  I'm back with another Art Neko post today, and this one is so sparkly and shimmery.  I had used the Dabbed Shimmers technique for another project, and these strips are the leftovers from that project.  I couldn't bear to throw them away, so I put them all together and turned them into a fun background for this card.

The Dabbed Shimmers technique is from Technique Junkies, and it's a fun and easy technique.  Just mix some distress reinkers with iridescent medium and then dab it onto your cardstock with a sponge.  I used Shaded Lilac and Peacock Feathers distress inks for these shimmery strips.  No two pieces ever come out the same, so it's fun to see what you end up with.

I stamped the butterfly and the kanji circle (from Art Neko's A407 Spring in Paris sheet) with Shaded Lilac distress ink and then cut them out with scissors.  I affixed them to my card with foam tape so they have that extra dimension.

Have you seen the gorgeous stamps on the Spring in Paris sheet?  I swooooooon every time I look at them.  That Paris collage stamp is soooooo beautiful!  I can't wait to ink that one up!

Purple Polychromos Flowers

Hi everyone!  I'm back with an Art Neko card to share with y'all today.  A friend hurt her back last week, so I popped this in the mail to send her a virtual hug.

I stamped this gorgeous framed flowers stamp from Art Neko (A408 Geishas and Framed Flowers sheet) with some gray ink onto white cardstock.  I wanted a softer look, and stamping it with gray ink instead of black is perfect.  The image was then colored with Polychromos pencils.  If you look closely, you may be able to see that I colored the background with a soft yellow pencil.  It's a nice little contrast to the purples.

Once I was finished with my coloring, I filled in the center of the flower on the left with some White Blizzard Glitter Drops from Nuvo.  I love that little glittery touch.  That makes this card perfect for this week's CAS413 challenge, which happens to be all about glitter.  Some Lilac twine wrapped around the top and tied into a bow is the final accent on this clean and simple card.

Check out the gorgeous images on this A408 Geishas and Framed Flowers sheet from Art Neko.  Those flowers are beautiful, and the geisha images are stunning.  I really like the sentiments and I'm looking forward to using them soon.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Trio of Hearts Valentine

Hi everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  I'm sharing this sweet CAS Valentine card with y'all today.  I stamped this cute little heart from Art Neko's A405 Valentine and Love Stamps sheet with a sugarplum ink and cut it out with a square die.  I stamped this heart two more times so I could have three of them on my card.  Look inside those hearts.  They have tiny little hearts inside them!  How cute is that??  

I cut out three larger squares from white cardstock and adhered the hearts to the white layers with some foam tape.  I carefully arranged them in a row onto my card and glued them down.  Then I stamped the sentiment - from the same A405 Valentine and Love Stamps sheet - with sugarplum ink below the row of hearts.

This is a fun and easy card to make.  Just think about all the different color possibilities!  You could stamp in blue or green or even brown to make this a masculine card to give to your husband.  You could stamp with a fun purple or orange to give these to your kids.  You could even make each of the hearts a different color and make something really original!  :-)

Check out all the Valentine stamps in the Art Neko store.  I think you'll fall in love with their stamps just like I did!

Love You Always

Hi everyone!  Are you ready for some Valentine cards??  LOL  I have several Valentine cards ready, and I'm sharing this one with you today.  This one can actually be used as a Valentine card or an anniversary card.

I stamped this floral frame from Art Neko onto some white cardstock.  You can position the flowers on any side.  The most common way to use this frame is to have the flowers at the bottom, but I wanted to try something different, so I put the flowers on the left side.  I then stamped the sentiment inside the frame.  Both of these stamps are from the A405 Valentine and Love Stamps sheet from Art Neko.

I had some of this red and white polka dot paper in my Art Neko stash, and I thought it looked great as a background to this white frame.  This paper is actually part of a special bundle from Art Neko called Santa and Papers.  This bundle includes this paper, a fun snowman paper, and a Santa stamp.  I love being able to use things like Christmas paper on non-Christmas cards.  :-)

I cut out the floral frame and adhered it to the polka dot paper, but the flowers needed a little something extra for that "oomph."  So I added some red rhinestones to the centers and that really brought the flowers to life.

Are you inspired to work on your Valentine's cards??  Go shopping at Art Neko and enter in "Valentine" in the search box.  You'll see a ton of stamps and papers that will be perfect for your project!

Set of Floral Thanks cards

This week's CAS409 challenge is to make thank you cards.  I found this gorgeous reverse silhouette flower stamp from Art Neko's Flowers and Whimsy sheet and I stamped it in several different colors.  I love all the colors I tried.  In the picture below, I used the following inks: daffodil, mint, peach, lagoon, and sugarplum.  It's so fun to have a rainbow of cards like this!

The "thanks" sentiment is from Art Neko's Full Sheet of Oriental Images and Text sheet.  See how there is a tiny bird on the "t" in "Thanks?"  That's so cute!!!  There is also a small kanji character at the end of the sentiment.  I stamped this sentiment in black on all the cards so it would stand out against whatever color I stamped the flowers with.

This is a great CAS card to have in my stash.  I need to stamp some more with different sentiments so I can have them ready when I need them.  This flower stamp would be great with almost any kind of sentiment - thank you, birthday, thinking of you, sympathy, and congratulations.  Check out the great stamps at Art Neko today!

Gold Dot Snowflakes

Hi everyone!  This is a card that I sent to Annette and her family, the owners of Art Neko.  I used the gorgeous gold dot fabric paper in the center of the die cut frame.  You can see how the gold dots are so shiny and shimmery.  I added some punched snowflakes with sequins affixed to the centers on the frame.  

Check out all the gorgeous papers in the Art Neko store.  I love their selection of gold and silver patterns on the fabric papers - so cool!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas this weekend.  Stay safe and have fun!

Scenic Village Christmas Tag

Hi folks!  Today I'm sharing this modern black and white Christmas tag with y'all.  I used some stamps from Art Neko's Victorian Christmas stamp set to create this fun little scenic tag.  I started by stamping the village scene with archival black ink onto white cardstock, and then I cut it out with an arch die.  I wanted some sparkle on this tag, so I covered the whole thing with a diamond glitter glue and set it aside to dry.  You can see the fabulous sparkle in the picture below:

Once the glitter glue was dry, I cut out a larger arch from black cardstock and matted it to the glittery scene.  The little "Merry Christmas" sentiment on the Victorian Christmas sheet fits perfectly at the bottom of this village, so I stamped that with the same black archival ink onto white cardstock, cut it out, and matted it with black cardstock.  I adhered this onto the tag below the village scene.

To finish out my tag, I punched a hole at the top and threaded some black and white ribbons through.  I used a narrow white ribbon to tie a pretty bow around all the ribbons at the top of the tag.

I hope you have had fun shopping at Art Neko!  They have an amazing selection of Christmas stamps, don't they?  :-)