Sketching

I have found a new to me craft/ art form. Sketching. I find it very relaxing, but I don't know how good I am at it. In a way it doesn't matter, because the process is what I enjoy working through right now.

Here are a few of the sketches I've done over the last week.

My father

There are a lot of words here that I'm just not ready to let out yet. Let me just say I almost used this drawing for the WIW Pain post.

Cherry Blossoms

I did this sketch this morning. It's the second time I've drawn this but I wanted to add it to my sketchbook.

My sulky son doing school, with Eddie Munster hair

My first face sketch inspired by the gals in the Kraafters Kommunity

I like this one so much that I've made it my profile picture for now. FYI this looks nothing like me!

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

WIW Pain

Heather over at the Google + community Kraafters Kommunity has started a new way to inspire us called Word of Inspiration Wednesday. Every Wednesday she will give us a new word for us to use as a springboard for our creativity. This week's word is pain.

This is my sketch of pain and a quote I found in my old notebook of inspirational quotes and poems. Please be kind - remember I am new at sketching.

 

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

A Special Card

For a special person.

Here is a card I worked on yesterday. This was all done with cuts from my Silhouette Cameo. The card base is a side step card. I really enjoy this type of scene card and the process of putting the die cuts together. I hope the recipient enjoys it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Thanks for looking.

Cathy 

And the Winner is....

Do you remember my Creative Blog Hop Post? Did you read to the bottom? Well at least 6 of you did and left a comment and I had a little giveaway for them. I used random.org to generate a number from 1-6 and the winner is....

Zsuzsa Karoly-SmithSeptember 15, 2014 at 6:13 AM

Lovely projects, Cathy! It's so nice to get to know you a little more. Have fun on your mixed media journey!

Congrats Zsuzsa! PM me in the Kommunity with your address!

 

Arrrrg!

When I remembered yesterday that it was "Talk like a Pirate" day I decided I need to make a little something in honor of the day. This started out as a recycled small flat rate shipping box. I cut the window in the front, then tore, inked, spayed, and even burned some tan cardstock to get that weathered parchment look. I wrapped and glued these papers around the outside, then decorated the inside with papers and Cricut die cuts. I even used sand for the beach. All die cuts are from the Life's a Party cartridge.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

Card Inspiration

Where do you get your ideas for your cards? Sometimes ideas come when other crafters share a technique. Sheri Whitfield shared a technique called Triple Time Stamping in our KIT on Saturday, then followed up with a YouTube video. Well, I decided to try the technique, then ended up not doing it at all! For my first card I didn't even stamp, I used patterned paper. I basically used oval Nestabilities to create a layered look similar to her cards. The paper and cardstock layers are each single pieces of paper. When I layered them I made sure the patterns lined up. The ovals are on the side because I wanted to get the leaf in the inner oval.

The second card took a very wide turn, although I did stamp my background paper. I started by cutting the ovals in the center of the paper this time, but when I layered them with the red cardstock I thought it looked like an elongated target. I didn't like it at all! I hade already put the background rectangle on my card base, but it had the oval cut out, so I wasn't sure what to do with it. The old me might have trashed the whole thing, but I didn't. I found a stamp that just fit within the oval, a beautiful new stamp from the Mary and Babe set from CTMH. I used stamp pads and a water brush to add color to the image and added the scalloped frame. I really like the way this card turned out!

I'll get to your technique sometime, Sheri, I promise!

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

Creative Blog Hop

Hello everyone! It's my turn for the creative blog hop. You know, this is one of the reasons that I started a blog. A couple of friends over in the Google+ community Kraafters Kommunity asked me to participate, and I didn't even have a blog started. I had never really considered starting a blog until a few weeks ago. I had always been a little scared of starting one! But like many things in life, it is not as hard to try something new as our imagination may tell us it is.

So let me jump right in and answer some questions for you...

What am I working on?

Right now I'm working on a couple different projects. The first is a matchbox swap. This is another new thing introduced by a Kraafters Kommunity member, Sandra ArtfullyMade. She inspired me to try this when she posted her matchboxes on the Kommunity, then introduced me to atcsforall.com. I'm having a lot of fun with this new art form. My last 3 posts were about matchboxes if you would like to know more about them. Since I wrote this post I  finished this swap during our KIT, which I wrote about in my last post.

The second thing I'm currently working on is Christmas presents. Yes, I said it. I'm doing a complete gift set for my SIL with matching animal paper. So far I have covered notebooks, a keychain, a desk calendar with Post-it holder, a perpetual calendar card holder, a bookmark, beaded pen and a waterfall portfolio all in various stages of completion. I'm keeping these plain a simple without inking or a lot of embellishments.

The 3rd item I'm working on is actually something I'm always doing... cards. Card making is still my first love. It is what started me on this journey, and they are something I always need. I provide cards for a couple different groups, but the one that I do the most for is my Ladies Bible Study. I provide cards for the members to receive for special occasions, and also we as a group send cards out to church members and missionaries to let them know we are thinking of them. I also do a goodie/treat/favor for
everyone in the group about once a month.


And lastly, I have started a mixed media/ art journal. This is one of those brand new things for me. I'm not quite sure where this will take me, but the one whole page I've done was very enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the journey.





How does my work differ from others/ describe my style?

Sigh... this is a hard one, and it is hard to quantify especially since I feel like I'm in the process of changing right now. Like I said above, I started as a card maker. I'm a die cut girl, I love my machines and a lot of what I do is pretty basic and simple. I never really got messy in my crafting, besides a little ink on my fingers. I wasn't even into coloring stamped images!  But now that I have been introduced to so many new things by the lovely Kommunity members I find that I'm expanding what I'm doing. I'm doing mixed media, I'm inking and spraying, tearing and coloring, and I'm having a ton of fun with it!


How do I create/ Where do I get my inspiration?

Well, I get my inspiration from everywhere! If you haven't guessed already, I get a great deal of inspiration from the Kraafters Kommunity. I am amazed everyday by what the members create and share with us. I also love to watch YouTube videos and look forward to checking out new videos from the people I subscribe to. I also get inspiration from magazines and catalogs, and not just the crafty ones either. I got a catalog the other day that is for home décor and clothing that has made its way into my craft room because it gave me so many ideas. I used a couple of them during the Kraaft It Together. Go check out that post to see!  I'm also inspired by my kids. I made a couple cards not long ago based on some jokes they were telling.  They were fun to make and they had an extra special affect of making my kids feel special too!


An im-pasta!

To go to the mooooon!


Well thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me! Before you go I want to introduce you to next week's players in our hop. They are both people I've recently "met" and I'm looking forward to getting to know them a little more.

Beth Sinn. She has a new blog, Lizzie's Workshop, that she just started and already has a ton of great content on.  Beth also creates great YouTube videos under the name lizziesworkshop. Beth loves to show her whole process, even when the project takes a turn she wasn't expecting or something happens that she doesn't care for, and then shows how to fix them, which is so invaluable when you are trying to learn!

Elina P. She has a well established blog, Scrapbooks, Crafts and Cards, Oh My! that you can tell she spends a lot of time creating wonderful art for. Elina does a great mix of traditional cards and scrapbooks and mixed media.  I also admire her wonderful coloring abilities on her stamped images. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from Elina!




Are you still reading? Good! I have a little giveaway for someone who comments on this post. I will draw a random name from all of the comments. What am I giving away, you ask? A cute little stamp set. This is the #30 Years of Happy set from CTMH. There are 30 tiny stamps that are about fingertip sized. Love it and I got 2, so 1 for me and 1 for one of you! Good luck! I will do the drawing on Monday, September 22, 2014.