May cards...

Did you miss me, all two of you (or sometimes 3!)?  I participated in a mail art project for the first 4 weeks in May and essentially stopped making cards and blogging about them.  It's taken me a few days to get back into the card-making swing of things, but I'm glad to be back!!!  I'll write more about the mail art experience soon, but I wanted to share the cards I did make this month.

I had to send not one, but two sympathy cards this month.  In the spirit of my overarching card-making goal of using the bits I have lying around, I used a panel made with a Tim Holtz Floral stencil and Mother of Pearl Nuvo Mousse I'd made forever ago and a sympathy sentiment from Altenew's Wildflower Garden set mounted on a piece of text paper I've had for ages.

This card accompanied a packet of much-beloved-but-never-used teapot postcards I sent to a friend who is posting pictures of her daily themed tea parties on Facebook.  I borrowed an idea I used a couple of months ago, but this time set the tea party in a garden.  The die is the Tea Party die from Hero Arts, the background stamp is Country Road from Impression Obsession, and the potted plants and flowers courtesy of various peg stamps from Rubber Stamp Tapestry.

Out of the blue, a friend sent me a jigsaw puzzle!  Like so many, I've re-kindled my love of puzzles during this time at home, so I've started rebuilding my collection.  For my thank you card, I added a Mama Elephant thank you sentiment to a background made with a stencil watercolor technique using the same Tim Holtz stencil as above and Distress inks.  I adhered the panel to another sheet of cardstock to make it a little sturdier and cut the whole piece with a jigsaw die from Impression Obsession.  I took the puzzle apart and sent the pieces in a small envelope.

Hopefully I'll make a few more cards on these last days of May, but this card is my entry into the Spring/Summer 2020 Coffee Loving Cardmakers extravaganza.  CLC does these events twice a year, and every single time I swear to myself I'm going to make so many cards because I have so very many tea- and coffee-related stamps.  In the end, if I make and enter one card, it's a miracle.

I recently got a whole bunch of coffee stamps from Impression Obsession, including this one called Coffee Talk, and I've had this coffee sentiment from Rubbernecker for a few years (This is half of the sentiment.  The other half says, "I said, honey, it's Monday, don't even play."  These two stamps together suit me to a tee and continue my tradition of sassy women and snarky things to say - yup, still not tired of it. 

I couldn't face the idea of coloring the image - coloring is not my forté - so I decided to watercolor the background - also not my forté.  This card is my fourth attempt.  First I tried to color the background without masking the image and it was okay, but not great.  Then I fussy cut a paper mask (I have no masking paper - failure) and tried again because I wanted a different shade of blue and an ombré effect going from light to dark.  The ombré was great on try #2 but some of the paint seeped under the mask leaving the women with blue faces - artful, but not ideal.  For attempt #3, I fussy cut another mask out of plastic.  But I warped the plastic when I tried to heat it a bit to dry the ink, but I forged ahead and not surprisingly, the painting was a disaster.  So I went back to the first idea of just painting carefully around the image.  Because I was able to paint without tears, I decided to quit while I was ahead and give up the ombré effect, though it would have been better with.

In the end, I like the card, but it's not in any way exciting - rather typical of my work.  I might do another version with a painted background and the image mounted on top.  I don't know why I was fixated on a single layer, but I was.  Or I could try coloring the image with pencils or markers.  Or I could get masking paper and make a grown-up mask.  Or I could throw lots of money at the problem and get some kind of Scan-n-Cut and make a mask and stencil at the same time (throwing money at craft problems is always the best solution, right?????)!  Or I could move on.  Stay tuned...

Anyway, it's fun running on about cards again.  What are you making this weekend??