Completed Cards: 2016-2017

For my Winter 16/17 cards, I tried to have a more cohesive look by sticking to a few colors and just varying the shades. I also started pulling in mirror and glitter card to give a more festive look without adding in too much bulk. 

I did a variety of birthday cards in 2017 – mostly for various family members. But I definitely enjoyed trying out different combos of Distress inks, markers, and sprays. There are so many techniques that I was able to try with the Distress line, the inks in particular were a lot of fun to experiment with. I also started really building up my Lawn Fawn collection of dies and stamps in 2017. It’s so relaxing to create a scene with some of the stamps and then color it in while on a Netflix binge.

The Diwali card for a family friend was probably one of my favorite cards to make. It actually didn’t even start out as a Diwali card. Initially, I was just playing around with blending Antique Linen and Tea Dye distress inks over a Neenah A2 card front in Solar White, trying to see if I could get an aged look. I ended up using some Walnut Stain to try to make faux coffee stains. 

After that I just used up scrap pieces of patterned paper, leftover rhinestone embellishment, and a circle punch for the sentiment area. I tried to keep the embellishments limited so that the distressed background would be the focus. I didn’t even put the sentiment on until a few weeks later when my custom photopolymer stamps came in. Sadly, the company that I bought the custom stamps from doesn’t seem to be in business anymore – but there are plenty of similar shops on Etsy.