Making a Cool Cat Card and a Few Tips and a Freebie

 Last Summer I received a very cool birthday card from my mothers' boyfriend ( yes she is 90 and they have been together for 18 years)  The card was simply a cat image with the words Cool Cat.  It was simple- only black on light green.  I was happy to receive it, but I got really excited because I have the image in my Magenta Rubber Stamp collection!  So I knew I had to make the BF a card.  He's been under the weather so I thought this would be a great get well/ thinking of your card!  he will get a big kick out of it!  Here is my card and a few tips:

I wanted to keep this in a monochrome palette, Gerry is 87, I know he will like this but I wanted to still have great contrast - to keep the card from being boring - a big risk working with Sepia colors

Here is a tip: ninety-five percent of the time I keep a small margin of space on my card base/background, it acts like a frame and gives the card another layer of sharp contrast.

Another tip:  because my cards are large; A6 or A7 size, I need to keep the weight down as much as possible.  I like to use 120# bases and good papers for layering.  I don't like paying a dollar for mailing.  To give the layers a finish and frame, I draw on the "frame" layer.  you can see in int eh picture above, I simply use a black alcohol marker and a ruler.  This saves me from buying tons of black background papers too!

When I am doing eyes, I keep it simple and layer my colors by two or three shades.  For really detailed images I might add more to include flecks.  When you are coloring you have to remember that you are working toward the end result.  Many colors may be involved in an image that you don't actually see but they are there and register in your brain. Don't be afraid to experiment, stamp off extra images and play, have fun.  In these eyes, I used two shades of Green and a couple dots of Turquoise

to give this great focal image a little more pop I added a layer of silver, I usually run my black marker on the edges of each piece, give the looks a tiny bit more depth and looks more finished.

These eyes kind of follow you where ever you go!

For this card, I used papers from my stash and this image is  4.5x4 (great for a focal image) 

by Magenta:

13.098.p

I thought I would share the "stamp" I made to go with this card, it is proportioned to go with the rubber stamp - Enjoy!

I hope you like my card and find my little tips and tricks helpful!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Ginny M