Neon Cats

The other day, I had a long conversation with Maddie about her choices.

Do you do this? Have earnest chats with your pets? She talks back to me, so I'm sure this is 100% normal.

It's funny how different they are. Maddie is the only furniture scratching cat I've ever owned. Splotchy is a little angel who never scratches anything but their designated scratcher. Splotch loves to eat and is bone skinny, Maddie isn't much of an eater, but is a little chunky. Splotchy is a gymnast, and Maddie is clumsy as heck.

But they're both amazing little therapists. What's great about pets is they teach you the importance of the everyday experience. Cats don't care about politics, or news or bills. They are well equipped to make the most of every moment - soaking up the sun, purring when they get patted - Splotch purrs during play, which I've never seen before, and I've had a lot of cats.

Just seeing them lowers my blood pressure.

Since I have a black cat, some of my favorite stamp images are silhouettes, because to me, they all look like Maddie.

But I thought today I'd stamp them in something other than black, just for fun. I still had my Electro Pop Inks on my desk from Wednesday's post, so I thought some neon kitties might be in order. This artist exactly captured cat body language in these stamp images.  I stamped them in Hello Yellow, Poppin' Pink and Orange Glow, and stamped the sentiment in Nocturne, and added a few sequins.

But I couldn't sit down to stamp without watercoloring, so I had to paint this sweet image. You can find details on this card over at the My Sweet Petunia blog today. The sentiment is from this sentiment-only set. I just think this image is so sweet. Hop over here to see what I did.

Kitty Love Clear Stamp Set - Sweet 'n... [ SWT ] Creative Worship: The Shepherd's... [ SWT ] Sentimental Wordfetti Clear Stamp Set... [ SWT ] Electro Pop Ink Pads- Set of 8 - Gina... [ GNK ] Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Nocturne -... [ ELH | SSS ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Escoda Versatil Brushes, Travel Round... [ UTR | BLIC | INK ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two... [ SSS | MFT ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05... [ SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ]

I'm part of a collaboration blog hop today with my sweet friend Korin, the owner of Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps and My Sweet Petunia!

Here are all the designers participating in the hop - stop by and comment at each blog, and you'll be entered to win $50 gift certificates from each company. The winner will be announced on the My Sweet Petunia blog on August 27th. 

SNSS Blog
Colleen Gaddie
Diane Zechman
Gayle Bond
Jane Bosi
Jennifer Powell
Julee Tilman
Julie Cassell
Lyn Tomlin
Sheri Gilson
Kia Gibson-Clapper
Stephanie Severin
Ilina Crouse
Giovana Smith
Jeanne Streiff
Ceal Pritchett
My Sweet Petunia
Lydia Fiedler

Loveyameantibye.

Background Versus Foreground Contrast With Ink

I spent all weekend catching up on work. My schedule has settled down a bit, but I'm still catching up and will be for months.

I had a huge backlog of things to Airtable and label and file, and that is what gives when something needs to give, so I powered through that this weekend. It's amazing how much more efficient that makes me at what I do, but like folding laundry, it's not glamorous or fun, and it's usually something I have to force myself to do.

But I had to do it or I couldn't have moved forward on everything I needed to do this week, for Dare to Get Dirty and for a few fun things here on my blog this week, like what I have today.

I ordered and received my Electro Pop inks last week and couldn't WAIT to use them. As a child of the 80s, I still crave all things neon, and these certainly fit that bill - they are GLORIOUS. It's hard to even capture how glowy they are through my camera. You can use them with alcohol markers, but also use them with water for painting, or paint directly with the reinkers or ink pads as I've done here. Magic.

For this INCREDIBLE, arty witch stamp set - with hilarious snarky sentiments - I wanted to have a colorful background, but one that appeared less crisp than my focal witch, and I came up with something I just love. There's just enough contrast - sort of like a macro lens look - between my sharp, crisp witch, and the more muted background tree stamp and these bats, that your eye is really drawn to this beautiful and spooky witch. I LOVE HER SO MUCH!

So what I did was to stamp the tree image in Morning Mist. This is a beautiful cool grey, but just a few shades lighter than black. Then I used the Life-Changing Blender Brushes to apply Loud Lime, Hello Yellow and Potent Purple Electro Pops to the background.

Then I stamped the witch in Nocturne, and used Fantastix to apply Loud Lime and Orange glow to the image, on her face, hands, legs and the pumpkin. The style of this art is so incredibly perfect.

I wanted the sentiment to be more prominent than the background too, and so I stamped that in Nocturne as well.

Stay spooky, my friends.

Even if I didn't love these witches to Oz and back, I'd still have to have this set for this one, hilarious sentiment! Oh my gosh it cracks me up.

So first, I used Pixie Spray on this beautiful, modern sunburst stencil and adhered it to my card panel. I applied Hello Yellow and Poppin' Pink inks with my LCBB. The orange is just where they overlap!

I stamped the witch image and the sentiment in Nocturne. I found a porous point white pen that goes on completely smoothly - I found mine here. You know how if you're trying to fill in an area with a white gel pen that already had some white on it? How it sort of removes the bottom layer and gets funky? This pen doesn't do that - it's smooth and thinner and beautiful. So after she was stamped, you could still see the colored pattern in the open areas of her dress - so I filled that all in with the pen. Isn't she lovely? And look - she's clearly a good witch, since she's in a white dress!

This new release has some fun fall stuff as well in addition to the fabby Halloween things.

One of them is this dramatic tree die - you can see the actual die here - but when I saw it I had an idea to use it as coral, because I love the somewhat abstract and organic shape. And sure enough - if I hadn't told you it was a tree you'd have thought it was a coral die right? I used this background stamp, stamped in Blue Belle, and this sweet mermaid, very simply colored with Copics. Both the background and the coral are on watercolor paper and painted with Daniel Smith Watercolor - Quin. Coral and Aussie Red Gold. The sentiment is from this fun little card set that you cut thin sentiment strips out of. They have them with various themes. Perfect for me, as I tend to cover up my entire card with an image and then don't have room for a sentiment. I cut them up and I keep them in a stamp pocket by theme.

 And this small background stamp speaks to my bird loving heart. This has been the summer of birds at my house. Baby wrens born in my mailbox, and baby cardinals born in the bush out front. Now both groups of babies have moved out back to enjoy my new birdbath and some seeds I put out judiciously. Judiciously because you can't leave it out there all the time or you'll be overrun with pests, so I dole it out during the day and watch the show.

I have a very busy week this week, and I hardly ever eat meals outside my house, but yesterday demanded a quick food pickup and a hurried lunch. So I opened the back door and watched the birds for a few minutes. The baby cardinals are hopping around in my pepper plants, and a tiny wren and chickadee traded places at the feeder. I put seeds up on top of the fence posts for the squirrels, so he hangs out up there. Bluejays and doves hog the birdbath. It's really hot right now, so when I fill the birdbath every morning, it starts an epic bird party. There's no fighting either - they just co-exist around the food and hard-to-come-by water.

At night when we're watching TV, Splotchy sits on the window and makes his funny little chatter at the doves on what I call Cat TV out back. ONLY the doves, not any of the other birds. He would like very much to eat a dove. Apparently he can tell they are the most delicious. I'm sure it's ancient feline knowledge. Who am I to question that?

Anyway, all that to say - about 50% of my stamps are birds, because I just love them.

I did one of my signature moves, coloring just one brightly, and the rest are muted. The sentiment is from this stamp set. The pens are these amazing new waterbased fineliners - more on that soon!

For my fall card, I have this iridescent vellum I've hoarded from a past Hero Arts Kit, and I used that to cut the layering portion of this scripty Thanksgiving-themed die. I cut the word portion from no-shed glimmer paper. The white panel has this lovely leaf frame stamped in Amalgam Ink and colored with Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed Distress Inks.

So simple and quick, but so bright and happy. Fall colors are the best colors!

 But I had to come back to Halloween.

This hilarious little background stamp has these awesome ghosts. I thought about stamping them in white, but I realized I could pop a few if I didn't. So I stamped the whole thing in Nocturne first, and then colored three ghosts with the same white pen and outlined them with a Micron.

I die cut it with my circle infinity dies - OH - the background was one from my retreat - we painted a pale yellow watercolor on watercolor paper. Then we stuck drafting dots on there when it was dry, and painted other colors on top, to get glowing spots of bokeh color. Really fun.

The sentiment is from this set, and it's on a strip of the same background.

You know how I like to end on a funny note. This little trick or treater set is so sweet - but the spider - the spider gave me ideas. Since the coordinating die cuts his little legs out, I felt the need to make him this little cat girl's pet. The perfect sentiment was in this set in my stash. Also from my stash, this grass stencil, paired with the new cloud stencil and mask duo.

The inks are Electro Pop Loud Lime and Blaring Blue. The names are hysterical.

I only stamped this stamp on envelopes this week, but I wanted to share it. Nice to know when you get a piece of mail that it's something nice and not a bill. So stamp those envelopes, people! 

You can find the rest of today's release here - and remember you get free US shipping over $25. 

Here are all the supplies I used today - loveyameanitbye.

If You've Got It, Haunt It [ PFS ] On an Autumn Countryside [ PFS ] Glass Window Sunshine Stencil [ PFS ] Electro Pop Ink Pads- Set of 8 - Gina... [ GNK ] I Am A Mermaid - Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ] Trick Or Treaters Coordinating Die [ PFS ] Vortex of Fish - Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ] Simon Says Stamp SENTIMENT STRIPS... [ SSS ] Collage of Birds [ PFS ] Be A Unicorn of the Sea - Picket... [ PFS ] Leaf Picture Frame [ PFS ] Thankfully Word Die [ PFS ] Like A Crafty Fox - Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ] The Ghouls Made Me Do It [ PFS ] A Paper Hug [ PFS ] Trick or Treaters [ PFS ] Hey Girl [ PFS ] Fran Girl Coordinating Die [ PFS ] Fran Girl [ PFS ] Circle Infinity Dies (H) [ HA ] Life Changing Blender Brushes. 4 Pack... [ PFS ] Layers of Grass Stencil [ PFS ] Funky Rainbow Stencil [ PFS ] Leaves Stencil [ PFS ] Layers of Clouds [ PFS ] Just a Branch Die [ PFS ] Crafty Wishes Foil Impressions [ PFS ] Feathers Cover Plate Foiled Impressions [ PFS ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] White Porous Point Pen [ BLIC ] Tsukineko FANTASTIX COMBO PACK... [ SSS ] Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad... [ SSS ] Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad MUSTARD... [ SSS ] Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad... [ SSS ] Tsukineko VersaFine Clair BLUE BELLE... [ SSS ] Tsukineko VersaFine Clair MORNING... [ SSS ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Nocturne -... [ ELH | SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Alvin Drafting Dots - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] Neutrals Glitter Paper Pack - Concord... [ C&9 ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] Therm O Web PIXIE SPRAY iCraft... [ SSS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | ELH | SSS | MFT | UNT ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST | ELH | ART ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Escoda Versatil Brushes, Travel Round... [ UTR | BLIC | INK ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two... [ SSS | MFT ]