Hello friends! This is Caitlin from Caitlin Annalee Cards and today I am sharing the unusual way I got inspired to make cards with the Quick Card Kit | Love You. I fell in love with the images and paper that come in the card kit but I had never made cards like this before, with pre-printed images and sentiments. The inspiration that the kit comes with is so cute but I really wanted to push myself and see if I could use the products in a different way and I think I put too much pressure on myself and chickened out. When Amanda posted about how much fun she had creating with the kit, I knew enough was enough and I finally cracked it open to play! I decided to start in a different medium since this was a different product for me so I grabbed my art journal and got to work creating a two page spread. Working in a journal instead of on a card base really let me feel open to experimenting and having fun, there were fewer rules to break.
I started out my spread by inking up the base layer with the Mandala Stencil on both pages since the lacy texture pairs really well with the love theme of the images. Then I did the unthinkable and tore some of the cutest papers I have ever seen and layered them up along with some of the die cut images from from the kit. I added in even more ink all around the edges of the papers and also used both diagonal stripe stamps from the Pattern Maker as well as well as a large sentiment from the Just Because stamp set to add even more detail. Once I saw how the different elements worked together, I started on two cards with a little of the same feel.
The first card was inspired by the remaining piece of the pink paper with white hearts, which at this point was just the middle section with tears on both sides. I started out by inking up the edges of the card base with grey ink as well as the words pattern paper piece to give them a more shabby chic vibe. I used the thinner of the diagonal stripe stamps on either side of the words paper and then adhered it to the card base. I trimmed the black and white stripes from one of the other paper pieces and cut it in half to add on either side of the pink hearts paper (which I also inked up on the torn edges). I pretty much went ink-crazy and also darkened the edges of all the cut out, printed pieces so that white boarder would be less stark and then I glued them down with the EZ Squeeze Glue. I used a very similar approach with the bear card but used brown ink and a few less layers. I love how even tho these cards are distressed, they still feel so warm to me. These projects all give me the feeling of something that was lovingly passed down and I hope they inspire you to try out something different and play with your products!!
