Welcome to our first challenge, with the theme of ..... CATS

CATS

Yes, today is the beginning of a brand new challenge blog - TWOFERS! As the name suggests, you will be required to make TWO of whatever project you desire and then simply link them up!  Well there are a couple of rules like you Must use a stamp and ink, no digis and our theme needs to be the main focus of your project. Please Check out the rules !!!!

Since I, Christi, got to chose our first theme, I chose cats (which, if you read my blog shouldn't come as a surprise) and I had a blast digging out some very old stamps to play with; since I have so many cats stamps, it was difficult to decide which ones to use. Both the stamps I used have been in my possession for years, but I haven't had the occasion to use the cat in the basket, so this is it's first time on a card (and, of course, when I went to go search for the stamps so I could link to them, almost all of them have disappeared.) In order to differentiate which card I am talking about I am going to give them separate names.

Here are both my cards

How I Made my Women and Cats card:

Cream Card Base
The Kitty Art Rubber Stamp by The Stampsmith
Sentiment Stamp (company unknown)
White Glossy Card
Document Stamping Ink (like Staz-On ink)
Die-Namics Stitched Oval Stax
Spellbinders Labels Fourteen S4-290
Colorbox Metalextra Gold Rush Ink
Clear Embossing Powder
Background Paper (company unknown)
Small Gold Metallic Bow

If you are a regular blog reader you have seen me work with these fantastic photo stamps made by The Stampsmith before, but for those of you who are new to photostamps The Stampsmith has an awesome FAQ page for them and you can find that here. Anyhow, I stamped my Kitty Art stamp on glossy paper, using the Document Ink, and set it aside to dry. I can never get a good picture of these stamps, but trust me, they truly look like photos in person. While kitty was drying, I set about figuring the background, how I was going to present the sentiment and other design details.

So I decided to cut the picture and some embossed foil paper using the Stitched Oval Stax. I then stamped the sentiment with gold ink on glossy paper and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then used the Labels Fourteen to die cut the sentiment. Set those three things aside and sized my gold polka dot background paper, then attached that to the cream card base. Played with the placement of the ovals and sentiment for a bit, then settled on the final design. Topped the card off with the cute little bow.
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How I Made my Your Every Thought card:

White Card Base
Cat in Basket Rubber Stamp (made by Cat Dancing Designs, out of business)
Sentiment Stamp (Limited Edition, bought by Hampton Art, couldn't find stamp)
Tim Holtz Sizzix Labels, #660060
Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
Background Paper
2 Black Brads

I have had this stamp for SO long - I purchased it at a stamp convention in NY. I love how the cat is slightly menacing peeking over the basket - one of my current kitties, Bud, is a Box Cat. He will literally try to fit in ANY box, no matter how small. And if the box is too small, he will scratch it to pieces trying to make it bigger! OK, I could go on about my cats for hours, so lets move on.

As usual, the first step is to stamp everything - in this case on white card using the Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black. I had found the background paper in my bin that holds all my kitty stuff but there was no manufacturer information. I liked the little hints of paws. After I cut the paper, I attached it to the card base and then went through my scraps to find a piece of red that matched so I could mount my sentiment on it. I sized my sentiment and adhered that to the red paper, put the brads in and set it aside.

I took the Tim Holtz Labels die cuts and used one to cut out the cat. I centered the image, attached that and attached the sentiment. Easy peasy!

A lot of my friends are cat lovers and now I have 2 cute cards to send out when need be. 

You have two whole weeks to get your stamping on with your cat stamps, so please consider joining! Thanks, Christi

Here are the ways my two teamies have used my theme of Cats

Jane

Zoe

An InLinkz Link-up

Hello and Welcome

Christi, Jane and I (Zoe) have got together a new fortnightly (2 weekly) challenge for you.   Every 2 weeks (on Saturdays) we will set a new theme challenging you to create a pair of items inspired by the theme.  We are looking for rubber stamping on your submissions but no digi stamps or art.   Other than that this is  an open challenge so anything goes, with our theme as the primary focus.

There will be 2 challenges a month, when there is a 5th Saturday in the month we will not set a new challenge but will have a special treat for you so it will be worth popping back just to see what we are up to.

Our styles are very different and we are looking forward to seeing your different points of view as well.   We will try to get to every single submission but sometimes it might be that just one or two of us manage to visit and comment.   To help us please turn off word verification, if you are concerned about spam posts you can always turn on authorise all comments before publishing then you can delete them.

Why are we doing this, well there seems to have been a serious decline in challenges commencing on a Saturday, we are all part of the Challenges for days team and the Saturday list there is in danger of vanishing.   We all enjoy working as a team and seeing what our ideas inspire in others, we like nosing on your blogs.  You are also very welcome to take a look at our blogs as well.

So if you would like to join in with us there are just a few things to remember.

Pairs of things
Open, anything goes with our theme as your main focus
Must Rubber Stamp
No digi stamps or graphic art

Please turn off word verification.

We will kickoff our first challenge on SATURDAY 1st AUGUST and will last for 2 weeks.  Please help us spread the word and let people know about our new adventure, everyone is invited to follow along for the ride.