Black Cats Need Love Too

Hey Y’all! It’s been a little while, but I’m back in the craft room today. We are in the process of buying a new house so as much as I hate it, my crafting time may be a little sporadic over the next few months, so please forgive me. Lol.

This week’s theme over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is “spooky”. I don’t really do spooky, or Halloween at my house, but I do have a Big ‘ole black cat. And that’s no lie. He weighs about 20 pounds. We call him Humphrey. Humphrey was a gift from God. I say that because he just showed up in our backyard one day. He decided we seemed like nice people and decided to stay. That was almost four years ago. So now, anytime I see black cat items that I like, I tend to snatch them up.

I decided to make an art journal page for the challenge this week. I decided to work in my Dylusions 8″x8″ Art Journal. The Tim Holtz tools I used today were Stampers Anonymous Layering stencil THS147, Snarky Cats Halloween CMS407, Faded Tyoe CMS397 and Sizzix Haunted 664735.

Here’s what I did. I used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide in Crackling Campfire to ink my background. I just smudged some ink onto my Ranger craft mat and spritzed it with water. Since I was working in my art journal, I picked the ink up with a piece of acetate and transferred it to the art journal page. I did this until I was happy with the coverage. I then used my Distress sprayer with water and spritzed the page with some big water droplets and dabbed them up with a cotton cloth. Then I used my Stampers Anonymous Faded Type stamps to add some text to the background. I used my Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink in Orange Blossom to stamp the image. I also used my new layering stencil and Distress Ink in Crackling Campfire to add a little more interest to my background.

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Once I was done with the inking and stamping, I used my Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and a blending tool to distress the edges of my page. Then I took my white gesso and a Distress Splatter Brush and added a little texture with some droplets of the gesso. This technique is becoming one of my favorites. All you do is put a little of the gesso onto the nonstick mat and spritz it with a little water. Then, you dab the splatter brush into the gesso and holding the brush over your project, you slowly pull back the bristles causing the gesso to splatter the page. It gives you these great droplets. You can also use black gesso, or black paint if you wanted to darken your page.

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Next was the Snarky cats. I love these sets because the sentiments are so spot on for what I would figure cats think. And yes, you know we all talk for our pets. Lol. For the pumpkins, I just stamped them with my Distress Archival in Black Soot. But for the cats, I really wanted them to be black, so I embossed them with my Distress Embossing Ink and Ranger Black Embossing Powder.

Next comes the Sizzix parts. I have to admit I kinda went the easy route on these. I’m not very patient when it comes to tiny, tiny pieces, and it’s just an art journal page, so I doodled some of the details instead of cutting them out. I’m sure it would have looked much better had I cut them out, but I didn’t. I love this haunted house die, strictly because of the black cat in the window. Lol. I’ve also seen some wonderful makes where they make an everyday house and not a haunted house, so I figure I’ll find plenty of uses for this particular die. For the lettering, I used the relatively new set, Alphanumeric Shadow Upper (664729). I used gray kraft stock and highlighted them with a black ink pen.

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No, it’s not very spooky. But after all, it is how we interpret the theme. To me, black cats aren’t spooky. I think they get a bad rap, thanks to Halloween. My black cat doesn’t have a spooky bone in his body. He’s very loving and very talkative. LOL. I wouldn’t trade him for anything.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed making it. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Until next time,

Jennifer (and Humphrey)

Here is a list of the supplies:

   Ranger  Dylusions 8”x8” Art Journal

Products used:

   Distress Oxide Crackling Campfire

   Distress Ink Crackling Campfire

   Distress Ink Vintage Photo

   Ranger  Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink Orange Blossom

   Distress Archival Ink Black Soot

   Distress Collage Medium

   Distress Embossing Ink

   Uniball White Gel Pen

   Fude Ball Black Pen

   Ranger Black Embossing Powder

Tools Used:

   Stampers Anonymous Snarky Cats Halloween  CMS407

   Stampers Anonymous Faded Type CMS397

   Stampers Anonymous  THS147

   Ranger Heat it Craft Tool

   Tim Holtz Distress Sprayer

   Sizzix Haunted 664735

   Sizzix Alphanumeric Shadow Upper 664729