Valentine Card–Kitty Squad

This project was worked in conjunction with an art journal page on a similar theme. Please see the next post for details.

Towards the end of 2014 I bought the Stampotique Originals stamp “Kitty Squad” but t was not until June 2015 that I g0t around to using them, because of everything that was going on with my health. I got as far as stamping the kitties out numerous times, and then cutting them out.

See this blog post for details. I had intended to make my hubby a Valentine card using these kitties last year, and the idea I had brewing never came to fruition, but it never went away, so I decided to make the card for him this year instead.

The stamp with the cut-out kitties.

The first thing to do was to cut the stamp into four separate kitties.

The cut out stamped kitties were used as masks. I began by laying them a piece of watercolour paper and drawing around them lightly with a pencil to indicate their position. (I have a large quantity of scrap watercolour paper that I rescued from my hubby’s rubbish bin – he had only painted on one side and these were his “rejects”! – as you know, I never throw stuff away if it can be used!)

Using my stamp positioner, I stamped each kitty into the pencilled outline until they filled the page.

I then applied Zig Two-Way Glue to the backs of the masks. This glue is brilliant. If you stick things down with it while it is still wet, the bond is permanent, but if you leave the glue to dry, it is temporary and repositionable, like the glue on Post-It Notes. This is what I did with the masks.

Once they were all down, I prepared to spray the piece with Dylusions spray inks. I masked off the surrounding area with newspaper because these spray inks make such a mess!

I spritzed the piece with water first, and then sprayed it from top to bottom with rainbow colours.

It was really hard to get an accurate result with the sprays, so I removed the top from each spray bottle in turn and applied more ink with a brush, diluting it down with a little water, until I got the result I wanted. This is actually a much more controlled way of using these inks, and while it is often best to use them as intended, as a spray, there are times when painting them on may suit one’s needs better.

Now it was time to remove the masks. I had hoped to save these to use again, but the whole thing had got very wet, and they disintegrated when I removed them. There was also a certain amount of ink bleed around the edges of the masks.

My original plan was to replace the masks permanently, but in a different place from the original, so that the different coloured kitties would show up agains the background, so instead, I coloured each white kitty image with Derwent Inktense pencils and blended them with a wet brush. The ink bleed created a bit of a shadow around each one, so in the end I was quite happy with it.

This is the result.

I drew a doodled cat onto white card and added a few touches of colour with Inktense pencils. I cut it out, and applied it to the card with regular matt gel medium. I also made the text pieces from scrap card, hand-written with a permanent black drawing pen and coloured slightly with Inktense pencils which I blended with a wet brush. These were also applied with regular matt gel medium.

Here is the completed card.

The piece was mounted on a sheet of red A4 card folded in half, and matted with a piece of marbled yellow paper from my stash

I made an insert from a sheet of A5 card trimmed by 1/4 inch all round. It looked a bit stark, so I inked the edges with distress inks.

To give a softer effect with the Fossilised Amber, I used an Inkylicious Ink Duster, and then I used a home-made ink blender for the Abandoned Coral on the edges.

To complete the card insert, I took one of the Kitty Squad masks I made, and painted it with Inktense pencils, and stuck it down with regular matt gel medium. I drew the lines for the heart “balloons” with a permanent black drawing pen, and then stuck down the red sequin hearts with Pinflair gel glue. The text was written by hand, using a sanguine drawing pen, adding the shadow with a dark sepia pen.

Here is the completed card insert.

Well, I finished it in the nick of time! This was a project that should have been made last year, and at last it is done. I don’t think I’ve ever had a project so long in embryo! I hope my hubby likes it.