Heart and Hearth Crafts

Polkadoodles Oddella Ickyink Alternative collection offers a unique twist on cute and creepy card making! It features a fun combination of alternative, spooky themes and cute, whimsical girlies. If you love quirky crafting these cute and creepy girl digital stamps will be perfect for you.

Follow these steps and you can create your own moody yet adorable cards.

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Step 1 – Choose Your Digital Stamp

The Digi image is from Polkadoodles, part of their Oddella Ickyink range. 

There are thousands of different digital stamps availible online. Click here to take a look at my favourites.

I get most of my digital stamps from Polkadoodles. I fell in love with their designs many, many years ago. They are a joy to colour and I always really enjoy card making with them. Sign up for their newsletter for weekly deals and money off new releases.

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Step 2 – Print Your Digital Stamp

I print my digital stamps onto Ultimate Graphic 160gsm paper. It’s bright white so my colours really pop and it’s super smooth surface makes blending easier.

You don’t need a fancy or expensive printer to print digital stamps. I use a very old HP Officejet, any inkjet printer will do.

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Step 3 – Choose Your Designer Papers

It’s usually a good idea to choose your designer papers before you colour your digital stamp this way you can use the colours of the paper to choose your markers.

For these pastel gothic cards I choose these gorgeous moody papers from Crafty Things. I picked them up from Home Bargains.

I also like to choose some co-ordinating plain paper. I use this as a mat to frame my designer papers. I wanted to highlight the little hint of shimmer on the Crafty Things papers and so I picked some holographic mirror papers.

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Step 4 – Colour Your Digital Stamp

I’ve coloured these digital stamps with my Winsor & Newton BrushMarkers. They are much more affordable than other brands but are still of excellent quality. I prefer the brush nib as it allows me more control over my pen strokes and makes it easier to blend.

I use Winsor & Newton Promarker Brush pens to colour most of my digital stamp card making projects and I highly recommend them.

I tend to choose three shades of each colour, a dark, mid tone and a lighter shade for highlights. I often include a grey or a pale brown shade to deepen a colour and create a shade that I don’t have.

You need to work quite quickly with alcohol markers. So It’s best to tackle one area at a time. I tend to leave each area to dry and work on a different part of the image to avoid the colours mixing.

I usually start with the darkest shade and colour where there would be a shadow or the part furthest from an imaginary light source. Then I go over this with the mid tone, flicking the pen to more colour into the centre of the shape I’m colouring. Finally I go over the whole area with the lightest tone.

After my image has dried a bit I often find I’ve blended too well and I go over the darkest areas again to deepen the shadow.

You really don’t need a lot of markers. I think I have about 60 different colours. However I would advise you not to skrimp on the greys and muted shades, they are so useful for adjusting other colours. If you click on the image above you can see all of the colours I have in my collection. These are the shades I would recommend investing in to get a good range of colours without buying the full set.

Here’s the shade’s I’ve used:

Promarker Brush Colours – Skin

Promarker Brush Colours – Pink

Promarker Brush Colours – Turquioise

Promarker Brush Colours – Green

Promarker Brush Colours – Blue

Promarker Brush Colours – Yellow

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Step 5 – Die Cut Your Image

I use dies to make frames around my digital stamps. I always colour my image first in case I make a mess of it.

Then I choose a die shape and size that suits my image and run it through my die cutting machine.

On this card I have used my favourite combination of a plain oval and a scalloped oval.

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Step 6 – Choose Your Greeting

I’ve die cut some little tags to mount my greeting onto. I love this tag die from Sizzix. It’s really useful for making a greeting stand out on a card where it would otherwise get lost.

For the greeting itself I’ve used some stickers from this Scrapbooking Stickers pad by Art Studio.

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Step 7 – Choose a Card Blank

I tend to use Craft UK Card blanks. They’re great quality for everyday card making. I usually get the big value 50 packs which include envelopes.

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Step 8 – Design Your Card

Gather your supplies together and lay them out on your card blank. Move them around, twist and turn your papers. Swap out papers for different designs. Play with your design and have fun!

I find that my designs are much more creative when I have scraps of papers. A scrap of the right paper is often a specific size or shape and the rest of the layout comes together around that one scrap.

Here are some of my designs to give you some inspiration:

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Step 9 – Distress the Edges

I use the same colour of distress ink to shade the edges of my papers. It gives my cards a co-ordinated look.

I start by laying my paper onto a piece of acetate. You can buy acetate in sheets or you can cut it from packaging which is just as good. You do need a flat sheet ideally bigger than the edge of your paper or card.

After choosing my ink colour I dab the ink blending tool onto the ink pad and sweep it from the acetate onto the edge of my paper. I always use a smooth sweeping motion starting and finishing on the acetate sheet.

There are lots of blending tool availible. I have the Ranger one and I’ve been happy with it so I haven’t tried any of the other brands. I use one ink pad for each colour.

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Step 10 – Choose Your Embellishments

I love Tim Holtz’ tattered grungy style dies. They are the perfect choice for these alternative style cards. I’ve die cut some flowers and some greenery to embellish my card.

To enhance the sparkle just a little bit more I’ve added some lengths of glittery ribbon.

And of course I’ve also added a touch more sparkle with some gems.

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Step 11 – Assemble Your Card

I like to use 6mm double sided tape for most of my cards. It’s cheaper than the usual 12mm tape but it sticks just as well.

I use a pokey tool to remove the backing from the tape. It’s nice and easy and saves my finger nails from getting split.

For teeny tiny little embellishments I generally use silicone glue. I use my pokey tool to roll a little blob of silicone from the end of the tubes and then roll it onto my page.

Applying the Ribbon and Lace

Ribbon can be tricky to stick onto cards. This is my favourite technique for neatly hiding the raw ends and stopping them from fraying.

I start by sticking the strip of paper to the matt using double sided tape. It’s quick and easy to use and it always leaves a neat finish. Removing the back of the tape can be tricky so I use a pokey tool to lift up a corner. I recently retired my old pokey tool and replaced it with the Design Knife, it’s a pokey tool, craft knife and embossing tool all in one.

Next I lay my strip of mounted paper flat on my craft mat and stick a length of double sided tape where I want my ribbon. I make sure that the ends of the tape extend over the ends of the paper and left them stick lightly to the mat.

Then I place my length of ribbon to the exposed tape and press it onto the paper.

Finally I gently lift the paper off the craft mat and turn it over. It’s easy to press the ribbon and the extra tape to the back of the paper so that the ends are neatly hidden from the front of the card.

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Step 12 – Decorate the Inside Too

I think it’s such a shame to receive a beautifully decorated card only to open it and be faced with a blank page. So I use more of my designer papers to decorate the insides of my cards. I mostly use scraps leftover from the main design and a 10cm square of plain paper to write a nice message onto.

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Follow me on your favourite social media channel for more card making ideas and inspiration.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Etsy

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Shop this Card Making Project

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Take a Look at my Etsy Shop

This handmade birthday card is available to buy in my Etsy shop.

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More Card Making Projects

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Pin it Now, Craft it Later

I do hope you have enjoyed having a peak at my latest card making project. Please feel free to use my handmade cards to inspire your own creations, pin it to your Pinterest for later.

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Card Making Challenges I’m Entering

1. Digi Choosday Challenge
2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies Challenge
3. Polkadoodles Craft Challenge
4. Creative Fingers Challenge
5. Crafty Catz
6. Lil Patch of Crafty Friends
7. The Paper Funday Challenges
8. Ally’s Angels
9. A Perfect Time To Craft
10. Classic Design Challenge

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