Ink-Painted Cat Tags

Cat Tags

Remember the free online course I enrolled in? One of my assignments was to make an ink-painted flower. It’s basically using the ink from your stamp pad to paint paper. The assignment called for painting a flower cut from a page of text, but also encouraged the use of other shapes. I decided to make a set of tags featuring cats, a text background and ink painting.

Here are the general steps on how to make the cat tags:

• Cut out a tag shape from card stock. An old business card with two corners cut off works nicely too.
• Cover the tag with printed paper (use a page from a book, magazine, or old office correspondence), and trim any excess paper.
• Color the paper with your choice of medium. I used stamp pad ink, but you can get great results too with a watercolor wash, watercolor pencils, or even tea or fruit juice — as long as the text shows through the color. Let the paper dry thoroughly.
• Now the fun part: Add any additional backgrounds such as a strip of decorative paper, a piece of decorative tape, or a cutout paper flower.
• Glue the cat pictures in place.
• Next, use a felt marker to write your sentiment on a piece of paper: Hello! Thanks! Relax! I used a computer printer to print the text on vellum for a soft, blurry effect. Cut out the text and stick it on the tag. Almost there.
• Punch a hole at the end of the tag, add a binder hole reinforcer, or a punched flower with a hole in the middle.
• Tie a piece of ribbon through the hole. Voila!

PS:  My cat Picart modeled for the Relax! tag.

Tags: Animals, Cats, Collage, Crafts, Inkjet Printer, Paper Crafts, Vellum

Dream

An ATC of my cat Piper sleeping on my computer monitor.

“Dream” is an ATC version of a scrapbook page I made titled “Piper’s Dream”. The leaves punched from vellum mirror the falling leaves used on the background paper, and emphasize the autumn scene in the picture.

A totally unplanned effect was the text. I used an inkjet to print on white vellum, and the edges of the text bled into the paper, adding further to the ethereal, dreamy effect. Talk about serendipity!

Tags: Art Cards, Artist Trading Cards, ATCs, Cats, Collage, Craft Punches, Digital Photography, Inkjet Printer, Vellum