Welcome to a new "Cards by Kendra" blog post! Today, I'm excited to share this handmade shaker card I recently created for the March 2020 card swap in the Facebook group "Card Swaps for All Seasons".  The theme was "Husband Appreciation".  I had a hard time with this theme at first. I didn't really know where to start.  I ordered some new products from My Favorite Things, including the Message in a Bottle die set, and I just couldn't wait to use it! So rather than going with a masculine theme, I decided to go with a beach theme so I could use my new die set.  I think this card would work for either gender (what do you think?).  For the background, I used Stampin' Write markers on an acrylic block to create a watercolor wash look in beach colors. For the bottom part, I colored quite of a bit of the bottom of a Stampin' Up clear acrylic block "E" using the crumb cake marker and then a very small line of soft suede a...

Welcome to a new Cards By Kendra blog post!   Today I wanted to share the tutorial video for these three handmade cards I made using Distress oxide inks for making the backgrounds.  I posted about the third card a few days ago, which is a scented "Happy Birthday" card.  I promised a tutorial video on how I made it, so here it is!  Two of these three cards are shaker cards. The first card I made (not a shaker card) is below. The first card was made using an emboss resist technique with the Batik stencil from Martha Stewart.  My video tutorial doesn't show all of the steps and instructions for the first card shown in the picture.  It only shows how I made the background.  To finish the card, I used the "Friend" die and the flower/vine die from the  "Well Written" die set by Stampin' Up. I thought the flower matched the center part of the stenciled image pretty well.  Black cardstock was used to cut out the die cuts and the...

Welcome to a new Cards By Kendra blog post!   Today I wanted to share this card that I made for a card swap with a watercolor theme for the Facebook Group "Card Swaps for All Seasons".  I've been experimenting with a lot of different types of ink lately and for this card I used several different techniques using watercolor pencils, Distress Oxide Inks and Distress Spray. The watercolor frame was made using three of my favorite colors of distress oxide inks on watercolor paper using a smooshing technique (I found a video for this on YouTube a while back).  I used the following Distress Oxide ink colors:   squeezed lemonade , twisted citron and mermaid lagoon .  After letting this dry overnight I used the largest die and then two sizes smaller to make the frame from the torn edge rectangle die set .  Next, I used a die that had small holes in it on a piece of clear acetate that was cut just slightly bigger than the smaller rectangle die. ...

Hello again!  I wanted to share with you the "Landscape" card that I made for the Facebook group card swap "Card Swaps for All Seasons" in February 2020. I started out with watercolor paper  cut down to 3.75" x 5".  Using watercolor pencils on dry paper, I colored with yellow, orange and light blue in light shades using the pencils at an angle.  I then took a watercolor aqua pen to create a sky effect. I let this dry overnight. It was a little warped so I placed a book on top of it and let it sit another 24 hours. I created the mountains in layers using three different colors from Stampin' Up!©:  Soft Suede, Crumb Cake & Early Espresso and the stamp set "Waterfront".  I added Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers on top of the light blue watercolor background to create the ocean. This card was finished with a "Happy Father's Day" die cut out of soft suede cardstock (which also frames the watercolor paper cut to 4...