VanGoghChica Studio

  In this Clean and Simple (CAS) cardmaking tutorial, I share a fun geometric card design suitable for anyone who is a no-frills type of person. Yes, cardmaking does include many floral designs, but that is not all we can make. If you want to make your card along with me, watch my You Tube video , complete with a blooper right at the end! 👉 The blooper shows up around the 27-minute mark, so you can either craft along with me as I stamp and assemble my card or skip ahead for a laugh. I f you enjoy DIY cardmaking, stamping, or beginner-friendly handmade card tutorials, this video is for you! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to help my channel grow—I’d love to connect with fellow crafters. Supplies Altenew's Doodled Triangles Stamp set Altenew's pigment ink in Permanent Black Fresh dye in in  Aqualicious ,  Warm Sunshine ,  Frayed Leaf , Sweet Leaf , Limestone Altenew white card stock First you are going to cut and fold your white card stock into a fold-ope...

#Ever messed up your handmade card at the very last step? 🙈 You’re not alone! In this Clean and Simple (CAS) cardmaking tutorial , I share a fun geometric card design—and yes, you’ll see my real-life crafting blooper happen right on camera. 👉 The blooper shows up around the 27-minute mark, so you can either craft along with me as I stamp and assemble my card or skip ahead for a laugh. If you enjoy DIY cardmaking, stamping, or beginner-friendly handmade card tutorials, this video is for you! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to help my channel grow—I’d love to connect with fellow crafters. 💬 Are you a cardmaker too? Share what you’re working on in the comments—I’d love to see your creations!

I achingly remember the crisp autumn colors of Fall in Louisville (my home town). Living in San Francisco for 13 years and now South Florida since 2000; I have long missed that foilage. As well as bonfires, frosty breath and well worn boots. That was my favorite season. So, I was eager to use my leaves cover die. I have several leaf themed dies. It's only natural as I am such a tree lover. I conjured up the feeling of dry, jewel toned leaves by preparing card stock ahead of time. The night before, I sprayed them with vibrant Fall pigments by Lindy's Gang. This paper would be for the central two leaves on my cover. For a video on this whole process, check out my video here . I also painted swathes of Autumn colored Dylusian paints onto another card stock sheet. My thinking was that the Dylusian colors would shine through the die cut windows around the perimeter of my card front.  Then, I individually tiled the leave's tiny components into the two central leaf windows. I  th...

This sweet lil' card is one I would send to book lovers or journalers, etc. The card itself includes the black border. I chose the black border and central image for novelty; but I also saw that stenciling a lavender color over a yellow ombre background produced a sort or lavender/gray. And gray tone lent itself more to black.  Below, you can clearly see the subtle color shifts from light yellow to orange. This was achieved by inking my card with four different shades in the same color family - from lightest to darkest. You can also see how crisp my white ink looks with the help of Altenew's Stampwheel 2.0 (for a You Tube review of the Stampwheel as well as an explanation of how I stenciled this card, see my video here .) Supplies Altenew Journal Flowers stamp and die set Altenew Square Weave stencil Altenew pigment inks in Permanent Black and Antique Gold  and Cloud White Altenew fresh dye ink mini set Golden Sunset Altenew glue blending tool Black and white card...

 Have you ever received a fancy card with letterpress type? With letterpress, the paper is textured and you can literally see the printing process. It denotes an important and special feel to the card. Letterpress is officially done at a printers; but I have a trick to make a faux letterpress card.  This trick is actually multi-step, requiring agile fingers and patience. I will show you a tip to make it go smoother. It took me several tries to figure it out but I am happy to pass it along. But first:  Supplies White cardstock Altenew Butterfly Dreams layering stamp set Altenew Fancy Hello Die Altenew fresh dye ink sets in Golden Sunset  and Sweet Dreams Die cutting machine Spray adhesive Vellum The first thing you will do is die cut five fancy hellos from card stock. Then you glue each fancy hello on top of each other, making one thick fancy hello. For me, this was harder than it sounds. I have neuropathy in my non dominant hand and this creates numb fingertips and ...

  I thought I would show you some common mistakes that can happen when you make cards.  Both my ladies' features sported ink that ran: my brunettes brown tears coming down and hijab wearing friend, whose lips also dripped rosy ink. I believe I had too much ink on my stamp, and thus when I pressed it, it squished out of the prescribed lines. The mistake on my brunette in the bottom left photo is for other card makers that are messy like me. I constantly smudge paint and ink. I've always been a little messy gal, and I still struggle with that; and here I smudged her hair. The last image on the lower right is a common mistake. If you do not have something like the stamp wheel 2.0 or other stamping alignment aids, you will notice that the lines on the left side of my brunette did not stamp completely. It is almost impossible to line up a stamp to land exactly where the first stamp landed unless you use a tool that's meant to help you with alignment. I bought the stamp wheel 2.0...