Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Cat On Fence: Another Halloween Card

I have good intentions. I really do work on cards almost every night, and I intend to post something every night. Keyword: intend. But sometimes the old mojo is not flowing, or I get stuck. Mostly I get stuck. I made a pretty cool card last night and tonight, but since it took me 2 DAYS to do it, I thought I'd subject you to some of my trauma.

Let me show you the finished product, then we'll do some deconstructing.

Here is the finished card. Looks pretty okay, I think! Now let's take a look at some of those parts, k? K!

This started with me wanting to use that cat stamp (A Muse). I went looking for some white scraps (did not have to go far - like the other side of the table!), then I thought it would be too stark on white. So I brayered the white piece! I used So Saffron, More Mustard and Crushed Curry. I think. I used a scrap of Mulberry paper that was just lying there as my divider between colors.

I mis-cut the BG papers (not on purpose), so I took a fab piece of Mike's ribbon and tied it over the gap. Too bad the brayered piece covered most of it. ;-(

The real trauma started when I decided I did not want this to say Happy Halloween, so I tweeted for suggestions, and Mary Dawn (I think she may be BR #1, not sure) tossed out "boo!" as a suggestion. Well, I have no 'boo' stamp, so I kept tweeting, mostly to waste time and get to bed late.

THEN Mary Dawn posted on her blog about how the smallest die in the Nestabilities Labels 4 set is so small it cannot possibly be used for anything. *ding ding ding* Sounded like a challenge to me! So off I went into The Other Room to grab my retired Brushstroke Letters, stamped them, then I took out the littlest die and looked at it.

Here it is next to the lower-case B.

Here it is next to the upper-case B. This was going to be a tight fit.

(Please ignore all that brayer mess. I'm creating here!)

Taking a cue from Mary Dawn, I lined up the pieces with a ruler to give you an idea of how really small these are. I agree - what were they thinking?!

I played and played with these letters until I ended up with this. What was *I* thinking?! In theory this seemed like a good idea, but in actual execution? Not so much. I ripped it off and went to bed.

(NOW do you see why it took me 2 days to make this card? And we are not done yet!)

Tonight I decided I hated the white and went with orange - actually it is Dusty Durango. I like this A LOT!

See that ribbon? There was a big empty on that side of the card, and some of the yellow needed to be covered, so I punched a hole in the brayered piece of card stock and tied a piece of the ribbon through it. Is that not really pretty ribbon? I am so glad I figured out a way to have some of it show (not be hidden under the yellow layer).

Here, again, is the finished card.


And no, I am not trying to be artsy-fartsy and 'stage' this card. I wanted to show you the stamp I used and how I switched it up!

I stamped the image on white and cut it out to get the white fence. By doing so I (1) had to cut off the poor kitty's whiskers and (2) got a separate moon image! I drew the whiskers back on after I stuck the cat to the yellow layer, and I got to put the moon where I wanted it! Sweet!

I cannot believe it took me two evenings to make two cards (I made two of these). Such is my devotion to my craft. Two cards - two days. Eh, whatever!

Tomorrow I think I'll make ... dunno yet. We'll all be surprised!

Thanks for stopping by!

5 comments:

  1. love love love! thanks for the shouts AND a way to use that infernal smallest die!

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  2. cute card and I agree that darn die is stupidly small...

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  3. Brilliant! Love your "boo" tags. Thanks to both you and Mary Dawn for this terrific idea.

    Very cool ribbon :)

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  4. well, in the laurniverse, 2 cool useable &/or sale-able cards in 2 nights--2 WEEKNIGHTS!--is still pretty flippin' impressive!!! but if you prefer, think of it as having accomplished, in just...what?...6hrs or so:

    1. hanging out (twitter-style) with a fun friend

    2. discovering a brand new technique with a stampin' up product

    3. usin' some of THE HEAP

    4. generating a full day of blog-content

    5. developing a new ribbon
    treatment

    6. amusin' miss kitty (it's a surmise, but i'm guessing that there was a certain amount of fussin' & cussin'...and cats can't just continually increase their sense of smug disdain for humans without SOME SORT OF INSPIRATION as grist for the mill!!!)

    ...AND...

    7. adding to market day inventory...times two!

    SHEESH! you must be really tired!!! take the rest of the day off, missus!!! ♥♥♥

    ps: WV="ablygou"
    i have no witty comment, but it's fun to say, dontcha think?!

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  5. Very cute! Love the brayering! Halloween cards are some of my favorites of course :)

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I'd love to hear what you really think! :-)

PS: I've had to disable Anonymous comments, because the spammers were killing me. If you are unable to comment, please email me your comment and I'll get it posted for you. Sorry. (stoopid spammers)