Just Playing

[Blogger Comment Alert: Blogger changed to a formerly-Beta imbedded comment form, and it does not work for everyone, so I have defaulted my blog back to the old-style of pop-up window. Comment on!]

Sometimes when I get home from work I do not want to think too much, so I play. I take this opportunity to look at some of the many cards and projects I have marked as CASE-worthy and I try a few of them. The first thing I did tonight was make this little guy:

Next to those peppermint patty spiders, I think this bat is Da Bomb! Too cute, and very easy to make. I CASEd it from here. It is just the SU square scallop punch folded in half. Cut two slits on the crease side and bend them back to make the ears. Stick on some googlie eyes and you have a bat! Fun!

Next I went back and found this post in one of the blogs in my faves where I lurk for ideas for SU-Only projects for my workshops (man, were there enough prepositional phrases in there for you?! Ack! There was another one!), so I had to try making it myself. I had a few ideas for making the cattails from both her original post plus one of the comments. Here they are:

Recipe (all materials by SU): Stamps - Inspired by Nature, Best Yet (Hostess), Perennial Favorites; Ink - Always Artichoke, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie; Card Stock - Very Vanilla, Always Artichoke, Choc Chip; Other - 1 3/8" Circle punch, Key Tag punch, Designer Label punch, Horizontal Slot punch, Olive brads, Ribbon Originals Alpine, A. Artichoke gg ribbon.

The two versions are punched cattails and sponged cattails. For the punched one I used the SU Horizontal Slot punch and glued them onto the grass with a 2-way glue pen:

This gives some texture to the card, which I like. They are really easy to just punch out and glue on. But one of the comments on the original post was to use the negative of a single punched-out slot and just sponge the cattails, so I tried that, too. I used a dauber and this:

to make this version:

It is very easy, too, and you can save your punching hand. I think I'll use some version of this card for my November workshops, and I'll give The Ladies the option of sponging or punching the cattails. Or both! :-)

The Ladies will NOT have this option: flocking. Too bad it is retired, but talk about texture! I just "sponged" some 2-way glue through the slot punch negative to get the right shape, or close to it, and stuck on some flocking:

Texture, I've got! I think I might try sponging some brown onto the grass, then flocking over that so it is not so see-through.

Some disclaimers to help you feel better about yourself:

1. I messed up stamping the grass and left too much open space at the top, so I needed to fill it in, and the flutter-by was the ticket for that. I stamped it in Choc Chip, sponged Pumpkin Pie over it, coloring way outside the lines, then cut it out. I stuck it on with a glue dot and curled up the wings a little to make them stand up.

2. I have admired the brown felt ribbon on several projects on blogs and on SCS, but I had no idea what it was. I finally looked it up, and it is part of the Ribbon Originals Alpine ribbon in the Holiday Mini Catalog ... and . I . own . it. It was in one of my SU boxes, never opened, and forgotten. So sad. Sad that it was lonely in the bottom of that box, and sad that I forgot I even had it.

3. I had to mount both the Inspired by Nature and Best Yet sets to make these cards. And I am not sure I've ever used the Perennial Favorites more than once. And I had to look it up to make sure it was not retired...I think it may be on the infamous Dormant List. ETA: Rats! It is retired. Grrrrrr.

4. I stuck the sentiments onto the ribbon with red sticky tape because I had already taped down the brown ribbon and stuck the Vanilla layer onto the Artichoke layer with Dimensionals, so it was going nowhere. I will suggest to The Ladies that they punch their brads through all the layers, or at least through the ribbon so the whole thing lays flatter. (This is why playing is good, because you learn what NOT to do next time. Also, I broke my own rule of: make the parts-is-parts first, then assemble the card. I need to listen to myself more.)

5. I really, really (really) dislike that when I do zoom-in shots, you can see all the boo-boos in details. Ugh. Hopefully you will learn from my mistakes so you can be a better person. That's what I'm here for.