This Little Piggy

I'm in pig mode this evening. Yes, I said pig mode*. Last summer I met someone who is associated with YouthZone in Colorado. Their Case statement is, in part, " ... committed to helping young people become responsible, contributing members of society. By working with youth, parents and community, YouthZone helps strengthen communities through happier, healthier families and safer neighborhoods. "

Given my very low tolerance for helpless people, I think this is a fine program, and I offered to help. Every year they have an event called Kiss-n-Squeal, where people kiss pigs for charity. What a hoot! So I offered to work with them on some Thank You cards. Yes, this is a mass-production, but this started last summer, and we just now got around to finalizing the order. Hey, we're both busy! A lot!

The final design includes this really cute pig die I got from Sizzix:


It has lots of parts (okay, only four), and I die-cut 25 of them. Then I realized I didn't have enough Naturals White card stock for the card bases. Ack! I am a hoarder! Where did I go wrong?! Not only that, but I'd just that same day placed my I MUST HAVE IT ALL, AND I MUST HAVE IT NOW first Demo order of the new catalog, and I'd included NO Naturals White card stock. Sigh.

So I sent out an APB to all my local peeps and customers. Nuthin'. Sigh. (Insert sound of crickets chirping.) Sigh. So I placed another expedited, emergency I MUST HAVE IT NOW order, and it arrived today. Ergo, I am making these cards tonight.

My mock-up included shadowing on the piggy's face and legs, but instead of using a dauber with light brown ink (I thought he looked dirty, and pigs are actually very clean animals. TRUE!), so I went for pink this time. And not just any pink, but a Copic marker that exactly matched the color of the card stock, so I thought it would darken the color just a bit.

Nope. It freakin' dissolved the pink layer! Look at his chubby cheeks:

The alcohol bleached the pink and revealed the textured layer below! Did I discover something new? Has anyone else ever heard of this happening? Will I be famous and maybe have FIVE blog readers now?!?!?!?! I don't think I could handle that.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, here are more parts showing the front and back of the Core'Dinations card stock I'm using:

Pink (smooth side) at the top left. Light color textured side at the bottom left. Assembled pig on the right. This paper is from the Whitewashed series. So you can see the texture on the back, but it bled through to the front once I touched my alcohol marker to it. COOL! So I did the whole pig:

I LOVE HIM! This is good, since I had only enough of this color card stock to cut exactly 25 pigs, and if I mess one up, I am doomed.

Before I got too carried away, I made one card start-to-finish to validate my plan:

A test drive is always a good thing. The sentiment is printed on the computer, and yes, this card is huge - 5x7 (by request) versus my standard 4.25x5.5. I had to stand waaaay back to take this shot.

Since I was already printing the front, I spent a while playing with the document to also print my domain name on the back, which saved me from having to stamp it crooked 25 times:

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 24 more of these to make, and I'd like to get them done tonight. THEN I'll break out my new Owl punch, tomorrow. I have the day off (YAY!) so I'll run some errands in the morning , then play, play, play!

Thanks for stopping by!

* Not to be confused with the Big Pig Jig, which is a huge annual barbecue event in Vienna, GA (pronounced Vie-enna). I know these things because I used to watch the Food Network ALL THE TIME.