Saturday, October 31, 2015

Playing with Newton's Nook Stamps

[For my Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers card, please click here.]

Some days it's just not worth getting out of bed. At least that's how I felt Friday night after I'd spent hours trying to make a card, and none of my ideas worked, so I got more frustrated, but because I'm so stubborn I wouldn't give up, so I kept trying different things, and I finally left in a huff with two cards, neither of which were what I wanted, but are passable. Do you have days like that?

This all started when a friend stopped by and left a few Newton's Nook cat sets she'd recently acquired. I immediately colored up these guys:


I thought I'd have them looking out a window, so I die-cut the window. Then I changed my mind and opened and used my Lawn Fawn Cozy Christmas set to make them sitting in front of a fire place. I opted to not use the Flame image included with the set, and instead opened and used my year-old Poppystamps flames and logs dies, and colored the flames with Copics. I liked all the dimension.

Here's the fireplace:


I only stamped part of it, because the original card it was on had a strip of pretty holiday paper down the left edge. I only forgot to mask it once when I stamped. ;/  Nice flames though, eh?

You'll notice I said "the original card". That's because I found the cats completely covered the flames. I just cut out the fireplace to try to repurpose it.

Eventually I admitted defeat and made two cards from the parts-is-parts I had. I went back to my original idea for a window and this is the cat card:


I put a piece of Lawn Fawn paper across the bottom as the carpet to ground the little guys. On a scrap, I laid down the window, added some sticky in each opening, and replaced the panes. I removed the window, colored the panes with Tumbled Glass Distress ink, then stamped a Paper Smooches tree over them. After I stuck the window to the card, I just placed the rectangles in the openings and I had an outdoor scene. I like it when something works, and this might have been the first thing yesterday.

The cats were placed so they looked out the window. I suppose I could have hunted for a teeny bird to sit in the tree, but I was pretty sure at that point I'd destroy the card, so I didn't.

The fireplace ended up here:


You may have noticed the top edge of the green layer is smaller than the other three. It actually started out the same size, but I thought I was following the current Friday Mash-up sketch:


so I trimmed it down. It turns out I only followed the sketch for the small panel, and not the whole card. I'm pretty sure this would disqualify me. Now I'm sad I trimmed the top edge. :(

So yeah, I was defeated at that point, and chose to call it a night. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: It's not that I don't like how these turned out,, but they are so far from where I started, I was just a bit perturbed. I'll get over it. :)

Some of the stuff I used: Copics (0, W0, N0, N1, N2, N4, N7, Y35, YR18, R14, R22, R08, BG32, BG15, YG41, G03), Basic Grey Basics White 6x6 pad, SU 2-way Glue Pen, SU Whisper White flock (cat's hat), and the following:



4 comments:

  1. These are fun and yay you for working it all out! I definitely have those days especially when coloring is part of the project!

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  2. Isn't that frustrating when your stamps and dies don't work together to get to that picture in your mind! That being said, both cards are great. The kitties are fabulously colored and that fireplace card is just amazing. I bet when you look at them again in a few days you'll like em.

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  3. Oh yes, I have had days like that! I think it was worth the agony, because that cat card is super adorable. And yes, I love the dimension of the flames in your fireplace too :)

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  4. Oh those kitties! Love how they're coloured, and I don't know about Bobra, but Duncan does not nee a bird to be fascinated while looking out a window. I think one would only notice the thinness of the top edge of your mat in the second card if you point it out. So don't. Otherwise it's a sweet card! (I came this close to owning those flames and logs...)

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

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