Sunday, July 18, 2010

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Did you ever have one of those days? You know, where you've planned all this fun crafty stuff, and no matter what you try, you don't like it? Or it didn't turn out like you'd envisioned it AND the morphing, which is quite often just fine, is not emitting warm fuzzies? Yeah, today was that day for me.

Last week I bought several digital images (I KNOW!) from Mo's Digital Pencil (digitalpenciltoo.com) because they spoke to me, and I could see me using them with all sorts of irreverent sentiments. I have now spent most of today, a SUNDAY, in my jammies, futzing with paper and Copic markers and Nesties and ... and ... I am not happy.

Let's review the outcome and see if you can help me.

First up, we have this little lady, doing what I suspect most of us do: checking in with the outside world at the start of our day:

There are a few things about this card that I like:
(1) I thought to print the image a second time on some Bazzil shiny card stock (I forget the Bazzil name for "shimmery").
(2) I found a piece of marbled glossy card stock that I could use as a background.
(3) I thought of a sentiment.
(4) I had enough pink card stock left to cut some layers for the sentiments.

What I don't like about this card:
(1) I had to freakin' cut out that bathrobe 4 times.
(2) I think I should have sized her down some.
(3) I colored her cup too dark, but I made it lighter the other 3 cards.
(4) I messed up her slippers, and I ended up using a hideous pink covered by the same blue I used for her jammies to come up with that also-hideous color that is now her slippers.
(5) I colored her jammies blue and picked a background with green in it.

Eh?

Next card ... I loved this image, entitled "Hoping". I thought it would be a fun one to own, though I had no idea what I'd do with it.

Here's the card:

My likes and dislikes ... first, the Likes:

(1) I got to use this Nestie shape.
(2) I got to use it TWICE! (Layers)
(3) I reminded myself that when in doubt about a coordinating card stock, flip the double-sided card stock over and see what you've got.
(4) Because of (3), I used this whole piece of 12x12 patterned paper.
(5) I think the made-up sentiment goes okay. I decided it would be a card to give someone who has lost weight and looks MAHvelous!
(6) I used a few of my bazillion half-pearls.

My dislikes:
(1) I did a sukky job coloring the towel. Just because you can match a Copic color to your card stock doesn't mean you should.
(2) I went over and over the towel with my Copic 0 in an attempt to lighten the color. I think it looks like she threw some bleach in with her colored towels in that last wash.
(3) I should have down-sized this image, too. I really didn't want to center it, but it was too big to do anything else.

Ready for card #3? Here you go:

For this one, my W2 Copic died and I don't have any refill, yet. So I had to stop. BUT, let's do the Likes and Dislikes, shall we?

Likes:
(1) I like the image. I thought I could have her scream something inappropriate.
(2) She's easy to color.
(3) I used another piece of my hoarded patterned papers.

Dislikes:
(1) I couldn't for the life of me find the right color to layer with this image. Seriously, I must have tried (and cut) several colors before I landed with the brown. BROWN!
(2) With all those cool, fun colors, I chose BROWN?!
(3) Is there even any brown IN that paper? Oh, yes, the teenie tiny dots in the center of all the PRETTY FLOWERS!
(4) I could not match the green for her sweater to save my soul. I made 4 of these, and each one is a different version of that green. This is actually the closest I came to one I like. Really.
(5) As the owner of more irreverent sentiment stamps than most of the known universe, I couldn't find one I liked that I thought was "perfect" with the image.

Re: (5), since I couldn't decide, I decided to NOT decide, and chose four different sentiments. Since none of this is finished yet (nothing is stuck down) I thought I'd show you all four and take a poll. There's lots of time - my ink refill won't be here until the end of the week.

You've seen the first one above, and here's the other three:





Eh? I am so not feeling the love, here. I might have to make up my own sentiment; something like, "I am surrounded by idiots." or "That was the last straw." or "What part of NO don't you understand?" Oh, look, I forgot to color her tongue.

That concludes my efforts for this Sunday. As you can tell, I am not particularly happy with any of these, and I am open to suggestions.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go have a cookie and call it "dinner".

Thanks for stopping by!

10 comments:

  1. dang, girl, you are WAY too hard on yourself.

    On the first, I agree, the image could be smaller and the cup could be lighter.

    Second one looks good - again the image could be a bit smaller.

    As for the third - love it. The brown really works. It helps to POP the image off the background (which I love).

    I like the saying too (I don't have time)...I don't like bite me or welcome to my reality. I do love the people person one. Also, surrounded by idiots and what part of no would work well.

    Hope this helps... glad you got to be in jammies all day. Me too, but I wasn't very productive

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  2. Love your cards!
    I like Bite Me, People Person, surrounded by idiots, and what part of no. I can so relate to this image and any of those sayings - love what you're doing here!

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  3. I'm actually not a fan of any of the images, but do like what you did with them. I think "bite me" or something bleeped out would be my favorite sentiments for that last card. good luck :)

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  4. OMG I am sitting here thinking about how freaking busy my life is recently and that card.."I don't have time" screamed at
    Love them all but especially that one!me...it's my life right now LOL

    I was thinking that flowersoft stuff would make for cute fuzzy slippies and housecoat???

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  5. Are you crazy?? Those cards are all great! No one is looking at those details except you. (Okay, maybe the coffee cup is a little dark.)

    The too busy sentiment really spoke to me! And I like the people person remark.

    (I think Bazzill calls their shiny paper Bling....)

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  6. I agree with Susan, you're being too hard on yourself! I will agree with your critique of the first one as far the the coffee cup being too dark, but that's about it - I don't see anything wrong with the rest of it. On the 2nd one - I like the towel being a little blotchy, it looks fine. The third one is wonderful and all 4 sentiments work really well with it, but my favorite is the "morning person" - 'cuz I am SO not a morning person myself.

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  7. Love the green shirt lady wigging out! My saying would be "Coffee I need Coffee!!" LOL
    You are way to hard on yourself.

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  8. ....these are very nice cards. listen to your ladies....don't be overcritical of your cards.

    #2

    p.s. thanks for the lovely comment on my blog.....

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  9. Oh, my, Leslie - you've been busy again! I totally got your Twilight Zone reference, and I also noticed one of the tags you used on your post - "whining". Um, stop that..?! Love all of these cards and the "flaws" you pointed out are some of my favorite things about them - especially the towel! The splotchy coloring makes it look fluffy instead of flat. I do agree about the cup... ALSO - good design incorporates colors that work well together, not that match dead-on all the time - that's way too much like boring! So quit worrying about the green sweater and the brown mats because IT'S ALL GOOD! (Not shouting, just being emphatic...) Carry on, darlin'! Oh - "too busy" is the one that works best for me, as it pretty much sums up life as I know it...

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  10. I always love your cards...even the crooked ones...not that any here are crooked! What do you do with the cards you don't like??? I see so many that you say you don't like etc etc, and I love all of them!!!

    HUGZ
    Marci

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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)