Fun with Punches – Punch Art!

Aloha, all!

     Today is the 100th Challenge for the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge blog!  That's definitely a "Hooray" for what has been a great group of people over the past several years!

     To celebrate this occasion, SUO Challenges has challenged its readers to create a project using one of the group's first 99 challenges.  As I looked over the list (included as a link in the SUO Challenge Blog), I saw the Punch Art challenge in November 2010.  And here I am in the midst of creating several blog posts that feature Stampin' Up! Punches!  Perfect!

     A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel to Honolulu, Hawaii, and one of the stops I made was at the Honolulu Museum of Art.  My friend and I had lunch at the Museum Cafe, and went through several of the galleries before we stopped – inevitably! – at the Museum Shop.  While I didn't buy anything, I did look through all the greeting cards.  After all, I make greeting cards and I was hoping that I'd get an idea or two for my own creations.  One card had several small cat portraits on the front of it, and it stuck in my mind until I could get this card made.  Oh it looks nothing like the original, but I did have fun figuring out how to get the idea onto a Stampin' Up! card!

     After trying out several color scheme, I decided to use the colors in the Stampin' Up! Neutrals Collection of colors for the little cat faces.  Once that was done, I made up the little cat faces before deciding on a card size and shape.  For each cat:

1. Punch half a circle with the 1-1/4" Circle Punch.
2. Punch two points with the smooth pennant in the Petite Pennants Builder Punch.
3. Adhere the small points (the ears) to either side of the half circle with Multipurpose Glue.  Arrange the outside edge of the ears perpendicular to the straight edge of the half circle.
4. Turn the cat face over and trim the small parts of the ears that peek out from the face.

     For the cat eyes, I used a variety of colors – Pear Pizzazz, Marine Mist and Old Olive.  I punched all of these using the 1/8" Circle Handheld Punch.  A neat feature of these handheld punches is that there is a reservoir at the bottom of the punch that holds all kinds of little circles when you punch them.  So I just punched away on the three pieces of cardstock and then dumped all the little circles out onto my work surface.  Then I chose which ones I wanted for which cats.  I hand drew a little smile on each of the cats except for the black cat (no, the White Gel Pen didn't work – too thick for this little critter!).

     For the card layout, I decided on a tall card.  I cut a piece of Baked Brown Sugar Cardstock 8-1/2" x 4-1/4" for starters.  I used a ruller to help me line the cats up and adhered them with Stampin' Dimensionals.  Then I trimmed the cardstock so that it ended up being 3-3/4" w  x 7-1/4" h.  I stamped the sentiment from the Million and One Stamp Set.  I had no problem figuring out which stamp I was going to use because I personally think that ALL cats are Fabulous!

     Finally I tied this layer together with some Marina Mist and Pear Pizzazz 1/4" Cotton Ribbon.  Such great ribbon to use for cards – it lays nicely and ties beautifully into knots and bows!

     I added a mat of Marina Mist Cardstock and mounted it all onto a card 4-1/8" w x 8" h.  It's so much fun to be able to make a card any size I want without worrying what I'll use for an Envelope!  The Stampin' Up! Envelope Punch Board makes this so easy!  While there's not an envelope for a card of this exact measurement, there's one that's pretty close and it looks like it was made to go with this card.  Love it!

     So – now your challenge is to go to the SUO Challenge Blog, pick a theme from the last 3-1/2 years and make a card to enter into this challenge.  Have fun with it!