It's Monkey Time!

I must apologize for the brief hiatus. I've been doing some freelance work, so I had no time for stamping. But tonight everyone went to bed early... so I made four cards using the Monkey Business stamp set. I'm running low on paper, so I'm using colors that may not be the most popular of combinations. The cards really do look much nicer in person—my blasted camera can't take pictures of cards without totally blurring and washing them out. (Unfortunately for my blog, we'd rather spend the money on home improvements than a camera. Some day though.)

The first two cards are different versions of each other. I used barely banana, chocolate chip, certainly celery, and always artichoke cardstock. If you take a close look at the vine leaves, you'll notice that they were stamped in certainly celery and outlined with a garden green marker. It helps create a focal vine. I then placed the white and celery layers on the barely banana, and finished stamping the vines in certainly celery (so that they line up when I assemble the card). The second card has more random vines. I think I prefer the first. I also outlined the bananas using the same marker. It's hard to stamp bananas in yellow and be able to see the fine detail. I really distressed and tore the edges of the "thanks a bunch" sign to make it look more worn—like something you'd see on a walking path in a national park.

The second card had the bananas rocked 'n rolled in certainly celery. I stamped the monkey's arms in chocolate chip to give the impression of lots of clapping hands. (In my haste, I was sloppy in stamping the hands, so some look quite amputated. Try not to balk at my animal cruelty.) I guess one could also stamp a pineapple or heart in between the hands, too. The bow on the "thanks a bunch" sign was very tedious. I would not recommend such a tiny bow for a m&t. Now that I think about it, I should have used tweezers!

The third monkey card uses chocolate chip, whisper white, cool carribean, and gable green. Again, I stamped the monkey's hands around the edge of the focal image to create the impression that there's lots of love for the receiver. My favorite part of the card is the "love ya bunches!" contrast image. I stamped the whisper white craft ink on the chocolate chip cardstock, and then placed the whisper white square over the top. One could also use a square punch and adhere the contrast image on the inside of the card. I finished this card off with a line of faux stitching. Although these color combos aren't breathtaking, each card has a very useable template for CASEing. Feel free to do so.

The last monkey card uses fun colors, and isn't too feminine. I used ballet blue, gable green, glorious green (holy cow!—that's one of the only cards where I've been able to use this color successfully), pink passion, and whisper white cardstock; I used versamark, brilliant blue, green galore, and chocolate chip classic inks. I stamped the vines in a circular fashion to give emphasis to the monkey. Then I stamped the heart in Versamark, cut around the image, and hung it on some linen thread. I tied knots in the end and frayed them, too. I only stamped one heart on the background next to the "love ya bunches" image. It's pretty late tonight, otherwise I'd be working on making a cute little linen "grass skirt" for the monkey—all frayed and such. Can't you see that little critter doing the hula? I have seen other stampers use the bananas to create a hula skirt for the monkey, but I'm thinking this linen thread has a lot to offer for this jungle look.

By the way, don't be shy about leaving comments. I'd love to hear from you.