Bookmarks XXIII: Thing That Goes Bump In The Night

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

I didn't just use the "Mustard, Navy, and Orange" color prompt from this week's Stampotique challenge -- I actually took a look at the design team's designs. Wouldn't you know it, those pieces they make for inspiration are inspiring!

In this case, I had no idea what to do with mustard, navy, and orange. I guess it's a great combination for some moldy bread? Presenting Bookmarks #23: Penicillin! But I took inspiration from the trend I saw in the images used by the design team: a little bit odd, a little bit monstrous, and a little bit sketchy.

I hadn't opened it yet, but I did have a stamp set that fit those criteria: the Little Monsters cling rubber set from Recollections (a.k.a. Michaels). It even has a little boo! sentiment, so I decided to make a Halloween-y bookmark.

It's a fairly cute little monster-thing. I first stamped it in mustard and clear-embossed it, but it was pretty hard to see against the orange background. So I took some blue and some black (I don't actually have any navy) ink and smudged them around with my fingers. Fortunately this worked; the heights of the embossed monster caught more color than the underlying cardstock, and now the monster shows up acceptably. I repeated this technique -- stamping in Perfect Medium and clear embossing -- to make a strip of tone-on-tone boo! sentiments. I also then repeated the "oops, smudge ink on it" technique when I realized I wanted something that stood out more than tone-on-tone. An extra benefit of the embossing is that the words are shiny, so they stand out well when you take a picture with the flash on -- as you may have noticed.

This bookmark is also a fairly successful example of using a wide sketch to make a skinny bookmark. I used this week's Sketch Saturday sketch (#225) and turned it on its side, which is my go-to first attempt at using sketches.

I interpreted the skinny strip pretty faithfully. For the wide strip, I stamped the boo! sentiment all the way down the side of the card -- so it is both the strip and the sentiment. I took the liberty of placing the focal element at a bit of an angle, because with this much smudging and fraying going on it felt better that way than straight and square.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Stampotique Designers Challenge 65: Mustard, Navy, and Orange
• Sketch Saturday #225 (turn the sketch on end and take the strip of 'boo!'s as the wider stripe)
• Creative Inspirations: Inspired by a Sketch
• Bunny Zoe's Challenge 28: Distressing (attacked edges with craft knife)
• Stamping Scrapping Challenge Central: Halloween (used Perfect Medium to stamp the 'boo!'s, which is carried by Stamping Scrapping)
• Willow Sketchie: Sketch or Things with Wings (the thing, whatever it is, definitely has wings)

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies:

Bookmarks XVI: Turns to Gold

The leaves where I live are still green, but we've been getting lovely cool days lately. And it seems that half the challenge blogs in the northern hemisphere are fall-focused around now, which is a-okay by me -- I love these colors!

Click here to skip the rambling and jump directly to the project & challenge listing.

I mentioned in my post about putting together a kit for the gryphon bookmark trio that until someone came along with a "Bookmarks by Newbie Crafters" challenge, last week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, Read All About It!, was the best fit for my bookmarky papercrafts that I was likely to get.

To ensure that I wouldn't be right for very long, the Incy Wincy Designs challenge this week is "Make a Bookmark". Hey, twist my arm.

In addition to fall colors and a couple of technique/material challenges, I've used this sketch (turned sideways) from this week's Sketch Saturday challenge:

While I have included the two little dots, they're not terribly obvious -- there's a little pair of stamped-and-embossed acorns in the upper right corner of the patterned paper if you look. I like them. They come from the same stamp set as the sentiment, where they are part of a big branch of leaves and acorns, all of which I masked out. There's something very clever-feeling in using only a tiny part of a big stamp, although maybe that's just the stamp cleaner fumes talking.

I'm really pleased with how this bookmark turned out. The colors work, the washi tape works, the design is great (thanks, Sketch Saturday!), and it feels neither too decorated nor too empty. Plus I have a couple of novels about squirrels it can fit right into.

I'm entering this lovely bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Put a Stamp on It + optional washi tape
• Cute Card Thursday Challenge 233: Autumn Gold
• Raise the Bar Challenge #110: Celebrate Fall
• Sketch Saturday #224 (I've turned the sketch on its side)
• Pile It On #37: Patterned Paper
• Incy Wincy Designs Challenge: Make a Bookmark
• Craft Your Passion Challenge 127: Blast From the Past (using past challenge #125, Emboss It)
• Scrapalicious USA: Welcoming Fall

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies: (The patterned paper is from DCWV's Autumn Melody mat stack, and the washi tape is by Recollections. I'll add them to the widget if I can ever find them online.) (Edited 9-25-12 to add the thumbnail pic at the top.)