Bookmarks XLVII: The Cat Who Came For Christmas

Kitty cats and ornaments and Christmas coziness: that's this bookmark.

I've photographed it on a page from Cleveland Amory's The Cat Who Came For Christmas. I've shamelessly stolen his title, as you may have noticed, but I feel obligated to say that the cat in the book is white, whereas the cat on the bookmark is brown-striped. And red, too, which isn't exactly natural but is Christmas.

I'm entering this festive feline bookmark into the following challenges:

• Penny Black and More @ Allsorts: Animal Magic
• Southern Girls Challenge #56: Animal Crackers
• The Crafty Pad Challenge #194: Christmas is Coming
• Willow Sketchie Challenge: Christmas in October
• ABC Christmas Challenge: U for Up To You
• DL.ART Thankful Thursday: Any Holiday from October through December (Christmas!)

Supplies:

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 XX: Primary Knight

I'm a little too tired to weave a narrative of challenge inspiration, which anyway is always "look for several challenges that can go together and do them", so I'm just going to list the challenges I'm entering up front.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Hero (the knight)
• Art Impressions Challenge 80: Rainbow (red tabard, orange flame, yellow shield, green dragon, blue horse caparison)
• Divas by Design Challenge 52: For A Child (great for any kid who likes to play pretend... and you can pretend the knight is male or female as you wish, which is pretty cool)
• Crafty Card Makers Challenge 74: Winged Things (the dragon)
• Willow Sketchie: Sketch or Things with Wings (winged dragon)
• Delightful Challenges: Anything But A Card (it's a bookmark!)

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

At this point you know I've made a bookmark with a colorful knight and dragon. Also, the dragon has wings. They're likely childish in style.

The picture seems a little anticlimactic.

It's bright and cheerful, although the composition could have been better. At the very least I could have placed the rear of the horse off the edge, mirroring the way the dragon is positioned. Still: bright and cheerful. Rainbow colors may not exactly stretch my boundaries but darn it they feel good. Look at this bookmark. Look at this selection of inspiration photos from Art Impressions. Tell me you don't feel like your day is a little more cheerful.

Once I called the bookmark "Primary Knight" I began to wonder whether the knight is fighting the dragon because it's a dragon, or because it's made up of secondary colors. Clearly he's already vanquished something purple.

Supplies: (white 110 lb. cardstock is Staples brand)