Past Projects: Animal Card #1

So this "past projects" headline will hold all the projects I've done in the past, as I slowly attempt to document each and every one of them. Since I have the memory of a goldfish (unless we're talking about unimportant information, then my memory balloons elephant size), I will do my best to recount how I did these cards and scrap pages. As stated in my blog description, my scrapbooking journey is full of Ups and Downs. Ups like when I finally discover how to make the tool work for me, and Downs like when I mess up on the card. So it is with my recording. I will record both the Ups and Downs, and hopefully you guys (whoever reads this) can learn from my mistakes!

So this first card I did was for one of my friends in this big group that I have where everyone is in possession of an animal nickname (it's a rather long story), and so for her (and one other person) 21st birthday, I made a 12" by 12" card using her animal (monkey) as the theme. So I googled "monkey craft" to get an idea of the kind of proportions a monkey's head should have and I found this really awesome picture from fiskars website via pinterest. okay, to be absolutely honest, I didn't know about the fiskars website until I started typing this post. I based my monkeys off this image I saw on pinterest, and only JUST have I realised how much trial and error I could have avoided because the website (link above) details exactly how to make the monkey. So my lesson learnt is: always click the link back to the original. A lot of heartache and time could have been saved

Anyway, as you can see in the picture above (which is from the fiskars website) you only need to cut out two small circles, one large circle, a heartshape and an oval. Really simple right! WRONG. I guess it would have been simple if I had the die cuts for them, but since I'm on a budget, I used my miracle tools: A compass, A pencil and a pair of scissors, added with a dose of agar-ation. Basically, I've not found another monkey that looks as proportionate and cute as this one or another monkey that appeals to me. I kinda wanted it to be cartoony but not too cute.

The pictures look a bit strange, but thats cos these pictures were taken before I realised I should use a plain (either black or white) paper to work as a background before I took them. you can also see that initially I followed the picture and punched out (or rather, I poked out) the eyes, however, that gave my monkey a little creepy kind of look. and so I decided to colour it in black instead. 

  

Arranging the 3 monkeys (cos 3's a magic number for proportions!) alone on the black paper made it look really really plain. So I decided to do the background in green and yellow strips to draw reference to the monkey  (bananas and trees anybody?) my initial plan was to do a checkered pattern alternating green and yellow to fill up the entire background, but I think the final product works much better.

After adding the background, I wanted a bit more yellow on the bottom, hence the title of the card 'Have a swingin' birthday' was placed on a yellow square with green borders. You will notice that a 12" by 12" card means that I had to stick two pieces of 12" by 12" paper together, and I left approximately 1cm on the left hand side to double-sided tape the pieces together.

Yupp, this is the first animal card, a really simple and easy to make card. In fact, you could use the monkey template for many other kinds of crafts too!(: Will be back with the second past projects post on the second animal (hint: it involves loads of cotton wool!!) really soon! Hope you've enjoyed reading this, and I hope it's not too lengthy for you(: 

*do give me comments and share other ideas as well, will love to hear them!