I started by cutting several cats and dogs out of white cardstock using the On My Mark dies. Don't you love the elongated limo-type look that these animals have? From there, I stamped on my cut-out's with black ink, then smudged color on with sponges and Distress Ink.
For the one that includes the "crime fighting cat," I drew my own cape and used a black rectangle of paper to form the "mask," which I glued googly eyes to.
For the party pup, I made him a pointy hat out of a triangle and tried to pick a sentiment that went along with the weekend feel (free as a bird).
I learned that the Tim Holtz matchbook die set has a die that perfectly houses a 3x3 stack of Post-It notes. The only modification I made was to score a different line on the top flap so that it folded shut at the same thickness as the bottom flap did. I decorated the matchbooks with ephemera bits and stamping. Here it is as it unfolds:
And opened up completely to reveal the Post-It note stack inside:
These make great gifts and I had fun putting them together. And kudos to me for including a cat. As stated at the beginning of the post, I don't have a great track record with cats. There are many stories of cats plaguing my youth, but here is just one. When I was little, my brother and I took piano lessons from a pretty hard core piano teacher lady. She had to be about 95 and she was serious business! She was an amazing musician, but there was nothing warm-fuzzy-grandma about her at all. It was summer, so while I was waiting for my brother to finish his lesson, I sat on the front porch of my piano teacher's house and started playing with a stray cat. See? I tried to show some love to cats at an early age! But alas. My attempt to bond with a cat had disastrous results. By the time it was my turn to step up to the piano, my face had swollen to the size of a watermelon and my fingers were seriously five times their normal size. I couldn't bend them to play a note and even if I could've used my fingers, I couldn't see because my eyes had become two swollen-shut slits. Apparently I had allergies to cats. But instead of extending empathy to the human ball of dough, which is what I felt like, my piano teacher yelled at me for the rest of the paid lesson time (guess she wanted my parents' to get their money's worth). NOTHING stood in the way of piano-playing! Not even cat-induced disabilities! So while my allergies became almost non-existent as I grew older, the emotional scars from many a negative cat incident remain. Even so, I was able to look past that for this project and make a heroic cartoon cat. I hope my feline-fond friends appreciate that extra effort.
To make your own pet Post-It note holders, pick up these supplies from Simon Says Stamp:
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So what do you think of with our "lions and lambs" theme? Upload your creations to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to win a $50 voucher to the Simon Says Stamp store.
