Nurse Oddball

Inspiration: Mojo Monday #524 + Just Add Ink #478 (H for Health)

I spent National Card-Making Day with my favorite crafting pal in the world: my niece Megan. We put together invitations for her upcoming seventh birthday and we had a bit of free time afterwards, so she wanted to craft some more. She colored images and made drawings and I worked on some Stamping Bella images I had stamped before and left on my desk, ready to be colored when I had a minute. I used my Prismacolor pencils, which is what I pull out to share with her when she wants to color. I've already posted the card I made with the wizard, but this is the second image I had time to color with her, Oddball Nurse. I will say I'm pretty impressed with how much life I managed to give the image with mostly just grey shading. There's a few brown in her hair, red on the striped stockings and the two crosses, but really, the rest is just a mix of greys. And I love the result. I'm learning to mix shades and use pen strokes to my advantage, and the results keep improving, which is always encouraging.

It's always interesting to me to work backwards to try to find appropriate patterned papers for an already colored image since I usually work the other way around. This one was pretty neutral, so the only thing I was looking for while looking through my paper stash was red. The Lovestruck papers from Authentique caught my eye. They're love-themed, and for a split second, I thought I could maybe write something like "I'm just lovesick over you," but I would have needed to make an English card for the wording to work, so I came back to my "Get Better Soon" idea, but I decided I could still work with the papers nonetheless. I skipped the obvious Valentine one and picked the more generic patterns. I immediately loved how the nurse looked when put over the dictionary paper and the red plaid. (By the way, when I stamped the images on my cardstock, I placed them all in a row, assuming I would be die-cutting the images out. When came time to do that, I realized I never bought the die for the nurse, thinking I might not use this image often enough to justify the cost. Oops... The space left around the image was too restricted to use a geometric-shaped die, so I cut her out the old-fashioned way: with fussy cutting! I think it turned out just fine.)

Because the Mojo Monday sketch has two diagonal strips on it, I thought I would simply stamp "Prompt rétablissement" (the French version of "Get well soon") with one word on each strip. I searched my Excel sentiment spreadsheet - and was shocked to discover that after over 15 years of regularly buying stamps, I do not own that very straightforward sentiment. That threw me for a loop. So I filtered the stamps by theme and while the get well list is still very short, I changed my mind about using the strips for the sentiment when I found "Get Well Soon" in an adorable image with a matching die. I decided to place the die-cut sentiment in the place where the circle is on the sketch instead, (While pulling this older stamp set out, I knew the image fit with something, but for a second, I had trouble remembering if it was a punch or a die. I finally remembered, but it made me realize that I should start writing on stamp set which dies or punch coordinate with it. It's not so much an issue with the companies that make companion dies for a single set, but Stampin' Up! tends to do stand-along die sets that coordinate with a variety of their stamp sets. This means that I store both items separately and I think over time, I will get hazy on what was supposed to go with what. I pulled out my label maker and stuck the name of the dies on the front of the stamp box, and I think I will slowly do that with other sets as I pull them out to use them.)

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Oddball Nurse (Stamping Bella); Étiquetage (Tag It - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Real Red, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Lovestruck (Authentique)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); VersaMark; Old Linen Distress Ink (Ranger)
Accessories: Pencils (Prismacolor); Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables Dies (Lawn Fawn);
Black Stampin' Emboss Powder, Black Stampin' Dimensionals, Vanilla Medium Envelope, Washi Tape (Stampin' Up!);
Glossy Black Gems (Pretty Pink Posh); Sparkly Black Washi Tape (unknown source); Distress Tool (Ranger)

 

Comments

[Kim Badelt]

Awesome card Cindy! You are a master at mixing patterns and you did a fantastic job colouring the nurse. I'm not sure I would let her near me though, the skull bobbles are a bit freaky! Thanks for joining us at Just Add Ink this week. Kim

[Lou Kitzelman]

I love this Cindy. The collage background is so effective and really makes your beautifully image pop! Thanks for joining us again at Just Add Ink. We always love seeing your creations.