Discover Chemistry

For June 2016, I am one of the guest designers for Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps with the pleasure of being one of those to get one set of the new June release early to be able to create with it. The new release is on the 11th and the sneak peeks, including mine, will be revealed on the 8th. Until then, there are other KKS challenges to play along with. *grin*

Today there is a new Wonderful Wednesday challenge on the KKS blog and as usual, it's Anything Goes! So you have a full week to play along by creating a new project and linking it up to the blog post! I hope you can join us and submit your creation for a chance to WIN the monthly prize of a gift voucher to the shop!

Today's card is silly little puppy discovering chemistry and getting turned green as a result. The challenge that inspired him is for a monochrome project and so I chose green. With the use of Evernote, I was able to design the elements of the card, somewhat, while I was away from my workshop and all my stash.

Supplies

InLinkz.com

Putting It Together

Instead of progress steps for the card itself (the card was pretty straight forward), I'm going to show design process and explain how Evernote helped me design the card when I wasn't at home. At the bottom I also link a video which shows how to use the tags to organise your stash.

In the morning before I go to my day job (the one which pays for the bills and my supplies and stuff), I check Facebook and blogs while I eat my breakfast. I currently only do challenges for a couple blogs so it's not too hard to check those on the day they get posted. Monday, on the SSS blog the challenge is Monochrome, choose any colour. KKS always has Anything Goes for Wednesdays. I happened to be wearing a green dress ("but not a real green dress, that's cruel"*) to work. That might be why green was strong in my mind for deciding a colour.

I rarely do design sketches (and even more rarely share them) but they're basically a visual note to myself when I am designing away from my workshop. Since they're usually just visual notes for myself, my drawing for design sketches is atrocious! It's even on lined notepaper in a pad I got at my day job *laugh*

At the top, I wrote the colour I was thinking to use. Since I was going to be using this for a KKS challenge, I needed to have KKS stamps as the focal. I pondered, what could I do with KKS and green. My first search in Evernote was through my stamps tagged as KKS, looking for something to inspire me. Then I spotted it. Chemistry! I saw the adorable set of stamps I hadn't used yet at all, Love Chemistry, and that started the ball rolling. I could do a lab inspired scene with something, oh a puppy, turning green. 

So, I had KKS Love Chemistry for beakers, a test tube, and the elements symbol and KKS Totally Paw-some for a puppy. I thought about embellishments for the beakers like bubbles, found on Oceans of Love and Hello Spring, and steam (without a heart) found on Hello Spring. While creating, I ended up using neither of those but did use a rain drop from KKS You Are My Sunshine instead. 

I was also going to use glasses on the puppy (as shown in the sketch) but they didn't look right. Not that I don't find a puppy wearing glasses funny, but why would he be 'discovering' chemistry by accident if he was someone who worked in the lab (i.e. the stereotype of a lab person wearing glasses). I thought the accidental dripping of a test tube on a non-anthropomorphic puppy was better for the humor. 

At first I was thinking to do a tag but still needed a sentiment. I thought about Elementary but crossed it out when I did an Evernote tag search and found I didn't have any sets with that word. I searched for just sentiments (sentiment is one of my tags), which led me to an idea for an inside and turned this into a card design. For the tag, before it morphed into a card, I thought about "It's a Wrap" from KKS Halloween Sentiments and "You Made the Grade" from Miss Information but neither was singing to me. Then  I spotted the Kaisercraft Pack Your bags set and the word "Discover". Eureka! (also a word I don't have in my sets, I did that search *laugh*) I could use "Chemistry" from Love Chemistry (masking out the "you've got" while stamping) and "Discover". That ties the scene together perfectly. The sentiment for the inside that turned the design into a card? "Never regret anything that made you laugh" from Inkadinkado Thoughts for the Day.

The lines you see in the background in the sketch, well, I was thinking to do multiple pieces of patterned paper pieced together. 

But, after piecing together a background like that of various green patterned papers I have on hand and others made from embossing green cardstock with and without distress ink, I decided it would be far too distracting for the lab scene. I'll just have to use it another way.

But, one of those backgrounds slices I made, the Argyle embossing folder with Mowed Lawn distress ink, sang out to me as the perfect background for this scene, kind of like the sweaters the stereotypical 'nerd' wears in TV and movies. 

And now that I have explained the joke, too, here is the card again along with the inside.  

Challenges

Krafting Kimmie Stamps blog 1 June Wonderful Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes!

Simon Says Stamp blog 30 May Monday challenge: Monochrome

Video Links

Using Evernote to organise your stamping, dies, and other stuff:

I've started using Evernote to organise all of my mixed media supplies. I still have a lot of my stash yet to put in, especially stuff that I've had for more than a few months. It's slow going putting it in there, but totally worth it. Anything new I buy is going in there even if I just ordered it online and haven't received it. I have a Pending 'notebook'/category for those. When I get the item, I just change the page's notebook to the 'real' one. It can help to avoid double ordering an item, too, if you have to wait between ordering and receiving.

*My semi obscure reference to a Barenaked Ladies song: "but not a real green dress that's cruel"):