Sending You Monster Hugs

Darlene DeVries is collecting encouragement cards to include in snack bags for foster children while they are sitting in court. I admit, after volunteering to create two cards, I struggled with this one. The requirements are that the cards be for a child age 2-12 years old, and be suitable for either a boy or a girl. I have no clue what children that age might like! I've made cards for people I don't know, like for Send a Smile 4 Kids, but in those cases, someone else is choosing one to give to someone from the cards I send. Not unlike going to a store to buy a greeting card. But I don't often make cards to give/send to complete strangers from me. But I decided to give it a go anyway!

I got my inspiration from this card by Nicole for Lawn Fawn. I felt this sort of card would be perfect for a young child. I began with my background. I die cut a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper with the largest of Lawn Fawn's "Large Stitched Rectangle" dies. I smooshed Distress inks in Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, Mermaid Lagoon, & Peacock Feathers on my non-stick craft mat, and spritzed the ink with water. Then I pressed my watercolor panel into the puddles, swirling it a bit to get good coverage. When I'd covered the whole panel with color, I dried it with my heat tool, then dipped it into the ink puddles again to get more unblended drops of color. When it looked like I wanted, I dried it again with my heat tool, then set that aside.

For the monsters, I used Lawn Fawn's "Monster Mash" stamp set, with the coordinating dies. I stamped them onto a scrap of Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper with Versafine Onyx Black ink, then heat embossed them with Recollections Clear Detail embossing powder. I colored them with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens, using a water brush on some to fade the color out for highlights. On the 2 bi-colored ones, I just blended the colors together with my pens. When they were all colored and had dried, I die cut them.

I cut a strip of white cardstock, and used the "Large Stitched Rectangle" die to add the stitching detail to either end. I spelled out the word "monster" with the "Little Letters" dies by My Favorite Things. After I got them spaced right, I ran that through my die cutting machine. I liked the graphic look in Nicole's card, so I decided not to glue the centers of the O & R to the background. I did trim a little off the top & bottom of the strip, then adhered it to my background with my ATG adhesive, adding some liquid glue around the letters so they wouldn't pop up. I also stamped the "Sending you" part of the greeting from "Monster Mash" at the top of my strip, again using Versafine.

For the "hugs," I die cut a piece of white cardstock with one of the "Delightful Day Conversation Bubbles" from Taylored Expressions. Rather than use the greeting stamp from "Monster Mash," since the word was really too small for the speech bubble, I used Lawn Fawn's "Riley's ABC's" to spell out the word. I used my MISTI stamping tool to get everything lined up, and stamped on the speech bubble with Versafine.

To assemble my card, I glued my monsters in place with Perfect Paper Adhesive, and popped the speech bubble up with foam tape. After adhering it to a white A2 card base, I added googly eyes to the one-eyed monsters. And that finished off this card. Hopefully it will bring a bit of a lift to the spirits of whomever gets it!

I'm entering my card in the "Encouragement" challenge at Live Love Cards.