Punch Art Fun 1 - Look in the Book - page 20 (part 3) which we will entitle "Thwarting the punch art issues" because there's a few below, okay?

Hey there,

How are you today?

Sorry I went missing-in-action yesterday, but I'm back today, and I'm back thwarting issues.

Now, I'm not sure if you're aware, but I don't always show you my up-to-the-minute-stuff. I do this for a few reasons, the main one being that I can't pass up an opportunity to share something and then use to it teach something too.

So, today the sharing part is...Cute Critters from page 20 of Punch Art Fun for Everyone.

And the teaching part is...Don't worry, your skills will improve.

As with all crafts and skills and whatever, you get better as you go along. These cards were made...what?....like 7, 8, 9 years ago? My skills have improved. My choices have improved. What a good thing.

Let me walk you through a little tutorial of how I'd fix these creatures below. I'm not going to talk about how I'd change the cards, just the creatures.

What I'd do to make this guy better:

~ Use stars for ears.

~ Glue his head up further, so he doesn't look as squashed.

~ Glue his arms higher.

~ Put the legs closer together.

~ Draw vertical lines for eyes (little ones, not huge ones).

~ Put a reflection mark (comma) on his nose.

~ Trim those whiskers!

What I'd do to make the mouse better:

~ Nothing.

~ (Sometimes your skills don't need improving. Sometimes you just get it right and things work out. Who cares whether it's you or serendipity, give yourself a pat on the back and a good on ya, girl, put your card up to admire and go attack your next project with gusto!)

Ah, here are some kitty cats with stars for ears.

So much softer.

So much nicer.

So much better.

These kitties also have reflection marks on their noses and much nicer eyes.

Their whiskers are still fairly erratic though. I'd tame them a bit.

(This card was probably made 4 or 5 years ago. Funny how I can track when things were made according to my skill level at the time. I'll bet you can do the same)

Oh my, what's with the eyes?

What I'd do to fix this guy:

~ Down-size those eyes!

~ I'd probably do the gold pen in black now. Gold for that type of thing is still an option, I've just taken it off the table for a while. And haven't really put it back on.

What I'd do to fix this guy:

~ Raise the left ear up a bit, so it's at about 10 o'clock.

~ Re-do those eyes. Vertical lines are way better.

~ Put a gold reflection mark on his nose (gold's always on the table for reflection marks on black noses).

~ Re-do his smile. Needs to be bigger. He's a punch art dog, afterall, and punch art dogs need to be happy.

~ Put light brown in his ears.

~ Look around the joint and see if there's a bone punch for his bowl. And then change the saying. And then leave the bone because of the domino effect...

Summary of today:

It's good that our skills change and improve over the years.

It's good that we don't intentionally change and improve, we just do.

Cats with spikey ears are not good.

Mice aren't fun.

Dogs don't eat lunch anyway.

:o)