Sunday, November 30, 2014

Sock Monkey birthday card

A nephew has a birthday approaching that once sounded old to me. It has two fours in it, and he isn't turning eight. Not many ages sound old to me now, certainly none in the 60-range! 

When this nephew was a little boy, one of his favorite toys was a sock monkey. Everyone knows what a sock monkey is, right?

Thanksgiving was just a few days ago, and some of the talk was of days gone by. Sock monkey wasn't discussed but I thought of him this morning while looking at December's birthday list on my calendar. I decided to make a sock monkey card.


The proportions aren't perfect, this monkey is a little thick in the middle, but many of us in double digit birthdays past 20-something know that this sometimes happens. I think it occurs while we sleep.

I would have loved to found or created paper that had the look of the actual socks used to make sock monkeys, but this guy is recognizable and will hopefully bring a smile to our nephew.

He was made with Stampin' Up punches except for the oval body which is from a set of nested oval dies. I trimmed down the sides by hand and perhaps should have made him thinner (oh that it were so easy for my body!) but I liked his head this way and a thin body made him look top heavy.

The head was cut from a 1 3/4" Circle punch #119850.
Ears are the Small Oval #120908, cut in half.
The muzzle was cut from the Extra-Large Oval #119859 and trimmed to make it somewhat narrower on the top and bottom.
His mouth was done by punching a thin slice of red with the Extra-Large Oval at the edge of a sheet paper, then punching again over that edge that had the slice missing.
Arms and legs are Word Window #119857.
The tail was cut to the same width as the Word Window cut, but free handed around a circle that had been cut from the brown paper.
Eyes are from the Owl Builder punch #118074.
His hat was made with the Tree punch #135859, Word Window for the brim, and Boho Blossoms #119858 for the pompom.

The balloons were cut from the Small Oval punch with the foot part of the Owl Builder used as the balloon knots. The balloons are attached with pop dots, and a glue dot behind sock monkey's hand is holding the strings.

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