here be MONSTAS!

ok, so yesterday i showed you the FAB-TASTIC monsta cards (& stamps!) that gina sent me...today, i'm gonna show you MY half of said swap. first, here's the outside of my "pack" of four cards:

me being me, when we started talking about this idea, i started thinking about, well, TRADING CARDS. my brother and i had loads of these as kids...baseball ones, football ones, nature ones, and so forth...but to tell you the truth, they fascinate me more as an adult. they are, afterall, small pieces of paper, with pictures and text, that you are actively encouraged to accumulate and hoard. HOW *ME* IS THAT??!? so immediately i thought, "wouldn't it be cool to make MONSTA trading cards, with a pic of the monsta on one side and his or her "stats" on the other??!" now, i have a feeling that technically, ATC's are meant to have a design on one side and the maker's info on the back. see, this is why i try never to learn the rules of things. because if i KNEW 'em, i'd probably feel kind of bad about breaking them. :)

i had a fabulous time jotting down potential monsta names, and little lists of data which i thought would make good "fun facts". as is often the case in my projects, i had so many "little notes" that by the time i was ready to sit down and make the cards, there was not really any writing involved, as such, i just had to choose my faves and figure out how to format it all to fit on the cards! i am really pleased with how they turned out, and i hope that gina will enjoy receiving them as much as i loved making them!

ok, so do you wanna see them??!?! HOORAY!!!

and now, without further ado, may i present to you, for the first time on any stage: BEEBLE, THRONK, LARRY (her parents were earth-o-philes) and "???"...ladies & gentlemen, give it up for:

DA MONSTAS!!!!!!!!!!!

finally, here are the backs, which i will tell you right now--they're crooked. not as crooked as they look in the pic--they're also LUMPY on the other side, which doesn't help. no, what happened was, to "save time" i adhered the labels containing my "MONSTA FACTS" to the patterned paper...and then adhered the patterned paper to the cards. in retrospect, this was a fairly obvious error. my hope, however, is that people reading said "MONSTA FACTS" will be laughing so hard they make the cards shake, and thus won't notice. :)

i *THINK* the photo above will click big enough to be read...but just in case, the text on these reads:

BEEBLE (green): planet of origin: pluto (where they haven't heard about the "downgrade" yet so shhhhhhh!) favorite color: chartreuse cd of choice: anything by (fellow plutonian) david bowie happiest moment: being picked to dance on stage at a springsteen concert

THRONK (orange): favorite tv show: teletubbies...which is actually extremely profound and full of deep philosophical insights hobby: macrame after-school snack: crossing guards most embarrassing moment: biting the fingers of the first guy who tried to shake his hand

LARRY (blue): celebrity crush: richard simmons, who is worshipped as a god on her planet inspirational quote: "beep! beep!" weekend sport: horseshoes (remind her to take the horse off first!) dream job: building scale models of famous landmarks at legoland

"???" (pink): mysterious origins: not much is known about this monsta, not even his (or indeed her) name. which is probably just as well since he (or she) would not come if you called him (or her) anyway. and you'd be VERY sorry if he (or she) DID come......assuming you survived!

*MATERIALS LIST* fronts: monstas from paperchase giftwrap (glued to plain white index stock & cut out); pages from a japanese language workbook; love elsie fabric paper; vintage slidemounts (1,000,000 thanks to debb for the BUCKETS of inspiration these have given me!!!); jenny bowlin blank tickets; making memories and k&co alpha rubs; making memories star brads; colorbox inks; googley eyes from michaels; adhesives: xyron, uhu glustick, 3m foam tape, judikins diamond glaze; backs: creative imaginations ledger paper; text document created in broderbund's printshop and printed on avery fullsheet clear labels; fonts: ck rough hewn, teletype, cornerstone, mariah)