Netball punch-art cards

As you might know, we are in the demonstrator-only Pre-order period for the upcoming Holiday Catalogue.  I was only able to place a small order this time round, funds not exactly being flush at the moment, but I am extremely pleased with the choices that I made.  More about that later, but suffice it to say that my wish-list is LONG, and the brand new Cookie Cutter punch has allowed me to rock out these thank you cards for my daughters netball coaches and managers this season. 

Do you see the girls bodies???  Thats the Cookie Cutter punch.... gotta love that, right!?   This punch will be coming out soon, with two amazing stampsets called Cookie Cutter Christmas and Cookie Cutter Halloween.  This being neither occasion, I went outside the box to create the bodies for my netball players, and I'm sure there are heaps of other uses for this punch that are yet to be discovered!

In my excitement to get this card loaded onto our demonstrator Facebook groups, I forgot to attach the ball, so here is a shot of that.

I had to make 5 cards, so this was a bit of an epic task, but it was lots of fun to create.

You might be wondering what other supplies I used, and how I did it, so here goes.  I started off punching out all the pieces for my 32 netball girls, and assembling them with Tombow.  I wanted each card to be representative of the girls on our teams, without being character-specific (but yes, mine are the blondes, and yes they both have a readhead on their team!)

The bodies are punched with the Cookie Cutter punch, in Very Vanilla and Sahara Sand to create the different skin tones.  To minimise wastage, I found it most efficient to cut my cardstock into strips 1 3/4" wide x 5" long, and cut one from each end. 

The hair is made with the Fox Builder punch, the tail makes a great ponytail and the mask is a perfect fringe.  Again I found a 1" stip to be most efficient, but its a great way to use up scraps.  I used Early Espresso, Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, So Saffron, Daffodil Delight and Tangelo Twist for all my different hair colours.   The happy faces were drawn on with my markers, with differnt shades of blue, green and brown for the eyes, and Flirty Flamingo for the mouthes.

The netball uniforms are two 'vests' from the Owl Punch layered together, I've used Tempting Turquoise and Bermuda Bay, and the Tempting Turquoise top has had the V-neck snipped to a round-neck using the 1 3/8" circle punch.  For the bibs I used the Labeller Alphabet stampset in Bermuda Bay to make the positions for each player.

The ball is a 1" circle cut in Bermuda Bay, embossed with the retired spotty embossing folder (whose correct name fails me right now) and sponged with Bermuda Bay and popped up on a dimensional.

The hoops were a bit of a challenge and took a while to find the perfect solution, but I ended up with the toy stacker framelit from the Baby's First collection, upside-down, with the bottom circle cut off.  I used Smokey Slate for the pole and the hoop (the pole is free-cut and sponged) and then I stamped the net with the Pineapple background stamp to emulate the mesh pattern. 

Then I made the card-base into a netball court.  The best match to our actual court colour is Coastal Cabana, but Bermuda Bay probably would have worked too.  I decided to use a Centre Circle but not the Shooting Circles, just because the dimensions weren't quite right, but at the same time I wanted it to be obvious that it was indeed a netball court.  So I used Daffodil Delight cardstock to first punch a 1 3/8" circle, and then to frame it with the 1 3/4" circle punch and make sure my smaller circle was evenly spaced in the centre before I punched the bigger one around it. 

The card base is a double-Z fold, with all my little girls lined up at varying heights, but in their correct positions on the court.  Some are on dimensionals and some are glue-dotted.  I cut my Whisper White thick cardstock to 6"x11" and scored at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2"; and burnished with my bone folder.  Then I cut the 6" edge at 4 1/4" to make the card, and flipped the 1 3/4" strip around to create the double-Z.  I layered each panel with the Coastal Cabana cardstock before I attached the Z-strip with Tear & Tape Adhesive.  Finally I stamped the "Thanks" from Jar of Love in Bermuda Bay ink.  The back of the card has a Pool Party panel for the girls in the team to all sign for their coaches and managers and give to them at their final games this week.

And in case you were wondering about a sneak peek of the punch used with the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamps..... you're in luck!  My next post will have a few more Christmas projects, but I have a custom-order for some cards to work on first.  Hope you've enjoyed this project!