You must be having a giraffe!

(For my readers outside the UK, that's a commonly used phrase here, inspired by Cockney rhyming slang, for "You must be having a laugh" it "You must be joking")

When I was a child and went to the zoo, I never really saw the attraction of giraffes - I think it was because their faces were so very, very far above my head that I couldn't look them in the eye and kid myself that I was interacting with them.  Nowadays many zoos have high-level walkways so that we can see them from their own eye-level and it makes it much easier to feel a connection with them, especially as they often seem to be as curious about us as we are about them.

But there's always one that doesn't feel quite so confident about the humans and hides in the bushes, peering out to see if the coast is clear... this is that giraffe.

I used  a giraffe stamp from Katzelkraft, stamped over the edge of the card, coloured it with pencils then masked it and stamped some leaves around for the part of the bushes behind him.  I stamped more leaves onto spare card and cut them out and arranged them around him to give the impression that he is peeking out from among them, trimming off the ends of the ones that overhung the edge. Finally I added a sentiment from the Tim Holtz Big Talk Snarky sentiments pad. This is the sort of card I would send to a friend who is going through a tough time - we all have "ew, people" days, don't we?

I am sharing this with

Addicted to CAS - Humour 


Just Us Girls - Off the edge

-o0o- 

Next up, using the same giraffe, I went for a complete contrast of style  and raided the snippets box for all kinds of textured and textured-looking materials as well as fifty two shades of green.  Here we have a far  more confident giraffe, happy to be the centre of attention and look you right in the eye.

I stamped the giraffe and sentiment onto pale orange card, and fussy cut the giraffe, adding a touch of white gel pen to his eye. I punched lots of green leaves and distressed the edges of the various layers, then assembled it all and added clear liquid pearls to look like raindrops on the leaves. I've not seen clear liquid pearls before - I got them in Poundland of all places. They give a rounder, more dimensional effect than glossy accents - well, exactly like normal liquid pearls only completely clear.

I am sharing this with

Pixie's Snippets Playground - challenge 350  - everything apart from the bamboo paper came from my snippets box
Creative With Stamps - Birthday 

-o0o- 

And now for the two cards together:

Which of course I am sharing at Twofers - Zoo animals