Ok, I’m gonna just come out and ask the question. Are you a Paper Pumpkin Procrastinator?

Well, to be honest, I am not afraid to admit it. I was. Did you notice how I said, “WAS”?

Last month my downline Laura and I co-hosted our first Paper Pumpkin Procrastinators Party with my Stamped With Aloha team. We had about 30 people join us on Zoom where we shared some alternative project ideas, gave away a couple of prizes and mostly just carved out an hour of time for some virtual crafting fun. Although we only met once, the concept worked! I’ve heard from several people who were there that they were inspired to work on their kits and hope to never let them pile up again.

On Friday night, Laura, Zeny and I met on Zoom for some virtual crafting together.

Part of our meeting together was to plan for our next Paper Pumpkin Procrastinator meeting. While we crafted we came up with some alternate ideas with our April 2020 Paper Pumpkin kit, but we didn’t show each other. We wanted to wait until our next PPP Party (which happens to be this weekend) so we could reveal the projects while at the party.

Here are some of the alternate projects I worked on that night using my April 2020 Paper Pumpkin kit.

The first card is stamped exactly how it is supposed to be for this kit, I just changed the sentiment to say, Happy Mother’s Day.

April 2020 Paper Pumpkin Card (Mother’s Day)

The second card I made was stamped following the design in the kit, I just changed the sentiment to Mother’s Day once again!

April 2020 Paper Pumpkin Kit (Mother’s Day)

I have to be honest. This kit was a little “tricky” for me. When I stamped the very first tree image on the first card I made a BIG Boo Boo! When you are working with a pre-printed card, you might think the card would be ruined! I am, however, a firm believer that there are no mistakes in stamping!

I cut off the part where I made a mistake and grabbed some of the pieces in the kit and came up with the top card below. The piece with the long sentiment is supposed to be a background card but it worked perfectly as a front panel of a card.

Since I took pieces from one card to cover my mistake, I had to come up with an another alternate design. So I came up with the second card which used a lot of “scraps” and “edge” pieces from the kit.

After I finished these cards, I told Laura and Zeny that I wasn’t going to show them my creations til this weekend. Then Laura asked, “Did you use the stamp set in the kit to create something?” When I said no, she challenged me to come up with an alternate card using the stamps in the kit.

Looking at the set, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. There was a tree trunk, a tree topper and a bunch of words. I stared at the large tree topper stamp and thought, this kind of looks like my hair right now!! Since my hair super pokey as it grows back after chemotherapy. Thinking that I might use that stamp as hair, I grabbed my Early Espresso stamp pad and stamped the tree topper image on a scrap of Whisper White Card Stock. I stared at it for a moment and then I had an idea. I know what this looks like!, I thought! A military helmet!

I didn’t keep this idea a secret! I used the small Pear Pizzaz Ink Spot that was in the kit with a Sponge Dauber and made a camouflage design over the top of the stamped image. I held up the image and asked, “does this look like a helmet?” Laura and her husband Dave (who is often in and out of our Zoom conversations) told me that what I created is called a Kevlar. I got excited and told Dave (who I call Oreo for reasons that would take too long to explain at the moment) that I was going to create a card with him in mind. I got out my punches and was amazed that I could create a punch art face and uniform using just 2 Stampin’ Up! punches and 1 stamp. The 2 1/4 Circle Punch and the 1/2 “ Circle Punch. Here is the card I came up with.

Military Punch Art Card/April 2020 Paper Pumpkin REVAMP

I tried to use as many things in the Paper Pumpkin kit as I could, including the green pearl embellishments that I turned into eyes.

Would you like to see how I did that?

You can click below to watch my latest YouTube tutorial.

It was really fun to create this card and I couldn’t wait til this weekend to share it. I am excited, however, for our Zoom PPP Party and know that even with my alternate projects already out there, there will be plenty of fun surprises to see as Laura made a lot to share and her projects are always amazing. So… something to look forward to.

I enjoyed making this card. My Dad was in the army, so I will use one of these to bless him this coming Father’s Day.

I hope that you will be inspired to re-create this card for the Military Heros in your life. Just follow the simple instructions on my video and if your Hero is in another branch of the military, then just adjust the colors accordingly. My nephew is a hero in the Navy, so I bet my Sister in Law, who is a Demonstrator in Washington State already had her punches out and is creating a Navy version of this card to send him in his next care package.

I hope you enjoyed learning a simple punch art card that was designed with love for the Military Heroes that deserve to be celebrated every day!

With Love and Many Blessings,

Cindy

Military Punch Art (April 2020 Paper Pumpkin Revamp)

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