Love A Challenge...

The challenges on SCS are great - if you haven't tried them...go for it! They are a great way to improve your stamping skills, a wonderful source of inspiration and a great way to get hoarders (like me!) to use their supplies! With the holiday this week I fell a little behind so today I decided to catch up while dd's played with some friends...

The color challenge this week http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4053499#post4053499 was to use old olive, cranberry crisp and bashful blue. Of course, I have none of those in SU! so I matched as best I could with what I do have! I don't think I was too far off...this first one is a donut card...basically just punch a hole through your layers of cardstock and stamp on the inside of the card. I used one of my new Michaels $1 stamps for the inside...just colored it with my marker and silver gel pen. The flakes on the front are a stamp from Great Impressions...I have alot of their stamps and love their images! This is one of my favorites...I colored the little circles in with my silver gel pen and stitched around the outside (another thing I like to do!). The blue circle is from my Sizzix circle frame combo die...I cut the biggest circle for this...the donut is actually punched with a hand punch and luckily the sizzix happened to be the perfect size for the outline circle...the problem with having 4 different sizes on the sizzix die is that you cant cut just one unless you use a small piece of paper...trying to cut directly on your card front is not possible! And last but not least...I added some jewels!!!


This one is a combo of the color challenge and this weeks sketch challenge http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201262 this is actually my second attempt at the sketch...I thought I would try a simpler, cleaner design with this one...I used the same flake as the previous card (and what do you know I added jewels!). The snowman is another $1 stamp...I used my Cuttlebug d'vine swirls embossing folder for the "wind" over his head...might be a little hard to tell in the photo...I colored his hat and scarf with my olive ink and added another jewel and dazzling diamonds to his snow mound...
(Everyone has been using plate stands lately to display their cards...I figured I would give it a try - not sure I like it! maybe I should shop around for a clear one...)

Here is my first attempt at the sketch challenge...the stamp is from Stampendous...I used my Cuttlebug folder for the blue sides - it embosses like a dream! I love it! I pierced around the snowman image...it was hard to tell so I traced around the circles with my white gel pen...the sentiment is a $1 stamp...I guess I would consider myself a lazy stamper - I stamped the sentiment in white craft but for some reason I never feel like dragging my embossing supplies out! Maybe that would be a good resolution for next year! I added a jewel to the flake about the snowmans head...I just cant seem to stop adding jewels and dazzling diamonds. The best part about the jewels is they are self sticking...I'll have to dig around for the empty packaging to show those interested! A jewel that doesn't require glue and isn't pricey - what could be better!? I seem to be jumping around here but to finish the "receipe" for the card...the dots around the red pieces are just dots with my white gel pen...I added mm eyelets...for some reason these look more aluminum like rather than silver but that was all I could find...the ribbon is from Walmart two sizes of cranberry...I love that color! I know what will be on my next order from SU!

I hope everyone had a good Turkey day - it was a long day yesterday driving 2.5 hours to see Dh's 91 year old grandmother, having dinner and driving back all in a torrential day long rain storm! It was good to get caught up on some ideas floating around in my head...and I finished my Xmas cards! Now I just have to write them out! We got our first one in the mail today (wow) along with the SU winter mini...I'm off to take a lookie!