Jingle Belles #5…Amy’s Sketch

I loved Amy‘s sketch for the Jingle Belles challenge this week.

Do you know what else I loved? How everyone else turns what looks like the easiest card sketch ever into  these absolutely amazing works of art. Those cards uploaded so far are amazing, and most look far from easy.

Not mine though, oh no. Mine was easy. Easy, even for me. No stamps, no ink, no ribbon. Just 2 pieces of card stock, a piece of DSP and 3 stickers. Easy peasy pudding and pie.

This is a crazy week for me…I’m working a combination of days, evenings and nights at 2 of my 3 jobs, so I basically gave myself 5 minutes to make this card. Originally, I didn’t have the chocolate chip cardstock in between my layers, but I was finding it a little to plain so added that to it. Made it look a touch better I think. I very rarely make a card without stamps, but stickers sure do work in a quick pinch.

Jingle Belles #4…I’m Dreaming of a Green & Pink Christmas

Oh, how happy was this girl when she saw that the prompt for this week’s Jingle Belles challenge was to use green, dark pink and light pink?  And not just any green! Lime green! She was happy, thrilled, beyond ecstatic, actually.

Hmmm….talking in the third person. Must stop that.

When I saw lime green I once again praised the hoarding gods for my inability to get rid of anything craft related because the closest thing I have to lime green is the  retired green galore. I also pulled out the retired pink passion. (Sad story…about a week before SU announced it’s retiring colours I placed an order that included full packs of green galore, only orange, pink passion, lovely lilac and the hideous Kaleidoscope DSP all so that I could use a previously retired spectrum pad. And, yes, I do know I could have returned them all, but I am nothing if not inefficient and never got around to it. And anyways, the cards I made were gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Amongst my favourites actually.)

I was at a community scrap night on Friday so I packed up those colours, the make and takes we were going to do (I prepped for 11 people and only 4 showed up…grrr…but at least now I will have plenty of valentine cards (with no man to give them to, boohoo!) and just for you cards…it’s all good.) and some other things I hoped to actually work on.

Yeah. I made a grand total of 2 cards. I chatted away my night.

I totally CASEd  this sketch from SU’s holiday mini last year. It’s easy (say it with me now, Emma loves easy!) and quite cute for the younger crowd. Even though I used my stamp a mi jig I could not for the life of me  get the hat to sit on that snowman’s head. So we will just pretend that he (actually he’s a she with those pink skates and the scarf and hat) is so excited she is jumping and her hat is coming off. Work for you? Me too. The ribbon is non-SU (from Michael’s I am sure) but I thought it was just about the perfect match.

Jingle Belles #4

Can you believe when I actually make a card on the day the challenge comes out I end up missing the deadline to enter it! Typical me! I wrote this post on Sunday while at work, but did not take the picture until today (Thursday.)  I need to live a life of luxury where I don’t have to work for a living. How do you people who work full time manage to find to craft and actually blog it? I bow down to you! I can not get myself that organized.

Mojo Monday…6 days later

There’s nothing like leaving it until the last minute, is there? I am that mother, the one who is assembling the treat bags at 2 am on the morning of the  Halloween party. I rock that way. So how fitting that my card for this challenge says “You rock.”  Because people? I do.*

The sketch was this…

And this is what I came up with…

For some reason, I seem to be missing all of my current DSP. Where has it gone? I haven’t used it, not a single piece of it actually. I even cleaned the Very Messy Craft Room in search of it (as well as my Stampin’ Scrub which oddly disppeared mid use!) I found the scrub (under a pile of other DSP on the desk) but no sign of the current DSP.  Strange that…

Anyhoo, I was using baja blue as my base, so I just used the least Christmas-y of the Candy Cane Christmas paper, along with the matching buttons.  As I was taking this picture, I thought that You Rock looked awfully tiny in that circle so I later added the heart from the same set and it now looks much better. Well,  I think so anyway.  You are just going to have to believe me as I was much too lazy busy to take another photo.

I’m planning on my next mojo monday sketch not taking until next Sunday to go up. Really.

*only in my own mind.

Sketchy Sunday #1- I thought I was on the ball…

I was so excited when The Crooked Stamper mentioned this simple sketch challenge on Twitter yesterday. What I failed to do was look at the date.  I was very pleased last night when I got home from work that not only did I finish my Jingle Belles card, but I also made this one for Sketchy Sunday. A card challenge (but it’s not really a challenge) issued on a Sunday and I had made and was ready to post the card on that very same Sunday. I am so good, I was thinking to myself, getting all cocky.  And then the fella needed to use to computer, so I didn’t post it last night. But the next day? The next day was just as good I thought. Except that it is actually a week later! Pffftt.

So I shall post week one and then head up the stairs to finish the four or five other challenges I am going to do this week.

See? Pretty easy sketch. And as we all know by now, I love me some easy! Simplicity makes me happy. (But I really, really wish I had the patience for those amazingly fussy cards that I drool over.) I did a Valentine’s card in the last mojo monday challenge and I said it would probably be my only one. I lied. Keep this up and I may have a Valentine’s card for each of the 4 kids.  At the last minute I decided the card was looking a little too plain (yes, even for me!) so I gave it a quick run through the Big Shot with an embossing folder.

I can not for the list of me get rid of the thumbnail size pics. Grrrr….

Jingle Belles #3… Acrylic Paint

The challenge for week 3 at Jingle Belles was to use acrylic paints. I was a little thrown (are you surprised?) because the only place I ever use acrylic paints in on canvas frames.  I just am not a very imaginative person.  I once again chose a pretty easy card to make. One day I will get adventurous, I swear!

I went through my chipboard drawer and found a few snowflakes. The first one was way too blue for the blues I was using (Marina Mist and Baja Breeze) so I mixed the blue and some white and came up with the snowflake below. After painting, I sprayed some smooch spray but, really, you can’t even tell.

I used Peace on Earth as my sentiment,  a sentiment I normally use with snowflakes. Something about fresh, white snowflakes falling is very peaceful I think. Peaceful until you have 18″   of it on the ground and are feeling a little stir crazy anyway!  I once again pulled out the snowflakes embossing folder…I love this one! I used the last of my long ago retired baja breeze ribbon (I will miss you so much!) and a few pearls in the hopes of making it look just a little more exciting!

Looking forward to seeing what week 4’s challenge is!

Mojo Monday 173 (or 1, if your name is Emma and you are a slacker)

I’ve jumped on one bandwagon, so I may as well as jump on another. And in to the Mojo Monday fray jumps Emma.

I’m liking this sketch, let’s see what we can do. Some hearts instead of stars and I could make a Valentine’s Day card. Let’s go in that direction, because in reality I probably will not make another one between now and February 14th. That’s just the way I roll.

I wish my new Valentine’s set hadn’t been on back order, but at least I had the Love DSP. Otherwise I would have once again been forced (forced, I tell you!) to dig into all those retired stashes taking over floating around the craft room. And I finally found a use for those rhinestone brads. Whoo hoo!

People, I am liking this Mojo Monday thing.

Jingle Belles #2…It’s a good thing I’m a hoarder.

If you know me at all, you should be shocked that I made it all the way to the second week of this 48 week challenge hosted by the lovely ladies over at Jingle Belles. Now three may be pushing it, but we shall see.

This week’s challenge was to use our inchies. And I was all like “Inchies? Twinchies? What the…?” To be honest, I had never heard that phrase. It is not used in Stampin’ Up lingo. And apparently, I didn’t read the post all that well because it does show exactly what they are.  And then I read that you could use your one inch punches, or, God forbid, even trim paper to an inch.

So I had an idea in my head and as soon as I got home from work last night I hopped on up to the craft disaster area room and got to work. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I did not own a 1″ square punch! And the stamp set I thought I could use (Cute by the Inch) did not feature a single Christmas stamp! And not a single other  current stamp set fit what I wanted to do, now that I would be forced to use a round punch.

This is where my hoarding comes in handy for the second week in the row. Off into my retired closet I went, looking for the perfect circle stamp set. I used Deer Friends, which I am pretty sure was a hostess set a few years ago. Used? A grand total of one time.

 

 

 

So, this card is not at all where I had planned on going. But, I am not entirely unhappy with it, either. Other than the markers, the old olive and vey vanilla card stock and the merry from the Tiny Tags set, everything is retired. Well, maybe the brad isn’t. But everything else…totally retired. See, hoarding pays.

The first card of 2011…

…and it’s a Christmas card! Normally I don’t even think about Christmas cards until October or November. And thinking does not always lead to doing in Emma’s world. Hence the reason not a single, solitary card got mailed out this year.

This year, in order to meet my Crafting Goals of 2011, I am participating in blog challenges. The first (and only so far) I joined was a challenge over at Jingle Belles to make one Christmas card a week. This week’s challenge was to combine new and old.

Edited to add: I just joined a second Christmas card challenge over at Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge.  The theme for this week is everything goes, so this card works. Let’s hope future themes between the two are somewhat related!

Excuse the darkness of this photo, I have a new camera and haven’t quite figured out all the settings.

Anyway, my old is the retired Flaky Friends from Stampin’ Up. It was actually the very first Christmas set I ever bought, back in 2005. I loved it and haven’t been able to purge it yet. Another thing I hadn’t purged was my wild wasabi and baja breeze in colours. How happy was I when they were in the new colour package this past summer!? (They would be in the all that is old is once again new category, if there were such a thing.) My new would be the Candy Cane Christmas and the Candy Cane buttons (bought to use in a wreath card, I didn’t realize how big they were and I am left with 2 bags of them!) The embossing folder is Basic Grey. I have a hard time stepping away from using SU only, but it was a Christmas gift and I do prefer the largeness of the flakes.

This was a very simple card to make -I’m all about the easy. It’s 41/2 by 4 1/2 ( a faux pas on my part- it was supposed to be 5X5.)  The embossed image is sanded, but I don’t think you can tell with my quality photography! I used a little liquid applique on the Santa hat and glitter to define the snow.  Some linen thread and a button with 2 bows and I was done. Once I found a pair of scissors, of course. The state of my craft room is a whole other post!

Crafting Goals

I have been a Stampin’ Up demo since 2007. A very crappy SU demo, let me say. I have ran a grand total of ONE  monthly club (with 4-6 members , depending on the month), ONE open house and TWO workshops.  With the exception of last year’s monthly club, I have most often been the only one ordering my $400 a quarter to keep my demo status active. My goal this year is to create more, to share more and to host more workshops. Maybe I’ll even get that club going again. Or not.  I actually managed to sign up one of the 4 as a demo and I think at least 2 of the others would go to her! No worries though, I think I prefer the workshops.

So to meet my goal of crafting more I vow to:

1. Spend some time each day in my craft room, actually crafting, not just moving piles around pretending to clean. On my regular blog I said an hour a day for each day I am not work. That would equal 5 hours a week. It doesn’t seem like a lot to those crafty ones out there, but I would  exaggerating if I said I spent even 5 hours a month in the craft room in 2010.

2. Join in blog challenges…mojo monday, jingle belles, etc. I’m going to have to make a list!

3. Blog my projects. If I want to have this blog, I better have something to put on it!

4. Host more workshops.  Saleabration is coming up and I hope to have at least one workshop or open house during that time.

So there we go, a few vows made in hopes to reach my goal of crafting more.