UFO (UnFinished Object) + sketch challenge

Today I was doubly inspired by both Shopping Our Stash's UFO challenge (UnFinished Object) and this wonderful Leslie Hanna sketch (The Crooked Stamper sketch challenge #11):

This umbrella was cut and assembled in April 2012 using My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline Dilly Dally papers.  At that time, since I Cricut cut the umbrella panels from three different patterned papers, I decided to go ahead and cut three umbrellas total.  So back in April 2012 I made one card and used a 3D sticker sentiment from a My Mind's Eye Lost and Found 2 collection.  At the time there were no other sticker sentiments that would work for the remaining two umbrellas, so the other two went in my UFO heap…until now.

The owner of the local coffee shop where I sell some of my cards is having a baby girl.  Several of the regular customers asked me recently to create baby girl cards.  I responded that there are a few baby girl cards for sale and they responded,"but they don't say 'baby shower'."  Sometimes customer requests truly surprise me; but it made an easy decision as to what sentiment to use with the last two umbrellas!

Thank you,  The Crooked Stamper sketch and Shopping Our Stash, for the inspiration.  I may have to make working on my UFO pile as a New Year's resolution :)

Happy Saturday!

UFO challenge (UnFinished Object)

My self-challenge this year has been "use-it-up".  Last Spring I purged my craft room and filled the trunk of my SUV with papers, stamps, etc. that no longer brought me joy.  I carried them off to a donation center and I felt so much lighter, even if my family could not tell that my craft room was less jam-packed-full of crafty stash.  (When my husband saw the trunk of my car he exclaimed, "All of that came out of there?")

I have accumulated new stash, but I still think I am doing okay…with the exception of the pile (mini tower?) of unfinished cards and projects on the floor that I uncovered in the spring clean out.  I have added a couple of UFOs to it in the past few months.  I actually have made 5 cards from that pile, but that has hardly made a dent in it.  I wish the pile wasn't there at all (I am a neat freak), but that may take most of 2016 if I didn't have other things to make :)

This was on the top of the pile:

In October I purchased the MFT quilt die (it had been back-ordered for months.)  I still love these old Daisy D's paper (circa 2005.)  In an attempt to use up the entire set of papers, I started die cutting.  Two days of work yielded these six panels…it takes longer than you might think to die cut and adhere all of those pieces.  I even used my Xyron to make it go quicker than say a glue pen.  I wasn't sure what sentiment I might use…"Just a Note" or "Thinking of You" but I wasn't sure.  Life got busy, so they went into this gallon Ziploc.

This morning when I saw the "UFO challenge" at Shopping Our Stash, I perused my mini tower of UFOs.  There are a lot of single unique cards I could make from the pile, but I chose this project because it was bulky.  I decided to only use the red and green papers in the pack(so I didn't quite use-it-up.)  That meant making four more panels to use all of the green papers.  Then I went in search of a sentiment…this one seemed perfect:

Wishing you lots of love this Christmas.

Happy Tuesday!

No Stamping challenge + Washi wonderful

Shopping Our Stash has a "No Stamping" challenge this fortnight.  I do love to stamp, especially now that I am the proud owner of a MISTI.  My craft room is also full of stash…some from the late 1990s and some brand new.  This year I have been in the "use it up" mode.  When I sit down to create, I do not consciously decide to stamp or not to stamp; in this particular case I was just trying to use my new MFT birthday die and use up this new Pinkfresh Studio washi tape:

Any guesses as to how many cards one roll of washi tape can make?  (Take your time, I will reveal the answer at the end of the post.)

I did *almost* use the entire roll.  There is just enough left that I have kept the roll on my craft desk.  It has come in handy when my daughter was using my Cricut to cut some dies for a school poster project she was working on.  She used bits to tape down the card stock on the cutting mat (I need to wash my cutting mats and re-apply adhesive again.)  The three butterflies are a Stampin' Up! sizzlet die and the star brads were in my really old stash (circa 2000.)

So did you guess correctly?  The answer is (insert drumroll):
14!

Happy Sunday!

Non-traditional Christmas card challenge + Sketch Challenge

I was doubly Lesley/Leslie inspired to play with my December Simon Says Stamp kit and play along with Lesley Croghan's The Challenge "Make a non-traditional Christmas card (no red and green)" and Leslie Hanna's The Crooked Stamper sketch challenge.

Such a pretty inspiration photo.

A wonderful sketch to follow.

Most of my supplies came from the December 2015 Simon Says Stamp card kit.  I made two of these cards, since the kit contains two sheets of each Pinkfresh Studio designer paper.  The only piece from my stash was the aqua card stock; it is Core-dinations color core that I embossed in a herringbone pattern.  I thought this particular pattern would mimic the doodles in the largest tree and the darkest tree too.  It also reminds me of pine needles…but maybe that's just me :)

Happy Sunday!

A fresh look for an old scrap...

Every card has a story…in my mini craft room clean up from a few weeks ago, I came across an ivory card with stamped pears.  The ivory had some ink smudges, so I cut the panel down.  I also stamped "thank you" in a dark green ink that actually matches quite well in real life (it looks almost black in my photo.)  See resized panel below:

I wanted to bring out the green in the pears as well as the frosted shadow pears, and I decided to use my Tim Holtz kraft core card stock.  I thought the kraft core would compliment the orange and copper base card stock.  I embossed the kraft core piece and sanded it with my sanding block…look, so pretty!  Almost a shame to cover it up:

However I needed a quick thank you card for a belated birthday gift I received last weekend, so I added a little banner from my orange color scraps drawer and glued it all together:

Not a bad up cycle if I do say so myself :)

Happy Friday!

No Stamping challenge at SOS

 There is a "No Stamping" challenge at Shopping Our Stash challenge blog, so I chose some pretty patterned papers, a few dies, and hand drawn doodles to create this birthday card.

All of my supplies came from the August Simon Says Stamp kit.  I loved the colors and papers in this kit, but I had difficulty making anything come together.  Once I made this first card, I used the same basic design to do a little mass production…sort of…each card is unique, but the patterns and colors change.  The cards below each have stamped sentiments, so they do not meet the "No Stamping" challenge; just the card above has no stamping.

 The middle card in this trio is a CASE of Shari Carroll…isn't she amazing?

The last four cards seemed a little plain, so I added a few wood veneer stars.

I hope you join me in the fun at S.O.S. (Shopping Our Stash)…remember, no stamping on this particular challenge.

Happy Thursday!