Color Q #59 & CPS #193

It looks like I'm getting back into the late night crafting. That always seems to happen when winter starts looming. We got some snow today in lil Edmonton and it's starting to finally get chilly. The days get dark at like 3:00 PM. It really is quite sad. Sorta like that Expedia commercial where the girl is at work and looks outside into the dark night, looks at the clock that says something like 4 PM and then starts to cry. Anyways, onto why I'm really posting tonight so I can get to bed! I was out with my friend, Arlie, last week and we ran out of time at the mall so she didn't stop by Bath & Body Works for some little hand-sani. I had bookmarked this cute little project a while back from Pink Buckaroo Designs. it's a cute little holder for those mini hand sanitizers. I haven't participated in very many challenges since I took on the design team position with Picture Perfect Creations. I think summer had a little bit to do with that too. So here's a little combo challenge and those that know me know I almost always combine a sketch and color challenge together. Like I always say, why do more thinking than you need to. Especially for late night crafters! I've combined Color Queen's Challenge #59 and Card Positioning Systems #193. Now those that are Stampin' Up fans will notice that the DSP I used isn't the exact colors listed in the color challenge but they are just so darn close and it matched the stamp set so well that I decided to bend the rules a little bit. And for those that didn't notice, well then... Carry on!

Now you also can't really tell from the picture but I used a new product called Smooch Pearlized Top Coat. Picture a little bottle of sparkly glitter that you can paint onto projects like nail polish or white out. I painted it over the entire flower and in the middle added some Dazzling Diamonds glitter. The Smooch stuff is definitely fun to play with and now I need to buy more! 

For complete instructions, visit Pink Buckaroo Designs. She also has more photos on her blog. Total side note. I decided to try using a patterned piece of paper for the background instead of my plain old white and boy, I'm loving how it looks! That paper in the background is actually the one used on the project, but just flipped onto the other side! That's the great thing about Stampin' Up! The DSP is always double-sided and all the colors coordinate! Thanks for stopping by and happy early hump day! (Hump day still sounds so weird to me....)

CPS #180 & PDCC #43

My oh my it seems like I'm finding my crafting time again! Perhaps it's because all of the trashy reality tv shows I've been following are over... Doesn't matter what the reason is, I just know I'm enjoying myself and even more excited that it's finally FRIDAY tomorrow. The office today was brutal. The air here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada has been pretty unusual today. It looks like it's ridiculously foggy but it's actually a hazy smoke that's floated all the way over from BRITISH COLUMBIA!!! On the news today it was reported that there are over 200 fires in BC right now and the smoke is travelling across the border! So lots of people at work are getting headaches, allergic reactions and even wheezing! I can't even imagine how bad the air is in BC if Edmontonians think our air is bad. Anyways, onto tonight's card. I combined the Card Positioning Systems sketch #180 with the Play Date Cafe's challenge #43. Speaking of PDCC, I got picked as the cream in their coffee last week (sorta like I got honorable mention)! Unfortunately I couldn't incorporate any patterned paper but I'm still counting this for my no paper/product buying challenge. 

I find is kind of humorous that most of my cards look so insanely simple, but yet it takes me a very very very long time to finish! Take this card for instance. I started this card at approximately 9:30 and finished it at 11:30. Why does it take me so long you might ask? Well here's what happened with this card. I looked through my stamps and found a stamp I wanted to use. Then I proceeded to find coordinating ribbon to use as the 3 stripes. After choosing 3 ribbons, I sat around trying to figure out how to incorporate the Tempting Turquoise. I also wanted to use patterned paper for the no paper/product buying challenge so I look through all of my patterned paper for something green. I pull out the Woodland Walk DSP and spend some time trying to picture it on the card. After wasting precious minutes, I decide against the DSP. I stamp my image in Glorious Green and trim it out. I try stamping the image again on Tempting Turquoise and trim out the flower. After realizing it was kinda ugly because it blended in too much, I stamped it again on white and re-cut it. I started with a white base and wanted to use Glorious Green for the background so I cut that out and dry embossed it. At this point I still haven't found a way to put Tempting Turquoise in so I grab some ribbon and see how that looks. Not good. Then I decide to use the Tempting Turquoise as the base so I re-cut and re-dry emboss another sheet. I then cut up my neutral cream colored ribbons. At this point I have looked at the colors online numerous times already and tried to figure out what the 3 colors were. After reading the description again and again, I realized that the middle color wasn't a light vanilla at all, but rather a LIME GREEN like the description said!!! So I scrap all that previous ribbon and have to choose lime green ribbon now. After I get all that sorted, I wanted to add a bit of color to the middle of the flower. I was hoping for a light watercolor wash of yellow so it still looks close to the lime green. Of course I forgot that the water will make the green ink flower lines run so now I've got a mucky middle. Great. So I decide to add glitter to it to hide my dummy moment. After finishing the glitter I think I'm finished but don't actually like how it looks so I try adding other embellishments to the top left corner. After realizing I have nothing I can add, I decide that the white card base isn't good enough so I trim off the back half of the card and trim down the white border and attach the whole thing onto a Certainly Celery card base. Then I pick a sentiment for the inside, glue in the white inside sheet and stamp the finishing touches (the envelope and my name). Phew!!! I don't know if anyone actually reads posts that have this much writing but I just wanted to share. 12:01 AM. Perfect time to end this post and shower. Good night and hope everyone has a great Friday!! 

Card Positioning Systems #179

98 projects left to go for the No Paper/Product Buying Challenge. If you're wondering what that is, feel free to check out the information on the post here. I didn't do a very good job using patterned paper and I know the goal for Megan and Allison is to use up their patterned stuff. For myself though, my main goal is to just use any of my stuff! With renos and summer, I've been having a hard time sitting down and crafting. So what happens? I post ridiculously late at night. Tonight's cards were made using the sketch found over at the Card Positioning Systems blog. I envisioned a more masculine card when I chose the Marina Mist card base but that didn't pan out...

You can't tell from the picture but the words are actually embossed with Not Quite Navy and I scored both cards along the length of the ribbon. I've been using this level 1 hostess set Because I Care a lot lately, probably because it's nice a big and covers a fair portion of my card. The sentiment is from A Little Birthday Cheer. I didn't even realize I had this stamp set till tonight. The hydrangea is colored with SU pastels and I tried to add a bit more by using my Signo white gel pen to dot the flower centers. The new ribbon is the fantastic new 1/8" taffeta ribbon in Daffodil Delight! If you're wondering why my ribbon knot is facing the opposite ways, it's because: 

1. I tied the left one first and cut the ribbon. 

2. I attempted to tie the second one and realized the first one looked kinda ugly with the ends poking towards the image. 

3. I tried about 7 times before I could figure out how to tie the knot so the ends would poke outwards. 

4. I attempted to retie the left card but had cut the ribbon so short I could hardly grab the darn thing. 

5. I just plain old gave up. So there you have it. Hope everyone has a good day! I'm off to bed! 

CPS #166 & SPCC #47

I love having Monday's off! I had all these great plans for today but I ended up waking up at 10:30, ate and watched Top Chef Masters, then proceeded to fall asleep on the couch till 3:00!! I wanted to be a teeny tiny bit productive so here's a quick card for Card Positioning Systems #166 and SPCC #47. I'm still trying to showcase stamp sets from the new Summer Mini catalogue. This super cute stamp set is perfect to create scrapbook pages for vacations. There's so uber cute paper to match the stamp set but unfortunately the colors don't match SPCC's color challenge. Another great bonus, this stamp set qualifies for this month's bonus of a free package of designer brads! Hope everyone had a more productive day than I did!! 

Card Ingredients (All items Stampin’ Up unless indicated. )

Stamps:Sentimental Journey

Ink: Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Bermuda Bay

Paper: Close to Cocoa, Whisper White, Creamy Caramel, Thoroughly Modern DSP

Embellishments: 

Tools: paper distresser

PPC-CC #9 & CPS #163

I get all giddy when I think about being a PPC creator. It's still so amazing to me that Megan was gracious enough to pick creators with zero design team experience. I am already learning and getting tons of ideas from even just looking at the team's creations. I definitely have a lot to learn and I'm really happy that I get the chance. I had a friend ask me once why I do all this "stuff" and I tell her it's because I enjoy it. Then she asked why I don't just participate in the challenge that offer prizes and I told her I don't pick challenges based on rewards/prizes. I pick challenges that I enjoy and ones that challenge me to grow a little bit each time I participate. I've got more challenge blogs I'm following than I know what to do with so I definitely have my favorites that I tend to go back to time and time again. PPC was one of those blogs and that was even before Megan announced the design team call! Being a PPC creator just makes it all the sweeter! So last night I was up late crafting and I didn't really like how my first attempt turned out. You can't tell from the photo but I actually used glossy paper for the main image and the little gems on the side are a dark brilliant-like blue. I flipped the image from Card Positioning Systems sketch 163 and used PPC-CC #9's colors. So even though it was super late at night, I decided to try another card. 

I'm not sure why I did this card the way I did. I just knew i wanted to use the little heart punch from the Occasions Mini catalogue since I haven't touched it since I bought it. After I pasted it all on, it looked way too plain so I added Dazzling Diamonds glitter to one heart. Well we all know you can't just glitter up one thing so I jazzed up all the hearts. And when looking for ribbon I realized I don't own any sort of ribbon close to Brilliant Blue or Garden Green. Oh well. 

Hopefully you all get a chance to join us over at Picture Perfect Creations Crafty Challenges blog this week! There's always some good candy that Megan has to offer. 

Card Ingredients (All items Stampin’ Up unless indicated. )

Stamps: Card 1: Thoughts & Prayers, Elements of Style. Card 2: Sweet Scoops

Ink: Garden Green, Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue

Paper: Garden Green, Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue, Whisper White, glossy white

Embellishments: Gems (Kaiser Scrapbook), Whisper White organza ribbon, Bashful Blue stripped grosgrain, dazzling diamonds glitter

Tools: heart punch, curly label punch, large oval punch, corner rounder, Big Shot, embossing folder, SU markers