PPC-SC #1 & PDCC #55

Happy Monday everyone! I can't believe November is officially half over! I'm not ready for it to be Christmas quite yet. The weather has been cooperating with that! No snow staying on the ground yet. We've had an entire day of rain though! Kind of feels like Vancouver! 
Today's card threw me for a double challenge and not because I combined 2 challenges together. Over at Picture Perfect Creations, we've decided to start sketch challenges! So this week is the first sketch challenge. I've combined it with the Play Date Cafe Challenge #55. I call this a double challenge because 
1. I do not like using more than about 3 colors on my cards and PDCC #55 uses 5 (and ones that I would never put together)!! 
2. I do not use complicated sketches very often and the very first PPC-SC is more complicated than I am used to. 
I wanted to make a card for someone close to my heart that was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. I don't know very much about liver cancer except for what she has told me. She will hopefully go for surgery within the next couple weeks. She'll be in my thoughts and I'll be praying for a smooth surgery and speedy recovery. Hopefully you don't need to make a get well card for anyone but come pop by Picture Perfect Creations to try out our new challenge and see what the design team has come up with! They did a much better job than 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!! 

Play Date Cafe Challenge #42 & Fall To Layout #103

I wasn't very productive today. I had every intention to be productive! Alarm was set for 9:00 AM and Jamie even came to wake me up at 9:30 but then I convinced him (wasn't hard) to nap with me till 10:00. He eventually got up at 11 or 11:30 and I woke my lazy butt up at 1:00 PM!!! Jamie asked what I wanted for breakfast and so I asked him what he wanted and he goes "Well it'd be lunch for me." Ouch. Anyways, I managed to muster up a card today. The photo is the inspiration from the Play Date Cafe Challenge and I paired it up with Clean & Simple's Fall To Layout sketch 103. I got to use some patterned paper for the No paper/product buying challenge and you get a sneak peak of a stamp set that will be available in September from the new winter mini catalogue! Don't be upset with the very Autumn looking card. I swear fall is here already because Jamie and I already saw yellow leaves on some trees on our dog walks. 

The leaves are from the new stamp set French Foliage and the sentiment is from a retired hostess set Flower Lines. I wanted the patterned paper to show through so I used some vellum and got to try out my new Scrapbook Adhesives vellum adhesive. Not too bad but it does tend to clump a bit at the start and end. You can see a little blip of it on the top left corner. The rest is still pretty invisible so I'm happy with it. Worth the $8. The ribbon is Chocolate Chip taffeta and I'm in absolute love with it! The sheen it has is so gorgeous in person. Hope you all had a great weekend! 

Play Date Cafe Challenge #41

I can't believe it's already Saturday!!! It has been so busy lately that I didn't even get a chance to participate in this week's Picture Perfect Creations Challenge! I did manage to find some time (at 1:15 in the morning!!) on Thursday night to make a card for the student that I had shadowing me for the last 10 weeks. It was her last day yesterday and I wanted to make her a little congrats card on finishing her nursing school! I was poking around looking for some color inspiration when I found this week's Play Date Cafe Challenge #41. I had a sheet of leftover Sweet Pea DSP in So Saffron sitting on my desk (pays to be messy sometimes!) so I thought it'd go perfectly with Cherry Cobbler. The layout is similar to one that I used in the past PPC challenge. You can check out the other card HERE. 

Everything is Stampin' Up except the button (local craft store) and the flower (from Prima). The embossed white panel is using the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder with my Big Shot. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Off to a family summer BBQ get-together! 

PDCC 25 & SSSC 65

Here's my very first attempt at a Play Date Cafe challenge (PDCC25) and a Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge (SSSC65). I have been following both blogs for a very long time now on my google reader and just haven't really found time to play! But today I'm getting in my card by the skin of my chinny chin chin! The Play Date Cafe challenge is due by midnight but EST!! So I had to hustle my butt and create a card fast. I'm loving how it turned out. Now I know you may think the lattice cutout is "dirty" looking but I actually sprayed it with some shimmer mist. I'm not actually sure if it's a lattice cutout but I'm no longer at home to check. I better keep this short and sweet so I can submit it on time!!