There was a mini VSN this weekend. I wasn’t home for the live postings, but I did managed to make a few cards before the deadline.

First up is my Guitar Queen. The challenge was to use a Beatles’ song as inspiration. I went with “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”….though really the only thing that translated was guitar! I went with a rocking look and bright colors. The layout is an old mojo sketch. The star was created with chipboard, white paint, pink craft ink, clear EP, and green dye ink – easy peasy! I stored much of my stamping supplies when I moved and I must have been in a very “minimalist” state of mind when I decided what would store and what would ship because I left almost all of my punches at home…boy do I miss my circle punches!! I would have added little circle mats to the brads, but making them now requires hand-cutting and I didn’t have time within the challenge limits.

Next up is my BlackJack card. This was a fun challenge – the idea was to create a card using the point system given and come up with a 21-point creation. I did it! This was a card that has been in my head since I saw the Fan Club April Inspiration. Again, I didn’t bring my cloud template so I made one. I always seem to think big when I made a cloud template, oh well. My sponge had a darker blue in it and I didn’t get it all out when I applied Bashful to the cardbase. I would also have added blue sky to the focal image panel. Ugh, sometimes time constraints really bug me!

Finally, my last VSN card uses strips of paper. I spent a lot of time with making the background, so the rest of the card is plain. I love the “plaid” background and had fun creating it! I only have one country-feel set – but it is a classic. I love my “On the Farm” set and will never get rid of it!

Thanks VSN Hostesses for some awesome challenges!

Over at SCS, there will be another VSN mini on Saturday. But on Friday – there was a surprise challenge! The challenge was to embellish a card with at least 3 things (from a list).

So, my card isn’t highly embellished, but I made up for it by eating a couple cookies whilst I created the card The first requirement was to use a favorite stamp set. Well, for me, my favorite set is always the one I most recently got – that would be Wishing You by Dawn for PTI. Then my “bar” selections were ribbon, buttons, and the piercing template.

I made this card for the SCS Fan Club sketch challenge (DSKETCH0409). Are you a fan club member? It is a great way to support a great community! {SCS Fan Club}

When I first saw the sketch I had lots of ideas, but after a week of rain, I am looking forward to the bright summer! The letters were easy to make. I took glossy cardstock and used markers to make stripes. Then I stamped the outline alphabet and cut out the letters.

On the inside I used a leftover piece of the “rainbow” glossy paper. For some reason this TAC set doesn’t include a sun (the only sentiment in the set is “sizzlin’ summer” – you’d think they’d have a sun image *grin*) but I found another TAC set that did.

Today I was ruminating on the topic of style – not clothing, I don’t have any style there! No, I mean my card-making style. I generally recognize a few styles: collage, vintage, clean-and-simple, and lots-of-layers. I never seem to keep to one particular style, though some styles are definitely harder for me. I always cop-out on style questions and say eclectic. About the only thing I truly know is that I enjoy working with bright colors, which I find interesting because I do *not* do bright in any other aspect of my life.

I’m a little behind, but I loved this challenge and had to finish what I started a couple weeks ago. This card is for a past Res-Q challenge – Daisies and Diamonds (RESQ03). The challenge was to use brown, white, and either red, orange, or yellow, and also to add in diamonds.

Ever since I got this stamp set I’ve wanted to do the lines thing…I’m just too lazy when it comes to making a mask, lol! I really love how this turned out! The diamonds part of the challenge was covered with the gems in the flower center. Thanks Mom for sending me a sample of the Tangerine paper!

I was even inspired to decorate the inside too.

I’m hosting the Casual Mid-Week Challenge over on the Papertrey Ink forum (cmwc51). I found a cool lap desk for inspiration. Here is a link to the product on the Room Service Home website.

Back when Nicole introduced the Chocolate Remix paper she showed how you could color in the images and give the paper a whole new look. I’ve been wanting to try it, and now I have! When I saw the inspiration piece, the lap desk in the back really reminded me of that technique – so I had to do it!

I made this card for Jen’s March 28 SFYTT. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at first, but when I looked through my stamp index and saw the Bella image, I knew I should use it to make the Easter cards for my girls. I wasn’t sure what I was going to put as the accent (the star in the sketch), but I knew I didn’t want a flower (I wanted a flower on the sentiment panel), so I ended up inking just a few chicks on an image from SU’s Best of Cluck set.

I made this card for my BIL. I don’t know many other techy people, so I definitely wanted to use this computer image. When I looked at the latest CAS challenge over at SCS (CAS08) and thought it would work perfectly.

The font for the binary lines isn’t very tech looking, but I thought it went with the whimsical lines of the computer. I was just glad that stamping all those was very easy!

This card uses the sketch from Karen’s Sweetest Thing blog (SSSC11).

The purpose of the card is to reconnect with someone – so I thought the mailboxes were a good choice. I wanted a fun cheery card, so I pulled out some older SU paper. Thankfully I had ribbon that worked! I do wish I had the rectangle or square nesties, I’m not completely satisfied with the focal mat, but it works well enough.

I am hosting an inspiration challenge this week over on the PTI forum (CMWC49). You can play along too!

This is the piece I selected as my inspiration – a skirt I found in an Etsy store called GoodGracie. I loved the bright colors and fun patterns.

I decided to use the bright colors and also the pattern from the blue fabric (the white paint effect). I don’t have any ric-rac, let alone ric-rac in a color that would go with this card, so I just made my own ruffle – which, without a sewing machine was accomplished with lots and lots of glue dots!

So, when I was packing for my move (which is temporary), my mom convinced me that if I only used my sewing machine for cards, I didn’t need to bring it with me. Ugh! Now I know that even that use is a good thing – I miss it!! The wavy sewing on this card was done by hand – yes, by hand. I would have liked to do another wavy line, but it is late and I needed to get this posted.

This card is for the PTI Forum mid-week challenge (CMWC48), which was a sketch. The colors came from the OCCC blog. When I do a PTI challenge I like to use PTI stamps, but I challenged myself even more by doing a card I could send out this week for a male birthday coming up. Lots of restrictions!

I really only have one set that is sorta masculine – Pond Life. So I browsed the gallery until I found this card by Julie Cameron – I immediately knew the fish scene would be perfect! I like how this card turned out, though I didn’t follow the sketch strictly. I love using white as a mat to lighten up the darker colors.

I even did the inside (it has been a few cards since I did an inside, hee hee).