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.

The final challenges of VSN have been posted. These gals are quite talented in coming up with these challenges (and connecting them with books!).

Top left is my “African Batik” card. I wasn’t sure what the difference was between this technique and just regular brayering…especially since you embossed on top of the brayering and not a resist like I thought it would be. However, the white pencil really does add just a bit of dimension – though that is the part with which I had the hardest time! I brayed my ink onto glossy, forgetting that I was to immediately spritz with water, my ink dried…so when I did spritz I got the water spot effect (which I like!). Then I embossed the giraffe. Finally I went back over with a white watercolor pencil, but it didn’t want to stick to the card – so I got more of a whitewash effect.

Next is my “Lemon Meringue” card. This card was fun to make. And there isn’t a stamp on it! I love bright colors – this is something I’m just learning about myself. I don’t do bright clothes, but I can see adding a few more touches around the house. Anyway, I actually found some pattern paper in my paper stash that went with SU’s Yoyo Yellow. Then I dug into my flowers and found complements there too! I finished it off with Making Memories word washers and some sparkly yellow brads. this is one of my favorite cards from VSN!

Bottom left is my “Fall Thoughts” card. The challenge was to dust off an old set. The SU Simple Sketches set was one of my first purchases. I also think it is time to sell it – I haven’t used this set in over a year! Autumn is my second favorite season, so I enjoy making fall cards. I used my new oval nesties – those are so easy to use, well worth the price (which really isn’t bad when compared to individual punches).

The final card is my “Frank n Bats” Halloween card. This was a tough challenge for me – mostly because I wanted to do the challenge AND the bonus AND pick House Colors that other hostesses hadn’t…it was just too many restrictions. So I just did the main challenge. I really like how this turned out!

Scrappy vs Stampy – Those terms refer to the types of products used on a card. If it is mostly pattern paper and embellishments, it is scrappy. A good example of that is my Lemon Meringue card – no stamps at all!. A stampy card is one where even the texture of the card is created using stamps. A good example of that is my Fall Thoughts card. The bottom portion of the card is a background stamp – some simple masking allowed me to stamp the leaves and weave print on the same card base. I admire folks who can do primarily stampy cards and make them look good. Scrappy cards generally grab my eyes first. For my own style I lean toward scrappy cards, but I love working with ink and rubber (well, polymer mostly ).

I just posted my VSN challenge over at SCS. I can’t take credit for the challenge idea, but it was fun writing up the post and creating the samples. I’ve never done “inchies” before – mostly because I felt the real estate of a card was too big for just 1 inch. I took the easy route for my first venture and did a group of inchies (which I’ve dubbed “groupies” – corny, but cute). This was easy to do, but I didn’t feel like I really tried the challenge since there was more than one of them on the card. So, keeping with the same stamp set, I tried again. This was actually easier than I thought it would be! I don’t know if “inchies” will become a staple in my design box, but at least I’m not afraid of them any more!

FYI, the pattern paper used on the spider card is a spider web (retired SU paper) that I outlined with a Stardust pen. I also punched the bottom of the card to resemble the web edges.

VSN is still in full swing. Here are a few more of my challenge cards. On the left is my “Fancy Nancy” card. I love those CTMH girl stamps! I paper pieced her jacket to match the pattern paper used along the bottom. I’ve done punch work on the bottom of a card before, but never the top – I really love how that turned out.

The next card is “Purple”! The challenge was to use purple – even just a little bit – but I wanted the whole card to be purple. I love the SU Dots & Daisies background because of how cute it looks when you color in the flowers.

The final card, “Find Beauty”, is for the watercolor challenge. I’m not a big fan of watercolor crayons, but I wanted to try something different with them. I colored directly onto the rubber, spritzed with water, and stamped. The images aren’t as dark as I would prefer, but since the idea is watercolor, it works

This is a combo challenge card. Julee posts awesome sketches every Monday – she calls them Mojo Monday…I love that name! This card uses her Mojo 49 Sketch. The card also fulfills the VSN challenge “Alice in Wonderland” – to use pearl-ex, twinkling H2Os, lumiere or scallops.

I was inspired by Pine’s work with Twinkling H2Os on Kraft paper. I only have a couple Verve stamps, so I chose to use the star stamps. I simply painted the H2Os onto the stamp and stamped onto black cardstock. I also broke out some glittery paper that I purchased months ago from Cut Cardstock. The white and blue paper are both shimmery. Though, the photo doesn’t show it, there is a lot of shimmer in this card.

The first night of VSN is over – though there is still time to play (you have until Sunday, August 24 10pm CT to upload your images to SCS). Here is a group shot of the cards I made for Friday’s challenges:

I always try to make cards that I know I can use when I’m done with the fun of the challenge. There are two challenges that got me to do something new – scratch-n-sniff and flocking. I had always wanted to try scratch-n-sniff but just never took the time. When I first read this challenge I wanted to do something different…eventually the idea of baby powder came to mind. While I had a few hurdles with that one, I do like how it turned out. The other challenge, flocking, had me digging into my stash for long-ago purchased items that I just never took the time to try. This was SO EASY – a little inking in my glue pad and a little shake of flock and voila. I will definitely be doing that one again soon!

Notes about the other cards:

The Gnome Bookmark card is 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, fold in half. From the front, trim 1 1/2″; from the back, perforate at 1 1/2″.

The Sketch Book has about 6 pages from my sketch book in it. I used Japanese Stab Binding (SCS TLC142) and twine to do the binding along the spine. The flower is stamped directly on the Kraft paper then colored with pencils.

Thanks to all the hostesses for such great challenges!

Wow – these past couple of hours have been quite, um, interesting. Tonight is the beginning of the VSN challenge weekend over at SCS. Being the procrastinator that I am, I am frantically trying to finish the last couple of challenges. One of which I chose to use baby powder. Not having used it on my children, I was apparently unaware of how the bottle works. So, instead of simply peeling the sticker from the holey lid, I pried the lid off…and well…I’m sure science was involved in this:

And if that wasn’t bad enough, SCS is down. VSN was supposed to start at 7pm ET…that was about the same time SCS went down. It is now 8:15 pm I know the powers-that-be are trying as hard as they can to get it working, but I feel for the coordinators of VSN. (((hugs))) to Vicki and PS.

On Friday and Saturday, SCS will be hosting a book-themed VSN. The wonderful coordinators – Vicki and Peggysue – have a great line up of challenges – so make sure you stop by and check it out. My little challenge will be Saturday at 8pm ET.

Tonight is another mini VSN over at SplitCoastStampers! The fun begins at 6pm CT – so make sure you stop by and check out the great challenges the hostesses have pulled off the shelf for you!