Heavensent For You

Happy 13th, Taylor!

(Well, not quite, but we celebrated with 4 of her girlfriends at a waterpark/hotel). I was so miserable at the waterpark (feel like I've got a giant jawbreaker stuck in my cheek) in between tylenol's I had about an hour window. But at least the kids had a great time. I doubt they even knew I was hurting, which is a good thing. Today's her actual birthday & once she gets done with cheer camp & gymnastics, we'll go out and celebrate - just the family.

When we came home yesterday, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to try to play catchup on the SCS challenges, and here's what I came up with:
For this one, our challenge was to use scraps. Although I hate the punch (or rather my wrists do), I found some blues and greens that were laying around, too small to do much with. I punched them & mounted on white cardstock then free-hand cut a border around them to mount on the other 2 layers of blue/green designer paper. I think with all the pattens clashing, they almost match, don't you? I've had these oversized brads for what seems like forever and finally felt the opportunity has arisen to use them here. I'm not typically drawn to the brighter colors, more muted is my taste, but I was so happy with the way these flowers looked on the background, that I couldn't help but remember the sentiments I got last week in a PIF exchange.

Another challenge was to make a Square Spring card. While I've tried the Explosion Card, I've never done this type. It's almost just an Explosion card, minus the one end. I used the misting technique where you color the stamp directly (I have boatloads of the ZIGS), then mist it lightly with water & stamp the image onto paper. I've been trying to utilize more vellum, so I laid a piece on top of the image & then applied a rub on "Happy Birthday" with the brads. I'm so lacking in the SU designer paper, so all I could do was take the SU guava and stamp (also in guava) with one of the little background stamps (butterflies in this case). I need to remind my demonstrator to push me when it comes to ordering the DP when I order the cardstock. (One bad thing about the orders taking awhile to get here - I sometimes need the immediate gratification of a purchase). Anyway, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

This challenge was to use the Stampin Up 2008 In colors - as many as we wanted. I really like the guava and wasabi combination, and I found this designer paper in my stash that has the flowers nearly the same colors as the guava. Just got this SU corner punch (I know, what the heck took me so long???) .. and love it!!

This was my last card for yesterday - it was a sketch challenge and we were supposed to keep the triangles as is. I got this image from the Wish RAK over at SCS. I just love the Whipper Snapper collections. My local stamp store rarely has them in stock. You have to wonder how they choose their inventory sometimes. I mean, arent' they supposed to cater to MY tastes? (Actually, my tastes are so eclectic that I dont' think ANY stamp store would be able to stock the things I want, when I want them.)
Speaking of sketch challenges ... I love them. I find myself sticking to some of the tried & true layouts so often, that I don't always branch out unless prompted to. I think I should probably go back & look at the different sketch challenges on the various sites I've been stalking and just commit to doing a new sketch every day. By the time I actually started doing things on SplitcoastStampers.com, the sketch challenges wer in the 160's, so I at least have that many days' worth of different layouts, right?
Anway ... that's my "Show and Tell" for the day. Thanks again for stopping by.