Hey, peeps! It's been a bizillion years (seems like) since I posted any actual projects, and almost that long since I had any in progress! This week has been/is Dare to Get Dirty challenge week on Splitcoast Stampers. It's an annual event hosted by current and alumni members of The Dirty Dozen (SCS's "design team") for the fan club members. There are five challenges every day, and you have to be a fan club member to see/participate in them. Membership is cheap ($24.95 annually), and worth it to me to support such an amazing website! Tutorials, forums, galleries - it's a treasure trove for anyone looking to get educated about this hobby and to form friendships or to just see amazing artwork - LOVE it! You don't have to be a fan club member to do everything else on the site, but you do for these challenges and/or to view what the Dirty Dozen is up to year 'round...
Anyway, I've been playing along as I can and have made a few cards (I know - who even remembered that I ever did that?!) to share here. I won't go into the details of any of the challenges, just show you the cards and list what went into them. The first three are watercolors:
Unity Pretty as a Peacock; distress inks
Unity Best Year Yet; Close to My Heart For Every Occasion; distress inks; ribbon
Stampin' Up! Jest Between Friends; Fiskars Quotes - Laughter; food coloring (an experiment)
This next one was another experiment of sorts... You know how, when you're doing heat embossing, sometimes you get stray specks that you don't see until after you've melted them permanently onto your card? Yeah, that happened. Instead of starting over (which I usually would have done) I intentionally sprinkled more powder around and melted it (from underneath so it wouldn't blow away):
Stampin'Up! Lots of Hearts (formerly a wheel, currently a long strip of flat red rubber joy); Unity Love Brings You Home; SU! Melon Mambo ink; Versamark ink; Stampendous Black detail embossing powder
If you've been following me at all, you probably know that I don't do fancy folds or other "fiddly" types of techniques or cards, so this next one surprised me, too. When the idea strikes, you go with it, right?
Unity More Than Ice Cream; Close to My Heart Boutique Borders; Stampin'Up! Pacific Point and Strawberry Slush ink; Stampin'Up! Baked Brown Sugar cardstock; hand-drawn scoop (Micron pen); Martha Stewart mini scoreboard; Spectrum Noir markers
You may have noticed that I've been using a lot of Unity stamps. They're kinda, sorta my new obsession... When you've been involved with any hobby for any length of time you most likely find that tastes and styles and all the rest of it morph over the years. Unity fits where I'm currently at in my evolution, apparently. Many of the stamps that I loved for quite awhile have found new homes elsewhere...
I still LOVE Purple Onion Design stamps though, and gave a couple of new ones a test run:
Purple Onion Designs Happy Halloween Noteblock; POD/Stacey Yacula Studio Happy Pumpkins; Versafine Onyx Black ink; Basic Grey papers
A former obsession was Inkadinkado stamps. I've whittled my collection down considerably, but I still have quite a few and love them so much! Here's one of my faves:
Inkadinkado Warm Holiday Wishes; Unity sentiment; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Basic Grey paper; Paper Studio Holiday Red cardstock; Spectrum Noir markers; Sakura Stardust glitter pen; Stampin'Up! Real Red ribbon; Gina Marie Designs Fishtail banner dies
Waaaaaaaaay back in the day (which, according to Dane Cook, "was a Wednesday", lol) I was a Close to My Heart consultant and some of those stamps are still in my collection, like this one:
Close to My Heart Sweet Dreams; Unity sentiment; Versafine Onyx Black ink; Prima papers; Spectrum Noir markers; Sakura Stardust glitter pen; Stampin'Up! Apothecary Accents die
Those are all that I've managed so far, minus one. The other one is a card for a friend that is currently en route to her, and I don't want her to see it here before she sees it there, ya know? I'll post it another time, along with any others I may happen to come up with. Thanks for stopping by, and have a FABULOUS weekend (just in case I'm not back today or tomorrow...) ;-D