Hello and welcome to Monday…at least Monday night…the Monday after Day Lights saving…and I am tired.  I’m sure we all are tired.  And the sun is up way too late.

And all the poor kids stumbling into school this morning cracked me up.  Now I walk my kiddos to school everyday cause we are just around the corner, and we do the 3/4 mile walk because it is so much easier to walk then to try to find a parking spot in the limited parking.  But this morning, all the kids were dragging.  And I don’t blame them since our school starts at 7:45 am (body time 6:45 this morning).  I giggled to myself as I sipped my coffee.  Being able to drink coffee while kids stumble into class makes me so happy to be an adult.

It cracked me up when I went back into school and hour later, I asked the awesome ladies who run the office how many tardies they had today, and they totally laughed and rolled their eyes, saying “so many.”

I volunteered at school today, which is why I went back in, and got to glue and glitter with a room full of kindergartners.  Two things came from this…one, I have gold glitter everywhere still, and two kindergartners have really stinky feet.  The kids had a reward today and that reward was that they got to not wear shoes today while they were in the class.  It was a strange reward, but they loved it.  Maybe because it was frankly naughty in little five year old land.

I also got to go buy some really big canvases cause my art store had a massive sale on canvases.  And when canvases are on sale, I so stock up.  Now I have a huge canvas (and not just big for me, but actually seriously big) sitting in my art corner begging for me to ruin it was acrylic…

So that was my day.  How was yours?  Did you take care of the errands that you so didn’t want to do, or did you do something selfish?  I was a little selfish, trying to finish the fantasy story I’ve been reading (still didn’t get it done) and that is one of the reasons this post is coming out tonight.

But onto the card challenges…I’m trying out two new ones, from the same group, and seeing if it is going into the permanent challenge file.  I have been considering for some time doing the card challenges on some of my favorite stamp group’s blog sites.  After weeks (and yes I literally mean weeks) of thought I thought I would try out some this week.

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First up this week however, is an oldie but a goodie with the queens of color over at Colour Q.  This week they’ve given us a fun collection of colors to work with including, calypso coral, brilliant blue, coastal cabana, summer starfruit, and white.  Needless to say, these colors for me presented a bit of challenge due to the muted yet bright tones included.

So I went with the ‘when in doubt’ and all else fails, figure out how to make it work with butterflies.  (I feel butterflies can cover a multitude of color combinations and even if they are unrealistic, people can buy it and believe it.)  So I pulled out a simple little butterfly from my Ellen Hutson Essentials stamp set and started loading it up with Distress Ink.  I stamped on a butterfly in both mustard seed and abandoned coral, while I stamped the other set in cracked pistachio and blueprint sketch.  I added all four colors to a sentiment from the same stamp pack and a few sequins.  Finally I pulled out a piece of glitter paper that matched the challenge color coastal cabana and called it a day.  I like the butterflies, but I so have to learn how to properly place sequins on a card so that they are visually pleasing.

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Up next is one of our two new challenges.  Both come from the crafting company My Favorite Things .  I adore both their stamps and dies, and figured I might as well try out their challenges since I use their products.  The first challenge is My Favorite Things weekly sketch challenge.  They had a fun

layered challenge that totally told me I could use sequins (I am so into them at the moment despite the fact I am terrible at using them).

I found two old scrapes of paper and layered them onto the card and pulled out a Pure Innocent MFT stamp and colored her in with my alcohol markers.  I stamped out two of the sentiments that went along with the image of the little easter girl in some old green dye ink.  Finally I added both a pink and a green sequin and called it a day, trying to let the PI girl do her thing on her own.

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The other new challenge this week is My Favorite Things weekly color challenge.  This week they challenged crafters to use the colors daffodil, sour apple, gumdrop green, and biscotti.  Great spring colors if there ever were any.

Now I don’t use a lot of ink outside of black or distress (cause I like what happens when water hits it), so using color inks is always a little challenging since my supply is so limited.  So in the case of the biscotti in the challenge, I pulled a piece of Bazzill walnut cream card stock and started stamping a MFT stamp set (forget me not) background set paragraph stamp in Distress peeled paint, hoping it was close enough to the sour apple color.  It did not come out quite out the way I wanted it to on the beige card stock, but it was close.  Then I stamped out the leaves and stem from the set in mowed lawn and die cut it out.  I stamped the flowers (in none traditional forget-me-not colors of Distress mustard seed and die cut that out too.  I highlighted the leaves and flowers with my white gel pen hoping to pop things.  Finally I stamped out a sentiment from the pack in black pigment ink and then embossed it in clear embossing powder.  I edged the card in black pigment ink, adhered the top part of the card, and smeared the pigment ink a little all over the place (on purpose).  This might not be my best color challenge ever, but I think it works.

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Now, back to the old favorite challenges with our weekly dose of mash-ups with the designers over at Friday Mashup.  This week they are asking us to mash-up three of the colors to the left plus a neutral and a shimmery based product.

I pulled out some tea rose Distress Spray Ink and a stencil and sprayed a piece of white card stock, leaving a nice

floral pattern behind.  Then I pulled out a My Favorite Things die and did a die cut in a piece of turquoise and white paper.  I backed the sprayed stenciled piece to another piece of the same scrape of turquoise paper.  I stamped out a sentiment from a Dylusions sentiment stamp set in pink and trimmed it up and adhere it to the card so the card read “As Long as everything is exactly the way i want…This week I’m totally flexible”.  I badly added some sequins and pulled out my shimmery gel pen and started tracing the sentiment with it plus the white part of the ‘this week’.  Unfortunately shimmery just does not photography well.

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Finally today we have another color challenge from the talented designers over at The Paper Players.  This week the designers are asking for us to use the colors calypso coral, bermuda bay, and basic black.

So I had just done the card above with the

stencil and I kind then was into a stencil kick so I pulled another one out and applied distress ink through it.  I applied both Peacock feathers and abandoned coral Distress ink with a blending pad, focusing the darker sections into the opposite corners.  Then I pulled out an Ellen Hutson Essentials die set and die cut two florals and two leaves out of black glittery paper.  I adhered everything together and stamped out another Dylusion sentiment (it says ‘it’s better to take a risk than miss a moment of magic) in black ink, then embossed it with clear embossing powdered.  I added another sheet of glittery black paper behind the stenciled card stock and called it a day.  And I loved it…(I like how black works with everything).

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That is it for today.  Now, bed time for this tired little girl and hopefully everyone will be dragging a little less tomorrow.  Hope everyone else is adjusting well to the change in time and you are finding time to do something arty.