Never have I ever been so happy to see Wednesday as I am today.  Monday and Tuesday this week have just been insanely crazy, not in a bad way, but crazy none the less.  Monday I spent much of the day dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s on the phone with people, and yes, it literally took all day while the kids were at school.  I checked my phone log, and yes, I made 22 different phone calls.

Yesterday was better, since I spent the first part of the day painting for a fifth grade class which was awesome.  However, I left the house at 7:20 in the morning, stopped by for a moment to drop off my art supplies, and then left again for other agenda stuff.  I did choir with the kids after school, we managed to run by the house for a whole thirty minutes to get homework done, change cloths, and grab what we needed (my son also talked me into playing a game of pokemon

with him, I won), and left again and didn’t make it home again till 7 pm.  Yep.  Almost a full 12 hours running.

So I can not even begin to explain why I am so excited for today.  I only have one meeting today.  Okay, one and a half.  I have to drop off the painting to the fifth grade class, and then I have a school meeting for one of the kiddos, but that’s it.  I am so excited to get to paint for myself (after I finish the painting for the classroom).  Tonight the kids and I get to just do homework, and then whatever we want.  I think a dvd might just be in order with some popcorn to celebrate the absolute absence of whining yesterday (the kids were amazing as we just keep pushing through hurdles).

And I get to start some cards this evening and actually have some energy to get it done.  Luckily I got these challenge cards done a few days ago, so they were not rushed or created by the hands of a brain dead mom.

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Up first today in the line up of challenges is a challenge with a bit of sad news.  This will be the last challenge from the designers of Friday Mashup.  After five years, they are closing up shop, and for me, this is sad.  This was my first ever challenge group.  The group that got me hooked on the bug of weekly challenges.  And they have always been different then the other groups out there.  They have a great hook, mashing up to different concepts, and I am going to miss it.  So here we go, out with a bang.  This week, for the last time, the designers asked us to mash

up both the sketch to the left and to create an Easter project.

I pulled out some peep heads from a Poppy stamp pack and decided to dry emboss them onto a piece of card stock.  I add little drops of watercolor around the heads and die cut out the paper with a die from My Favorite Things.  You can’t really see all the cute little peeps in the picture, but in real life they shine and are kind of beautiful.  I added a bid of plaid easter colored card stock tot he back ground and then added some green stripes and white trim to match the sketch.  I added a sentiment from the same Poppy stamp pack and left the rest of the card simple.  I wish the peep heads showed up, cause in real life the card works.

To the designers of Friday Mash-Up…Thank you for all your years giving us something to design.

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Up next is another sketch challenge from the designers over at The Paper Players.  Don’t ask me why but I took the cool layered design and thought it was perfect for a masculine card.

So I pulled out three pieces of warm gray and cream printed papers and started trimming them up.  I took on

the the more solid pieces of paper and embossed it through a embossing folder from Darice.  Then snagging a blending tool from Ranger and frayed burlap ink from Distress Ink and distressed all the different papers giving them an aged effect.  I snagged a piece of kraft paper and ran that through another embossing folder from Darice and distressed that too, focussing my color on the raised parts of the emboss.  I adhered everything together, and pulled the last scrapes of the printed paper and die cut out some scribbly flowers from Ellen Hutson Essentials, and blended a little ink onto it.  I punched a small kraft circle and blended ink around that too.  Finally I stamped out the words ‘be bold’ onto it, hoping that could give someone the encouragement to do exactly that.  I don’t know if I ended up making a masculine card in the end, but I do love how muted and rustic the colors are.

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 This week the sleuths of design over at Can You Case It extended to us a color challenge.  This week they wanted to see a card designed in Navy, Kraft and Gray.

I had big plans for this, pulling out my Daniel Smith Primatek watercolors.  I snagged a piece of quality watercolor paper

instead of craft watercolor paper and started dropping a dark blue shade and a dark grey shade onto the paper in a random pattern, hopping it would blend nicely.  Frankly, it look like not great in the end, but I wanted to see if I could rescue it (mainly because I used quality paper).  I pulled out a sentiment pack from Stampendous and stamped out the sentiment ‘thank you my friend’.  I added a piece of kraft card stock under the watercolor paper, and still the card did not work.  Finally I pulled out a stamp from Bo Bunny and added some gray flannel Memento Ink to it and started adding some back ground stamping with the music notes to the card and left the images rough and uneven.  And finally, the card worked.  The background stamped saved the day, and this ended up being my favorite card from the batch today.

 

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This week, the designers over at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown handed out a Christmas card challenge asking for paper piecing.  Yep.  It was that open of a card challenge.  Just piece a bunch of paper together in a Christmas theme.

So off I went.  I pulled out a piece of black card stock for not

real reason except I wanted to, and embossed it with a musical sheet music embossing folder from Darice and trimmed it down so I could back it with a sheet of snowflake printed paper.  I stamped out a snowman from a Stampendous stamp pack and colored him in with my alcohol markers (both Spectrum Noir, and my new very light shaded copics).  I snipped out a piece of white card stock to look like a little mound of snow, and shaded that with my new light colored copics.  Finally I snipped a piece of the printed paper and added a sentiment to it, coloring in the little heart.  I know this isn’t the most Christmasy card in the history of Christmas cards, but I really like it.  It speaks to my soul for reasons I don’t understand, but it works for me.

 

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Finally today, we have an sweat inspiration challenge from the design bakers over at Cupcake Inspirations.  This week the inspiration for out weekly dose of decadence was bunnies.  Now, unfortunately I am a little over easter cards, so I had to figure out a way to do this theme outside the easter realm.  Sadly, the only bunny stamps are very easter themed.  That was until I remember I had a white rabbit Alice in Wonderland

stamp from Deep Red.

Now I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan (maybe to the point of fanatic), and have the entire Deep Red Alice line.  So the I figured the white rabbit is a bunny, and I knew I could use the colors in the photo, so away I went.  I stamped out both Alice and the White Rabbit and colored them in with my alcohol markers and then fussy cut them out.  I pulled out some printed papers in muted tones and distressed them a bit with both tea dyed and vintage photo Distress Ink.  I assembled everything and stamped out the sentiment from an Alice and Friends stamp pack from Avery Elle (see, I have a problem) and left the card at that.  Simple assembly, not so simple coloring, and a bit of distress ink.

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That is it for today.  I am off to do what I ever I please and enjoy the stillness of a quiet day.  Hope your world is quiet and that you get to do at your desk what ever you want, instead of what you have too.