Enjoy the ride

I hit the jackpot while I was out visiting yard sales last week. One of the vet organizations (American Legion or VFW) had an entire table full of brand new stamping/scrapbooking supplies. They were selling stickers 4 packs for $1 and clear stamps 2 packs for $1. I got 4 packs of Martha Stewart premade bows, rub-ons, etc, and 2 packs of Autumn Leaves stamps. I should have bought more.

I used the ribbon colors my color inspiration for this card. The theme was inspired by the current Etsy-Inspired Challenge, EIC 168. The store this time is called Bear Creek Designs, and it features hand-felted little critters -- talk about cute! I was inspired by this needle-felted horse. (I'd be tempted to adopt him and bring him home if my son were younger,)

Carousel horse stamp from Sweet Impressions, colored with pencil and OMS. Sentiment is computer-generated. Ribbons by Martha Stewart (who makes much prettier bows than I can, what a surprise!)

EIC 72, SFTW

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge #72 is Sweetie Pie TuTus, which sells adorable little tutus for adorable little girls. I'm sure I would have loved one of these when I was little, and they are still fun to look at. I was partly inspired by the colors, so I'll call this pink and green one my one inspiration piece, but the entire site is so girly that the girlyness sort of was the real inspiration to my card.

I combined the Etsy Challenge with the Stamping For the Weekend sketch, which worked out perfectly here.

The Sweetie Pie store just called for sweet stamps, and I don't own anything cuter and sweeter than this plate of Michelle Perkett designs from Faerie Song Art Stamps. I did a little "out of the box" cutting, so her legs are poking out of the circle. The papers are from a Marcella K stack. The ribbon is this incredible double-sided peach and pale green that I picked up for 10 cents at a yard sale. (That's probably what the woman paid for it new about 50 years ago). The ribbon is a little fragile -- it's probably just been sitting around that woman's sewing room for decades -- but I love the color combo.

Get ready for VSN

It's VSN weekend at SCS. I've had the privilege of being one of the hostesses this go-round. Actually my challenge was several weeks ago as part of the mini-VSN day.

I came up with an usual challenge called blackjack, where various elements of a card were given a point value (stamped image 5 points, layer 1 point, etc) and challenged people to use the scale and create a card that would win at blackjack, meaning equal 21 points. Basically, it was a variation on a limited supply challenge.

Here is the card I created as a sample. Main image is by Autumn Leaves, and the sentiment is from a Faerie Song plate called Faeries Frolic. (I used several of the images from the plate in various challenges for the VSN mini). Points were 3 layers = 3 points, 2 stamped images for another 10, 2 patterned papers at 3 points each added another 6, and the 2 brads were worth a point each, for a total of 21.

I went out to look for yard sales this morning. I came across a little old lady who was selling a bunch of stuff super cheap. She had rolls of ribbon priced at 10 cents -- and that meant if she had 10 different ribbons wrapped around one paper-towel-type roll, you got them all for 10 cents. I grabbed several rolls. I'm not sure how useful some of it might be -- the satin is kind of old and faded looking, and stained where she had the ends taped to the roll. But there were a few I had to have, including a double-sided satin in my favorite shades of celery and a pale peachy-pink, as well as a red-and-white cotton gingham. Both of them appear to be in good shape. Once I find a use for them, I'll post a picture.