Things! Part DEUX!

So I had actually made a list of the upcoming birthdays for which I'd be requiring cards and I felt like I should be really proactive about it and just have a bunch ready to go so I decided to make a very girly birthday card for one of my cousins (her birthday is coming up in a few weeks!) 

I knew I wanted to try CAS(e) this Sketch!'s challenge again and go for something a little more CAS-y but I needed some colour inspiration. And that's where Curtain Call came in! I remember seeing their challenges on other crafter's blogs (I creep a lot for inspiration, what can I say) and I thought that I'd give it a try. Lucky for me I absolutely loved their theme!!! (luckier that I had the colours available!!)

Here's CAS(e) this Sketch's #72 challenge again:

This is what Curtain Call's Confetti Crush inspiration challenge looks like:

And here's what I did with it!

Of the three cards I did inspired by CAS(e) this Sketch! #72 I think this is my favourite. I just love the colours AND I love how CAS-y I managed to make it. (which was a damn challenge because I wanted a stamp-and-sequin-pocalpyse!)

I really really wanted to put a butterfly on it but I decided against it because I had already put one on the previous card. (Seriously though, somebody give me a trophy for it because I have a butterfly addiction)

-There's one more CAS(e) this Sketch! card coming up! Stay tuned :)

Things!

I clearly failed with that new week's resolution as this post/link-up is so last minute it's a little but embarrassing.
*FUN FACT* It's actually a lot embarrassing....

The sad thing is that I've known about CAS(e) this Sketch!'s challenge for a while and I actually made the card but I just never got around to posting it! Whoops? I actually made 3 cards using this week's sketch challenge because....you know, I don't really know why. I just felt like it I guess.

CAS(e) this sketch! challenge #72 looks like this:

This is the first card I got around to doing.

*FUN FACT* As I stamped the "happy birthday to you" sentiment I said to myself
"Okay, don't mess this up, you've got one chance. THIS IS ALL OR NOTHING"
Which made me think of O-Town's song "All or Nothing" and one thing led to another....
musical selection was O-Town's "All or Nothing" for the next 2 days  :/ #noregrets

I completed it over the weekend and it kind of just sat on the craft room table ...watching me make other card and collecting dust. I really liked the idea of cutting one picture into a grid but omfg what-the-balrogs batman! IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE. I almost gave up halfway through but I'm glad I didn't because I actually really like this card :) (I think it's the dark brown cardstock. I'm slightly obsessed with it. It reminds me of ....4th year coffee catch-up dates at medsci) But it's kind of a huge deal that I like it because these past two weeks because I've felt very blah about everything I've made so I'm really glad that I'm not disappointed with this one :D

-Stay tuned! I've got 3 more cards to post!

Butterfly things! With a sketch! And pastel colours! So many things going on I'm like a multitasking wizard

So I've known about The Card Concept's butterfly theme inspiration challenge for quite a long while (The sister told me that it'd be right up my alley since she knows how much I love butterflies) and even though I add a butterfly to pretty much every card I make I was having trouble coming up with anything that I thought was good enough for a butterfly challenge.

Here's The Card Concept's Challenge #7!

 Since I couldn't really come up with anything I left The Card Concept's card alone for a bit and I started looking at Freshly Made Sketches. I don't recall when I first stumbled onto their blog but I'm quite glad I did! I find I usually need a sketch to start a project (though lately it's becoming harder for me to follow sketches! Maybe I'm losing my crafting touch, who knows. BUT I am pretty good at zombie/alien arcade shooting games! DAVE & BUSTER'S WAS SO MUCH FUN I cannot get over it.) and I quite liked the rectangular-ness Freshly Made Sketches' sketch 131 so I thought it'd be a great place to start!

*FUN FACT* I actually had a dream I was playing zombie shooting games. I was both in the game and the player. While I do love zombies and I love being scared I woke up almost peeing my bed :/ That dream was a whole different level of scary!!! ...But I did wake up wanting to play it.

Here's Freshly Made Sketches #131!

After spending about 10 minutes blankly looking at cardstock I realized I needed help with a colour scheme! I wanted to follow The Card Concept's butterfly colours but I didn't really have any cardstock or ink that matched in a way that ....didn't piss me off (maybe the lighting was off in the craftroom but everything just looked wrong. Who knew there'd be so much drama in card-making!) I remembered coming across Colour Throwdown in another card challenge about two weeks ago (just looking through other entries and reading their posts) so I figured that I'd give theirs a shot. I'm glad I did because this week's Colour Throwdown's inspiration challenge was absolutely beautiful! I'm such a sucker for pastel colours.

Here's Colour Throwdown!

*FUN FACT* Every time I've looked at this picture I started craving mini-eggs
*FUNNER FACT* It's time to take a break from this post to go eat a few mini-eggs :D

So I put all these challenges together and this is what happened. I would classify the card as "Clean & Layered":

I really, really wanted a light, pastel-yellow but unfortunately we didn't have any. This is the lightest yellow we have that isn't ....the colour eggshell, but I do think it's actually quite a lovely colour. I don't think the butterfly is prominent but...I guess I like the card enough to post so oh well.

And now it's time for a nap! I stayed up all night watching Game of Thrones! (the latest episode and random season 3 ones. Oh how I wish I had dragons) I hope you all enjoyed The Purple Wedding as much as I, and the rest of the world did! Game of Thrones, doing weddings right since 2011 ;)

I also hope you all enjoyed Margaery Tyrell's face reactions as much as I did: her expressions give me life. I would watch an entire episode of Game of Thrones of just Natalie Dormer's facial exressions caused by Joffrey antics!

-Happy dreams!

Things! For you to look at! With your eyes! :)

I am really cutting it close lately, right? Blame the procrastinator in me. It shows up late to all events and won't seem to ever leave. My resolution for the week is to be way better at being on top of things!

I had quite a bit of trouble with this birthday card. I find making cards for boys just ridiculously difficult. It might have something to do with the fact that most of The Sister's stamps are flowery but, honestly, it's just me. But the theme at CASology this week was "wet" and I decided that I'd go with

wet = water = blue 

as my theme and it made it much easier to make the card masculine-ish. It's for my nephew who turned 10 today! (where has the time gone??) which is a really hard situation since most of The Sister's stamps are not only flowery but grown-up-py. (I mean we have a ton of grown-ups in our family and only like 5 kids so statistically speaking the stamps make sense. But try telling that to a card for a 10 year-old.)  Luckily I found the cutest cupcake stamp and I figured it's was a pretty kid-friendly image so I just went with it!

*FUN FACT* omnomnomg I love cupcakes and I make a pretty mean rum-filled, Guiness-chocolate cupcake with roasted marshmallow-nutella-fererro rocher and candied bacon frosting. I spare no calories when it comes to dessert!

I also remembered that Mojo Monday had a new sketch out and I decided to make a card that could also be entered there! (I guess I figured I'd make the card-making just a little harder just for the hell of it?)

*FUN FACT* It was a mistake because it was a damn lot harder! But at least it's done and I feel semi-accomplished

Here is the Mojo Monday 340 sketch challenge:

And here's CASology's week 90 cue card:

And here's what I made from it!

I think it's CAS... as much as it embarrasses me to admit, I'm still not really sure about the whole concept! I really gotta read more about it. And I think it somewhat follows the MM sketch. The angle of the white card is the opposite direction because ...when I first stamped it I the blue polka dots stamp was NOT on my side and decided to stamp unevenly :3 Thank goodness I was able to just flip it around and use the back because I was so not in the mood to re-cut that paper. I think it sort of works, I'm still a little iffy. But what I AM proud of is that it's a card that's relatively suitable for a 10 year old! That's really what was the most important goal of the card because holy problems batman cards for kids are haaaaaard.

Welp, that's all for now kids!

-Happy dreams!

I made a thing! (that still has nothing to do with that cauliflower post...)

So I've had a ton of other card challenges I've been meaning to enter but so far I've been pretty blah about making any cards (plus I haven't really had the time) but I really, really wanted to enter this week's Runway Inspired challenge.

I've been in the mindset lately that having creative freedom over a card is a good thing. But I think I might've been wrong about that :P I had a ton of trouble with this challenge.  I even tried to use sketch challenges to help me come up with something but nothing worked. Eventually I got to playing around with some dies and decided that I absolutely had to use a bike. I don't know why, I can barely even ride a bike, but I don't know I just felt I had to.

*FUN FACT* That saying "it's like a riding a bike" IS A LIE. It's NOT "like riding a bike" The saying should be "it's like  RE-LEARNING how to ride a bike" because let me tell you, last April IceQueenJenny, WonderfulChris and I rented some bikes to go nightriding because it was our last night at the house, and I crashed into a tree. A TREE.

Here's this week's challenge inspiration:

*FUN FACT* I want this dress SOSOSOSOSOSO much

The main thing that stood out to me was the pastel colouring. I LOVE pastel colours. They make me think of warm spring days and Easter and chocolate Easter eggs (because I eat so many mini-eggs) and they make me happy. The next thing I thought of was Europe. (I know, weird right?) I guess it's because of how busy the print is? Somehow that reminded me of how busy the London tube is? I don't know ,whatever.  All the "love" words made me think of France (because France is my one true love oui, oui monsieur poisson! I'm channeling the first French I learned which was through The Little Mermaid) and then I remembered my dear friend CharStar (who lived in France for like 10 years as a child) is leaving soon for a trip and I've been meaning to make a "safe travels" card for FOREVER and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity!

And here it is!

I didn't end up using the "safe travels" sentiment because I thought it looked too loopy next to all of the hearts so I went with a "miss you" sentiment because, well, obviously I'll be missing her loads. I used white ink to stamp on a bunch of Paris stamps over the black card (which oops you can't read too well in this picture), not because she's going to France -she's going to Africa for a volunteer/Master's assignment trip- but because she's so very french! Then I went with hearts because of "love" because I'm unimaginative and whatever it's my card I can do what I want.

I don't absolutely love the card but I like it well enough to post. I do really like the bicycle die. I used pale pink cardstock and stamped some script using a dark purple and then once that dried I die cut the bike out and over that I stamped the outline of the bike. Now that I'm writing it that was a lot of work for a bicycle and you can't even really see it in the picture but in person you can see the purple underneath and I kinda love that.

That's all for now! If I don't skedaddle I'm gonna be late for my movie!

-Happy dreams

Moar things! And Holy-Word-Limit-Batman! So many thoughts, I apologize. Just scroll to the picture

So, after I rushed out that last post, I had to put some finishing "touches" on the birthday card that I had put on hold earlier that night. Fast forward like 2 hours later and the card was done! I was feeling pretty jazzed that I was going to be able to make the deadline for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge but when I went to check the linky, POOF! the link was closed :( For a second I thought I broke it but after refreshing 2 or 3 (or 5) times I took it as a sign that submitting the card was, alas, not meant to be and that it was definitely time to sleep.

*FUN FACT* I did not go to sleep, I actually crawled into bed, proceeded to watch 2 episodes of Psych and the pilot episode of The X Files on Netflix on my phone.  
*FUNNER FACT* BaddieBins was the inspiration for The X Files episode. She finished her The X Files marathon about a week ago and she started up on Doctor Who because I tweet/talk so much about it and she wanted to see what the fuss was about; I figured that I should do the same with The X Files. She says that Scully is her spirit animal so I think I should figure out what she means by that.

Well, I checked their blog today and woohoo the linky was open! They had to extend the deadline an extra day because it accidentally closed early. Whatever the reason I was extra jazzed.

I meant to get this post and my card linked up wayyy earlier but life got in my way (Insanity workout -which, yes, kicked my ass-, family dinner preparations, job applications -though I don't know why I bother because the zombocalypse will happen before I manage to get a job, I must just be qualified for nothing-, kitchen clean-up duty after making the mess for dinner, etc...) and then it was 9:45pm. I started at that time as well but having just gotten my laptop reformatted I was trying to install Microsoft Office 2010 (that's what used to be on my laptop, is what's on my sister's laptop, and it's what I used to use at school so I don't love Office XP all that much. what can I say I'm a creature of habit!) but I couldn't find the other disc that had the product code, I couldn't figure out where the PIN was, I couldn't A LOT of stuff.

I can only take so many Microsoft punches in the face. I may do Insanity workouts but I'm frail and useless so I gave up on that.  The clock at that time was reading 11:20 pm. I still had tons of time to get a post up and the card posted! AND I could probably get to sleep at a decent time too.

*FUN FACT* We all know I don't really mean "sleep" OF COURSE I mean The X Files Netflix marathon, but let's try to keep up appearances ;)

But, again, it was not meant to be. TheMother asked me to help her with some stuff and I couldn't say no because she works a lot of hours (she spends WAY too many hours at work: 10-11 a day, every day! It's fucked up ridiculous but she doesn't listen to us. ...Hmm, I guess I get it from her) and she gets home so late because of it so if she needs help I don't really mind. I'm going to be up at all hours of the night anyway I might as well spend my time doing something relatively useful.

And that brings us to 2:20 am! Right now! The only reason I stopped working was because the computer did a thing and I couldn't stop it. But I took that as a sign that it was time to post!

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge this week was "Happy Birthday"

*UPDATE: After showing the card to my sister she told me that it would also be eligible for a Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge because the jar+bee I used is one of their stamps! AND if I hurried I could still make the deadline! So yay! I'm also entering this card into the April 6-12 Anything Goes challenge! 

Check out their banner below!

I want a banner! ...But I don't know what it'd be for :3
I should make my own house sigil! But all the good animals are already taken.
And I'd totally want a dragon symbol but the Targaryens went mad and that's not cool.
Plus I totally see myself as a Khaleesi. What can I say, I identify with Daenerys.
She's badass and I want dragons!

Gonna tell you up front: BE PROUD OF ME. If you saw my last post I mentioned how butterflies are just okay, I mean whatever, *ahemI'M-OBSESSED-WITH-THEMahem* and I was going to put a butterfly on this card (I wanted to so badly, I had it all picked out and everything!) BUT I DIDN'T! I was strong and I kept that butterfly in a drawer so I wouldn't use it!

  

 It's my first attempt at a shaker card and Holy-shaker-card-problems-Batman! It was a damn shitstorm. I don't remember having so many problems with one element of a card since....the very first time I ventured into the craft room and tried to make a card. I watched a tutorial on how "easy" it is to make shaker cards and shut-the-front-door because I was lied to. That video was all lies and photoshop and oscar-worthy movie editing/sound mixing and she was a wizard or something because I haven't been lied to like that since I was 17 and in my first real relationship with HeWhoShallNotBeNamed. (Not Voldemort. Though he would've been a better choice. Two Harry Potter References and #ThrowbackThursday to high school AND proper use of "#ThrowbackThursday?? I am on a roll: self-five! 10 points to Gryffindor!) 

I wanted to give up and just use some damn butterflies but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did because IT MAKES NOISE WHEN YOU SHAKE IT! Also using the bee in the jar helped me come up with the "happy Bee day" sentiment and I thought it was clever and punny which means I am clever and punny and 5 extra points to Gryffindor because I can!

Hope you're all having pleasant dreams (and practicing Occulmency! Never know which baddies out there are accomplished Legilimens!) I'll try and chill with the Harry Potter nerd-outs.

-Happy dreams!

Look I made a thing again! (Yet still can't seem to finish writing about cauliflower...)

So I know this is very last minute but at least I've churned it out!  I'd been stumped all day with the inspiration for the CASE study challenge #185 but I really, really, really wanted to make something for it. I don't know why, it just stuck with me and the fact that I couldn't come up with a card idea just really nagged at me and, quite frankly pissed me off. There was an internal argument of,

"Holy what the mac and cheese just think of something already!! Time's gonna run out!"
"NO! I GIVE UP. It's too hard! And stop telling me what to do!"
"NO you can think of something! I KNOW YOU CAN! YOU ARE WOMAN, HEAR YOU ROAR!"
"NO I CAN'T! I'M STILL REELING OVER WHAT HAPPENED ON MARVELS AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D TONIGHT EVEN THOUGH I TOTALLY SAW IT COMING 25 MINUTES IN! I AM INCONSOLABLE RIGHT NOW. IT'S LIKE TEEN WOLF ALL OVER AGAIN!!!"

Seriously. With that racket going on in my creative center it's a wonder I can get anything done. Also I'm....probably way too invested in television. Oh well. Back to the card: I had actually given up and started on another card for an upcoming birthday but this challenge just wouldn't get out of my head.  (Even after the Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode)

I was just playing around with the Memory Box butterfly dies (because I love making butterflies. Honestly, I have like 6 different cutouts in different colours just ready to be added to any card. There will come a day when I make a card that doesn't have a butterfly. But that day is not today. It's also not going to be tomorrow either. Maybe in a couple of weeks.) when I thought to make a butterfly in red. The red cardstock made me think of the CASE Study challenge and I figured I had a pretty little centerpiece. After a quick consultation with a Martha Stewart paint colour card I was on my way!

*important note*: Paint colour cards are AWESOME. They're free at Home Depot and Canadian Tire in their paint section and they are SO beautiful and there are so many and it's perfect cardstock and palette inspiration! If you haven't been doing it already, then definitely get to a paint section and stock up on some colour cards :)

Anyway, here's the inspiration (which is so many levels of gorgeous I want to scream! ...and throw a garden party and use those invitations)

And here's what came out of my brain:

*FUN FACT* musical selection for this card was Dream "This is Me" and "He Loves Me, He Loves You Not"
*FUNNER FACT* They're not very good songs but they're catchy. How catchy? HELLA.

This may very well be the cleanest and simplest card I've ever made! If it's not the simplest card then it's damn straight the fastest! I procrastinated quite a bit on this (old habits die hard, what can I say?) but the time crunch really pressured me to get the idea that popped into my head onto the paper and I think it helped :)

I think this kind of card considered clean and simple (I'm not sure) but it to me it's pretty clean and simple. See, I'm kind of a stamping fiend. I love stamping flowery things and foresty things and backgrounds and it's all very

"I LOVE STAMPS!!! STAMP STAMP STAMP!!! RAAAAARRRR!!!"

 that's constantly going on in my head, so I really pulled back with this because the inspiration was so simple and .... I dunno just super classy to me (not that a stampocalpyse can't be classy too, don't get me wrong!!!) I wanted to make something very simple. I think this might be as simple as I can get. I take after my sister, I just love adding accents!

And now I think it's time for a midnight snack! I started month 2 of the Insanity workout and holy-shut-the-front-door it's kicking my ass. But I think I'm getting better at it? Premature enlightenment or not, I'm feeling pretty badass after the workouts :)

-Happy dreams! (and happy snacking to any fellow midnight snackers out there!)