FLY BABY WEEKEND OF STAMPING FUN! part 2

I made a boo boo and got my challenges out of order. Lee actually gave us the third challenge. So sorry Lee. How could I have messed this up. I love making nugget boxes and of course I love chocolate and yours was to make a nugget box. Like with the Criss Cross cards; the Jan VSN was the first time I had attempted a Nugget Box. I had seen them and even received several in swaps at last years SU convention, but I never tried to make one because I thought they would be so hard. In fact they are so easy. I am thinking that I will be making lots of these for special Valentine treats. I have a whole, well almost a whole, bag of nuggets and if I give them as gifts I won't be tempted to eat them all. Back to this nugget box. This time I used designer doubles sided paper to make my box. I like the paper for the sleeve, but I think I prefer the more sturdy card stock for the bottom box.

Now back in order of challenges. Jennifer issued a second challenge. To make a card with no "BLING". I had another baby card that needed to be made and it is for a little boy so I figured this was the challenge for that. Boys don't need bling like little girls do. I used the same Baby Talk stamp set but of course this time its in blue. And since only paper and layers could be used for interest I worked with some papers I have to make things interesting. I hope Archer likes it and we'll just have to wait and see if some day he likes baseball. I colored these images with BIC markers. Nothing fancy, but I have 36 colors to choose from in my set. Lots more than I have in my selection of Copic and Prismas. They work but don't blend together well and you can see lines.

The final challenge of the weekend was from Sarah. It was a new one for me. It was to create a door card. I really had fun with this one. I decorated both the outside and the inside of the card. I used some retired SU paper from 2006-07 catalog. Paper that I love so much it had fallen into the I'm hoarding it category. The stamp set I used is also retired. It is "All About U".
I really enjoy using my retired sets, but I guess that is because I try really hard not to buy sets that I don't really really love. (If I didn't put that restriction on myself I think I'd probably end up buying them all!)

Here is a picture of the card closed. I tried something different with my oval and scalloped oval punches on this card and I like the way it worked. I didn't want to add another card stock color to the card, but wanted to use the layered oval and scalloped oval. Using the same card stock for both was not going to work it looked way too flat and I didn't like the way it looked with Purely Pomegranate under the oval. What I did was this....I had already stamped the work LOVE with green craft ink and embossed it with clear powder so I thought why not try embossing the edge of the oval. And I did. I ran the edge of the oval around on my craft pad being very careful not to get ink on my fingers and transfer it to the front of the oval. I slanted the oval just slightly so some of the ink went onto the front of the card. I then ran the edge of the card around in a pile of embossing powder. I held it with the long tweezers from my tool kit while I heat set it. When it cooled I attached it to the scalloped oval with two dimensionals just to raise it a bit. I did like the way it turned out. The LOVE oval is only attached to the door on the left side. This gave a very simple outside. When you untie the bow and open the card this is what you see on the inside. The U was embossed twice. I used the same craft ink that I used on the LOVE in the front. Embossed once with clear powder. While the powder was still hot and sticky I added more powder and heated it again. Then this time while it was still hot and sticky I sprinkled it with Dazzling Diamonds and heated it a third time so the diamonds would embed into the embossing.

This was a fun weekend of stamping. And I was able to get all the cards I needed to send out this week made using the challenges. ALSO I finished up the 30 set challenge that I began back in December. Since December 1 I have used 30 different stamp sets. Many of them ones that I have not used in a long time. I think I may just start on my next 30....Also I have been telling myself that I need to begin learning how to use papers not just stamped images on my cards rather than hoarding my lovely papers. I have been challenged by what I have seen friends do with their cards and papers. I have a ways to go to perfect using this new medium, but I am happy with what I did with them this weekend.

A big Thank You to Diane for setting up thse challenge weekend. And though I did not get to McFarland I think I can say I was content in my own stamp room playing with my friends in our virtual setting.