VSN - Day 2

Well VSN is finally over, I had a great time so if you participated thanks! For me this has been a process of a few weeks or so since I committed to be a hostess for this event. Creating cards in a 45 min time frame was certainly the hardest part of the whole event for me, I normally like to fiddle with my cards until I am happy with the way they look. Even with the time difference I managed to hang out for the majority of the time everyone else did, even getting up at 3.30am this morning (Sunday here) for a little while, I did end up going back to bed for a while and resurfacing at 6am.

This flower pot full of flower lollies was made for the Yummy flower challenge. This was fun to do and also fun to eat, it doesn't look exactly like this anymore as people have been eating my flowers LOL. The flowers were created using my cricut and then stamped using the Canvas Background. I then scrunched them up and attached to the lollipop stick.
Set Sail was the 2nd challenge today and our challenge was to create something 3D with a nautical feel using one sheet of paper/card to create the item. I have been wanting to make one of those one sheet boxes that Beate wrote a tutorial on so I did that. How does this relate to May Flowers???, again a clever interpretation of the theme and that famous ship the Mayflower! Of course the lighthouse is from Coast to Coast soon to be discontinued in the states (but not Australia for now anyway)
A meadow full of color was our next theme, and this time we had to create something using the baby wipe technique - this is a fun technique and can be found in the resource section of SCS if you haven't done it yet. I used the technique on my dragonflies and also the background which I then also used my spots and dots cuttlebug embossing folder. Dragonflies are by Stylish Images (Aust)
A smashing background was our next challenge, we had to pound flowers to create the background of a card. I was able to use my wizard die cutter to pound my flowers so took just a second to do. I have no idea if this will work in the cuttlebug, and might create a big mess, so if you try it don't blame me I warned ya. The wizard die cutter can do some things other die cutters won't do. I did protect my mats by using wax paper. The flower stamp I used is by Paper Inspirations and the verse is Sugarloaf.

The challenge for the next card was "Sharing the light" and it was about highlight a verse of some sort. The background paper here is by Stamp It (Aust) as is the tiny flower. The verse is Wordsworth.
April Showers bring May Batik was the next challenge which is what we did for the yellow card. I used stamps from Natural Beauty and also the verse from Polka Dots and Paisley. I create my batik by using re-inkers in spray bottles, but these days I use the colorwash sprays which are already mix to the right proportions for you. This one I used butterscotch and lettuce, I did spritz my mulberry paper well with water before and after application of the colorwash sprays to get a more pastel effect.

The next challenge again had that Mayflower twist (the ship) , the challenge was Pilgrim Gratitude and we had to create a thank you card without actually using the word thank or thanks! I came up with "You Rock!" , the Rockabella image is by Stamping Bella; verse by Sugarloaf and the records a very old PSX set which I don't think is avail anymore. If you know of a company that sells a record that could be used can you please let me know so I can let someone who has asked me know.This flower card was created using the carrot stamp by alota rubberstamps. The challenge of Not-Flowers was to create a flower card without using an actual flower stamp!

The 3 pocket cards above were my samples for the challenge I hosted: A pocketful of posies. The challenge was to create some form of pocket card using either a pocket stamp, a pocket shape or some form of pocket card (there are a few versions around).

Captivating Color was our next challenge - to create a monochromatic card. I enjoy creating monochromatic cards so this was pretty easy. I love the Wild about You set and continued the spot theme in the card by using the spots and dots cuttlebug embossing folder and the mustard card I punched out circles in various sizes.
Spring Cleaning was our second last challenge - to create a card using recycled materials of some sort. This one started with the lollipop stick (from the lolly flowers in the first picture in this post) and grew from there. The pot I cut from a coaster I was going to use for the coaster box I created earlier in the week but I punched my holes to join it before checking which way the stripes went so had to put that one aside. I also saw how to create this ribbon flower online somewhere last week so it was great to be able to put it to use.And finally, Turning over a new gold leaf. The challenge was to use gold leaf, mine is actually pot pourri leaf so has more copper in it then gold hence the copper layers and embellishments. Stamp is one I have had for years from Denami.