3 Cheers For You / NAC#5

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Hey y'all. Happy Friday! *HappyDance* That means lots and lots of time for stamping, in between my favorite Olympic activities of course. Lol! I've got another Challenge card for you today. Wow that's 3 in 1 week. :) A year ago I wasn't even thinking about entering any of my cards in a challenge. Just the thought made me nervous. Boy has this Scaredy Cat changed. Oh, I'm still a Scaredy Cat, but I'm trying not to be quite so Scaredy. :)

Have you checked out the Nacho Average Challenge page yet? If you haven't I've got 2 words for you....Why Not!?! No, Really...Why Not!?! You need to check them out. Well, not right now, but when you're done here, kay? Kay. They have great sketch challenges and color challenges and a fab DT too.


Here's the card I made for this week's challenge-

Congratulations Card featuring
Happy Hour Stamp Set and Patio Party DSP

Look at me, all mixing and matching the DSP! Yes that is really my card. : p  This has been the strangest week for me with my stamping. Most of my cards didn't turn out as planned, usually because of Operator Error. Yep, totally my fault. This one is just another example. :'( Overall, I'm happy (not ecstatic, but happy) with it in the end, but I really wish it was how I had envisioned it. Somebody, please tell me this happens to you to and I'm not the only one!

Here's the sketch I was working with-

 As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do with those banners, I just had to figure out what I was going to do in addition to the treatment. I did a card for my daughter earlier in the year where I made a "flip-up" card front. You can see it here.  I wanted to flip these flags too. I finally decided on a new stamp set, Happy Hour, and how I would work everything out and was so excited. Yeah, that's where everything began to fall apart. Teach me to get overly excited, huh? Maybe if I'd had a little "happy hour" before trying this I may not have been so stressed about it. Of course I probably would have ended up with even more mistakes.

To create my card front I used a base of Summer Starfruit (it's growing on me) and Patio Party DSP, cut to the dimensions on the challenge site. I then scored my DSP with my Simply Scored Tool, I think at the 1/4" mark, reinforced the folds and then adhered the smaller edge to my base with Tombow. Oh and somehow I totally just forgot about the fact that having turned my card to "landscape" from "portrait" would prevent me from simply wrapping my ribbon all the way around my card. *HeadDesk*  Way to go Einstein! Ok, so what I really said was not blog friendly, but you get the idea. I didn't realize this until I was putting the finishing touches on the card. As I didn't have an extra layer under my flags, I couldn't secure my ribbon under that. Well, I was too invested at this point to just give up, you'll see what I mean in a minute. I ended up using my paper trimmer to cut a small slit on the fold line just big enough to thread my ribbon through and wrapped it that way. Not ideal, but it worked and allowed me to add that element of the sketch. *SMH!!!*

Oh and by the way to get my flagged ends, I simply cut up 3/4" in the center of each strip of DSP with my Paper-Snips and then cut from each corner to that point. I know lots of people do well with the whole slide your paper into the corner of a square punch but I can never get it "just right" and then I end up cutting a little more and a little more, trying to get it "just right" until my DSP is just a little nubbin. Kinda like when you have a whole sheet cake and you cut your first slices and enjoy it but then the cake keeps calling you back because the cut isn't straight, so you have to keep coming back and cutting it again to make it straight, even though that never seems to work because you can hear it calling you from anywhere in your house and sometimes from outside of your house too. And the next thing you know, there's no cake left! Why is there no cake left? Because of course you couldn't just throw away the piece you just trimmed. After all, it wasn't that big, right? Of course not! So you ate it, wouldn't want it to go to waste. All those hungry people and everything. Oh Noes! Food Baby and and an empty cake holder. Not that I know anything about that of course. I can just imagine that happening.

Tammy over at NAC is so kind to give measurements for her sketches as a guideline. Silly me, I just took those guidelines and ran with them. Sometimes you really have to just take a breath, or in my case a bigger breath and wait before diving in the deep end of the pool, off of the 10 meter platform. Yes, I did just throw an Olympic reference in there. (And way to go USA for medaling in that event!) If you look back up at the original picture, it looks pretty good, I'm really happy with how it looks actually, because if you've been by here before you know how much it stresses me to mix DSP's. Just makes me sweat! Augh!!! Well, here's the problem I did all measurements to make sure everything would fit and it did. Woo-Hoo! But I didn't account for a portion of the flags being under the ribbon. Ruh-Roh! My original plan was going to look like this-
Stamp
Stamp,Stamp
Stamp, Stamp, Stamp
I had it all measured out, down to the amount of space in-between each stamp. Then I laid the already cut strips of DSP over the practice piece of paper. Yes, I had a practice piece. Don't judge, it's the OCD in me. Laughing is ok though. :) I had to go back to the crunching the numbers. Ok, done and I was going to be able to swing it. YES! I inked up my stamp, stamped it on my cardstock and realized my error. I had inked up my practice stamp with my markers to omit a portion of the stamp. @#&%!!!!!! Oh my studio assistants would have plugged their furry little ears if they only had thumbs. Well, at this point as I had stamped on my directly on my c/s, I was stuck, so I forged on. Here's what I came up with instead-

I just realized it's  kinda cool how you get
more pretty DSP when you flip the banners. Yea!

 When you see the inside it makes a little more sense-

Inside of Congratulations Card featuring
Happy Hour Stamp Set

Get it? 3 Cheers. I guess if I had been able to do the card the way I had envisioned it would have been 6 Cheers instead of 3 but I was going for a design concept. Sometimes I think I should just stick to the basics and not try to get fancy.

Can I just say the inside is probably my favorite part of the card? It's the only part of the card that didn't give me grief! Look at my little Champagne flute-

All Crystal-ly and sparkly and shiny...Oh My! LOL! I crack myself up sometimes. It really is ok to laugh at me or if it makes you feel better, just consider it laughing with me. : D I inked up my stamp with VersaMark, then applied my Heat and Stick Powder and Heat Embossed. Next came my Dazzling Diamonds and a few sweet little rhinestones for the bubbles.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you like my Hot-Mess of a Challenge Card and I hope it inspires you to try something new today. Maybe a challenge or maybe a new technique or maybe just not throwing your project in the trash because it simply won't come together. There's three main reasons I don't do that. 1- I always show you the good and the bad here. 2- The good Catholic girl in me hates the thought of that waste. 3- I love our products too much to just throw them away. The thought hurts my heart just a little and makes me sad. I know, you're shaking your head at me again. It's ok, I'm doing it too. See what good friends we are, we're in sync like Bobsey-Twins or something.

I love hearing from you so if you liked today's card or have a thought or question about it, I hope you'll leave me a comment. I love hearing from you and they always make my day. If you'd like to + 1 or Pin any of my posts, I've put the buttons on my posts for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! I hope you'll make it back soon to see all of the things I have in store for you. I wish you the happiest of weekends, full of time for Family, Friends and of course, lots of time for Creativity! Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about waiting for the storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan

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