Just Use It! Challenge

Here we are, at last, into our long weekend. I hope some of you get a chance to play with your stamp and accessory stashes over the next three days, and take some time to create. I have a pretty booked Saturday and Sunday, but then I rememberd Monday is a Holiday! YAY! I should be able to squeeze in some quality play-time eventually.

The title of today's blog entry is "Just Use It!", and it is not my idea. This Grand Idea is from Penelope Pitstop's blog, and it could not have come at a better time for me! I told myself I'd be a Good Girl this year, and only buy what I absolutely needed to buy for my stamping habit. Yeah, right. Fortunately for me, I already have everything I could possibly want, and more, from the current Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalog, so I thought it would be easy to reign in my habit. Unfortunately for me, I have a few excellent local stamp stores, aka: Enablers, Pushers, etc. And I also discovered Rosie's Roadshow last year, and continue to get sucked into that wave.

Then I got blindsided by several enablement threads on SCS, and, well, you know, I have stuff I have never even unpacked that I simply 'had' to have. Come on, you know you do, too!

So when I found the Just Use It! Challenge today, I was encouraged. I have so much cr ... er, stuff, laying around, including some from recent shipping episodes, it was pretty easy to uncover some never-inked rubbah, and I was off and running.

Here is my first Just Use It! post of the weekend, all using stuff I have had for a loooong time (nothing from any recent binges):

The cat stamp is Buster, from Maui Cows. He was sooooo cute I had to have him. Never saw ink before tonight. The sentiment is from TAC, and is one of their Gift With Purchase stamps you just 'get' when you spend enough money. Has never seen ink. The ribbon is from a spool of must-have gingham from somewhere - who remembers. It had never been opened.

The rest of the recipe includes: Marigold Morning, Close to Cocoa and Whisper White card stock from Stampin' Up!; a piece of scrapbook paper (manufacturer name cut off, sorry); scalloped and plain oval Marvy punches; white gel pen (for the dots); black embossing powder (on the cat); and SU markers to color him in.

As for the crooked contribution to my effort, check out the cat - noooot mounted to the card front quite straight, is he? ;-)

BTW, speaking of enablement, I just ordered the rest of the Marvy scalloped and regular punches from www.franticstamper.com, and to fill out my week, I ordered the very cool Gina K coordinating stamps from www.stampingfreak.com. I tell ya, I am weak.

So you see, it was very easy to put this card together, and now I think I may even like it some. On occasion, I see a sentiment and immediately know what stamp I already have that it will be mated with. But sometimes, well, they come to me in singles, and you have to have a really good excuse to try the mating game. This challenge was perfect!

I hope to play some more later this weekend. So far, there are not a lot of other people playing. Check it out at http://paperdaisychain.blogspot.com/2007/05/just-use-it.html if you get time. The more, the merrier!

Have a good weekend!