VSN cards

In the seven years I've been a member of Splitcoaststampers.com, I've yet to play Virtual Stamp Night. For the uninitiated, Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) is a series of hourly challenges on a selected weekend. Each hour a new challenge is posted, and each one needs to be completed within 45 minutes. I've generally been too busy, or didn't want to be under the pressure to create in the allotted 45 minutes per card. I KNOW that's the point - to get a challenge prompt and then see what you can do without taking 3 days. So I played, if only 3 of the challenges so far.

It was fun because I had my laptop and web cam set up on The Captain's Table and had a virtual stamp play date with one of my tweeps, Lisa of Papergrace Designs, and we made the first three cards together. It was a BLAST.

The first challenge was a sketch:
... so I broke out my SU Cute by the Inch Hostess set and made this:

The patterned paper is Basic Grey Curio, the ink is Soft Suede for the hearts and the sentiment (from Short & Sweet), and Cajun Craze for the heart on the sentiment. This one took me under 30 minutes. Yay!

The second challenge was to use a wedding song (or your special song) to inspire you. I don't have a special song, but Lisa is a crazy Rush fan, and her song is "Entre Nous". We talked about that for a bit as we planned our cards, and my thought process took this turn: "entre nous" --> between us --> something between two other things --> Oh, look, my Kim Hughes Monsta set ... I could put a heart between two monstas. So I did:

I stamped the monstas on the back of that patterned monsta paper from my stash, and EVEN THOUGH IT IS PINK, I still like it. The scallop is cut from a piece of scrap textured white card stock with my new MFT scallop die. I cut out the monstas, colored their horns and teef, and nestled a small heart - punched with the SU small heart punch - between them.

Next up was a challenge to use a bird on a card. JUST MY LUCK I had my recent A Muse pile of new stamps out on my table, so I made this:

The paper is another piece of the BG Curio paper (it was already out and cut - what was I to do?) The vanilla papers were stamped with a CHF lace backgrounder before I stamped the crow and sentiment and punched/die-cut them. The lace is SU lace ribbon. This one took like 10 minutes to make. Seriously.

I was feeling puny, so I begged off the last two challenges last night. One was based on "Glee", a word that sticks in my throat and I cannot say it. I even filter out all all tweets that contain that word. Yes, I dislike it that much. So on principle alone I didn't do that one. Oh, the actual challenge was "Mash Up", to use two different techniques on one card. Meh.

The last challenge last night was to use a red dress on a card. I had this one all planned out, since I'd bought a dress die and wanted to use it. Alas, it's GONE MISSING! I'm telling you, I not only went through ALL my dies 5 or 8 times, but I even cleaned the heaplet looking for it, thinking it slipped under some papers. Nope. It is missing, and I am sad. If I find it this weekend, I can still do that challenge later - I just need to stick to the 45-minute rule.

The challenges pick up again today starting at noon, which is in 15 minutes. I think I'll pick and choose which ones to do today. I'll be sure to post any I manage to finish.

Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for stopping by!