Fun Challenge

My BFF, Denise, and I decided to do a crazy challenge today.

Well we decided to do it yesterday but didn't have time to do it yesterday so scheduled a time today to try to do it.

I saw on someones blog the idea to do a self challenge of trying to get a layout done in 30 minutes. And since I'm stupid (!) I thought why not make it even harder by limiting myself to only using 4 things (besides the paper, adhesive and the photo).

I wrote up a big list of things to use (like: ribbon, buttons, stamping, eyelets etc etc) and cut it into strips and folded them and put them in a bowl and had my 3 year old pick 4 of them.

After I did this I quickly emailed Denise and said, "Hey, want to do a fun challenge with me!?" And not knowing any better she said, "Sure, how about tomorrow at 1:45pm?". (well...maybe our conversation was a little longer but you get the idea)

I told her the parameters of the challenge and said she could gather 1 photo and some paper and matching stuff that fit within our 4 things requirements.

Our 4 things that Georgie picked were:

Ribbon

Embossing

Vellum

Eyelets

Denise was smart and gathered her stuff, got her photo ready and cleaned off her scrap space.

But see...that's just not how I roll...(lol) I decided to go grocery shopping at 12:30pm today and rushed in the house, with a ton of groceries needing to be put up, at 1:30pm. (remember our challenge was starting at 1:45pm) And I also needed to put my daughter down for her nap.

I rushed to my computer and shot off an email to Denise that had this Liz Qualman Berrylicious sketch attached. I begged her to give me a few more minutes and she was nice and did.

We started at 2:05pm.

I hadn't cleared my desk or picked out anything in advance.

I wish I had a video camera so that I could show you what happened next. It was hilarious because I just started literally throwing things left and right. I'm not sure if it counts against me but I grabbed a kit of Cosmo Cricket paper. (it just had Delovely paper in it)

I rolled over to my computer and pulled up a picture of my dd and hit print. Rolled back to my scrap desk and started picking specific papers and cutting them.

I was doing pretty well until I started to attach the vellum quote with the eyelets. I couldn't find the box that had my tool for attaching them. I have a Cropadile (the Big Bite) and have never learned how to use it...and initially couldn't figure out how to use it so I got my hammer out and was hammering the crap out of those eyelets!! LOL It worked but not very well.

So I took a breathe and got some scrap paper and tried and tried until I figured out how to use that darn Cropadile.

I guess I cheated by punching out the scalloped circle but I guess I was unclear that punches were against the rules.

I did have fun fussy cutting that cute bird out of my patterned paper and I used pop dots to give it dimension.

I used my new Ultimate Crafter's Companion Tool to do the dry embossing on the bottom of the yellow paper.

Denise and I both accused the other of cheating! I said, "hey you can't stamp and where is your embossing?!"! She said, "I didn't cheat, I embossed it all!" And she said, "hey, you can't use embellies (refering to my bird), you can't use a punch (oops) and you can't stamp! (I didn't)"

Anyway, turns out I was the only cheater by punching the scallop out because Denise didn't cheat... I just totally forgot about heat embossing a stamped image! (DUH!) ha Oh well, I guess the creative scrapper police will be sending me a ticket! LOL

I'm not sure it was the most fun challenge (because oh my gosh THE STRESS!) but good golly it sure got my heart rate up!!! LOL I actually really liked doing it! And want to do it again.

I think next time we need to give ourselves 45 minutes and I think I need to prep beforehand!

It turned out okay though didn't it??! And Denise's Blue Layout with her ds on it rocks too!! I'm going to enter this in the Open Sketch Challenge at Sketches In Thyme!!

Okay that's it...my fun challenge I did today.

I do hope you will read my post from yesterday about sending my friend who has MS a birthday card. I have been thrilled with the response I have gotten so far and would love to see more of you participate. You don't even have to make a card you can send a store bought one if you want.