Messy desk Challenge!

As I mentioned previously LOAD starts tomorrow.  I love to wing it and go with the flow of the prompts, so I rarely do much preparation.  But I do like to start with at least a fairly neat desk.  Sadly, yesterday this is what it looked like:

So I decided to clean it up and challenge myself at the same time.  See all those little bits and bobs of embellishments, strips and scraps of paper?  I am going to use some up! And get some cards made.

The rules I gave myself are:
Make as many cards as possible but at least 3.
All paper and embellishments must come from the desk.  Tools like trimmer, punches, Vagabond, stamp platform and ink pads are the only things that can come from anywhere else in the stash.
Sentiment stamps are okay from the bin above the desk.


Card #1:

See that little pile of odd shapes in the middle of the desk?  Those are from an old Stampin’ Up Owl punch.  I was playing with punching some scraps & mixing and matching them a few days ago, so I decided to use them first.

If I want to make cards  in a semi short time, I like to use a sketch.  I liked the current challenge at Tuesdaymorningsketches.com.  Several weeks ago, I had been playing with some mixed media supplies and painted stripes on some glossy photo paper.  I trimmed it to 5 1/4 x 4”, Found a strip of paper from Hackney& Co with the names of wildflowers that was just the right height already.  And only needed about an inch trimmed off.  I inked the edges with grey and stuck it down.  Then I played with the owls.  The center one was made with the matching stamp, and I colored it with markers.  The other 2 are all layered from the various pieces that were already on my table.  I experimented with drawing the pupils on their eyes, but it didn’t look right, so I glued on more dots.
The sentiment stamps  looked great until I glued it onto the background paper.  At that time, the left one smeared and looked awful!  So I took my heat gun and dried the other 2, intentionally smeared it more and stamped over all 3 again, this time with Archival ink, which I should have used in the first place! And voila card #1 completed in approximately 50 minutes.  (Did I mention that I am slow?)

Card #2:

This time I used a sketch from Card Maps January 2020.  I chose this one because it had a number of elements and my goal was to use stuff up!

I trimmed down another mixed media background (stencils from Vicki Boutin and Art Anthology, Art crayons & twinkling h2o watercolors), and several small strips of paper.  I had fun using a corner punch and a tiny circle punch to make the lavender one look like a strip of tickets.  Then I layered on some digi embellishments that I had printed out and fussy cut to put into my junk journal kit, (that hadn’t made it there yet) as well as some stamped, die cut, and shaped Lilacs from Heartfelt Creations, that were left over from a recent layout.  Also on my desk was a baggie of Acrylic letters from Queen & Co.  They were perfect for the sentiment. A purple card blank was in a stack on the pile behind my FRED.

Card # 3

This is the only one that I had a recipient in mind.  It’s going with the Boho baby gifts of my previous post. It’s also the only one for which I did not use a sketch.

This jar was already stamped & cut, but empty.  And there was still a good sized pile of lilacs.  How would they look in the jar?  I think not bad!  I did cut a few of them in half or quarters to fill in some empty spots.  The scrap I had cut them out of was still on my desk too, and worked pretty well as a stencil with some Lavender Lace Stampin’ Up ink.  But it was very subtle, and looked a bit plain, until the lavender vellum was layered on top.  I had a half sheet of glossy photo paper left from some pictures I had printed, So I used the Lace Medallion die from Heartfelt Creations.  Then I thought about the best way to adhere it, without tearing the delicate parts.  I decided to pull out my old Xyron 450 sticker maker.  I have no idea how long I‘ve had it, or how old the adhesive roll is, but definitely not less than 8 years.  I am pretty sure that is the problem.  As soon as I began to put it on the vellum, extra adhesive started sticking to my fingers and to the medallion.  I tried to gently rub it away (oh the delicate parts!) First with my fingers, then with an adhesive eraser.  The more I rubbed, the worse it got!  So I decided to just ink over the top.  It wasn’t sticky anymore just brown & dirty looking.  I had a Cats-eye ink pad in grey right near me that worked pretty well.  Then some yarn that was in a little ball on my desk, for the bow and an old tag punch for the label + a big pop dot underneath.

After that, I decided to finish cleaning off my desk after supper.  (Mod Pizza yummy!)

And this is what it looks like now:

So bring on LOAD! I am ready!