Ugly Paper Contest - September 2016

The Challenge: Red Bear and I were each to make two cards.  One to mail to each other, and one to mail to Kidlet. We were allowed to choose our own base paper.

These are the papers we chose.

Papers

These are the results.

Zoo's Cards

Red Bear's on the Left; Zoo's on the right

Backstory
A long time ago, in another life, circa 2011, the Ugly Paper Contest was born.  Kidlet had purchased a big pad of truly ugly paper.  Red Bear and I were teasing her about it and wanted to know what on earth would she ever use such ugly paper for.  The Ugly Paper contest of course!

Of Course! How silly of us.

The first time, all three of us crafters made our attempts and The Farmer aka Himself aka Hubby, chose the winner. Quite often that is how the contests progressed and I still don't know if he ever knew who did what.  Kidlet and Red Bear most often won, I don't think I ever did.

He did have a farm to run however and wasn't always available.  One of us would choose the paper, make the "rules", and be the final judge.  Kidlet often chose the Worst colour combinations and came up with challenging rules.  Like the time "must use at least one alpha stamp but it must be part of the design, not part of a word".

Left: Red Bear
Center: Kidlet
Right: Zoo

Sometimes the background or base paper was part of the challenge, sometimes we could choose whatever we liked, or from within a colour family.  Sometimes the rules would change part-way through the challenge.

The best part was always seeing how different the results were from the same starting point. We also got to learn about each other.  Red Bear gravitates towards heart shapes and the colour red.  Zoo likes circles and either green and pink or green and peach. Kidlet was never pinned down except for the yellow/purple colour combo.

These are always a lot of fun, inspire creativity, and really take the pressure off.  We're starting with "ugly" so it's not our fault if the result is ugly!

Before Red Bear moved across the country, we took the ugly paper pad, divided it into approximately three equal piles, wrote identifying numbers on the back, and each of the three of us had our own stash in a 9 x 12 envelope.  Also included were some embellishments, stickers, "add-ons". That is how years later we can still have Ugly Paper Contests with the same papers.

Zoo

p.s. As I write this post, it is exactly two years later, Red Bear is airborne on her way here to visit.  Recently some WoW Friends, purring and Bearminimum, asked to see some of my artwork.  I was sad to realize that I have been a very bad craft blogger.  This is the beginning of an attempt to make up for that.  Thanks, Guys! You two are wonderful friends of Kidlet, babysitting Mom.

Lattice Edged Cards

Hello again. Long time no share : )         

As discussed in the previous post, I will do up a quick share with the lattice cards I made with the template from this lovely lady's blog. Zoo sent it to me and of course, I had to try. Who knew how easy this would be and how much fun detail it adds to cards. Definitely should be on your to-do list.

I fell in love with the Chicks stamps set from StampinUp's Salebration earlier this year. They are the most adorable little things and I could just do a million cards with them (admittedly, I did do a ton of them at first. Only two with the lattice, though). The bows were from a video Zoo sent out and I love them to death. Origami folded so are nice and flat and cheap to mail. The What's Up stamp is a $1.50 one from Micheal's and the Happy Big Day stamp is from StampinUp and Zoo sent the stamped tag to me.

These adorable giraffe's were stamped at Zoo place and brought home to play with. The first one I placed overlapping a piece of paintable wallpaper left over from a reno job. I used my watercolour wax crayons to add colour and I love this card. Simple but sweet.

This floral stamp, Zoo stamped 5-6 years ago on her scrap crap paper and mailed to me. I used my water colour pencil crayons to add colour and then highlighted with gel pens. The metal hole ribbon behind was from the dollarama years ago. It is awkward to glue on (I used my two way glue on the parts seen and double sided tape under the flower) but is an awesome addition to the card.

Since falling in love with lattice edged cards I went out and found some super cheap, on clearance templates to do more. Doing the template along the edge of the paper is the easiest, as scissors can be used. Doing the template on the interior of the card is harder on the hand, as a sharp papertole knife needs to be used. Either makes a beautiful image but so far I have only made cards with the small circle ones. I will add picture of future cards when I have time to make them. For now the only two I have done are shown on the last post I did earlier today, using the Time Warp stencil.

Well, again... have a great day. I need to move and get away from the laptop. 

Cheers, Red Bear : )

More Texture Paste

Good Morning.

It has been a long while since I have done a blog post and upon looking though my pictures, I found some more texture paste cards I have made. I thought I would include those in an easy continuation of using up the paper I have made theme and the texture paste creations theme.

These two are from my original experiments with texture paste and
I didn't know what to do with them. I don't do Halloween cards or
 decorations with the kids all moved out on their own, but turning them
 into 'shocking' birthday cards turned out cute and usable.

 I used up the remains of my last batch of paste that was starting to dry up by adding some kids glitter glue to it. I used three or four different stencils and covered a whole piece of canvas with it. I love it but have been mulling over what to do with it for months now. I don't want to ruin it so will keep mulling it over until I figure out what will look good or loose patience and just experiment (the more likely of the two).

I hope everyone is enjoying their Victoria Day long weekend. Our weather here is gorgeous and we hear lawn mowers and motorbikes galore. Happy Spring!!

Red Bear : )