Dare to Get Dirty

Each year in August, Splitcoaststampers has a week-long challenge for members of the Fan Club called Dare to Get Dirty -- named that because all of the challenges are made by present and former members of the Dirty Dozen, the best of the best on SCS!  I was able to get a card done for each of the 42 challenges.  Here is a sampling of my cards:

I love this sun ray technique.

Channeling my Florida neighbor (about 15 miles away) Kittie Caracciolo.  I learned how to make poinsettias look realistic several years ago by following one of her remarkable tutorials.

I love to weave strips of paper or ribbon.

I learned a new technique for this one -- Polished Stone.  Can I just say that I will probably be using this technique again and again.  It is so pretty.

This particular technique -- Faux Mosaic -- always reminds me of stained glass.  It adds something special to a Christmas card.

After the week was over, I packed up many of my DTGD cards and added a few more -- for a total of 55 cards -- and mailed them off to Operation Write Home, my favorite place to send my cards.  OWH boxes up packages of handmade cards and ships them to military bases for use by the men and women in the Armed Forces to write home to their loved ones.

Inspiration Challenge & Dare to Get Dirty

As I've mentioned before, the Inspiration Challenge on Splitcoaststampers is my favorite challenge of the week. And, as the annual Dare to Get Dirty challenges were going on this week, I wanted to incorporate both challenges into one card. (As it was, there were 37 challenges in the DTGD event!) I found this canvas artwork on the Inspiration website and thought I could do something with it.



So, this is the card I came up with -- for both the Inspiration challenge AND also one of the DTGD challenges -- to use piercing, suggested by Bev Gerard. My late husband was a huge train enthusiast, and he had a collection of pewter locomotives. That one pictured with my card is a replica of a Japanese Class C-62 locomotive.



Here are some more of my Dare to Get Dirty cards. This one, suggested by Karen B. Barber, was "Marker Layering," but not with Copic markers, which blend so nicely. Karen used Stampin' Up markers, but I used Memento markers.



Suzanne Dean's challenge was a sketch. I used some PTI stamps and papers to create this card.



Betty Wright gave us an interesting challenge -- create a card with products/colors which begin with the first letter of the letters in your name. This is how I went with this one:

L = Labels 21
O = Olive green
I = Indians
S = Sketch Challenge 148

B = Birthday, Brown
A = Arrow
K = Kaleidacolor ink



Holly McMillen gave also gave us a sketch. I love this little ghost from MFP Broom Rides.



Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Dare to Get Dirty

Every year over at Splitcoaststampers, they give a wonderul gift to Fan Club members -- the chance to play with the "dirty girls," members of the Dirty Dozen Design Team. For an entire week, present and previous members of the Dirty Dozen issue challenges -- five or six each day. And the rest of us can pretend we're part of the elite! Here are some of the cards I've made so far this week.



This card was for Dini's cupcake challenge and Lisa's polka dot challenge . I used one of the mini sets from Mark's Finest Papers for this.



RoseAnn's challenge was a one-layer card -- not my usual style. But I combined it with this week's Technique Challenge, which was to stamp the sentiment on top of the image stamp. That gave it a little depth. I colored the poppies with the palest shades of Copic markers so that the sentiment would really show off.

These next two cards are sneak peeks of soon-to-be-released sets from Mark's Finest Papers, Fun on the Farm & Butterflies and Wisteria respectively. Look for them next week.



This card was for Amber's sketch challenge. I had some hay DP in my stash and thought it would make a good background for those fun farm animals.



This card, in addition to being for Chupa's sketch challenge, was also for the SCS color challenge of White/Gray/Turquoise.

I'm on vacation this week, so I've got lots of time to play in the dirt pile with the SCS "greats." If you belong to the SCS Fan Club, you can play along too. Thanks for stopping by my blog.