Floral Dash

I've only tried to the do the 10 minute craft dash once and I really struggled - I am sooo not a quick crafter!  However, I got some pretty sequins on Sunday that match one of the colours on this weeks challenge so I thought I'd give it a bash - sticking on a few sequins is quick isn't it?  Not when you're me apparently......

I just scraped in with 33 seconds to spare but I was really starting to panic!   I die cut my flowers from some brown DP (very old not sure who its by) - I then trimmed it to fit my square card - only I cut it too short - damn, panic, 3 minutes gone already - I had to crop a little off the end of the card to make the panel fit again - 4 minutes gone -eek!   I cut a panel of pink card and glued it behind the die cut  in the brown and got glue in the wrong place so had to waste another precious minute with my dry glue eraser - more panic.  I thought the sentiment would look best in white, but my white inks are not good so that required embossing - heat embossing wtih 5 minutes left - this is never going to happen - but it did (just don't look too close cos I didn't have time to find my embossing buddy so there's a bit of loose powder hanging around....)  I was now down to 8 minutes - quick add some strips of teal mirri tape to match the sequins and then spend a full minute faffing with the placement of 6 sequins - stop the clock - PHEW!   I thought crafting was supposed to be relaxing - I need more practice at timed challenges obviously!!!!

As it's also eligible for the current Dies to Die for challenge which requires you to feature flowers, I'm entering it into their challenge too - http://cuteycrafts.blogspot.co.uk/p/die-ing-for-challenge.html

Trying to make a card in 10 minutes......

That's the name of the game over at the newest challenge on the block - 10 minute craft dash - http://www.prettypinkposh.com/2012/08/10-minute-craft-dash-1.html  The first challenge is breaking us in easy so it's a free for all.  I'm glad it was gentle as it wasn't that easy!  I am TOTALLY a tortoise and not a hare when it comes to card making and very rarely take less than an hour to make a card so I thought it would be good to push myself and give it a go.

However, my first attempt was a total fail - I went over the time limit :(   I used the stop watch on my phone and photographed it with my finished card.

I thought this was simple enough to make in 10 minutes - even with the fussy cutting of, and acetate in the glasses (woodware stamp set) but my choice of navy card for the sentiment didn't work with black text so I flipped the strip of card over and stamped and embossed in white (and I didn't static dust as I was running out of time and this was my second mistake as it then took ages to get the bits off I didn't want!)  1 minute and 4 seconds over the time limit - damn it!

Not one to give up though, I decided to have another bash and this time be even more CAS in my design choice to ensure I got under that time limit.  I turned to a cute cat from Papersmoochest this time and stamped her on kraft cardstock in brown ink and selected a matching scrap  of DP to sit her on.  I added some glossy black to her eyes, nose, mouth and necklace, and some white, green and gold to the eyes and left the rest in kraft.  I stamped the sentiment in black directly on the card but then felt it needed a little something more so cut some thin strips of black card to put at the top and bottom of the DP to ground it a little further.  Yeah-hah - almost 2 minutes under this time (so if you average the two out I made 2 in under 20 minutes so I hope that counts!)

Looking forward to playing along with this one (it's bimonthly) to see if it makes me a faster crafter!