adventures with challenge blogs

We did come home from Chicago, where we spent a week with our daughter and her husband and our new grandson, although you wouldn't have guessed that if you were checking in here.  Of course now I'm hopelessly behind at all three of the card challenges I was trying to keep up with, not to mention the new ones I was thinking about adding, but we all have our priorities, don't we?  I don't believe I'll attempt to catch up, this time.

I received a Big Box O' Stampin' Up! stuff today (I got my order placed on July 1 while Trent and his mama were napping) - YAY - and used all new supplies for this cutie:

I dropped my camera the evening before we left for Chicago - horror of horrors - I was able to mostly fix it where it popped open, but now it's very hard to squeeze the shutter.  So in addition to my usual lack of skill at straightness, now sometimes I push too hard one-sidedly.  sigh

This card is one layer, using new 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! In Colors Pool Party, Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder, and Calypso Coral.  The cupcake frosting is Chocolate Chip, because it's frosting, and frosting just needs to be chocolate, doesn't it?  I also used one of the new Designer Frames Textured Impressions folders and the new Kidoodles stamp set.  The one-layer challenge at "Less is More" this week is "something with legs" - I liked finding as many legs as possible in one go!

Before digging into my new supplies, I dug through my long-retired supplies and found some bits from an old Simply Scrappin' kit to make this card for Shopping Our Stash challenge 7: 

I thought I was tired of this kit and this color combination, and I felt pretty lazy using two scraps of designer series paper and four stickers, but I do like this card, after all of that.  I still have many bits and pieces from the kit, I could whip out a few more...

I sorted through my holiday leftovers, as well, since the Jingle Belles asked us to "create a card using all of those little leftover pieces of paper".

I stamped the sentiment this evening (on a scrap, of course), but the strips of designer series paper, the frame (negative from the Top Note die) and even the bauble-shape mat (Movers and Shapers die) were leftovers from my shoebox of stuff-that-will-be-useful-someday.