Rubbah-dult'ry, you're the one...(and a challenge!)

You make stampin' lots of fun!

Okay, I know I have this stack of new Stampin' Up! sets all waiting to get inky and wild, but I really started feeling sorry for some of the rubbah (well, polymer really, but let's not get picky) that I've gotten recently, especially FREE rubbah! I love free stamps, which is why I'm a demo after all!

So I decided to catch up on a bit of my obligation to use that rubbah that people give me.

First, I have to thank Julee Tillman for the great challenge for which I submitted the card in this post, which won her Mojo Monday monthly contest. I got a free set of the new Verve stamps for winning. It wasn't hard to choose, since I had been coveting Seeing Stars after seeing so many GOJUS samples on the design team members blogs. My stamps came on Thursday. So I made a card with them using the latest Mojo Monday sketch:

Ingredients: Stamps - Verve Visual Seeing Stars, Starlight, Starbright Remixed; Paper - Basic Grey Scarlett's Letter, Ruby Red, Certainly Celery, Creamy Caramel, Basic Black, Very Vanilla; Ink - Ruby Red, Old Olive, Basic Grey, Basic Black, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip; Other - 3/4" square punch, Large Star punch, white gel pen, black ribbon (American Crafts), dimensionals, gold brads, Stampin' Write Markers (Creamy Caramel, Old Olive, Ruby Red.)

Isn't it GOJUS!?!?!? (YILM!!!) I wanted to go for a masculine card, since I make so many girly ones. My oldest daughter, though, covets this card very much, though she did say she'd rather have one in blue. I love the star sets that Verve has...I also ordered the Swirly Stars set with the Starlight, Starbright Remixed right after I told Julee the free set I wanted and she sent them all together.

In addition to the free set, Julee sent me a GOJUS card, which I will send you to your blog to look at here. SO GOJUS!!!! Thank you Julee, again, for the great contest, plus the stamps and the GOJUS card!

But that's not all! I got two cards done yesterday! And this is the place where I issue a challenge to you!

Recently, when we went to a Cub Scout meeting, my BFF Mary bought me a new coffee mug at Starbucks. Mary is like that...she is always buying spur of the moment gifts for people...she's a very generous person. Here it is:

She picked it out because it looked like SU! colors and I had to agree with her. So I decided to use some free rubbah and make a card that used the colors of my new mug:

Ingredients: Stamps - My Favorite Things Hot Stuff; Paper - Soft Sky, Bravo Burgundy, Fall Flowers DP, Sahara Sand, Wild Wasabi; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, Bravo Burgundy, Whisper White; Other - Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, White Gel Pen, Hodgepodge Hardware Aged Copper, Antique Brass eyelets, 1/4" Whisper White grosgrain, dimensionals, sponge wedges, Bravo Burgundy marker, narrow burgundy organdy (Michael's).

Isn't it GOJUS!?!?! (YILM!) I used a sketch from Jen Del Muro's blog, I{heart}2stamp, which seems appropriate since she is one of their designers. I got this set from My Favorite Things in a recent order...I'd ordered a couple of sets when they had their next to last release party and found this set had come along for the ride. I was puzzled...I hadn't ordered it, so I emailed them to tell them I got an extra set, at which point they said it was a gift to me! Wow! I was totally floored and have been meaning to ink it up ever since as a way of saying 'Thank You!'

Now that I look at the mug, I think the green is probably closer to Old Olive, but I wanted to use Wild Wasabi. The blue isn't really that close to Soft Sky, but it isn't quite Cool Caribbean either. I love this combination!

Now, if you are familiar with the patterned paper I've used from Stampin' Up!, Fall Flowers, you'll be scratching your head going, "There isn't a paper that has Bravo Burgundy dots...it should have Really Rust dots!" And you're right, there isn't one. But after I put the paper down, those rust dots just overpowered the rest of the design and looked SO out of place. So I took a Bravo Burgundy marker and colored them all! Yes! I am THAT A-N-A-L!!!! But it just MAKES the whole thing to have those dots match!!!

Well, anyway...here's the challenge: find a favorite coffee mug, or just one that inspires you a lot, and make a card that is inspired by the design/color scheme/shape..whatever! And come back here and post a link to a photo of your card with your mug (coffee mug, not your face, LOL!) You've got until next Saturday at 8 PM EST...and I'll be getting some blog candy together to give to the best card...dunno what it will be just yet, but I'll post as soon as I know. So go and get stampin'!