Challenges have made me lazy

I better explain before you all shout at me. When I first found blog land and challenges I was amazed at how much easier I started to put my cards together and have to add how much better they started to look too. I have to admit I did often struggle with the layout of my cards and tended to stick to my favoured colours and many of my cards looked very similar. When I found blog land my eyes were opened by all the fab and talented crafters out there and all the different styles of cards they produced and with the help of some challenges asking for a certain layout or colour scheme or certain embellishments my cards began to change and for the better in so many ways, without me stepping too far from my comfort zone.

I was never one for ribbons and flowers although I might occasionally use a bit of mirri card or a brad that I got as a freebie but most of my cards were single layered and varying shades of one colour. I am now proud to say there are no colours I am afraid to use though I do still have my favourite and those I don't like to use too often, like pink and red and yellow together, but I am slowly getting there. I still don't laden my cards with layers or flowers but definitely use more that I did and I now use ribbons and have an ever growing selection. I can only thank everyone in blog land for that.

I also now have a huge collection and ever growing of fab stamps (not that my hubby would thank you all as he pays for it all) and my style in images has changed too and I have far more cute and girlie stamps than I would ever have imagined. I am on 2 design teams and am so loving the experience, I would highly recommend it.

Now all this mushy stuff hasn't explained my post title yet has it well, I saw there is a guest design team call out at the new inspirational blog for Sugar Nellie's Simply Sassy stamps, and they want you to submit a Simply Sassy image project showing your style and what you are good at. Well I started my project as I would any other by picking my image and then looking for challenges that I fancied entering and using the criteria to construct my card. I have in the past made a card and then looked for challenges but found this way easier. I decided on my colour scheme and the layout, but when it came to sorting out papers and embellishments I couldn't make it look like something I was happy with, it looked ok and all fitted together but just didn't feel right. I had decided to make it as a birthday card for my sister in law and it just wasn't right so it was back to the drawing board so to speak.

I decided to be radical and as the GDT call wanted you to show your style and what you are good at I decided to go solo and if I can find any challenges the finished card fits even better.

Great idea , and there I was staring into space wondering where to start. I decided on a colour scheme, the easy bit as my sis in law is a girly girl and has a westie she has a wardrobe for and it's very pink so pink it was, not one of my favoured colours but that's part of the challenge.

So sorry this is turning into being so long winded!

I decided to find all the scraps of card that were suitable colours to blend with my coloured image and try and come up with a layout design that I was happy with, boy was it hard work and now you know why I say challenges have made me lazy.

Anyway my card is finished and I am happy with it, it's still a bit on the plain side but it probably totally reflects me , plain , clean and simple but with that bit of bling and girly too. I know I still have such along way to go till I produce the masterpieces I see in blog land but am glad I did this card without challenge guidelines to follow and it might well be something I try more often as it really gave my brain a workout.

For all the deets about the GDT call you can see what you will get above if you are successful and for more details and where to join in the link is here. If you haven't yet given a home to Krista's fab designs they are available here  at Sugar Nellie Funky kits.You really don't know what you are missing.

I found the following challenges I can enter my card into:-

Simply Sassy GDT call -create a simply sassy design to show what you are good at
Pollycraft-new things (my stamp was a christmas gift)
Incy wincy-go dotty hope my faux brads are enough to count and my girls top too
Whoopsi Daisy-no designer paper
OLLCB-Bling it on
Craft your passions-all tied up
Cupcake craft challenges-something new

CES-all creatures great and smallWow can't believe I found so many.

Good luck to all who enter and can't wait to see what your style is.