Weekly stash challenge - week one

In these very strange and difficult times, we crafters are luckier than most while being socially isolated.  We have our hobby to occupy our time.  But sometimes, it's not that easy to come up with ideas, and we have thought of something that might help..  Until we can start our regular monthly classes again, we could have a weekly stash challenge.

It isn't compulsory to take part - but this is how it will work.

Every Sunday night I will be posting a sketch here for you to try - and we want to see the cards you make using it.  I will ask that you send a picture to me, either by phone, facebook or to the busybees email account and I will upload it here and on our pinterest page.  At the end of the social isolation period, you can either keep your cards and use them through the year, or you can donate them to a charity.  Your choice...

Anyway - before we start, and  for this first time, I thought it might be helpful to explain how to use a sketch as a basis for a card.  It's simply a layout - and you can use it to kickstart your imagination.

Begin by gathering together some bits and pieces from your stash.  Die cuts, paper pads, some free kits from magazines, ribbons, etc.  Spread them all out on the table, and select some items to use.

And then you will be ready to begin.

For this first week, we chose a sketch that had already been put into a challenge on sundaystamps.blogspot.com.   There are lots of challenge blogs, so if you enjoy doing this you might want to go to pinterest, or just google challenge blogs and check them out.

To get you started, Shirley and I have put together some cards so you can see the end result of using a sketch.

Shirley chose to use one piece of fancy patterned paper (from a Lynda Chapman pad), some toning and mirri card, a die cut butterfly and some pearls.

The patterned paper was matted onto some mirri card and then placed onto the card blank (5 x 7 inches) on the left hand side.  The toning card was also matted onto mirri card, and then stuck onto the centre of the card, towards the right hand side, just overlapping the patterned paper.  The die cut butterfly was stuck in the centre of the  topper and pearls applied to the body.  

Finally, a sentiment was put onto the card in the bottom right hand corner.

For my first card, I used a piece of A4 card cut down to make a 5 x 7 card.  I picked a piece of brightly coloured stripe and dark pink paper for my layers, some gold and white twine, and a topper from an easter kit.  I also chose a sentiment from a stamp set free with a magazine.

I cut the mat and layers from the card and paper roughly in line with the shape shown on the sketch, and stuck it all down.

I quite like the white space, but you can make your rectangles any size you like.

For my second card, I decided to use some blue card cut to size for the card base and make the rectangles bigger .I also used some stamps and free papers from a magazine gift, and some ribbon from my stash.

I put them in the same layout as the sketch, but because they filled more space on the card it looks completely different.   

I stamped the images onto white card and coloured them using watercolour pencils.  I used some blue ribbon from my stash to wrap around the thin rectangle instead of the twine, and onto a frame diecut that I had  in my scrap box, I stamped the sentiment.

Finally, I put the fussy cut doghouse and dog onto the frame diecut, and as a last touch, used some nuvo drops to put in the corners of the backing paper.

So there you are, 3 very different cards from one layout.

Why not have a go and see how you get on?  Remember, you can use as many or as few items as you want, they can be anything you want them to be,as long as they are placed in line with the sketch.

Have fun!

Jackie x