*WHEW*

What a crazy day yesterday! I did manage to get a couple of crafty things accomplished, but not as much as I would have liked to. I started listing some old supplies on ebay, setting some aside for blog giveaways, and by the time I was done, the mailman was at my door with a prize from the wonderful Sookie :) WEBSTER'S KIT!!!!!!! I'm playing with those this afternoon as a reward for making some things for the shop (I'm like a child...I need that carrot dangling in front of me to get anything accomplished LOL)

So here's what I made yesterday, for the current sketches4all Get Sketchy! sketch challenge and the Colorful Creations Monday Mixer mixed up alphas challenge. I'm lovin all the Scenic Route goodness from my fellow DT Stacy at s4a, sent to me for winning one of her card challenges. This was part of a grab bag, and I wasn't sure what I would end up doing with it until I found the picture I wanted to scrap. I immediately ran to mix up an acrylic paint spray, heavy on the paint to keep it from running/dripping, as my less paint-y mixtures tend to do. No glimmer this time, just the paint and some water. Who need expensive mists when all you need is some value acrylic paint? I took a sheet of circular scalloped cardstock and used it as a mask (so bitchin' that the paper had holes in it, I love the look!) over the sheet of Scenic Route grey grid outline background paper. I think I'm saving that scalloped circle to use as a mask more often, I have some great ideas!

SR Grafton - George Street for the plaid paper and off-white/red strip, We R Memory Keepers for the punched black strip and journaling strips, from their Teen Angst paper pad. That's the ticket stub from the ball game above the journaling.

It's hard to see in this pic, but when showing this to hubby, he noticed the plaid pattern on the back of the paper strip here, where it's torn. Very cool look, I may try to lightly sand away the white paper to have the plaid show through more prominently.

SR Happy Valley alpha stickers in black and clover, Doodlebug Jack & Jill red alpha. I wanted to pull the colors together a little better, as the red seems to dominate. The green of the paper is the same as the letters, and the seats are green. My hat is orange. Can you not have more perfect paper/stickers here? (Yes, I know, I could have...just say no and humor me!)

So here's a closeup of the pic itself, which is just awesome. Here's the story, as the journaling isn't as detailed in his album as it is in mine :) We took Patryk to his first baseball game, a local minor league team called the Fisher Cats, on a beautiful May day. The sun was shining, the birds chirping, yada, yada, yada. Upon pulling into the parking area, the skies opened up on us. As the stadium is a little over an hour away from our house, hubby and I were a bit worried his first game would have to wait. We waited in the car for a bit, listening to the game on the radio, hearing they had a rain delay but planned on starting up as soon as they could. The rain slowed, and we took that as our chance to go to the souvenir shop to pick up a few ponchos (which we still have and bring often with us, they are right in the van ready to go at a moment's notice!) We found our seats and it was sunny again, and sat back watching them get ready to play...and the downpour began AGAIN. I fought with the poncho trying to cover up poor little Patryk, not quite 6 months old, and he was in awe of the thing. He spent the whole time trying to rip it out of my hands, causing water to SATURATE my jeans at the knee. That's when I noticed we were having our picture taken by a newspaper photographer! He told us he was sick of dodging the rain, the game would be rained out anyway, and needed a pic for the front page of the sports section, would we mind? Of course not! He took our info and left, and 10 min later the sun returned and the game went on as scheduled. It was a crazy day, but he loved the game and my mother in law bought all the stores out of their copies of the newspaper the following day :) We got this from the photographer, so glad to have the pic!

Next up: a card for Wee Memories current challenge, Woodland Friends. I used my Stretch Your Imagination cartridge...isn't the squirrel so cute? More Scenic Route, this time Sonoma - Olive Ave. That's it...nothing fancy. This also qualifies for the Cricut Cardz Challenge, to make a 9X4 card using any cart you want.

Accordion folded strip, stapled. (I hate my handwriting! Must....use....computer generated journaling!)

Ok, so that's all for now. I am restricting myself from TOUCHING my challenge notebook, and will force myself to create card sets for my shop today. This whole "less challenges and more filling my shop" mentality just isn't working out as I'd planned! That's why I never make resolutions!!!!