Super fun new FUSION Challenge!!

   As much as I typically LOVE Friday's, today is not one of the best, but thankfully it's improving after a trip to my chiropractor.  I went to bed early last night, but have been having a lot of pain in my left hip and lower back and it's been bothering me for a few days, but really turned bad last night.  I just could not get myself into a comfy position and then of course, was up just after midnight for Skye to potty.   She's getting better and better about going back to her crate and back to sleep, so that was a blessing.

    My morning ended up being super busy, as I had to run to CVS, call and see my Chiropractor and then still had a hair appointment.  Luckily DH is off today and also is taking Monday off as two vacation days, to help out with Skye and so that I can get some extra sleep, before I end up in a terrible Fibro flare!!  My hip was so bad this morning that I actually bought myself a 'cane' at CVS, which made me feel really old, even though I'm not...but such is life with Fibro and Disc Disease and I'd rather use the cane, and fall on my face, if my hip goes out!  UGH!!
 
    I made it home, just as the very nasty weather hit and can't believe we are dealing with cold sleet again...YUK!  I was so happy to see the dogs happily playing with hubby and could not wait to head to my craft room and create and that's how I have spend the rest of my day.

    My first card is the cards that I had started on yesterday for Alex's birthday and I have a picture of that to share.  Despite the fact that I am a Mom to two sons and primarily make mostly "guy" cards for my family, I still struggled to come up with ideas and designs, but have found that stars seem to work well, so I used my Cameo to cut several starts in blue and a blue checkered pattern and then also used a Chevron design to use on the front on my card.   I also cut the Happy Birthday sentiment using my Cameo which is one of my favorite features.  I can cut any text in any font available and I don't need to pay for a cartridge for a font I might only use  few time!!  I really love this machine soooo much better than my Cricut, and I'm so pleased with it.    I also love taking classes to learn to use it more and more and have learned so much from the classes that Kerri Bradford offers!

   This the card that I think will be the one that I give to Alex.  I like it, but I'm not totally in love with it and also feel like the inside if "boring", so I may work more on that?  We'll see what else I might come up with and see how much time I have?

   

   My next goal for today was to create a card for a brand new challenge, called FUSION, which I have been dying to play in.   I actually had planned to play last week, but with the puppy I ran out of time and never did get my card done.   The fun part about this challenge is that it's totally new and is part a "Sketch Challenge" and part an "Inspirational Photo Challenge" and you have YOUR choice as to how you want to play.  You can create a card based on the sketch or the photo, or you can "fuse" the two together and make a "FUSION" card, which is such a brilliant idea!  Kudos to Jackie and Leslie, who came up with this awesome new challenge!!     For more details and all the challenge rules, please hop on over to the Fusion Blog.

  This is only the second challenge and I was very excited to see what I could come up with.  I knew I wanted to challenge myself to "Fuse" the two ideas and created a "Fusion" and that's exactly what I did.  Here is a copy of this week's hypothesis:

  I had so much fun with this, that I actually created two cards and after reading the rules, I am happy to know that I can submit both, as long as they are both linked through Inlinkz.  Yippee!!

  This is the first card that I created and the fun part is that I used up a lot of scraps from cards I have made in the past couple of days.  The butterfly is an "oldie but goodie" from my stash and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches and was stamped in one of my favorite inks - "Tide Pool Shadow Ink" ink by Hero Arts.   

  And this is my second card, which turned out to be my favorite.  As you can see I flipped the sketch for both cards, which is another option.  This time I also used stamps, washi tape and bling to create the rows for my card.  I started with this fun stamp set from Paper Smooches, which I used for the top row which was stamped in "Wet Cement" another of the Shadow Inks from Hero!!   I created the middle row with Washi Tape and then my favorite is the bottom row of "Bling".   This is a super cool "bling" that's comes in rolls/strips like ribbon.   Mine was a treat that was sent to me by a dear craft friend, Jenn Pellegrino.  I us used half-inch Scor Tape to adhere it and it worked perfectly and as long as you cut it between rows of gems they all stay on perfectly.   I LOVE it and again am sending out extra thanks to Jenn, who generously send me five strips, all in different colors.  

  You can see the "Bling Ribbon" even more clearly in this image.   This card is also being submitted to this newest challenge over at Die Cut Diva's where the theme is "Washi Birthday Challenge" and of course you must also include a die-cut.  For mine I used one of my favorites "Tilda Buckle" from Memory Box.  

    And that is all that I managed to get done today, but I do hope tomorrow I'll have more creative time.  I hope you all had a fabulous Friday and that everyone has a wonderful weekend!!