Pretty, Pretty no Paper Challenge

The month of October has arrived, Yes, that's correct, the year is speeding by like it is in a hurry to get finished.

I have to tell you that I am super excited because I won twice last month and The Flying Unicorn and Alda is not cheap with her prizes. I won a $50 gift certificate in the Back To School contest.. didn't take me long to spend that baby LOL. I also won The "lift the CT" challenge. Now I just need to stalk the mailman.

The challenges this month are totally awesome, I sure hope I have time to do them all. I have one finished, it took me all day today to complete it. However most of the time was taken up in making the flowers for it.

The challenge issued was "create a layout using NO PATTERNED PAPER! thats right - hoard your pretty paper a little longer! Well you know it won't be that easy right? You also have to use chipboard AND the colors red & black - you can use more colors and as much as you want but there has to be red & black in there somewhere!"

Well now I love those colours but didn't have anything.. no cardstock zippo!!! So I had to make a trip to Chatham to the Paper Pickle. Scored big there as she gave me some pretty good deals on some new stencils... half price.. got two 12 x 12s and two 6 x 6s... got my cardstock half price too and some yummy paper for $.50 sheet too, but I digress. Now that I have my red, white and black cardstock it is time to start creating... Oh, lucky me, I have one Ditto red glimmer mist so I use it and one of my new masks on a sheet of white cardstock.. oh yeah, that turned out pretty.. gonna go with that one. Will use a sheet of Black cardstock to mat my photo but will punch the edges a bit. Do a little faux stitching... love my faux stitching and white on black looks so good. Dig out another of my new masks, a pretty star and use white chalk against the black... oh I like the way that looks.

Now its time for flowers, lots and lots of flowers. Now see, Darling Hubs never makes any comments on my layouts. Heck I figured he never even noticed them or looked at them. However,the other day we were in Micheals and I pointed out some flowers to him and said "aren't they awful pretty?" He replied,"they are not near as pretty as the ones you make." Well you could have knocked my eyes off, they popped out so far. Of course my heart just bust with pride... guess what, he is noticing what I am making, and he likes it too. Soooo, I had to make all my own flowers for this layout. Cut, punch, roll, fold, scrunch, glue, shape... it all takes so much time. I think it is worth it though.

So here is my layout for the Challenge.

I used Bazzil Cardstock, Crafters Workshop Masks, Dusty Attic Butterfly Chippie,Offray ribbon, October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers-Ledger Alphas,Spellbinders dies - Spiral Blossom One and Anemone Flower,Sizzix - Flower layers #3, Assorted EK Success Edge Punches, Ditto Red Glimmer Mist, and White Gelly Roll Pen.

Check back tomorrow to see if I do sprinkles or the colour challenge :)