What a weekend!

Last Friday and Saturday, I participated in my first Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) through Splitcoast Stampers. Whew! It was exhausting! For a VSN, there is challenge posted every hour (6 on Friday, 12 on Saturday), and you have 45 minutes to complete each challenge. You can participate in as many or as few as you want. You even have the option to complete a challenge at a different time during the weekend. My guess is that not everyone wants to stamp for 12 hours straight! The only rule is that you restrict yourself to the 45 minute deadline when you do start a challenge. Participants are then encouraged to post their results in specific galleries so that others can see the finished projects.

The funny thing about a 45 minute deadline is that sometimes 45 minutes would fly by and other times it passed so slowly. The good thing about a time limit was that it forced you to make a decision and "go with it." There was no time to second guess yourself. As a result, some of my finished projects I like, and some were not so great.

For today's card, I am posting the results of the polished stone challenge. All stamps used in this sample were made by Impression Obsession. For my card, I took white glossy paper and dotted it with a few spots of gold Krylon ink. I then dabbed the card with felt coated with a few shades of alcohol ink. The alcohol inks interacted with the gold pen so that the gold formed a webbed design on the card. To finish, I added a few drops of Blending Solution to the center of the card. The Blending Solution actually spread the alcohol ink out towards the edge of the card so that I was left a space to stamp a focal image. My advice when working with alcohol inks is to work fast. If you let the Krylon dry at all, you will be left with gold dots on your paper. The gold ink will only feather if it is wet when you dab it with the alcohol inks.

Finally,

My advice for the challenges (coming from a challenge newbie):

1. Stock the fridge with drinks and finger foods. I think my friend Chrisi and I didn't plan meals very well. We should have had a fridge packed with fruit, cheese, sandwich makings, etc. We were actually pathetic enough to call her sister at one point and ask her to bring us food (which she did).
2. Get together with some friends and have a sleep over. I think my favorite part of the weekend was Friday night with my friends Jennifer, Tami, and Chrisi. Four was a great crafting number. It was enough people to make it feel like an event without getting in each other's way.
3. Figure out how to post to a gallery BEFORE the actual event. This seems like obvious advice, but I had to learn it the hard way.
4. Go with the flow on challenges. As a mentioned before, you have to make some quick decisions and as a result, not everything will turn out fabulous. I think I was a happier person expecting a few duds in the bunch.