Monday, July 23, 2012

Challenge Yourself!

Hi Chicks!
Today's post is inspired by a thread over on Split Coast Stampers (the private "demo" side) from my online friend, Mindy.  Mindy, or "Minders" (as she's known over on SCS) has a great blog and is one of the most creative stampers EVAH!!  She's on a couple of blog design teams as well, one of which is Hand Stamped Sentiments.  Mindy also was a finalist for the Artisan Design Team contest Stampin' Up! held for Convention.  Unfortunately, she didn't win a spot - but her entries were amazing.  So as you can imagine, she's pretty darn talented :)

Anyway, Mindy started a thread using the "I Am . . . " theme from Convention 2012 and invited us to share some of our own "I Am . . ." thoughts.  It's really fun to see what other demos are thinking of doing, or things they want to accomplish for their hobbies or businesses.

SO - here are MY "I Am . . ." statements from the thread:

I AM going to Convention in 2013 come he** or high water.
I AM going to start doing challenges on a regular basis to push myself to be more creative.
I AM going to enter at least one of the SS monthly contests this year (this one is scary for me - I NEVER think my stuff is good enough to enter in Stampin' Success).


With that in mind, I also wanted to explain what "challenges" are, if you don't already know.  Many blogs post design challenges for papercrafters to submit to.  They design a sketch and you are invited to create a project based on the sketch and post it online.  Sometimes it's not a sketch, but a technique or product to use.  Split Coast Stampers also has challenges, both on the demo side and the public side.

Check out these links to find some challenges and play along!

Mojo Monday
Pals Paper Arts (SU! Demo Mary Fish's Blog)
Hand Stamped Sentiments

Challenges are a really great way to stretch yourself and get the creative juices flowing.  I haven't done very many myself, but that's a goal for me this year.  If you're anything like me, you probably DON'T make time to just stamp for fun a priority.  Challenges are an excuse to do that!

Here's a post from my creative blog about a challenge I did on SCS a while back:  SCS Monday Challenge Clean and Simple (June 2011) . . . and here's another:  SCS Ways to Use It (6/23/11) "No White Cardstock".  This next one was a sketch challenge, but I have to say, I really DON'T like this card looking at it a year later:  SCS Card Sketch 6/22/11   I was trying to push myself to use different colors - it really wasn't THAT orange-y - but it's pretty butt-ugly, isn't it??  lol

So, all that being said, I'm off to try and design something for this week's Mojo Monday sketch.  What are you still doing reading my blog???  Go stamp something!!  :)

That's it for now, my peeps!

Jeni

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