Use It! Challenge #1

Hi everyone!!! I am SO excited about this post, as it the first challenge at Use It!, which is hosted by the super talented Rae Barthel! The idea behind her challenges is to use what you've got, instead of choosing to use only new products. I think it's really going to help me pay attention to my stash and help clear out some of my old stuff that I don't use as often anymore. I think it's also going to encourage me to see my old stuff as new again, and that's a huge part of being creative isn't it? :)

For this challenge, Rae asked us to:

♦Dig through your stash and use one of your FAVORITE papers♦

♦use something (anything) that you have NEVER used before♦

♦use some ribbon♦

♦use a button♦

I have quickly become a girl who LOVES a challenge, so I got right to it when I got home from work today. I loosely based my card off of Rae's example, and I really love how this card came out.

The pink background paper is Making Memories and the Easter paper (one of my favorites, it's so cute!) is DCWV Spring Stack. I'm thrilled to say that I used up (YAY!) a spool of American Crafts ribbon (green gingham) and the purple ribbon on the buttons is from some sort of packaging that I saved (I love being thrifty!). I was thrilled when I remembered I had these large buttons (foof-a-la Bag o' Buttons- Savannah) I wanted to use up. They're so big they don't fit in my button jars, so they're just sort of hanging around. I think this is exactly what this challenge is supposed to be about! :D The something (anything) that I had NEVER used before is the clear transparency ribbon by Junkitz. I felt I had to put white cardstock behind it so the colors would show up, but all in all, I think it's a pretty fun card and I don't think it looks *old* at all!

I have to say, I was a little disappointed when I saw Rae's example for the challenge- her card didn't look *old* either! LOL I thought to myself, "oh great, this is going to be another one of those blogs where everything looks trendy" but once I finished my card I got the whole point about using old supplies in a new way, so cheers to Rae for helping me think outside the box! I hope you'll check out her blog and participate- the more the merrier! Thanks for stopping by!!!

-Suzanne :O )