One Stencil and a Bird House

Happy Thursday My Dear Sweet Friends

Oh my goodness - I still can't believe Christmas is just around the corner.  Do you have your Christmas shopping done??  D

It's the SPEED CRAFT CHALLENGE time!!!

You already know I love this 15 minute speed challenge and this project is no exception (well almost).  In all honesty - I really really didn't want to do this challenge (and yet, I found it challenging).  Wow, a challenging challenge!! But anyway here is my finished project and I will share the process a little further down.  

Okay, I have a confession to make.  Yes, a real honest to goodness confession.

((((((((((I don't remember the last time I used a stencil))))))).  

(((((((((((I am not even sure I have ever used one)))))))).  

I have quite the collection but haven't really taken the time to jump in and play with them (and found them a little out of my comfort zone).  And that is why I was a little worried about this challenge but I wanted to keep my team commitment.  So once again I had no choice but to jump into the dark void and see what's waiting on the other side.  

And so I looked and looked and looked until I couldn't stand the thought of looking one more second but couldn't find my bag of stencils to save my life.  Now I was totally freaking out wondering what I was going to do.  I finally remembered I had found a 12" x 12" bin in the garage that had some old templates in it.  (LIGHT BULB Moment).  It was actually a template for creating designs on the front of cards but I decided to use it as a stencil.  In the photo below you can see the items I used to create this birdhouse.  Tomorrow I will take a photo of just the template and add it to this post.

I used Tim Holz alcohol inks (Espresso and Cranberry) and made the checker board shape pattern on the front of the house shape chipboard.  I held the template down with my left hand while I inked with my right.  (Yes, my hands were covered in ink)  I wish I had taken a quick photo of what the front of the house looked like but totally spaced on that idea until it was to late.  Next I:

Cut the roof off an extra chipboard shape house and covered it in lace.

I then attached it to the front of the first house with some glue.

Added the bird sticker to the round piece of chipboard that I had also inked with Tim Holz alcohol ink in espresso.  

Used pop up dots to attach that to the front of the first house.  

Added a couple rows of lace, rhinestones and a big brown flower and I was DONE.  I know it sounds like this was a very quick project but it really wasn't.  It was full of obstacles the entire time.  I was almost in tears.  It is now 9:20 PM on Wednesday night and I am exhausted and just want to crawl under the covers.  So, my dear friends - this is the reader's condensed version of the process.  And you can see below just how little time I had left.  And last but not least - as I was putting all my supplies away - GUESS WHAT I FOUND???

This is the final Speed Challenge for 2014.  I hope you will join in.  The Design Team has some great projects and I hope you will check out each of their blogs as well.  

And for those of you that have read through this whole post - I have a little surprise for you.  If you can "GUESS" what I found when I was putting all my craft supplies away today (see reference above) I will add your name to a drawing for a sweet treat (and its not candy candy) and mail it to the winner.  Just leave your "guess" in the comments.

Have a great day!!  Thanks for visiting me today - I really appreciate it.

With hugs and smiles

Laine
DT - The Speed Craft Challenge