10 Minute Craft Dash 15... In Four Tries...

Hel-LO friends and followers!  Sorry for the long hiatus there, I have been battling with some health issues, and while they unfortunately are not all resolved (won't burden you with the details, the NEED to craft was finally strong enough to win out over my symptoms - YAAY!  
     I have wanted to play along with the 10 minute craft dash ever since I saw my friend Suzanne play along with her friends Jen, Jen and Jessica.  And when I saw this week's color combination, I KNEW I HAD to play along too:

This color combination made me instantly think 'winter' - so I knew I wanted to use some combination of the mittens from WPlus9 Design's Winter Wishes and the snowflakes from their Folk Art Flurries set.  I thought, how hard could it really be to create a card in 10 minutes?...
     ...Well, more challenging than I thought, at least at first.  My first attempt, I didn't even get the mitten fussy cut when the timer went off.  I thought maybe I spent too much time closing all my inks and putting all the stamps back in their packages during the time allotted (I'm a little OCD that way), so I tried again, not even close.  Then I thought maybe the fussy cutting was taking too long, but I REALLY wanted to cut out the mittens and pop them up on dimensionals, I really didn't want to forgo that element of the card.  So, I decided I had to forgo the sentiment flag and stamp the sentiment right on the card front in a contrasting ink instead, yeah, that should do it... almost, but not quite - in the third attempt, without the brad to 'hang' the mittens on, I was rushing in the final seconds to get the card attached and Buh-BAM - just when I thought "I did it!!' I noticed that I had put the card front on the base upside down...  grrr...  Okay, one last attempt and... TA DA!!!!

(please click on the photo for clearer resolution).  I think it came out pretty good, no?  Practice makes perfect right?  LOL!  Then I went back and finished up the three cards that weren't completed under the buzzer (hey, I work on holiday cards all year so I have one less thing to do once November hits anyway).  Here they are:

The one out in front with the matted banner and twine-tied button in the center of the punched & Stardust Stickled snowflake (I think this is my favorite color of Stickles, SO pretty!) was what I had originally envisioned my completed card would look like; perhaps it was a little too ambitious for only 10 minutes, live and learn.  In case you are curious of the other supplies I used to create these set of cards, I used Stampin' Up!'s Pool Party, Island Indigo and Primrose Petals cardstocks & inks, some pretty pink sorbet twine from the Twinery, a 'just because' gift from my close friend Barbie (I love you Girl!), a silver brad, a scissor for fussy cutting and some dimensionals to pop up the mittens a bit.  If anyone is curious, the Island Indigo and Pool Party inks I used for the snowflakes are the 'old' style of stamp pad, and the primrose petals I used for the sentiments are the new 'firm foam' pads - in case you wanted a side-by-side comparison; you can click on the photos for larger pictures of the cards in higher resolution too.  I am also entering these cards in Winter Wonderland's 'No red or green should be seen' Christmas card challenge.  
     Thanks so much for stopping by to see my creations and read my ramblings!  There is still time to play along with the 10 minute craft dash - why not give it a try?!!  It's fun and come on, surely you have ten minutes...  ;)  Have a great weekend!
~ Crafty Math Chick