Elemental Challenge: Earth

The challenge in this round was to represent the element of earth in some, way, shape or form with our creations.  Earth can be represented by gems, rocks and sand, or earth creatures, plants, and earthy colours.

I’ve found myself infatuated with brown hues of late, so it surprised me to have struggled with this challenge.  I really wanted this challenge to be handmade from ground zero.  So, I decided to make a magnetic sticky-note holder with a pen.  It had always been my intention to list lots of these sticky-note holders in my Creator Exhibit, but I quickly travel between design whims and I never did make more to list.

Now, what to put on the sticky-note holder?  I was rifling through my die cut designs.  What is brown?  Bears are brown but I just did a die cut bear in the last challenge.  I could make a brown die cut dog, but I just listed a dog so I wanted to make something different just for this challenge.  I suppose could make chocolate cupcakes or cakes.

I pushed myself to stray from the animals.  I didn’t want to do food because I didn’t think it would look good with brown everywhere.  I would only want to make the food itself chocolate so it would stand out from the rest.  That wouldn’t be enough brown on the project to meet the challenge though.

Strolling through my designs, I had made a castle die cut quite some time ago, but never actually used it.  I used it once, recently, for a card for a friend that moved.  The design includes 24 teeny bricks strategically scattered across it to give the impression of stone.  It took *forever* to ink up all the bricks, which are only 1/4 inch long by 1/8 inch wide.  *FOREVER*  I thought to myself, “Well, I won’t be doing that again!”

But I did.  Minus the bricks!  Glitter is fast becoming a favourite embellishment of mine.  It is rather messy even with all the tips, tricks and products I use to contain the debris.  Still, who doesn’t like a little shine?  I had originally bought these two shades of brown glitter for making die cut bears but, heck, they look great as wet sand!  A SANDCASTLE!  Tah-dah!

I decided to put my sandcastle on a sticky-note fridge magnet for two reasons: 1) it was too big to put on a card (at least a standard-sized one) and 2) the fridge magnet design is my own creation.  These two reasons make this challenge entry a fairy original!  There was only one problem: dimension.  When I inked the original die-cut castle, it provided dimension by creating separation between the layers.  When the design is glittered, inking is no longer an option.

Enter dimensional trick #2.  If you can’t ink it, pop it.  The top layer of the castle is mounted on foam tape.  I was able to use my sturdiest foam tape since there is no need to squish a sticky-note holder into an envelope like there is for a greeting card because it will simply be mounted to someone’s fridge!

I hope you like my Earth Element challenge entry!  I thought long and hard about it and pushed myself to get back on track with my design intentions for the magnetic sticky-note holders.  I think it’s a win-win.  I got to make a new design and carry-out an old plan!  Challenge are a great way to kick your butt in gear!