Shimmery Birthday Leaves

Bonus Saturday card today!  I was completely incapable of resisting the color challenge at Create with Connie and Mary:

I think autumnal color combinations are my favorites...I love the jewel tones.  Fall is my favorite season and I don't even drink pumpkin spice lattes...though I do make lots and lots of pumpkin-y goodies in the fall.  I'm having pumpkin baked oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  But I digress!  This color combination was another chance to play with Fresh Fig, so I did.

We've got lots of birthdays coming up in the next couple of months (my brother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and nephew, not to mention all my friends with fall birthdays and why am I friends with so many Libras?) so I thought a birthday sentiment would be a good idea for this one.  Very simple for the leaves, I just stamped one in each of the challenge colors on Shimmery White cardstock and then cut them out with the matching Framelits.  I spritzed the background with water and did a little Pear Pizzazz watercolor wash, dried it with my heat tool, and then stamped some flecks from Touches of Texture on it.  The part that was difficult was deciding how to arrange the leaves on top.  The Calypso Coral and Pear Pizzazz leaves are simply glued on, and the Fresh Fig leaf is popped up on Dimensionals.

So anyway, y'all have a good weekend.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, Rose Wonder, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Fresh Fig, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Fresh Fig, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Leaflets Framelits, Dimensionals

Hey, Kit

Happy Friday, y'all!  The hubs and I were both saying yesterday that we were confused what day of the week it was; both of us thought yesterday was Wednesday for a while.  Don't know why but heyyyy Friday!

Ryan took a THREE-HOUR nap yesterday so I managed to make a couple of cards and work on a scrapbook layout.  So here's one of the cards I made:

A baby fox is a kit, right?  I think so.  Meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I loved Rita's foxy card so I was inspired to dust off Foxy Friends, which I haven't played with nearly enough.  Lucky for me, this week's Color Throwdown was foxy as well:

I used Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, Tangerine Tango, and Pool Party for my colors.  I admit I didn't think "baby" when I first saw these colors...in fact, I hadn't decided on a sentiment when I put the rest of the card together.  So I just went through my stamps to find a sentiment that would fit right and that "hello, baby" from Baby Bear jumped out at me.  (The inside of the card says "welcome to the world!")  I thought hey, why not make this a baby card?  Honestly, these colors are pretty similar to Ryan's bedding in his nursery and I looooooove all the baby clothes with foxes on them.  So baby card!

Ryan and I are heading out in about 10 minutes to do our daily gym time.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Baby Bear
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Tangerine Tango, Pool Party, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Thick Whisper White, Always Artichoke, Pool Party
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits (to make a mask), Dimensionals

Eclectic Friend

Mornin', y'all!  A week ago I was talking about how I hadn't used Flirty Flamingo too much, and it occurred to me yesterday that I hadn't dusted off Fresh Fig in a while either.  So I set out to make a figgy card.

I think Naturally Eclectic is the only DSP I have that features Fresh Fig, so I started with that.  I was surprised how much I like Fresh Fig + Lemon Lime Twist + Soft Sky.  Sure there are other colors in the stripey DSP, but I chose those three to work with on my stamped panel with the flowers.

I used this week's sketch from the Paper Players:

Usually, I just sketch out sketches on scratch paper and take that down to my craft room, and sometimes I get proportions a little bit off working from my own copy of the sketch.  Still, I think you can see where I started from here.

Well, I'm off to try a yoga class while Ryan hangs out in the gym day care.  Wheee!  (I don't think I'm going to like yoga but I'll try it anyway.)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Fresh Fig, Lemon Lime Twist, Soft Sky
Paper:  Fresh Fig, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Whisper White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

It Worked for Cinderella

So after we got back from our trip to Niagara Falls, I had to get caught up on everyone's blogs and stampy goodness and all that, and I kept seeing cards with the Patterned Pumpkins Thinlits and I hadn't played with mine too much yet so that idea stuck in my brain.  And the SUO Challenge this week is to use dies and/or punches, so that seemed like a really good idea.

And then....I saw this week's Retro Rubber Challenge.

And I had an idea.

A really silly idea.

And it made me giggle.

Like, a lot.

So may I present to you....

CINDERELLA'S PUMPKIN CARRIAGE.  I hope it looks like a carriage to you?  I was thinking of the white pumpkins they have out front of my grocery store, plus in the movie Cindy's pumpkin carriage is white/light blue.  The jewel paper seemed to just go with the theme.  The pumpkin and the little viney sproings are from the Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, and the "wheels" are a little floral stamp from Butterfly Basics which is 2 1/2 years old for the Retro challenge.  They're popped up on Dimensionals, and the whole white square panel is also on Dimensionals...and the white is Shimmery White, so it looks nice and magical in person too.

I used the Sunday Stamps sketch:

I wanted to add some kind of sentiment to the inside of the card, but I wasn't sure what to use until I happened to catch sight of the Designer Tee stamp set.

"Don't quit your day dream."  PERFECT.  And I know who's going to get my Cinderella card too; she's my SIL's favorite Disney princess.  And I have a postage stamp with Cinderella's wicked stepmother on it too!  Ha!

ACK!  I need to get moving to the gym this morning.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Designer Tee
Ink:  Soft Sky, Emerald Envy, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Soft Sky, Lemon Lime Twist, Shimmery White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, 1/2" circle punch, Dimensionals

Hello Bear

Mornin', y'all!  After you come back from a vacation (even a short one), do you feel like you need some time to get back in the stamping groove?  Because I snatched a couple of minutes yesterday to work on a card and it just seemed like my brain didn't quite want to engage.  But eventually I got here:

I started out wanting to make a card with the current stamp set Baby Bear, but three tries went in the trash and I switched Baby Bear for my favorite ever Stampin' Up! bear from Thankful Forest Friends.  Because this week's Cupcake Inspirations challenge is all about da bears!

I've seen those cupcakes before, and in fact I made a version of them with cream cheese frosting and yogurt-covered pretzels to make polar bear cupcakes for my polar bear-loving friend Sarah.  The ones I saw were billed as reindeer cupcakes but I thought they looked more like bears :)

So I paired my bear with the Global Design Project sketch:

And I chose my sentiment after seeing the word prompt challenge at Inkspirational:

My big "hello" stamp is from a retired Sale-a-Bration stamp set called....Hello.  I kinda like the effect of stamping it on the patterned paper; where the paper was white, the stamp came out darker so the words have a floral pattern too.  Fun.

Well, I need to bundle Ryan up and leave for the gym in ten minutes, so I'd better hurry up with my breakfast.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Forest Friends, Hello, Love & Affection (all retired)
Ink:  Basic Black, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Garden Green, Thick Whisper White, So Saffron & Basic Black DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits

Forbidden City, Part 2

Morning, y'all!  It's time for another scrappy Monday, so here I am with the other two layouts from the Forbidden City.

(Original pics here.)  This layout is the only one where I used that So Saffron stripey paper, but with the way I laid out the photos I needed something on the sides so there you go.

And here's the last Forbidden City layout.  I really kept these simple with minimal photo cropping...I sometimes worry that all my pages are starting to look alike, but I just hate to crop my photos anymore.  Hubs and I have worked on improving our photography so most of the time it would mess up the photo composition to cut much off.  Ah, well.  I use different colors and patterned papers so that will have to be different enough, right?

Same color combo as last Monday:  Peach Parfait, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron, and accents in Basic Black and Whisper White.

Cheers, y'all!  My tea is ready :)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best of Shelli
Ink:  Riding Hood Red, Basic Black
Paper:  Peach Parfait, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron, Thick Whisper White, Twitterpated DSP, So Saffron DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

On Wednesdays, We Wear Pink

Tee hee :)

My card today is definitely wearing pink.

I really haven't done a whole lot with Flirty Flamingo...it's not that I dislike the color, I just can't quite figure out what to pair it with.  However, I do rather like it here with Pool Party and Wild Wasabi.  I didn't have DSP in colors and patterns that I wanted to use with my fussy-cut flower (because I stamped that before I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of the card), so I just cut some panels out of Thick Whisper White and then I dragged an inked up sponge across until I liked the effect.  I did a bit of extra sponging at the edges, and then I stamped a repeating design on each one--a fleur de lis from Timeless Textures on the Pool Party panel, and the fern stamp from Painted Harvest on the Wild Wasabi panel.  I do like how those turned out.  Also, no sentiment on this card...when I want to send it, I can always stamp whatever I need on the inside.  So this card could be for a birthday or thank you or thinking of you or anything really.  Except a masculine card.  It's not at all dude-like.

So anyway, I started my card with a pink flower because of the challenge at Fusion:

I used the sketch and the inspiration pic gave me my pink starting point for the flower, though I do love tea and teacups :)

But the flowers also worked well with the challenge at Cupcake Inspirations:

Also pink :)  I did stamp another flower with Flirty Flamingo and Sweet Sugarplum together, which I liked, but for this card I just wanted to go with the pink by itself.  So we'll see if I bust out that other flower somewhere else.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Pool Party, Wild Wasabi, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals & Mini Dimensionals

Gathering of Pumpkins

You know how groups of animals sometimes have fun names?  Like a bunch of dogs is a pack (okay, not very fun and imaginative), lions are a pride (getting better), crows are a murder (love that one), and a group of unicorns is a surprise?  Well, I was thinking about that as I uploaded my card picture today and I wanna know what you'd call a group of pumpkins.

I know, pumpkins are veg, not animals, but that's where my thought process was.  Given how everyone seems to be obsessed with pumpkin spice lattes (I don't drink coffee, much as I love pumpkin), maybe we should call this a spice of pumpkins?  I don't know.

What I do know is that I like the color combination from Global Design Project:

I knew it was going to be fun to use Lemon Lime Twist in fall color combinations.  LLT is so bright and in your face, I'm a little surprised at how popular it is...but of course I love it because I just love color.  I love Lemon Lime Twist with a good rich purple, too.

Anyway!  I combined that color combination with the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch:

I'd been planning to enter this card at the Paper Players' harvest theme challenge, but this sketch just doesn't seem CAS to me and that's part of their challenge.  I've got five layers of paper not counting the pumpkins, which I hand cut even though I have the matching Framelits because Ryan was asleep in the playard between me and the Big Shot so I just snipped them with scissors.  They were easy to cut out though, might have been faster than using the Big Shot Anyway.

Speaking of Ryan, he is currently taking a nap with his little rump sticking up in the air.  I took him to the gym this morning and he got to crawl around and play in the daycare area while I worked out, so we were both tired when we got home :) So maybe I can go finish that other card I started yesterday!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pick a Pumpkin, Painted Harvest
Ink:  Lemon Lime Twist, Peekaboo Peach, Tangerine Tango, Early Espresso
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Peekaboo Peach, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals

Forbidden City, Part 1

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I thought we'd start out this week with some China pages, because I've been doing a lot of work on China pages.

See the pics here.  That dude on the right page?  That was our Beijing tour guide, whom we detested...his English name was Jack, but we quickly started calling him You Don't Know Jack (or YDKJ for short) because he was terrible.  Most of the time he didn't seem to know where we were going (umm hello, he's the tour guide, it's his job to know where we're going) and once we got to the Forbidden City, he ran us through it as fast as he could herd the group, not even letting anyone stop at souvenir shops.  We stopped in a courtyard on the other side of the Forbidden City to wait for our bus driver, and then he tried to sell us his own souvenir junk.  The only reason he got tipped at all at the end of our stay in Beijing is because we were dependent upon him to get to the airport.

Enough about Jack, let's talk scrapbook pages!  This color combination was a bit of a surprise for me; I haven't used Peach Parfait a lot (it's a bit darker than the current Peekaboo Peach) but it seemed to work with these photos.  I ended up doing three Forbidden City layouts and they all use this same color combination.

And there it is:  Peach Parfait, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron, and a bit of black and white.

Well, today is the hubs' first day back at work after pretty much six weeks off with his injury and subsequent back surgery.  So now I have to figure out all over again how to get into a routine with just me and Ryan and the doggos! :)  We're heading to the gym in a few minutes.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Best of Shelli
Ink:  Riding Hood Red, Basic Black
Paper:  Peach Parfait, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron, Thick Whisper White, Twitterpated DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

Sheltering Trees

Happy Friday, y'all!  Hubs and I took the wee babe out for a few hours yesterday and when we got back home he conked out HARD so I got a couple of cards made for today :D

I started out with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I'll be honest, I'm not terribly in love with square cards.  I do have some leftover 5x7 envelopes from ordering photo Christmas cards (yeah, I know, I'm a card maker and I ordered Christmas cards...it's just easier to do photos that way and most people don't care about handmade Christmas cards and it's hard to make 60+ cards knowing they're mostly going to go in the trash) so it's not like I can't make 5" square cards, I just prefer the standard A2 size.  But anywha.

I started with the idea for this one based on this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Dapper Denim and Emerald Envy for my colors.  The bike is stamped with Basic Black and the body of the bike is Dapper Denim, but it's hard to tell that even IRL.

Next up something more fallish:

I used this week's color combination from Create with Connie and Mary:

I think the sponged-on sky (...in Soft Sky) was more successful than my Dapper Denim sky above.  And I traded out the bike for the rake this time.

So when I stamp this tree, I like to stamp the leaf stamp once and then rotate it 180 degrees, ink and stamp again to make the tree look fuller.  On the peach card, I also got the little leafy stamp and added a bit of Tangerine Tango to the tree and some extra to the ground to look like leaves in need of raking.  The sentiment blocks are different heights and widths because I was just basically using up scraps of white and vanilla, and that's what I found in my stash.  I always have narrow strips of white and vanilla to use up.

That's it for today, folks.  I'm going to release the Kraken...by which I mean I'm taking Ryan out of his bouncer and letting him go roam around the house a bit.  He really likes the dogs' water bowl....

Cheers!

Supplies, Emerald card:
Stamps:  Sheltering Tree
Ink:  Emerald Envy, Dapper Denim, Early Espresso, Basic Black
Paper:  Emerald Envy, Dapper Denim, Early Espresso, Whisper White
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Dimensionals

Supplies, Peach card:
Stamps:  Sheltering Tree
Ink:  Peekaboo Peach, Tangerine Tango, Early Espresso, Basic Gray
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Tangerine Tango, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Dimensionals

Leafy Thanks

Mornin', y'all.  Is it fall yet?  I'm so done with sultry super-humid weather...bring on fall and sweater weather!!

Also since I gave Tiana about 85% of my card stash (thank you cards and everything else), I'm working on rebuilding my stash.  Need lots more thank you cards, and thinking of you, and birthday...pretty much everything.

So today I started with the Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping:

This week's Retro Rubber Challenge was super easy:

I happened to use the same combination of older stamps on this card for another Retro Rubber Challenge; Vintage Leaves is two years old and One Big Meaning is one year old.  The wee splatter stamp is from Magical Mermaid and will probably be my most-used stamp from that set because I loves me a good splat :)

Colors are courtesy of Sunday Stamps: 

I used Night of Navy, Tranquil Tide, and Peekaboo Peach for colors 2, 4, and 5 on the graphic.  I wanted to work in some Rich Razzleberry but it just wouldn't work for my card.  Such a pretty inspiration pic though.

Sounds like the hubs just finished feeding the baby...so maybe we're going for a walk now.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, One Big Meaning, Magical Mermaid
Ink:  Peekaboo Peach, Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy
Paper:  Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, Watercolor Paper, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Tranquil Tide ribbon

I Believe in Mermaids

Mornin', y'all!  I almost typed "mermaid, y'all!"  Because today's card has a mermaid on it.

The mermaid has Wink of Stella on her so she's all sparkly, even though you can't see it at all in the picture (it's overcast here and it's notoriously difficult to photograph anything sparkly on a card).  And she's a triple challenge over-achieving mermaid.  First off, What Will You Stamp? has cycled back around to a stamp set I own:

So yep, there's my stamp set sorted.  Then I used the layout from this week's CASE the Designer challenge at Global Design Project:

And last of all I added in this week's Paper Players color combination:

Once I had those three elements, the card came together pretty quick.  I like that since I never know how long naptime will last :)

I've got breakfast in the oven (have I mentioned that I'm obsessed with apple cinnamon baked oatmeal...and generally I think oatmeal only belongs in cookie form!) so I'm going to try to vacuum up some dog hair while I wait for that to bake.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Mermaid, Marbled, Seaside Shore
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Pear Pizzazz, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, thick Whisper White, Silver Foil
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Iridescent Sequins

Versailles, Part 2

Mornin', y'all!  Today starts the last week of the hubs' convalescent leave for his back surgery, so baby Ryan and I are going to enjoy it :)

So let's start off our bloggy week with more Versailles pictures!

These two layouts are all pics taken out in the gardens.  Some great statues to take pictures of out there, and we got some really cool-looking sky in the pictures.  Even with the look of impending doom, we never got rained on!

I don't know why, but those pictures of the hubs arguing directions with our friends makes me giggle every time I see it.

Same color combination as the first Versailles layout:  Crushed Curry, Emerald Envy, Brilliant Blue, Basic Gray and Whisper White.  When I do multiple layouts for one thing, sometimes I do all the layouts with the same background color, and sometimes I do like this where I keep the same color combination but change up how I use the colors (background, patterned paper, accent color).  Just depends what I feel like when I do those pages.

Okay, I'm off to try to take some pictures of the little squirt.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Carte Postale
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Brilliant Blue, Crushed Curry, Emerald Envy, Whisper White, Moroccan DSP, Brilliant Blue DSP
Accessories:  circle punches

Sunny Sunflower

Happy Friday, y'all!  I woke up at 5:00 this morning and could not get back to sleep, so eventually I got up and got to cross stitch for a while before Ryan woke up.  Not a bad start to the morning, but hopefully I don't run out of steam in the middle of the day.

How about a sunny sunflower card for this Friday morning?

The sunflower and leaves are from Painted Harvest, the same stamp set I used for the sentiment on Wednesday's card.  I used sponges to ink up my stamps, except for the sentiment and the second layer of the sunflower petals; those were done inking up the stamp as usual with the ink pad.  Using the sponge gives a bit of a softer effect on the stamped images, and it's helpful if you've got a super juicy ink pad--use the sponge to ink up the stamp to keep from over-inking it.

So meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Lots of different images I could have used for the circular element; I used Painted Harvest because a.) it's new and b.) it was still on my stamping table :)  What, I'm lazy.  It's *finally* cooling down just a tad here; hubs and I have been taking the baby and the doglets for walks in the morning (since hubs is still on convalescent leave for his back surgery, and he's supposed to walk as much as he can) and it's actually quite pleasant outside at 8 in the morning now, instead of feeling like a nasty giant sauna of ickiness.  (I hate summer in the south.)  So anyway, expect more fall cards from me for the foreseeable future!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Sunshine Sayings
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Lemon Lime Twist, Garden Green, Early Espresso
Paper:  Garden Green, Early Espresso, Soft Sky, Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Painted Autumn Quilt

Happy Wednesday, y'all!  This teething thing must be hard work, because it's after 8 a.m. here right now and the little one juuuust now started wiggling in his crib.  Tell ya what though, I prefer an 8 a.m. wake-up call to starting the day at 5:00!

But at any rate I'd better type fast so I can go grab the baby :)

New TOOOOOYYYYYSSSS!  Say hello to the Quilt Builder Framelits.  And the Painted Autumn patterned paper.  And the Painted Harvest stamp set.

And while we're at it, say hello to the Fab Friday color challenge:

I admit, this card took me a reeeeealllly long time to make...I actually cut enough quilt pieces to make, like, five quilts.  And once I decided on the Peekaboo Peach DSP for the star part of the quilt, I wanted Lemon Lime Twist on the outsides but cardstock was too strong so I ended up doing a light watercolor wash on watercolor paper and that gave me the light LLT I needed.  Then I tried to put it all on a Peekaboo Peach card base but it was So. Much. Peach! so I added in the vanilla layer and yay finally we're done.

And the little one says yay finally he's done sleeping (for now) and he's hungry, so off I go to make up a bottle.  Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Tranquil Tide, Very Vanilla, Painted Harvest DSP
Accessories:  Quilt Builder Framelits, Tranquil Tide ribbon

You're the Best

Happy Tuesday, y'all.  We have a teething baby in the house and he's grumpy a lot so now his parents are getting a little grumpy too.  Bleargh.  At least baby naps a lot...

I made a MAN card for today!  I had book club last night, and since the hubs can't pick up the baby due to his back surgery, I asked Bennet to come over here and babysit the hubs.  And I made him this card and inside it says IOU one pumpkin coffee cake.  (YUM.)

I wanted to make a card for the Global Design Project theme challenge, but I stared at my stamps blankly for a few minutes before I decided exactly who I was making the card for and then it all came together pretty quick.

For the Cupcake Inspirations color challenge, I used Tangerine Tango and Bermuda Bay with a healthy dose of black and white.

Add in the sketch from Just Add Ink and voila!  Card done.  Got to bust out some new stamps too; I got the hostess set You're Delightful and the holiday catalog set Pick a Pumpkin on my last SU! order and this is the maiden voyage for both.  I watercolored "You're the Best" with Bermuda Bay ink and intentionally made it darker in some areas and lighter in others, just to add a bit of interest so the giant sentiment.

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  I think this might be one of those days where I just wanna take a nap...but I also have some books to read...and other stuff to do :p  So probably no nap for me but that's okay.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  You're Delightful, Pick a Pumpkin, Work of Art
Ink:  Basic Black, Bermuda Bay, Tangerine Tango
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Bermuda Bay, Whole Lot of Lovely DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, Dimensionals