Moon Baby Pair

Mornin' y'all!  How's it going?  Still no word yet on our Mac...they'd better hurry up and fix it, we leave in less than two weeks!

I made a pair of super-fast cards to share today.  Pretty soon I'll have to start packing up my ink pads and prepping stuff for the move :p  Anyway, the color on here is still a bit wonky but you get the idea.  My "other sister" (she and her husband are my brother's and sister-in-law's best friends, they're pretty much part of our extended family) is finding out the sex of her baby on February 1 and now I'm prepared!  These came together super fast thanks to the Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping:

My image was a little smaller than shown in the sketch, so I just made it a panel on the front of my card.  These also fit in this week's theme challenge at Global Design Project:

I suppose I could have shared the China layout I'm almost finished with, it's from the very beginning of our trip.  Well, I suppose I could still do that tomorrow or Friday!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Moon Baby
Ink:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Powder Pink, Berry Burst
Paper:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Powder Pink, Berry Burst, Whisper White
Accessories:  Iridescent Sequins

Real Wizards Wear Pink

Mornin', y'all!  This is our last full week in this house before we move; I'll probably post some scrapbook layouts once we're all packed up but obviously I won't be making any new cards for a while.  So of course this week I had to use the last big character stamp from Magical Day.

You know our shiny new iMac that we got less than a month ago?  It's broken.  This time it's not Ryan's fault either, it was doing this thing where it would randomly restart itself every night around 3 a.m.  Then it began doing it more often, like 2-3 times a day.  When the hubs tried to shut it down to take it in to the Apple store, it was caught in a loop of shutting itself down and restarting--I think he finally had to unplug it.  They've had it since last Thursday and still can't figure out what's wrong with it.  All that to say, I'm blogging from the hubs' laptop, and I haven't figured out the photo editing program here and so the colors look a bit off in that picture but what can you do. 

So, the wizard! I colored him in with watercolor pencils and his robes shade a bit from Melon Mambo to Rich Razzleberry but it doesn't show up as well as I'd like.  I stamped his little magic sparkles with Rich Razzleberry and then gave 'em a swipe with Wink of Stella to make them look more...magical.

Let's take a look at the Paper Players sketch:

I switched out the circle for the pink-loving wizard.  He's in pink because of the Sunday Stamps color challenge:

That looked just like the color palette in the Painted with Love DSP, so that's what I used for my background layer.  (Ironically I chose one of the patterns that's just one color and no gold!)  I used Powder Pink, Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry, and Shimmery White for my colors.

Well, I guess it's about time for Ryan and me to head to the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day
Ink:  Basic Black, Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry, Powder Pink, Shimmery White, Painted with Love DSP
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, mini Dimensionals, Metallic Sequins, Wink of Stella pen

Sapporo, Part 4: Ice Festival

Scrappy Monday!  I'm back with more Sapporo pages and today it's the ice festival!

See the pics here.  I think the colors look a wee bit off in the photo, that page base is Rich Razzleberry.  Snowflakes for this layout are courtesy of the patterned paper and then one stamped snowflake in the right page.

Ignore the bit of stray glue on the E and revel in my awesome two-tone letters!  Once again, I used sponge daubers to ink them up, with Pear Pizzazz on top and Tempting Turquoise on the bottom.  Kind of in love with how this turned out.

I think I already mentioned what today's colors are:  Rich Razzleberry, Pear Pizzazz, Tempting Turquoise, and Whisper White.  Again, the Razzleberry just doesn't look right in that photo, but it does look good with the other colors in real life.  Trust me ;)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tall Tales Alphabet, Mixed Medley
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Tempting Turquoise, Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White, All Is Calm DSP
Accessories: scalloped circle punch

You're Delightful

Hey, Saturday post!  I'm going to type this fast as Ryan seems very angry this morning and hubs hasn't been able to make him happy.  Love to start the day with a cranky baby :p

So let's go for a delightful card!

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I liked how Jennifer Timko had watercolored her banner, so I decided to try doing the same.  I paired the sketch with the color challenge from Cupcake Inspirations:

I used watercolor paper and Very Vanilla for the cream color, then Berry Burst and Basic Black for the other two colors.  I cut a piece of Color Theory DSP to fit the entire card front for a nice little ombre look behind the main image panel.  The flower centers are the black rhinestones from the holiday catalog, which I know are retired but I happened to find them when I was digging in a drawer and hadn't used any of them yet, so now was the time.

Okay, let's go entertain the baby.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  You're Delightful, Colorful Seasons
Ink:  Berry Burst, Basic Black, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Very Vanilla, watercolor paper, Color Theory DSP
Accessories:  Seasonal Layers Framelits, black rhinestones, mini Dimensionals

Fusion Coffee

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ryan and I are skipping the gym today because Sadie (our girl pup) wasn't feeling good this morning so I want to keep an eye on her.  And then I got on my cross stitch Facebook group and went down the rabbit hole of terrifically adorable patterns and wow, I need to learn how to not ever sleep so I can make all the things I want to make.  Not just stitching, but also stamping...I'm still working on the last bit of China pages and I've got ideas for everything that's left, it just takes me a while to get them all out of my brain and on paper!

But here's an idea I got on paper this week.

I know Hug in a Mug is retired now but I love it and I can't help using it when I see things like the Fusion challenge:

I did the sketch and I did a coffee mug, though I didn't use colors from the inspiration photo.  And it just now occurred to me, I used Pool Party as my blue but I think the patterned paper (also retired from the holiday catalog) actually has Soft Sky in it?  Oops.  But rejoice with me, friends--I painted the coffee mug with Wink of Stella and it actually SHOWS UP in the picture!  It's a papercrafting miracle!!

Peace, love, and happiness, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hug in a Mug, Beautiful Peacock
Ink:  Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Pool Party, Garden Green, Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Brave Sir Ryan

So yeah, I've named the knight from Magical Day after my kiddo.  Because why not!

The knight is stamped on Shimmery White cardstock, and the camera kinda caught the shimmer so the knight doesn't look quite as good as he does in person.  Trust me, he's super cute.  In the interests of speed, I colored him in with markers instead of doing watercolor pencils or just watercoloring.  Even with regular markers as opposed to alcohol markers like Stampin' Blends, he still turned out pretty adorable.  I found the greeting stamp in the hostess set You're Delightful, which seemed like a great sentiment to pair with brave Sir Ryan.

I used this week's sketch from Global Design Project:

And I paired that with this week's color combo at Color Throwdown:

Yesterday was my birfday!  Hubs and babe took me out to dinner last night and then baby ended up going to bed almost an hour late so he's still asleep right now.  Still, it's time to get my own brave Sir Ryan up and fed so we can go to the gym.  Yoga day!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day, You're Delightful
Ink:  Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, Peekaboo Peach, Pool Party
Paper:  Pool Party, Smoky Slate, Tangerine Tango, Shimmery White, Myths & Magic DSP, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, Lots of Labels Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Always Always Always

Mornin', y'all!  How's your Tuesday going?

Mine is pink.

Powder pink, with a side of Melon Mambo and some Rich Razzleberry just for funzies.  What do you think of my Valentine?  I stamped the "Always" three times and it's supposed to get lighter toward the right, not sure if that really came out how I was intending but oh well.

I used this sketch from Clean & Simple Stamping:

And paired it with the theme challenge from the Paper Players:

This card would have been done in under 10 minutes if I hadn't decided to inlay the heart.  It just felt a little too busy to leave the die cut heart open, so I cut another one from Powder Pink cardstock and inlaid all the fiddly little bits so it looks cleaner.  I always forget what a pain that is to do until I'm in the thick of it, but I do like how it turned out.

As usual, Ryan and I are about to go to the gym.  Wish me luck on the treadmill.

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sunshine Sayings
Ink:  Melon Mambo
Paper:  Powder Pink, Rich Razzleberry, Painted with Love DSP, gold foil
Accessories:  Sunshine Wishes Framelits

Sapporo, Part 3: Dinnertime

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I had a scrappy weekend too.  Well, I got one layout all done except for the journaling, but I went ahead and got albums out and put my China pages in them even though I've got about a dozen more pages to do before I'm all done with them.  Since I use cardstock for all my page bases, and that's thicker than patterned paper, once I had all the pages in the sheet protectors both books look almost like capital Ls.  I ordered some post extenders so hopefully I'll be able to fix the albums so they lay flat.  At any rate, I am very excited to be so close to finished with that project.  Probably won't be done before we move, but I'll get it done before the 8th anniversary of our China trip ;)

But on to today's pages!  We're back in Sapporo.

See the pics here.  The top three pics are all from when our tour group went to dinner at a place where you cook your own dinner on the table (the candle was in a snowy area outside the restaurant, I just thought that picture looked cool).  The two pics on the bottom were from different days of our trip, but we were eating food in both of them so I thought they fit.  And that one picture on the right, well, it just cracks me up.

Today's color palette is sorta red, white, and blue :)  Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink, Riding Hood Red, and Whisper White.  And of course snowflakes and the Tall Tales Alphabet to make all the Sapporo pages feel like they go together without doing just one color combo for the whole trip.  Much more fun to match the colors to the photos for each layout.

Soon as kiddo and I finish breakfast, we're heading off to the gym.  Might as well get some workouts in before all the moving chaos really sets in!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tall Tales Alphabet, Festive Flurry
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Pretty in Pink, Riding Hood Red
Paper:  Brilliant Blue, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP, Pretty in Pink DSP
Accessories:  Festive Flurry Framelits

Snowman Friend

Happy Friday, y'all!  And also surprise!  I did NOT use Magical Day for my card today.

Instead here's a happy little snowman!  I really need to do better about taking pictures in the afternoon rather than in the morning, the lighting isn't great on this.  Those sequins are silver, by the way.  The colors on the snowman came out more muted than I really intended, so I finally retired (read: tossed) my blender pen that I've had since I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator over ten years ago.  Yeah, I think it was time for it to retire.

Anywha, for today's card I started with the Color Throwdown challenge:

I used Baja Breeze (sadly retired) and Crumb Cake for my colors.  Couldn't resist busting Baja Breeze out when I saw this picture, and I love that snowflake paper (happily, I have a LOT of it too!) that has made more than one appearance on scrapbook pages over the years.  This color combination seemed like a natural fit with the Cupcake Inspirations theme challenge:

Winter!  Most of our snow melted yesterday but it's still cold outside.

Finally I used this week's Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping:

I even dusted off my Top Note die for my card.  The stamps are all current, even if the patterned paper and die aren't.  And the friend I want to send this to won't care if it's all current stuff anyway :p

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Seasonal Chums, Orange Blossom
Ink:  Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze, Emerald Envy, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Gray
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
Accessories:  Top Note Die, Seasonal Tags Framelits, Metallic Sequins, Dimensionals

Splashy Mermaid

Okay so can you tell that I'm in love with the new Magical Day stamp set and matching dies?  Three days in a row!  But come on, how could I resist a stamp set that includes a dragon, a unicorn, a mermaid, and more?

Oh yeah, mermaid!

There are actually THREE SU! stamp sets now with a mermaid in them, and I managed to use all three on this card.  The main image mermaid is from Magical Day, the sentiment is from Message in a Bottle, and the little background stamp (click to embiggen the picture) is from Magical Mermaid.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

The Lemon Lime Twist patterned paper is one of the Sale-a-Bration options, it's called Bubbles & Fizz.  I don't intend to get the Occasions stamp set that matches it, but man I'm in lurve with that patterned paper!  There's a Bermuda Bay pattern with stars and I am hoarding that already.  Love it.

Well, kid and I have to skedaddle if I'm going to get to yoga on time.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day, Magical Mermaid, Message in a Bottle
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Lemon Lime Twist, Calypso Coral, Basic Black
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Shimmery White, Bubbles & Fizz DSP
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, Iridescent Sequins, Mini Dimensionals, watercolor pencils

Magical Dragon Birthday

After yesterday's card, you would think I'd swear off Peekaboo Peach for a while, but...

Well, I'm surprised too.  But I think maybe it works better on this card?  I wish the glitter on the Myths & Magic DSP hadn't reflected so you could see the colors on it; the top wizard is wearing Tangerine Tango and the dude who looks like he's going on a quest (center) is wearing black.  The wizard on the bottom is in Dapper Denim, and I ended up making my dragon the same color with some Pool Party accents and then his back ridges are Old Olive like the quest guy's under-cloak.  Anyway, back to the peach part--I started out with it in Tangerine Tango, but it just felt like Too Much Orange, so I did the peach instead, then stamped the flames with Tangerine Tango for a fiery background I thought was appropriate for a dragon.  I know a certain dragon-loving girl who will get this for her birthday this summer (provided I remember this card when the time comes).

I used the awesome sketch from Sunday Stamps:

And that's all she wrote today.  Now I need to decide whether or not we're going to the gym...there's some snow outside.  Not a lot, but still, it's snow.  Y'all have a magical day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day, Magical Mermaid
Ink:  Basic Black, Dapper Denim, Pool Party, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Basic Black, Pool Party, Shimmery White, Myths & Magic DSP
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Magical Macaroni Pony

Hey, y'all.  I'm tired this morning.  Hubs is sick, so I slept in the guest room last night, which I don't mind except one of our dogs was apparently Not Cool with the change in location and she kept making noise all night and waking me up.  I finally booted her out of the room at 4:30 this morning.  Urrrgh.

So.  Have you ever seen a color challenge that made you say WHAT THE WHAT and then you look at the design team's cards and you're like OH IT REALLY DOES WORK and then you try it on your own and you're like WELL MAYBE NOT.

Meet the Global Design Project color challenge.

So after looking at the design team's cards (hit that link above), I thought okay I can do this, and I've got a cool new stamp set to use for it too.  Can't go wrong with a unicorn, right?

I thought my card was just fine until I took the picture of it and all of a sudden in the view finder of the camera my little pony looked like the same color as macaroni and cheese.  (I took the photo after dark, so I know that doesn't help either what with lack of natural light but...yeah natural light wouldn't help THAT much.)  Now I can't look at this card without singing in my head "And they called her Macaroni!"  Macaroni Pony.  Maybe I would have liked it better if I'd switched the colors around on the unicorn, so a Bermuda Bay body and Peekaboo Peach hair.  Though if you want to get technical, I used the Pumpkin Pie watercolor pencil, which is a good stunt double for Peekaboo Peach.  And macaroni and cheese.

Well, you can't win 'em all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day
Ink:  Basic Black, Bermuda Bay, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Bermuda Bay, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, Umbrella Weather Framelits, Up & Away Thinlits, Mini Dimensionals

Sapporo, Part 2: Ishiya Chocolate Factory

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Time for more Sapporo pages, and today's layouts might be my very FAVORITEST part of our trip there...Missy and I toured a chocolate factory.

See the photos here and here.  It's a chocolate factory but most of our pictures were of other random stuff we saw there.  Like the cats adorning the railing outside the building, or those gigundor shoes Missy's standing on.

Two-tone title letters!  I used sponge daubers to ink up Crumb Cake on the top of the stamp, and Chocolate Chip on the bottom, then stamped to get this look.  Just wait, you'll see it again on another Sapporo layout.

I knew that Eat Chocolate SU! stamp set from years ago would come in handy.  #chocoholic

After our tour, we went out in the courtyard at the chocolate factory and they had a little hill that you could go tubing down (and it was free).  So we did that and had some fun playing in the snow.  And see the pictures of the crazy people with skis?  That's what the hubs was doing while Missy and I were enjoying the chocolate factory.  Somehow we all thought we came out with the better end of the bargain, so that was a win.

Isn't that bird on a snowball cute?  The die cut shape was too tall for what I wanted, so I cut it out with one decorative end where I wanted it, then moved the cardstock down and sent it through the Big Shot again to cut it down to size.

For the snowman, the die was a little too short, so I cut the paper to the exact width of the die, stamped my snowman, and then very carefully sent it through just enough to cut the top part with the die, pulled it back out, then moved the die to the bottom and rolled it just enough to cut the bottom bit.  I hope those instructions make sense if you want to change the height of your dies like this (obviously works only when the edges are straight).

Kind of in love with today's color combo:  Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, and Whisper White.  You'll see as we go along with the Sapporo pages, I used the same alphabet stamps for the titles and every page has snowflakes on it somewhere.  I didn't use all the same colors on every layout, but they all have those two things in common.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tall Tales Alphabet, Calendar Alphabet & Numbers, Eat Chocolate, Snow Much Fun
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Versamark, various for watercoloring
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Decorative Label Punch, Clear EP

Peacock Pair

New TOYYYYYZZZZZ!!!! I got my Sale-a-Bration/Occasions catty order late Wednesday afternoon and the stamp set I couldn't wait to bust out first was the SAB set Beautiful Peacock.  I even made two cards with it!

Click to embiggen!  I used Shimmery White cardstock for these so they're SO pretty IRL (it's super overcast right now, can't take a better picture).  So check out this week's Color Throwdown:

Here's why I made two cards.  The write-up for this challenge called the colors navy, aqua, and pink, but to me they looked more like dark purple, aqua, and lighter purple.  So I made one card with Night of Navy, Pool Party and Flirty Flamingo (on the left), and the second card with Elegant Eggplant, Pool Party, and Sweet Sugarplum.  What do YOU think it looks like?

Also meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I don't like having things extend past the card front because then you either have to make the card a little smaller to get it in an envelope or else use a nonstandard envelope size (and I don't have that envelope punch board thing).  So basically I made the sketch into a panel on my card and the rectangle extends to the edge of the card front but it still looks like the sketch.

Well, it's just about time to take the babe with me to the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Peacock
Ink:  Night of Navy, Elegant Eggplant, Pool Party, Flirty Flamingo, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Shimmery White, Night of Navy, Elegant Eggplant, Pool Party
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals

Lovely Tulips

Mornin' y'all!  I've got tea steeping and a happy child playing in his playard so maybe I'll actually get a peaceful breakfast today (homemade lemon cream cheese scone for the win!).

There was some doubt yesterday afternoon but in the end I managed to finish a card to share today.

I love the hostess set Tranquil Tulips and somehow I've only ever used it once before today.  Actually this card was kinda difficult...I'd started out trying to do something completely different with a CASE the Designer challenge combined with a color challenge and it just wasn't working, so I tossed it and started over and that's how I came up with this.

So here's the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I used the same stamp set and label punch for my card, a bit of metallic accent (gold sequins on mine), and a similar layout on my card.  Looks like Krista layered a foil snowflake with ribbon, twine, and at least a couple of cardstock layers...I couldn't do that many layers without my card looking like a hot mess so I kept mine pretty simple.

And here is the color challenge from Fab Friday:

Yeah sure it's red and green but that doesn't mean it HAS to be Christmasy.  I added a bit of Chocolate Chip and of course the gold sequins.

That's it for me today, check ya later peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tranquil Tulips, Labels to Love
Ink:  Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Emerald Envy
Accessories:  Everyday Label punch, Emerald Envy ribbon (I think this one is retired, oops), Dimensionals, Metallic Sequins

Sapporo, Part 1

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Today I'm starting the layouts from our trip to Sapporo in 2010.  I made all these scrapbook pages last year but I was waiting for winter to post them (but not Christmas, because I usually have a few Christmas layouts ready to go too).  And since we've got snow on the ground this is a prime time to start sharing Sapporo.

See the pics here and here.  For this layout, I used the same sketch as I did on the Towel Creatures layout here.

I stamped my own patterned paper for this photo mat.  That's Missy and me hugging that snowman, who was probably at least 8 feet tall.

Today's color palette:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Sweet Sugarplum, and Whisper White.  It's a variation of another color combo I love to use on snow pages, using Baja Breeze and Rich Razzleberry (see that combo in action here, I love this layout).

Ryan and I usually take Monday off from the gym, and today we're getting ready to have book club here tonight.  When Ryan goes down for his nap, I'm going to bust out the food processor I got on Black Friday and make scones! :)  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tall Tales Alphabet, Snow Burst, Snow Flurries
Ink:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Thick Whisper White, Watercolor Wonder DSP
Accessories:  None

Warm Woolen Mittens

Happy Friday y'all!  Ryan and I are not going to the gym today because it's just plain too cold to go anywhere.  Even Sadie thought it was too cold outside in the snow.

So for today I bring you mittens.

Smitten Mittens technically retired earlier this week, but I got it at the beginning of December and then my unintentional hiatus happened and I never inked up the stamps.  It's a super cute stamp set with matching dies and I wish this card was just a bit...more.  I don't know, it seems a little underwhelming to me?  Ehh, not every card can be your favorite.  This photo isn't doing the card any favors either, but I can't get a better one.

I do love the color combo from Sunday Stamps:

I kinda want to give it another go because I do love that combination.  I read it as Soft Sky, Pistachio Pudding (retired), Sahara Sand, Night of Navy, and Flirty Flamingo.

I'm also entering this over at SUO Challenges, their current challenge is to make a winter-related card.  Pretty sure my mittens fit the bill :)  I think Smitten Mittens will be a great stamp set to use for future baby books.  (I'm not having any more babies, but that doesn't mean I won't make any more baby books!)

Cheers, y'all.  Stay toasty!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Smitten Mittens, Hug in a Mug
Ink:  Soft Sky, Night of Navy, Flirty Flamingo
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Soft Sky, Sahara Sand
Accessories:  Many Mittens Framelits, linen thread, Dimensionals