Gone Batty

Okay you're going to laugh but the day before the hurricane hit I was quite happy to discover that my Stampin' Up! order arrived (plus some hand-dyed cross stitch fabric) so I have a few new goodies to play with.  And I'm in LOOOOOOOOVE with the Spooky Sweets stamp set and bat punch!

Aaaaaaaahhhhh I love those bats.  And the fonts on the sentiment.  And that texture stamp I used on the Mango Melody strip.  And I always love a matching punch!

Check out the colors at the Inkspire Me Challenge:

I haven't played too much with Mango Melody since it debuted, so I was happy to pair it with my new Halloween stamps.  I added some Smoky Slate to the color palette but in general you can add neutrals to color challenges :)

In addition to the colors, I used the sketch from Fusion:

I love that inspiration picture, but my new bat buddies won out over doing a Lemon Zest card this time.

Stay cool, kids.  See you here tomorrow...same bat time, same bat channel!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Spooky Sweets
Ink:  Mango Melody, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Mango Melody, Smoky Slate, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Spooky Bats punch, Layering Circles Framelits, Dimensionals

A Suite Combination

Hey kids!  We're still waiting for the flood waters to go back down here.  It's not a problem at my house, but there is a river here so a bunch of other places are having trouble.  I'm ready for everything to go back to normal!  Plus I need to go back to the gym because #hurricanebaking, haha.

In addition to baking (and eating), I made this card while the hurricane was here doing its thing on Thursday (hubs and I switched off every hour who was keeping the kid entertained, which was awesome for both of us).

I used a combination of two suites here, the Tropical Escape suite and the Eclectic suite (well, it was a suite in the last catalog--now it's just a coordinating stamp set and Thinlits).  First up I used the colors from the Fab Friday color challenge:

Can a color palette be jewel tone and pastel at the same time?  Because I feel like this one is.  I managed to work in all five colors and I *think* they all look like they're supposed to be there.  Whee!

I paired all those colors with the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

That grill-looking element on the bottom reminded me of the die in the Eclectic Thinlits.  I'd never used it before so I was happy to take this opportunity to bust it out.  I just adhered some DSP on the inside of the card; it doesn't bother me to see the other side of the pattern on the inside of the card, but you could cover it up with more white cardstock if it bothered you.

Wish me luck keeping Ryan entertained again today.  We went to Joann's yesterday and he had to touch All The Things but at least he wasn't pitching a major hissy fit like some other kid in the store was.  He's even pretty good about putting things back where he found them when I tell him to.  As long as he's behaving and not damaging things, I'm okay with chasing him around stores to let out some energy.  Because stores are more fun than the same old boring house you see all the time, right?

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tropical Chic, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Tranquil Tide, Balmy Blue, Powder Pink
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Tropical Thinlits, Dimensionals

Typhooooon!

Well, we made it through the hurricane, but it's not over yet:  schools are closed today and tomorrow, and there's no childcare at the Y either so I need to figure out a way to entertain Ryan by myself so he doesn't drive me crazy.

In the meantime, I dug out this layout from our one and only typhoon in Japan:

It happened less than a month before we left Okinawa in 2010, and it was a little one, just enough to get out of work for a day and it just rained a lot.  There was some damage on the north end of the island but where we were it wasn't scary at all.

As for right now, the pond in our backyard is covering the bottom two steps of our dock and the yard is super-saturated with water, but we're in no danger of flooding.  It stopped raining yesterday afternoon though we're still socked in with clouds.  It could be much, much worse--I have friends in Charlotte who had to evacuate their house because it flooded; they're likely to lose most of their stuff.  Wish I could do something to help them out.

Stay dry, friends.

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  None
Ink:  Brilliant Blue
Paper:  Tangerine Tango, Groovy Guava I think?, Whisper White, Brilliant Blue DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

China: City Walls Bike Ride, Part 2

Well, we got through Hurricane Florence just fine.  We had one tree come down, but it wasn't very large and it's been dead for a while.  It's still raining now, but our house is in no danger of flooding.  Our biggest challenge has been keeping the kiddo entertained :p

Anyway, on to China Sunday!  I've got more pages from the 8-mile bike ride we did in Xi'an.

I love that picture on the big green mat on the right page, with Bennet and Lee posing like the terra cotta warrior statues.  Hee!

Definitely a hazy day in Xi'an.

The color palette is the same as last week:  Groovy Guava, Ruby Red, Certainly Celery, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  I like it.  The new Grapefruit Grove kinda reminds me of Groovy Guava.

I'm off to help the hubs entertain Ryan.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Circle Circus
Ink:  Night of Navy, Certainly Celery
Paper:  Groovy Guava, Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Ginger Blossom DSP
Accessories:  circle punches

Country Blessings

Happy Friday, y'all!  Hope things are going okay for you.

Today is a maiden voyage for the stamp set Country Home that's in the Holiday Catalog.  Take a looksie!

Just three simple strips of cardstock on the left, and a stamped image and sentiment on the right.  I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink so I could watercolor without the ink running.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I went with Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Crumb Cake, and Old Olive for my colors.  There's an old pack of DSP called Summer Picnic with these colors (well, minus Crumb Cake I think) but I think they're definitely fall colors when they're all together.  Bring on the fall stuff!!!!  I'm ready for pumpkin spice EVERYTHING, although I was a bit surprised to see pumpkin spice dog treats at Petsmart this week.  Like dogs care about pumpkin spice season.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Country Home
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Balmy Blue
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red
Accessories:  chalk marker

Anniversary Bouquet

Hey kids!  Well, we're hunkered down in our house and waiting for Florence to arrive, though as of yesterday afternoon it looks like she's going to visit South Carolina more than us.  Which is fine by me!  (Though I do feel sorry for South Carolina.)  But I did make a couple of cards yesterday during Ryan's nap time.

The colors in the photo are wonky, sorry about that, it was late afternoon when I took the photo and in this house morning is a better photo time (but that usually doesn't work with Ryan's schedule).  The flower colors are Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, and a little bitty bit of Poppy Parade.  Anyway, I like how this card turned out but I would NOT want to try to mass-produce it.  It was a LOT of cutting on the Big Shot, and then a lot of fiddly gluing.  The larger flowers have rhinestone centers, and each of the three smaller flowers has a teeny Calypso Coral sequin in the center.

Let's check out some challenges!  First up is the Inkspire Me challenge:

I wish I'd made my panels a bit smaller to match the sketch a bit better, but I didn't think about it until I had half the card glued together.  The bouquet on my card is taking the place of the bow on the sketch.

Next up is the Just Add Ink challenge:

This one has already closed out, unfortunately.  Curses Australia time!!

And finally the SUO Challenge this week is to make a card for a celebration, and I think an anniversary fits that description.

Stay safe, friends.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce, Whisper White
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Shaded Spruce, Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  Bouquet Bunch Framelits, Dimensionals, rhinestones, Iridescent Sequins

An Apple for Teacher

Well kids, we've done all the prep so now we're hunkering down and waiting for Florence to show up to the party.  I hope that it won't be too bad.

In the meantime, I sneaked into my craft room during yesterday's nap time to make this card.

I'm entering this at both Global Design Project and Retro Rubber since their challenges are the same.  I'm amused at posting this today because the local school district cancelled school for the rest of the week here.

Perfectly Preserved is now six years old, so definitely counts as retro.  I chose the apples, the green chalkboard, and the wood desktop for my inspiration but the colors came from elsewhere which I'll get to in a minute.

First check out the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

I like that sketch, it's cool!  And finally, here's the color challenge from the Paper Players:

Calypso Coral is my extra color.  Somehow I ended up with Blackberry Bliss only on the sentiment.  I tried two different color wash backgrounds for the card base and neither attempt worked AT ALL so I dug up a pattern from one of my favorite ever packs of DSP, Best Year Ever.

Cheers, y'all.  Hope I'll be back with more cards here...I just don't want the power to go out!!!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Perfectly Preserved (retired), Tree Rings
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss, Mint Macaron, Calypso Coral, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Mint Macaron, Crumb Cake, Best Year Ever DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

A Brighter World

Mornin' y'all!  I'm excited about today's card so I'm just gonna dive right in here.

This is for three great challenges but first up what is WITH all the baby cards I'm making lately?  I don't even know any pregos at the moment! (And in answer to your next question, NO I'm definitely not pregnant!)  Well, at least I'll have a selection of baby cards on hand whenever the next wave hits.

On to the challenges!  First up (alphabetically speaking) is the Cupcake Inspiration Challenge:

I had to give the Northern Lights background another whirl after I made this card.

Next up is the Fab Friday sketch:

This is a fabulous sketch, lots of scope for imagination as Anne Shirley would say.

Finally I have the Sunday Stamps color challenge:

What pretty colors!  I wanted to add one of the red/pink colors but I just couldn't wrap my brain around that once I had the background piece made, so I stuck with the bottom three colors:  Mint Macaron, Tranquil Tide, and Night of Navy.  Plus some sparkly glimmer paper because why not.

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Little Twinkle
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Night of Navy, Tranquil Tide, Versamark
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Thick Whisper White, glimmer paper
Accessories:  Clear EP, Twinkle Builder Punch, Tailored Tag Punch, Dimensionals

Home Base

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I'm still trucking away at older photos.  Well, going back and forth between baby Ryan 2017 pictures and baby Sadie 2006 pictures, but every once in a while I throw something else into the mix and here's my layout for the house we lived at the first time we were in North Carolina!

The title is me being punny because we lived in a house on base (the hubs rolled his eyes at me, he just doesn't appreciate puns).  These pictures are from way back when we used cameras that had FILM!  And we've moved around a lot in the last almost 15 years, so I've saved at least one address label from each place we've lived and I think I've got pictures of moving in to most of the houses.  Those pics get more interesting as time goes on because it's harder to remember what each house looked like.  The one in these pictures got torn down right after we moved out so at least no one else was subjected to those ugly yellow cabinets after us.

And all of the colors on this layout are now retired except for white.  Say hi to Blue Bayou (I've been reaching for this several times lately), Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, and Chocolate Chip.  And Whisper White, which I think it's safe to say will never retire because he's a workaholic.

Hope your week is off to a good start, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Headline Alphabet, Good Neighbors
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi
Paper:  Blue Bayou, Wild Wasabi, Thick Whisper White, Soft Sky DSP
Accessories:  Circles Collection Framelits

City Walls Bike Ride, Part 1

China Sunday again already!  Finally got the mouse recharged and the hubs is supervising bath time for the kiddo so I can write this :)

Our first activity in Xi'an was an eight-mile ride around the city walls on a bicycle built for two (pictures here).  Like LA, Xi'an is set in a bit of a hollow so air pollution tends to be an issue there; you can see all the haze some of the pictures.  Also if you look closely, you'll see that my seat on the bicycle was set way too low (I didn't realize how low at the time) so the day after we did this my knees were absolutely not happy with me.

Today's color palette includes Groovy Guava, which was a long-ago In Color, Ruby Red, Certainly Celery, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  We took a lot of pictures during the bike ride so I'll share more scrapbook pages from this next week.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rough Type, Circle Circus
Ink:  Night of Navy, Certainly Celery
Paper:  Groovy Guava, Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Ginger Blossom DSP
Accessories:  circle punches

So Ready for Fall

Okay y'all, it still feels like a swamp where I live, but I'm keeping hope alive that temperatures will drop to something comfortable and I won't mind the 9000% humidity as much when it's not also 95 degrees.  I'm so ready for fall, y'all.

The good news is that my craft room is actually pretty chilly a lot of the time, so at least it feels like fall when I'm in there :)  So I made a fall card to share today.

I need to bust out Rooted in Nature more often.  I made this right before the hubs and I took the kiddo out to get dinner last night so I kept it pretty quick and simple, which I was able to do thanks to the Fall-To Layout I used:

It took me no time at all to choose colors for my card; I love the way Grapefruit Grove (the patterned paper strip) plays with Cajun Craze, and Mint Macaron plays well with almost everybody.  I was glad of a reason to use that big cross section stamp even if I did cover up over half of it with my leaves ;)  Actually I had to stamp the cross section and the leaves twice; some of my ink pads are still overly saturated so my first try looked like this:

You can't see nearly as much detail on these pieces, particularly the cross section and the Cajun Craze leaf.  For the cross section, what worked better for me was to ink up the stamp as usual and then use a sponge to take off a bit of the excess ink.  The Cajun Craze ink pad was SO juicy that I used a sponge to ink up the stamp rather than pressing the stamp into the ink pad at all.  I did the Mint Macaron leaf the same way I did the cross section, ink up then sponge off.  I love my sponges, but SU! changed theirs a few years ago to where they have sharp edges rather than tapering and I don't like them nearly as much.  I need to check out a craft store and see if they have any of the type of sponges that I like.

Anyway, y'all have a great weekend.  I just had to make a card for today since I missed posting on Thursday...I hope Ryan isn't trying to stop naptime altogether.  I am NOT ready for that!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rooted in Nature
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Cajun Craze, Mint Macaron, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White, Nature's Poem DSP
Accessories:  Nature's Roots Framelits, Dimensionals

Primary Colors

Happy Friday, y'all!  Man, Ryan must have it in for his mama--on Wednesday he screamed for an hour when I put him down for his nap.  Finally fell asleep an then 45 minutes later a noisy motorcycle woke him up and he started screaming again.  That's why no card yesterday.  Then yesterday he didn't want to sleep but mostly he just bounced around in his crib and sang to himself, so I just left him in there for some quiet time and finally got a card made!

Yup, those are some primary colors right there.  I'll get to that in a minute.  First up is this week's What Will You Stamp? challenge:

Turns out that Oh So Eclectic was the only stamp set I needed to make this card!  All the images, the background bit, and the sentiment are from this one stamp set.  Handy.

Next up is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I don't care much for making square cards, so I modified the sketch to a standard A2 size.

Finally, check out the Color Throwdown:

I used Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, and Pacific Point.  Today's blog post is brought to you by the letter P.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, Pacific Point
Paper:  Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella because it's never not a good idea for a bit of sparkle

Country Lane Daisies

Hey y'all!  Happy Wednesday!  Are you thrown off this week after having a Monday holiday?  My hubs was off for four days in a row so it's like we had two weekends here.  Not that I'm complaining.

I'm so ready for some fall weather here, yo.  It was in the 90s and 8 billion percent humidity yesterday.  My husband loves the summertime and I'm just like UGH it's trying to kill me.  Fall is obviously the best season.

The inspiration for today's card was courtesy of the photo at Fusion:

Which I paired with the Global Design Project sketch:

I made my main image panel a bit too wide, so I had to slightly edit the rest of the sketch to accommodate because I didn't want to start over :D. I wish I had some buttons or something to put on that little tabby bit on the upper left of the main image panel...I needed some Espresso up there so I ended up using a retired Candy Dot (I miss those!!) because it just HAD to have some Early Espresso up near the top or it looked unbalanced.

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Tropical Chic
Ink:  Whisper White, Granny Apple Green, Crushed Curry, Early Espresso
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Crushed Curry, Country Lane DSP
Accessories:  retired Candy Dot, white EP, Dimensionals, linen thread

The Greatest Octopus

Hey kids!  Are you having trouble getting up and moving after the long weekend?  I only missed working out yesterday but I feel like I missed more than that.  Probably has something to do with the iced pumpkin coffee cake I made for breakfast on Sunday.  Ha!

It's been a little while since I made a card with this octopus and I am still totally stuck on what to name him/her.  Any suggestions?  I mean, as this card says, this is the GREATEST octopus.

Say hello to the Inkspire Me color challenge:

I think this is the first time I've seen Gorgeous Grape crop up on a color challenge and I am HERE for it!  Actually all three of these colors are new as of this summer's color revamp.  Balmy Blue and I are very good friends, and I used Soft Sea Foam on a recent scrapbook layout.

Here's the latest sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

Pretty cool, huh.

Okay, I'm gonna go feed everyone breakfast and then Ryan and I are gym-bound.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sea of Textures, Magical Mermaid, Tropical Chic
Ink:  Soft Sea Foam, Balmy Blue, Gorgeous Grape
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Balmy Blue, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Under the Sea Framelits, Dimensionals

Holyhead

Mornin', y'all.  I'm extra sleepy this morning and the dogs are uncooperative and Ryan just flipped his lid because he spilled Vader's food all over the floor and my hubs put Ryan in his playard to clean up dog food and Ryan thought that was Not Acceptable.  So ya know, it's a Monday morning here.  But I still have a layout to share!

This layout is from our road trip through Wales; see the original pictures here.  I really like how this layout turned out, though I did have to completely redo the yellow strip on the right where the title is.  I'd started out with a different flower on it and I just didn't like it, so I did it over.

Today's color palette includes lots of retired colors:  Elegant Eggplant (it's purple, even if it looks black on the computer screen), Regal Rose, Rose Red, So Saffron (not retired), Lucky Limeade, and Whisper White (also not retired, because why would we retire WHITE).  Anyway, my colors were inspired by the pretty flowers in front of the church and I love them.

I'm going to go find myself something for breakfast and hopefully start waking up a bit more.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Jayne's Type Alphabet, Painted Petals
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant, Rose Red, Lucky Limeade, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Elegant Eggplant, Rose Red, Lucky Limeade, Sweet & Sour Specialty DSP, Lovely Flowers DSP
Accessories:  None

China: Sofitel

Mornin', y'all!  Once again, it's China Sunday and today we start the scrapbook pages from Xi'an.

Once again, these pictures of our hotel rooms are courtesy of Missy.  This was a five star PLUS hotel and definitely the nicest one I've ever stayed in, though Bennet and Missy had a room with a wall of mirrors that was next door to a maintenance room or something so that was kind of creepy (somebody's watching meeeee!).  We also had some laundry done while we were here, and the clean laundry was delivered in a very fancy basket and wrapped up all pretty.

I busted out a real old favorite here--Baroque Motifs!  Man I loved that stamp set.

Today's color palette includes Fresh Fig, Baja Breeze, Baked Brown Sugar, and Very Vanilla.  Three of those colors sound like part of a dessert recipe and the fourth sounds like it could be some kind of mixed drink, don't you think?

Well, since it is now officially September, I'm going to go make a pumpkin spice coffee cake for breakfast.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Baroque Motifs
Ink:  Fresh Fig, Baja Breeze, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Fresh Fig, Baked Brown Sugar, Very Vanilla, Baja Breeze DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template