Baby Love!

Mornin' y'all!  I must admit, I've lately been obsessed with a new project--I'm stitching Disney Princess bookmarks for my friend Tiana and her girls so I've been concentrating on those (since...Sunday) and not wanting to do anything else.  BUT!  A friend announced her pregnancy on Facebook this weekend so I decided to make a card for her.  And just because I can (and I love these feets), I broke out some older retired stamps for this card.

The Gingham Gala paper and the ribbon are new (though sadly the ribbon pack is no longer available, it was a super-popular Sale-a-Bration option apparently) but like I said, the stamps are old.  But I don't know that there will ever be a more perfect baby card stamp than those feets, I just love 'em.  I took my color combo from the ribbon and paper:  Daffodil Delight, Lemon Lime Twist, and Grapefruit Grove.  Grapefruit Grove is kinda pinkish, but it's not a frilly girly pink to me if that makes sense, so I think this works as a gender-neutral baby card.  I hope.

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

And the theme challenge at Retro Rubber:

I admit that I'm stretching their theme just a teensy bit but I was singing "Baby Love" to myself the whole time I was making it so I hope that the kind ladies at Retro Rubber will forgive me.  I *did* use ribbon, and the card does say love on it ;). I got Baby Prints in 2012, so it's 7 years old now, and Beyond the Basics is even more retro since I've had it since 2008.  Labeler Alphabet is just one year old so it's a relative baby in my craft room.

Ryan and I are off to the gym today and maybe I'll get to try out my new BlueTooth wireless headphones that hubs gave me for my birthday.  I was supposed to test-drive them yesterday but I lost my brain and left the headphones at home when I went to the gym.  Sigh.  Today is a new day though!

Cheers, y'all!  Don't forget your headphones.

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  Baby Prints, Beyond the Basics, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Lemon Lime Twist, Grapefruit Grove
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Whisper White, Gingham Gala DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Sale-a-Bration ribbon, Dimensionals

Toilet Paper Trouble

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Ryan and I are not going to the gym today because Sadie has a vet appointment in a little bit.  With that in mind, I chose today's layout from when Sadie was a teeny pupster getting into trouble left and right.

This is the one and only time Sadie tried shredding the toilet paper in the bathroom.  I caught her doing it and I was laughing so hard I couldn't properly scold her, so instead I took these pictures.  The Sea of Textures DSP seemed appropriately watery for my pictures and other than that I kept it super simple, just a stamped title and some journaling.  And the pictures that still make me giggle when I look at them, 12 years later.

Today's color palette includes Soft Sea Foam, Tranquil Tide (even my color names today are aquatic), Fresh Fig, and Balmy Blue (though there's only a smidge of the blue in the patterned paper).  Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Well Worn Alphabet, Rough Type
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Fresh Fig, Sea of Textures DSP
Accessories:  None

China: Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

It's China Sunday, y'all!  And we're really in the home stretch now, just two more posts after today.  And this one is probably the funniest layout in my China book.

Original photos here. We were in the last full day of our trip and I think everyone was tired of doing the standard stand-and-smile-at-the-camera.  So, we got these pictures instead (I was in the hotel room when they took these since I had the crud).

There's my title, which did take a while to stamp and cut out but it was worth it because it makes me giggle.

Same color palette as last week, since these pictures were also taken at the Temple of Heaven:  Brocade Blue, Cherry Cobbler, Smoky Slate, Basic Black, and Whisper White.

Orange cream cheese scones just came out of the oven, so I'm gonna go eat breakfast.  Bye y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Be the Star
Ink:  Brocade Blue, Basic Black
Paper:  Brocade Blue, Cherry Cobbler, Basic Black, Smoky Slate, Whisper White, Be Merry DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

Snowy Day Snowflakes

Happy Friday!  I just realized that I'd started this post, but I never finished it and got it published.  Oops!  Guess I was having too much fun yesterday for my birthday :) It DID involve copious amounts of chocolate.

Anyway!

That bright white circle in the center of the big snowflake on the bottom is the reflection off a rhinestone.  It's been pretty gray and dreary for a good portion of the week so this is the best picture I could get.

When I saw this week's Freshly Made Sketch, I thought I'd try to make a one-layer card with it.

I figured a one-layer card would make this work for the Paper Players challenge too:

And I used the colors from Color Throwdown:

I used Night of Navy, Smoky Slate (lightly sponged on for the horizontal layer on the sketch) and Granny Apple Green.

I chose my snowflakes from Colorful Seasons so I could enter the What Will You Stamp? challenge:

Four challenges.  I think I'm done here ;)  Have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Colorful Seasons
Ink:  Night of Navy, Smoky Slate, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  rhinestones

Happy Birthday to MEEEEEE

Today's my BIRFDAY!  But I'm still going to the gym and all my normal routine stuff today; tonight we have a babysitter so the hubs and I are going out to dinner without the kiddo.  Wheee!

So I made a birthday card to share today because why not.

I used Hello Cupcake, one of the Sale-a-Bration offerings this year.  Cute, huh?  I also used the sketch from Fab Friday:

That's a great sketch, I could use that one over and over.  I paired it with the color challenge from Global Design Project:

While that cupcake looks pretty cute, my dessert plans this evening include a ridiculous amount of chocolate.  Which is also why I need to go to the gym today, ha!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hello Cupcake
Ink:  Petal Pink, So Saffron, Soft Sea Foam, Soft Suede
Paper:  Petal Pink, Soft Sea Foam, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, self-adhesive sequins, Dimensionals

I Love the 80s

Mornin' y'all!  I'm still not feeling well but hoping I'll be back to 100% tomorrow.  In the meantime, we've got a new challenge at SUO Challenges!  This time it's all about birthdays which is appropriate since MY birthday is on Thursday.  Since I am a child of the 80s, I decided to go with an 80s theme for my birthday card.

Black with neon colors (Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Bermuda Bay, and a banner of Mango Melody) plus a tape deck that I'm just SURE is playing the Bangles (my favorite band).  The banner is popped up in the middle with two layers of Dimensionals, I should have taken a side view so you could see.  The two stamp sets I used are Free Cake and Birthday Backgrounds, I think both of those were on sale last October for the 30th birthday celebration for Stampin' Up.

And there's the inside of my card.  My husband on occasion tries to call 80s music "oldies" and I'm like "It's not oldies, it's RETRO!"

Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past today.  Go check out the SUO Challenges blog and I hope you'll play along!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Free Cake, Birthday Backgrounds
Ink:  Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Bermuda Bay, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Bermuda Bay, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

China: Temple of Heaven

China Sunday again, peeps!  And today is a brand new layout, as promised.

See the photos up close and personal here.  At this point in the trip, I was coming down with the crud that Bennet had and then gave to my hubs, so I stayed in the hotel room and laid down for a couple hours while the other three went to visit the Temple of Heaven.  Coincidentally, I am once again coming down with the plague while I write this blog post!  Urgh.

I think I looked up information on the Temple of Heaven and stars were involved somehow, and that's why I did stars on here?  I can't remember now.  I stamped them with white craft ink on black cardstock and embossed with white EP, then cut out with the retired Stars Framelits.

Today's color palette includes the long-retired Brocade Blue for the page base, accented with Cherry Cobbler, Smoky Slate, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  I like it.

Well, I just pulled some lemon cream cheese scones out of the oven, so I'm going to go glaze those bad boys and have a late breakfast.  There will also be tea involved, because of course there is.  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Bright & Beautiful
Ink:  Versamark, Basic Black
Paper:  Brocade Blue, Basic Black, Smoky Slate, Whisper White, Be Merry DSP
Accessories:  Stars Framelits, lettering template

Special Snowflake

Happy Friday y'all!  Woohoo!  I'm happy it's Friday and I'm looking forward to spending a weekend with my hubs and my kiddo just relaxing (ya hear that Ryan, I said RELAXING!).  I did get a card made yesterday afternoon to share today but sadly it was already getting dark when I took the picture so it doesn't look as good as it could.

Those three white dots under the sentiment are more rhinestones, but even though I took four pictures at different angles this was the best I could do.  I tried with my phone too:

And the Blueberry Bushel card base came out looking like Night of Navy o.0  Not sure how that happened!  Maybe I'll try to take another pic today and see if I can get a better one.

In the meantime, check out this lovely sketch from Sunday Stamps:

I've got a TON of brand new stamps and accessories in my craft room right now just waiting to be inked up, so naturally I got out Snow is Glistening that was a special buy in November.  Ha!  But the Snowfall Thinlits had that super-cool snowflake flourish that I used for the stripe on the left and I just had to do it.  Especially since I wanted to play along in the Color Throwdown:

I used Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel, and Whisper White (the darker blue is NOT navy, I promise!). I just *had* to do snowflakes after looking at that inspiration picture.

Alright kids, that's it for me this week.  Have a great Friday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Snow is Glistening
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Snowfall Thinlits, Mini Dimensionals, Rhinestones

Figgy Pudding Valentine

Mornin' kids!  How's your week going?  I pulled out some new stamps yesterday while Ryan was napping so yay!

Although I'm not 100% happy with this card, and I wish I liked it better because I like the sketch and color challenges I used and I kinda feel like they deserve a better card.  Here's the Freshly Made Sketch:

I tend to stay away from square cards so I made mine a standard A2 size.  Here's the color challenge from Hand Stamped Sentiments:

OH DANG I just realized I used Powder Pink instead of Petal Pink!  I wrote it down wrong before I went in my craft room.  Oops!  Well, Petal or Powder, I really like the soft pink with the strong purple and green; I'll have to remember this next time I do a baby book for a baby girl.

Next up is the Cupcake Inspiration Challenge:

Forever Lovely is a brand new stamp set in the Stampin' Up! Occasions catalog, and this is my first time inking it up.  I'll have to play with it some more.

In the meantime, have a great day, folks!  I'm off to barre class.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Forever Lovely
Ink:  Powder Pink, Fresh Fig, Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Powder Pink, Mossy Meadow, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Lovely Flowers Edgelits, Mini Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Friendly Watercolor Sunflower

Hey y'all!  Despite having The Headache That Would Not Die (I swear, I've had this headache on and off since last Tuesday), I managed to make a card yesterday afternoon.  Here 'tis:

I sponged Soft Suede ink on the Post Script background stamp to give it a softer feel so it wouldn't compete with my sunflower from Painted Harvest.  I love Post Script so this was me reminding myself to use it more often :)  My card was inspired by the CASE the Designer challenge at Global Design Project:

And I paired that with the color challenge from the Paper Players:

Assuming that neutrals aren't counted as the extra color, I used Pear Pizzazz for the color of my choice because the sunflower needed some leaves.

That's it for me today, kids.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Post Script, Painted Harvest, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories:  Leaf Punch, Dimensionals, retired epoxy shapes, Wink of Stella pen

Dublin, Part 1

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  It's all gray and overcast where I am but I think I need some sunglasses before I look at today's pages...

All hail Lemon Lime Twist!   And also that super-cool patterned paper, now retired.  We went to Ireland in December of 2011; see the pictures up close here.  I did several layouts for our trip, some of which I think have been shared here, and because it's Ireland I did every layout on green cardstock.  Plus I love green :)

This one was pretty straightforward; the only stamping is my page title and the patterned paper really does the work here.

There's my color palette:  Lemon Lime Twist, Berry Burst, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  Kiddo is talking and I need to get him up so we can eat breakfast before we go to the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Morning Post Alphabet
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Berry Burst, Night of Navy, Whisper White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  None

China: Forbidden City

Mornin' y'all!  It is time once again for China Sunday...and once again these pages are reruns, but I promise all-new pages next Sunday.  So let's visit the Forbidden City!

Original blog post here.

When I made these pages, I had a hard time with the color combination.  Sometimes the colors come together easily, and sometimes they don't.  I'm still not sure how successful this combination is, but at least the pages are done!

And I do love that red patterned paper I used.  Blog post for the second two layouts here.  Recipes for all three layouts are on the original blog posts as well, should you want them.

It's a rainy day here where we are, so I'm not even going to try to photograph any of the scrapbook pages I have waiting.  Instead I'll just work on getting a few more pages done!  But right this minute I'm eating pumpkin coffee cake and enjoying a large cuppa tea.  Can't do better than that on a rainy morning.

Cheers, y'all!

Froggy Encouragement

Happy Friday, y'all!  Is it just me, or has this week been particularly long and tough?  At least the kiddo slept through the night last night.  He usually does, but two nights this week he woke up screaming so none of us have gotten enough sleep this week.

But on to my card for today!  This card is actually already in a n envelope and on its way to the mailbox.

I made this for my sister-in-law, whose favorite color is purple and who loves frogs (and who went to TCU, where the mascot is a horned frog and the school colors are purple and white).  She's been having a really tough time at her job lately so I thought she could use a bit of froggy encouragement as she gets the heck out of there and goes on to something new.

I used the sketch from Fusion:

Happy 5th anniversary to the Fusion team :)  And I'm also entering this over at the Paper Players:

I had fun inking up the Sale-a-Bration set So Hoppy Together for the first time today, and I hope it makes my SIL smile when she gets it in the mail.

Okay, we're off to start one more day of busy-busy-busy, so cheers folks!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  So Hoppy Together
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Gorgeous Grape, Lemon Lime Twist, Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Botanical Butterfly DSP
Accessories:  corner rounder punch, Layering Circles Framelits, circle punch, glitter enamel dots (might be retired?), Dimensionals

A Little Brighter Baby

Hey y'all!  How's your Thursday going?  I've got a quick little card to share today.

It was already getting dark when I took the picture yesterday afternoon so the colors look off; most of the card is Pool Party, including the sequins which match much better IRL.  The stars on the corners are in Night of Navy stamped off twice, and the main sentiment is in full strength NON.  I may have to take another pic of this while it's light out.

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

And combined with the Global Design Project theme challenge:

As I was thinking about this, I kept returning to the idea of a baby as a new beginning, and the stars in Little Twinkle just caught my attention so that's what I went with.

Hope you have a great day, peeps.  I'm off to take my kiddo to the gym so someone else can run after him for a while ;)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Little Twinkle
Ink:  Pool Party, Night of Navy
Paper:  Pool Party, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Twinkle Twinkle DSP
Accessories:  Iridescent Sequins, Dimensionals

Frosty & Peter and a Bit of News

Mornin', y'all!  GUESS WHAT.  I'm now a member of the Design Team over at SUO Challenges!  How's that for a fun way to start the year :)  So today is my first day as a DT member and our challenge is to make a winter project.  Of course the first thing that popped in my head was the snowman from Seasonal Chums...

I've decided this is Frosty the Snowman and his friend Peter Cottontail.  I stamped the snowflakes on a white card base in varying intensities of ink, and then sponged on a bit of Coastal Cabana just for fun.  Frosty and Peter are colored in with Blendabilities and regular markers and I decided on the combination of Coastal Cabana, Real Red, and Flirty Flamingo because as I was running at the Y track last Friday, I saw three coats hanging up and they were those colors and I liked how they looked together.  The sentiment is from the brand new Sale-a-Bration set Part of My Story, which has some great sentiments in it.

So that's it for me, kids.  I hope you'll head over to the SUO Challenges blog and play along in our winter challenge!  In the meantime, have a great day and stay frosty, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Seasonal Chums, Colorful Seasons, Part of My Story
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Coastal Cabana, Flirty Flamingo, Stampin' Blends in Real Red, Smoky Slate, Mossy Meadow, Mango Melody, and Crumb Cake
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Coastal Cabana, Real Red
Accessories:  Seasonal Tags Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Friendship

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I was looking through all my draft posts of scrapbook pages (happily, I have quite a few from which to choose) and I came across this one from January of 2016, when my friend Tiana flew out to spend a few days with me and our friend Sarah happened to come in on a business trip at the same time.

Tiana and I went to Hillwood Estate in DC, which was pretty amazing.  It was owned by Marjorie Post (as in Post Cereal) and she was an avid collector of art.  Never thought I'd see a Faberge egg in person!  The estate was also having an exhibit of Marjorie's evening gowns which was fun to see.

A few pictures on the grounds of the estate, and then the only picture that Tiana and I got with Sarah since they only overlapped in DC for a short time.  Sarah loves polar bears, so we made sure to make polar bear cupcakes just for her.

Today's color palette includes Powder Pink, Soft Sky, Berry Burst, and Tranquil Tide.  You wouldn't think those colors would go together, but I think the layout pulls it off nicely.  It was the orchids that inspired me.

Hope your week is off to a great start, peeps.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artistically Asian
Ink:  Powder Pink, Tranquil Tide, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Powder Pink, Tranquil Tide, Berry Burst, Whisper White, Color Theory DSP, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Sunshine Wishes Thinlits

China: Marathon, Hard Rock, & Tiananment Square

Mornin', y'all!  I've got some muffins in the oven right now and some China layouts to share!  As it happens, all four of today's layouts have been shared here before, but we're truckin' right through my China albums and it won't be long before we're at the end.  I hope you've enjoyed China Sundays as much as I have!

First up is the Great Wall Marathon...

See my original post on these pages here.  "Marfon" and "Chompuns" are how our idiot tour guide said "marathon" and "champions".  (For the record, I don't say he's an idiot because of how he pronounced these words, he did a lot better in English than I would in Chinese.  I say he was an idiot because he never had a clue what was going on or where we were supposed to be going, and he was the tour guide.  Duh!)

Next up, when you're like 11 days into a two-week trip to China and you really want American food...

You find the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing.  We actually went twice.  See my original post on these pages here; this was one of the very first layouts I did for my China books.

And finally, a visit to Tiananmen Square:

Original post here.   I never used Bravo Burgundy much even when it was a current color, but every once in a while it's just perfect on a scrapbook layout.

So there's my four China layouts for today.  Looking forward to getting back in the normal posting routine this week, so I'll be seeing ya, peeps!

Supply lists for each layout are on the links above.  Cheers!