Celebratory Balloons

Happy Tuesday, y'all!  And this Tuesday it's time for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

This time it's a theme challenge--celebrations!  I'm still working on getting some newer stamp sets inked up for the first time so I had to use this cute little lady from the hostess set Hand Delivered:

I picked some fun patterned paper (from the All My Love DSP) and then just picked some Blends colors that I thought might look good with it.  Of course I don't have the Lovely Lipstick Blends yet, so that's why I kept that color to just some pops on her belt, flower centers, and shoes.  Everything else is Blends, including Ivory, Pool Party, Mango Melody, Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, and Flirty Flamingo.  I used the Color Lifter to do some highlights on the balloons.

Halfway through coloring my image I decided this was a congratulations card and I'm sending it to my sister-in-law.  She passed her realtor licensing exam a few months ago and recently made her very first sale--to my parents!  They're moving out of my childhood home to a house that's closer to my brother and sister-in-law and (most importantly) the granddaughter.  So yeah, anyway, I think my SIL deserves a congratulations card to celebrate her first sale.  I used Highland Heather for the card base, not that you can see it, because purple is her favorite color.

So what do you have to celebrate?  Make a card and share with us on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers, yo!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand Delivered
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Ivory, Pool Party, Mango Melody, Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, and Flirty Flamingo
Paper:  Highland Heather, Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, All My Love DSP
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Paw Print on Your Heart

Mornin' folks!  Once again, Scrappy Monday will be delayed...because today I'm a guest designer at What Will You Stamp?!  And I'm particularly excited to be doing it this week because of the featured stamp set:

Being a long-time dog mama, I loved this as soon as I saw it in the Occasions catalog, but I didn't actually buy it until just after Vader died.  I did make a sympathy card with it, because I need one, but this will also be great for yay new puppy cards or just hi friend cards.  And it's carrying over to the new catalog!  So here's what I made:

I puffy heart love the coordinating dog punch, so rather than using the stamp I just punched out the doggo on some lovely patterned paper (All My Love from the Occasions catalog).  I even managed to get it so one of the darker pink hearts looks like the doggo's nose :)  I love how the sentiments in this are justified to follow the contours of the dog.  I think the dog would look great punched out on some pretty floral paper too.  And one of these days I'll have to stamp him too.

Hope you can play along at What Will You Stamp?.  Thanks to the WWYS crew for letting me be a guest designer this week, I really enjoyed making this card!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Happy Tails
Ink:  Powder Pink, Call Me Clover, Soft Suede
Paper:  Powder Pink, Call Me Clover, Soft Suede, Thick Whisper White, All My Love DSP
Accessories:  Dog punch, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Fixed It!

Anyone else ever make a card and something's just not right with it and it BUGS YOU until you fix it?  Well, my Lovely As a Tree card from earlier this week was like that.

I fixed it.

I carefully peeled everything up and just switched the card orientation to landscape instead of portrait.  The sentiment fits SO MUCH BETTER this way and now it's not making my brain itch.

*sigh of relief*

Back to your regularly scheduled Saturday!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Bye-Bye Free Cake

Mornin' y'all and happy Friday!  I've got a bright and cheery birthday card to start the weekend off with a smile.

I bought the Free Cake stamp set on a whim when it was on sale last October I think, and I haven't used it enough.  It's cute!  Plus this is just a teensy bit snarky so I like it :D The inside of the card has another die-cut circle with "I mean...happy birthday!" on it, I just forgot to take a picture of it.

Check out the fun and bright color combo from Just Add Ink:

Perfect for a birthday card, am I right?  Pineapple Punch just makes me smile.  And I had so much fun with this week's Freshly Made Sketch that I had to give it a second go:

That's it for me today.  We've got a fun weekend planned:  got the babysitter booked for tomorrow afternoon and the hubs and I are going to see Avengers: Endgame and go out to dinner without the kiddo!  Should be fun.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Free Cake
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Whisper White, How Sweet It Is DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Layering Circles Framelits, Dimensionals

Bye-Bye Oh So Eclectic

Heyyyy we're almost to Friday.  I'm excited about this weekend because hubs and I got a babysitter so we're going to see the new Avengers movie!  Woohoo!

In the meantime, how about a card with another retiring stamp set?

I wouldn't say Oh So Eclectic is one of my favoritest stamp sets ever, but I have enjoyed playing with it for the last couple of years.  I do like that cutout die I did on the background which is part of the coordinating Thinlits.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

See, that vertical strip made me think of the die right away.  And once I had this week's Color Throwdown colors in my head, the card came together very quickly:

I used So Saffron, Mango Melody, Night of Navy, and Granny Apple Green for my colors.  The flower is two stamps: for the solid stamp, I inked it up with So Saffron and then used a sponge dauber to apply some Mango Melody to the outside edges and the center of the stamp.  Then I just stamped the outline over the top with Mango Melody ink and die cut it.  I also put some Wink of Stella in the flower center but you can't see it in the photo. #typical

The Tropical Escape DSP stack once again came to my rescue when I wanted a pattern to go behind the die cut area; it's just some wavy Granny Apple Green lines that I thought coordinated well with the pattern on the leaves without drawing attention away from the focal point.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Today is my last barre class with the current instructor...she's 8+ months pregnant :) I hope they get someone to take over teaching the class, I do enjoy it a lot.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  So Saffron, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Whisper White
Paper:  So Saffron, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP Stack
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Bye-Bye Oak Tree

Mornin' peeps!  How's your week going?  I am very grateful that I am feeling much better than I was last week.  I really really missed yoga for two weeks!

Today I'm sharing another card featuring retiring stamp sets.  Three of 'em, in this case.

I started stamping in 2004 or 2005, and Lovely As a Tree was in the catalog then so it predates me.  I'm not 100% shocked that it's finally retiring though because we now have Rooted in Nature, which I like to think of as an updated LAAT with sentiments.

Anywha, check out the Global Design Project sketch:

I admit I just couldn't get my sentiment to work how I wanted it to.  I really needed one that was shorter, but I also wanted one that would be good for a sympathy card (why do I always think of LAAT for sympathy cards?) so that's how I ended up where I did.  I used some probably retired Garden Green ribbon for the accent under the square piece.

I'll also enter this at Retro Rubber:

As I was saying before, Lovely As a Tree is the longest-lived stamp set in the SU! catalog and I've had mine probably since at least 2006, so 13 years is pretty dang retro.  Tree Rings is only about a year and a half old and poor little Wishing You Well is one I just got about two months ago, so not retro at all.  I thought it was going to carry over to the new catalog but it isn't...which is okay because I own it and I like it.

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  In a little bit Ryan and I will be off to the Y so I can take pilates and get my stretch on!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Ely Cathedral

Scrappy Monday on a Tuesday, y'all!  So I said I had just taken pictures of a bunch of recent layouts and here I am finally posting two that I did a long time ago.  Oh well!

These pictures are from Ely Cathedral, which was about a half hour drive from where we lived in England.  I sponged some Mint Macaron ink on the DSP to tone down the white, and I did it with Blushing Bride on the second layout which you'll see in a minute.

I'd finished stamping the entire page and then I got a SMUDGE on it.  Oh well.

Not sure I like the DSP as much on this one as the first layout, but done is better than perfect, right?

Today's color combination is Bordering Blue, Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, and Blushing Bride.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letterpress Alphabet, Brushwork Alphabet, Angelic, Strength & Hope
Ink:  Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Bordering Blue, Mint Macaron, Blushing Bride, Floral Boutique DSP
Accessories:  None

Advice from Dory

Hey y'all!  Hope you had a good Easter yesterday.  We had a really tough week last week (I was sick, the hubs was ridiculously busy at work and exhausted by Saturday) so we didn't do anything for Easter other than make a ham for dinner.  Ryan doesn't know what he's missing as far as Easter baskets and egg hunts go, and he got to pet the neighbors' bunny so he was happy.

Usually it's Scrappy Monday here, but this week that will be on Tuesday instead.  I found a couple of challenges that I just *had* to do and I want to make sure I get to enter my card in both of them before they expire : )  With that, here's a little aquatic advice:

I dusted off Ocean Commotion, which has been retired for years but I love it.  And here's the Fusion challenge that prompted me to ink it up again:

And the Color Throwdown was just too perfect with the Fusion challenge!

I used Tangerine Tango, Crushed Curry, and Blueberry Bushel as my colors.  The Tangerine Tango embossing powder has been retired for quite some time as well, but it was fun to play with it on this card.  For the background, I took a piece of Shimmery White cardstock and brayered the heck out of it with Blueberry Bushel ink, stamped and embossed the coral, and then flicked a bit of water on it, but the water spots didn't come out as well as I wanted them to.  Still, I'm happy that somehow I managed to get a photo that shows the shimmery part of the ocean : )

Scrapbook layout coming up tomorrow.  I finally took pictures of a whole bunch of layouts over the weekend so I have lots to choose from!  And I feel like I am once again making some scrappy progress, which makes me happy.  Maybe I'll actually finish Ryan's baby book by the time he turns 3!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ocean Commotion, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel, Crushed Curry, Versamark
Paper:  Shimmery White, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Tangerine Tango EP, Dimensionals

Bye-Bye Hot Air Balloons

Happy Friday, y'all!  I don't know about you, but I'm happy this week is coming to a close.

I've got another retiring stamp set to showcase today:  Lift Me Up.

Pretty simple card but I think it came out cute?  Sorry about the lighting; it's been super overcast here lately so there wasn't anything I could do about that.  Anyway, check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Paper Players color challenge:

I figured the blue was a no-brainer for the sky, and the Daffodil Delight and Calypso Coral made some cheery hot air balloons.  A bit of gingham paper and some coral sequins and it was done!

Okay kids, I'm off to get Ryan up and we're going to go start our day.  Have a great weekend!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lift Me Up
Ink:  Balmy Blue, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Up & Away Thinlits, Rectangle Stitched Shapes, Dimensionals, sequins

Bye-Bye Dragonfly

So the Stampin' Up! retiring list dropped on Monday afternoon and of course some stamp sets that I adore are on it.  Not that it matters to me since I keep all my stamps, but I definitely don't use the retired ones as often.  So I'll probably make cards with the soon-to-retire stamps for a while, starting with Dragonfly Dreams.

I have several different dragonfly stamps in different sets, but I love that this one has big, bold dragonflies and some beautiful dies to coordinate.  I started with the sketch from Fab Friday:

Of course I immediately thought of the stitched rectangle dies when I saw that sketch, those are going to be favorites for a long time.

Here's the color challenge from Global Design Project:

I chose Tranquil Tide as my color.  I love that color!!  I already got a few extra packs of cardstock and some ink refills.  Tranquil Tide and Lemon Lime Twist are the two retiring In Colors that I'll miss the most.  You can't tell from the photo, but all the white is Shimmery White cardstock, and I added some Wink of Stella on the dragonfly for extra sparkle.  I've also decided I need some new white embossing powder; I tried using that and it looked terrible.  To be fair my pot of EP is probably nearly 10 years old, so I guess it's time for a new one!

In happy news, I'm a winner!

The folks at GDP chose my butterfly card from last week as a winner for that challenge, woohoo!  Definitely a bright spot in what's been a tough week.  I'm still trying to recover from the nasty virus that's knocked me on my rear since Tuesday.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Whisper White
Paper:  Shimmery White, Tranquil Tide
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, metallic sequins

Stained Glass Sympathy

Hey y'all.  I was supposed to have this post up for SUO Challenges this morning, but I woke up at 4 a.m. feeling like the floor of a taxicab, so....better late than never?  I'm very grateful my husband was able to get our kiddo into daycare for the day because I've been useless.

So this week we have a sketch for you to try!

I still have several new stamp sets that I haven't inked up yet, so I used one of those for today's card:

I've been wanting the Painted Glass stamp set and coordinating Framelits since the catalog came out last summer, and I finally got it!  I made this card on Saturday, and I did the top part before I decided what sentiment to use, and I figured that it would be a good idea to make a sympathy card when I didn't need one.  Then on Sunday I found out a friend lost her sweet doggo to kidney failure, so it turns out I needed a sympathy card after all.  I feel extra sad posting this though because of the fire at Notre Dame yesterday--stained glass always makes me think of churches, and I got to see Notre Dame's rose windows in person a few years ago.

Well, anyway, I need to go crawl back in bed and try to recover enough that I'll be able to take care of kiddo tomorrow.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Glass
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Smoky Slate, Powder Pink, Mint Macaron, So Saffron, Real Red & Shaded Spruce Blends
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Smoky Slate
Accessories:  Stained Glass Framelits, Dimensionals

Ripley's Aquarium

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Well, Ryan had a fever through Saturday, but yesterday he was feeling much better so we should be able to go to the Y this morning.  Yay!  I hate missing my running days...not because I like running, but because if I don't run regularly then it's really tough to start again, so I have to be consistent with it.

Anywha!  I did pretty well this weekend, I finished two more scrapbook layouts.  I actually have a stack that I need to photograph, but in the meantime here's one I did last year.

This is, once again, part of my quest to scrap more of my pictures from before we moved to Japan in 2008.  I actually finished my 2008 scrapbooks, and 2008 is when I started my first blog, so I really need to get those older photos done ASAP because I'm forgetting what all we did and I don't have a handy blog to refer back to :p  These pages feature pictures from Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach; I let the photo in the upper left do double duty as my page title.  A couple of sea creatures from the sadly retired From Land to Sea and this layout came together pretty quick.

The color combo feels a little unusual for me, but it's what I came up with based on the colors in the photos:  Pool Party, Primrose Petals (I love that diamond pattern), Tranquil Tide (appropriate for an aquarium visit, no?), Marigold Morning, and Whisper White.

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

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  From Land to Sea
Ink:  Pool Party, Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Pool Party, Tranquil Tide, Marigold Morning, Whisper White, Patio Party DSP
Accessories:  None

Butterfly in the Skyyyyy

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ryan wasn't feeling quite up to scratch yesterday, so I'm hoping he feels better today.  In the meantime, I worked on a card while he was sleeping :)

I do love these butterflies, and I can't believe I waited so long to get the Share What You Love DSP...had to use those leaves again since they were still sitting out where I could see them.

Today I started with the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I kept the butterfly theme (I even used the same stamp set!), but I used a different sentiment from the set, and at long last I figured out how to use one of those pearlized doilies I got right before the end of Sale-a-Bration.

I used the Sunday Stamps sketch:

I swear I planned three or four different cards in my head with this sketch, so I'm glad I finally got one of them down on paper.

And here's the Color Throwdown palette:

I used Pear Pizzazz and Old Olive for the two greens (handy that they're both in that leafy pattern), Pool Party for the card base and sentiment panel, and Melon Mambo for my butterflies.  And some black because that always helps.  Oh darn, I had planned to add some Wink of Stella to my butterflies but I forgot to do it before I took the picture.  Oh well!

Have a great weekend, y'all.  I'm hoping to work on Ryan's baby book during his naptime today...maybe I'll have it done by the time he turns three!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Gala
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Melon Mambo
Paper:  Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, Share What You Love DSP
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Butterfly Duet punch, pearlized doily, Dimensionals

Glitter Rainbow Unicorn

Mornin', y'all!  I had an enjoyable naptime in my craft room yesterday (to be clear, my kiddo was napping, I was crafting).  I finished up a scrapbook layout and made a very happy card to share today.

AAAAHHHH I kind of love it.  Alllllll the colors!

And there's the inside; I thought the rainbow stripes, the glitter circle, and my fabulous unicorn would be too busy if I put the sentiment on the card front.

This card started with the new challenge from Retro Rubber:

When I was little (like, before I was 7, which is when we moved), I had a bedroom that had rainbow wallpaper on one wall.  I can't remember what color the rest of the walls were painted, but I had a yellow blanket on my bed and I still have the rainbow afghan my mom made to go with it all.  So yeah, I had to do the rainbow challenge!  And since Magical Mates (now one year old, I'm still salty it wasn't carried over from last year's Occasions catalog) is one of my favorite stamp sets ever, I had to use it for this challenge.

I stamped the unicorn with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, die cut, and then just used markers to color in her mane and tail to match the colors in the patterned paper.  I used the retired Pink Pirouette for the card base because I wanted a lighter color that wouldn't compete with all the fabulousness happening up top.  It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but the punched circle behind the unicorn is the white glimmer paper that we had last year to coordinate with Ms. Fancypants.  It looks fun IRL.  My not-so-inner child is pretty happy.

I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

The glitter enamel dots are standing in for the scalloped embellishment on the sketch.  This was so fun to make!

Okay, y'all have a great Thursday.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Day
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Melon Mambo, Pineapple Punch, Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Gorgeous Grape
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Pineapple Punch, Shimmery White, How Sweet It Is DSP
Accessories:  Magical Mates Framelits, 1 3/4" circle punch, Dimensionals, Glitter Enamel Dots

A Simple Note

Hey y'all!  I have a super simple card for you today.

Wishing You Well was in the Holiday catalog, but I didn't get it until just recently--I just couldn't resist it anymore! 

When I sat down to stamp yesterday, I had a different plan in mind for this inspiration photo from Just Add Ink:

I'm too late to add my link on the challenge, but that's okay, I liked this picture a lot anyway.  So, as I was saying, I started out with a completely different thought but then Wishing You Well just insisted on being inked up.  The only thing that took a bit of time was cutting out the bow to pop up, and even that didn't take long.

So here's the Inkspirational challenge again:

I think you can see my use of Dimensionals better on this card than the quintuple challenge card I posted yesterday.

Well, I've got to leave early today to get Sadie to the vet before Ryan and I hit the Y, so we're out of here.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Sea Foam, Petal Pink, Flirty Flamingo
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Five Challenges? Piece of Cake!

Hey y'all!  Have you ever had a perfect storm of challenges, where you make a single card that works for lots and lots of challenges?  Well, today's card is a quintuple challenge card.

And here's my challenges, in alphabetical order!

First up is the color combo from Fab Friday:

A fun and springy color combo, I'm going to miss Lemon Lime Twist so much when it retires.  At least we have Granny Apple Green in the regular lineup.

Next up is the sketch from Fusion:

I forgot to make my vertical strip go all the way to the edges of the card, mah bad.

Next up is the Inkspirational Challenge:

You can't tell from the photo, but the Flirty Flamingo circle is popped up on Dimensionals.  I found that circle in my stash already pre-cut so yay for using up random pieces!

And here's the theme challenge from the Paper Players:

This was fun; I used two patterns from Gingham Gala, and for the Highland Heather one (the larger print), I used markers to add some skinny stripes of Flirty Flamingo and Bermuda Bay.  Took a few minutes but I like the look!

And finally, here's the challenge from What Will You Stamp?:

I had been planning to use one of my newer stamp sets until I saw this challenge, and then I just had to do a cake.  I stamped the sentiment on the inside of the card, so it says "Happy birthday, you sweet thing" in Highland Heather ink.  I think I know who should get this card too!

That's it for me today.  Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Piece of Cake
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black; Lemon Lime Twist, Bermuda Bay, & Flirty Flamingo markers; Highland Heather Blends
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Flirty Flamingo, Gingham Gala DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Cake Builder Punch, Dimensionals