SUO Challenges: Dealing With Dies

Hey y'all!  It is time once more for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time around, we want you to use your dies!  I use dies all the time so my first challenge was narrowing down which ones I wanted to use :)  I thumbed through all my current dies and chose Wild Rose.  At first I was going to do something all sweet and pastel, and then...this happened instead:

How about a Christmas rose instead?  I used the colors from the Wrapped in Plaid DSP and I used five different dies from the set.  I'd never used two of them, the gold border one and the navy blue sprigs behind the rose.  So yeah, I think this card counts as die-riffic.

Now it's your turn!  Make a card using dies and share it on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  To A Wild Rose, Greatest Part of Christmas
Ink:  Versamark, Night of Navy
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy, Shaded Spruce, Thick Whisper White, gold foil, Wrapped in Plaid DSP
Accessories:  Wild Rose dies, gold EP, Dimensionals

Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  How was your weekend?  I've made more progress on my future nephew's baby book, so that makes me happy.  I haven't heard Ryan make any noise yet this morning, so maybe I can sneak in my craft room for a few minutes and work on the next layout!

But for now, how about a couple of Thanksgiving layouts?

These pictures are from Thanksgiving in 2017, Ryan's first.  We were living in Virginia at the time; Bennet and Missy lived about 1 1/2 miles away, and Scott and Tiana drove down from New York to spend the holiday with us.  I think this was the first year we instituted the pajamas rule for Thanksgiving.  I don't know if we get to do that this time since we're going elsewhere for Turkey Day, but anytime Thanksgiving is at my house, pajama pants are the dress code.

That apple pie was hands down the PRETTIEST pie I've ever made.  I used a little cookie cutter thing (actually I think it was specifically made for pie crust but works the same as a cookie cutter) to cut out leaf shapes and then piled them on top of the pie.  It was a cranberry apple almond pie and sooooo delicious.

So here is today's color palette:  Peekaboo Peach, Cherry Cobbler, Granny Apple Green, Bermuda Bay, Gray Granite, Basic Black, and Whisper White.

Dangit, Ryan is awake now so no stamping time until he goes down for a nap this afternoon.  Oh well, time to get with it!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Well Said, Wonderfall, My Paper Pumpkin (the pie sentiment, love it!)
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Cherry Cobbler, Peach Parfait, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Peach Parfait, Cherry Cobbler, Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Festive Farmhouse DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits

Mount Fuji New Year

Hey y'all!  I didn't mean to disappear this week, it just happened that way.  After I finished putting together Ryan's baby book on Sunday, I immediately started work on one for my future nephew.  I need to get through it pretty quickly (he's expected early to mid February) so I may be a little sparse with posting here for a bit.

In the meantime, how about a card with a limited edition stamp set?

The set is called New Year Celebrations and it's in the Japanese catalog, available here just until the end of the year.  Since I avidly collect Oriental stamp sets I had to get it :)  I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone else use it.  Or if I do, I don't remember...I've been pretty tired lately so it's possible.

My card was inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I turned the sketch on its side, and added the Poppy Parade banner under my circular sentiment (it says Happy New Year in kanji) to mimic having a sentiment that would be vertical on my card.

I also used this week's Color Throwdown colors:

I used Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, and Smoky Slate.  Tempting Turquoise would have been a better match for the blue color, but I was just using current stuff so there you go.

Well, I've got three layouts done for nephew's baby book, and 14 more to go!  I'd better get crackin'.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  New Year Celebrations
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, Smoky Slate, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  circle punch, Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals

Thanksgiving in Texas 2010

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Big news this weekend:  I totally finished Ryan's baby book!  As in, I put the album together and everything.  That thing is MASSIVE!  I ended up with 72 pages in it.  It weighs a ton ;)  And yesterday I started the *next* baby book too, for my future nephew.  Never a dull moment here.

I've done a lot of scrapbooking lately, and since Thanksgiving is next week (how did that happen?!) I thought I'd share a Thanksgiving layout from 2010.

Yeah, that little girl in the pictures is now 10 years old.  I love that pattern from the Color Me Autumn DSP, so I used it as the basis for my color palette:

Mossy Meadow, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, and Whisper White.  I even remembered the coordinating stamp set for the DSP, For All Things.  This layout came together pretty fast, which is nice.  I still won't make my page goal for 2019, but I'm over 150 pages and that's nothing to sneer at.

Hope your week is off to a good start!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Calendar Alphabet & Numbers, For All Things, Texas by Deadbeat Designs
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Thick Whisper White, Color Me Autumn DSP
Accessories:  None

Maiden Voyage: Inspiring Iris

Ooh look, a Saturday post!  Since I missed a couple of days this week, I thought I'd post today because I didn't want to miss a couple of challenges.  While I was running yesterday, I came up with the idea that turned into this card:

Inspiring Iris is one of the stamp sets I got on the one-day sale in October, and this is its first time to get inked up in my house.  Here's the Freshly Made Sketch I started with:

So my panel with the irises turned out a LOT bigger than I imagined while I was running ;)  My colors today are courtesy of Color Throwdown:

I used Gorgeous Grape (the outline stamp and the greeting), Highland Heather, and Old Olive.  The DSP is from Sale-a-Bration, can't remember if it was this year or last year, but I thought it coordinated with the main image really well.  Fun fact:  the first flowers my husband ever bought for me were irises.  And my phone is named Iris.

Hope you have a great weekend, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspiring Iris
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Old Olive
Paper:  Smoky Slate, Highland Heather, Thick Whisper White, Botanical Butterfly DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Nested Labels dies, Noble Peacock Rhinestones, Dimensionals

Rawr-Some

Hey y'all!  This week I've been more focused on scrapbook pages than cards, but I finally did get a card made yesterday so I could share it today!

This is a triple challenge card, too.  First up is the theme from Global Design Project:

I figured the "rawr-some" sentiment fit the bill here.  Next is the sketch from Inspire. Create.:

The three background panels were super easy to do with my trusty Stitched Rectangle dies and retired Tropical Escape DSP.  Yay for using up some scraps!

Finally, here's the color challenge from the Paper Players:

I think the whimsical style of the dinosaur stamps lends itself well to just about any bold, bright color combination, so this card came together lickety-split.  Which means I got more work done on a scrapbook layout after I made this :)

Happy Friday y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dino Days
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Bermuda Bay, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangle dies, Dino dies, Stitched Nested Labels dies, Dimensionals, Glitter Enamel Dots

SUO Challenges: Embellishments

Good morning stampy friends!  It is time once more for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time we're asking you to focus on embellishments.  I've finally made my first Christmas card of the year because I decided to use those snowflake sequins from the holiday catalog.  Check it out:

New stamps alert!  I got Buffalo Check (the background) when it was on the one-day sale in October, and this is the maiden voyage for Perfectly Plaid (the sentiment) as well.  I won't lie, those snowflake sequins are smaller than I thought they would be, and it took a while to adhere them all, but I like how they look!  What do you think?

Go check out the design team's work at SUO Challenges, then make your own embellished card and post it for us to see!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Buffalo Check, Perfectly Plaid
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel
Accessories:  Snowflake Sequins, Stitched Nested Labels dies, white baker's twine, Dimensionals

Snow Day

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Well, I am a week in to my new fitness and diet regime, and I can proudly say I'm down five pounds.  Probably because I'm drinking an ocean of water every day and then of course I have to keep visiting the loo ;)  As I type this, it's 6:30 and I've finished my early morning workout.  Woo!

It *finally* cooled down here and in honor of our new low temperatures, I present this snowy layout:

Aww, Sadie as a wee pupster enjoying the snow!  And then, because she had all the energy then, she got in a wrestling match with the hubs.  Sadie is now a senior lady and spends most of her time sleeping, she has arthritis, and I love her and wish I could make her not hurt when she gets up or lays down.  My girl.

How about a fun PURPLE color palette!  Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, and Baja Breeze snowflakes and Whisper White accents.  Nice wintry palette.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Endless Wishes
Ink:  Whisper White, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Whisper White, Candy Cane Christmas DSP
Accessories:  lettering template

Rustic Cabin

Friday at last!  Hope y'all have had a good week.

I'm still resisting Christmas cards, but I did bust open a pack of Christmasy plaid paper for today's card:

I'm so happy to have more patterned paper with Shaded Spruce, it's such a gorgeous green.  I made my cabin in the woods for the Paper Players theme challenge:

Usually I don't work in my craft room at all if my kid is awake, because he's two and trails chaos everywhere he goes.  But I didn't get this card done during naptime yesterday, so after dinner I wanted to finish it and of course he followed me into the craft room...he spent 10 to 15 minutes chopping up scraps of paper with my guillotine-style paper trimmer.  (Fear not:  he did a really good job of keeping his hands away from the blade even before I said anything.)  He'd whack the handle down and then happily announced "I chop it!"  And now I have some white confetti in my trash can.  (I even convinced him to put it in the trash when he was done chopping.)  Maybe in a couple of years he'll be doing paper crafts with his mama, eh?

Anyway, here's the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

I like that sketch, it's really fun and different.  And finally, here's the color challenge from Hand Stamped Sentiments:

Those are the three main colors from the Let It Snow specialty DSP in the holiday catalog, but my brain is a rebel so I didn't want to use that paper even though I have it.  So I put the focus mainly on Shaded Spruce, and used the other two colors for details--Real Red roof and Coastal Cabana sky.

Anyway, hope you have a great day y'all.  Hubby's job has their Thanksgiving potluck today (I guess they're doing it early so no one who's traveling for Thanksgiving would have to miss it) so I was a busy little bee baking all the things yesterday.  Which I'm not supposed to eat :p  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rustic Retreat
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Shaded Spruce, Real Red, Coastal Cabana, Gray Granite, Soft Suede
Paper:  Gray Granite, Thick Whisper White, Wrapped in Plaid DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, Gold Glitter Enamel Dots

Riding Off Into the Sunset

Day #4 of 5 a.m. wakeups and I only used my alarm on the first day.  So far, so good!  I did have to take a short nap yesterday though.

After my nap, I just barely had time to make a card for my brother's birthday this weekend.  Here it is:

My brother and our dad both went to Oklahoma State, and their mascot is a cowboy and their colors are orange and black.  I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

That die cut "happy" was sitting on my table in a pile of stuff I'd die cut and then not used, so I don't even remember what it was originally intended for.  It was Pumpkin Pie cardstock and that was good enough for me!

I added lots of black to the Cupcake Inspiration Challenge colors:

I used Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, and Daffodil Delight to make my sunset.

Okay, time for me to do my morning workout.  Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  Out West, Well Said
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Monster Bash Enamel Shapes, Happy Expressions Thinlits (I think?)

More Mermaids, Please

Hey y'all!  I'm on Day 3 of my new workout/diet regimen and I accidentally loaded the wrong workout and did lower body instead of upper.  It's okay though, I still worked out and so far I'm doing okay on the program.  And this is two days in a row that I haven't needed an alarm to wake up...well, I am frequently awake around 5 a.m. even when I don't want to be.

Yesterday was a tough day with Ryan, who was being extra super spectacularly two (I had to go have a talk with him in the nursery at the Y because he wasn't behaving, then after we got home he spilled chocolate milk all over the couch and then intentionally locked me out of the house), so when naptime arrived I was extra super spectacularly glad to have a break :)  After I set up dinner in the crockpot (which I was then too tired to eat last night), I went in my craft room and made this:

I know I just did a mermaid card recently (and I even mailed that one out yesterday, one day after my friend's birthday, oops) but I had to use that stamp again because of the challenge at Fusion:

Most of the time I jot down challenge information in a little notebook and then take that back to my craft room, and for this one I only wrote down "pastel mermaid" and I thought I remembered a lot of purple so that's what I went with for my card.  This is the first time I've used the mermaid tail upside down :)

I combined that challenge with the Global Design Project sketch:

And I can also enter this at Retro Rubber:

Magical Mermaid is just over two years old; Free As a Bird (the sentiment) was just released this past summer when the new catty came out so it's not retro yet.  I was looking through my stamps for a sentiment that would fit on my card, and I just thought that one was so amusing with the mermaid tail that I had to go for it.  For a bit more retro-ness, I busted out some fancy scissors for my waves!  Dude, I've had those scissors for over twenty years.  Also, you can't tell from the photo because it was so dark out by the time I took it, but I sponged Balmy Blue ink on the background of the mermaid's tail, and then I used Balmy Blue Blends to color in some clear rhinestones.  First time I've ever tried that and I like it :)

Ryan is already awake as I type this, but I refuse to get him up before 7 a.m. just on principle so I'm going to go relax for a half hour.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! except the scissors
Stamps:  Magical Mermaid, Free As a Bird
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Balmy Blue, Mint Macaron, Stampin' Blends in Highland Heather and Balmy Blue
Paper:  Highland Heather, Balmy Blue, Mint Macaron, Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, rhinestones, Dimensionals, patterned scissors from Fiskars

Edinburgh Castle

Mornin'!  Scrappy Monday is Scrappy Tuesday this week :) I did good yesterday, I got up early and did my workout AND I stuck to the diet all day long and drank about half an ocean's worth of water (unsalted, of course).  And this morning I woke up about 10 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off.  Then I just had to convince Ryan that even if Mama is up, it is NOT time for him to be up!

Anyway, scrapbook pages.  Once again I have a stack o' pages that I need to take pictures of, including more pages from this trip to Edinburgh.  But let's start with what we've got, hmm?

See the pictures here and here.  I picked the color palette based on that picture on the far right of the metal...thing...with rust on it:  Cajun Craze and More Mustard for rust and yellow, and then Midnight Muse for a contrasting dark blue.  Since castles are mostly gray/brown, that means I have lots of leeway when choosing color schemes to scrapbook the pictures.

I think that picture of my dad is funny, he looks like he's talking to some Monty Python characters :D

As I mentioned before, the color palette for today includes Midnight Muse, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Island Indigo, and Very Vanilla.  Though I think it's hard to tell from the pictures that there are two colors of blue on here, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rough Type, Artistic Etchings, Baroque Motifs
Ink:  Midnight Muse, Island Indigo, More Mustard
Paper:  Midnight Muse, Island Indigo, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Spice Cake DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles dies

Seaside Birthday

Okay, so, I typed this blog post up on Sunday night, but hopefully by the time this goes live, I will have been up and moving for two hours.  I've joined Missy's fitness cult (LOL) and today is Day 1 with a new diet plan and early morning exercise because I have been severely unmotivated as of late.  So wish me luck with this.

On to the paper crafting part of today's blog post.  Since I did two scrapbook layouts last week, and I didn't want to miss a couple of challenges, today  I have a card instead of a Scrappy Monday post, and here it is:

So this card kind of just happened.  I had a sketch and color challenge picked out, but nothing was coming to me and I had just about decided to skip the colors when all of a sudden I noticed Seaside Notions and this idea popped into my head.  You'll see that I changed the Freshly Made Sketch to a regular A2 size (I don't like square cards much) and I ended up rotating it 90 degrees to make the sentiment fit better.  And then I decided to use one of the pearlized doilies after I'd stamped the sentiment and it would have been fine if I'd kept it vertical *rolls eyes*  But lemme just say, I am in love with the See a Silhouette DSP.  I got it in the buy 3, get 1 free DSP promo a while back and I have used it on a couple of cards and a scrapbook layout and I'm gonna need more of that.  It's beautiful.

So here's the Freshly Made Sketch I started with:

And here is the Color Throwdown combination that made me think way too hard:

I used Pretty Peacock, Mossy Meadow, Terracotta Tile, and Night of Navy, with a Crumb Cake card base.  There's some sandy speckles stamped on the card base both on top and below the DSP strip, though they don't show up as much as they maybe should on the top part.  Oh well.  This might be my brother's birthday card if I don't make another one in the next day or two...

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

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Seaside Notions
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Pretty Peacock, Mossy Meadow, Terracotta Tile
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White, See A Silhouette DSP
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals, pearlized doily

Friend-a-Saurus

So, how was your Halloween yesterday?  I had planned for us to dress up as members of Mystery Inc., so I was Velma, hubs was Shaggy, and kiddo was *supposed* to be Scooby....yeah the costume was hilariously, ridiculously huge.  It said it was for 3-4 year olds, and he's 2, but all the reviews said it ran small so I thought it would be okay.  Hubs thinks it'll take 3 or 4 years before our kiddo is big enough for that costume to fit :p So he wore a silly dragon costume instead.  He was still adorable.

So!  How about a card for today?

Most of the Design Team cards on Global Design Project went for Christmas with this color combination:

But I'm not ready for Christmas yet :) I was just going to give this one a skip but then I thought of the dinosaurs and hey, they work with just about ANY color combination, and I liked him for this sketch from the Paper Players:

I almost forgot the strip across the background, but luckily I was able to peel up the leaf layer and add in some retired DSP.

That's it for me this week, peeps.  Have a great weekend!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dino Days
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Lovely Lipstick, Old Olive
Paper:  Smoky Slate, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Lovely Lipstick DSP
Accessories:  Dino Dies, Dimensionals