Chinchillin' Like a Villain

Happy Friday, y'all!  Hope you've had a good week.  I got a scrapbook layout finished yesterday and then had time to make a quick card with a new stamp set!

I love Witty-cisms from the Occasions catalog!  I loves me a good pun :)  This is a great all-occasion stamp set too, with stuff for graduation, retirement, baby, thank you, and more.  But I decided to start with this chinchilla after seeing the Fusion challenge:

I used a critter stamp and the colors of brown (Crumb Cake), yellow (Pineapple Punch), and green (Call Me Clover).  I colored with Stampin' Blends and voila!  Quick card.  I stamped a small flower from Free as a Bird on the Pineapple Punch stripe because of the flower in the inspiration pic.

Check out the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch:

Brian King talked about how his card was an optical illusion; all three stripes were the same height, but the middle stripe looked much shorter than the top and bottom.  Well, my yellow stripe is actually 1/4 inch TALLER than the green stripes, and it still looks shorter!  Weird, huh?

Okay, Ryan and I have an errand to run and then we're off to the Y.  I never miss yoga day if I can help it!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Witty-cisms, Free as a Bird
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Pineapple Punch, Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Call Me Clover, & Pineapple Punch
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Call Me Clover, Pineapple Punch, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Eiffel Tower CAS

Hey y'all!  How's your week going?  I haven't been getting quite as much done in my craft room as I'd like, but slow progress is better than no progress right?  I did manage to squeak out one very CAS card yesterday:

My hubs once surprised me with a trip to Paris.  (We lived in England at the time, which makes surprise trips to Paris a bit easier to manage!)  We were just talking about that trip the other day, so I think I'll sneak this into his truck before he leaves for work on his birthday, which just so happens to be Valentine's Day.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Global Design Project color combo:

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I was also inspired by some cards that Brian King posted recently with a stamped image on top of a sponged shape.  The heart dies I used for my card are retired, but this would be super simple to replicate with current dies.  For reals, this card took me probably five minutes, and half of that was digging out my rhinestones ;)

Hope you have a great day today, peeps.  Au revoir!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Parisian Beauty
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Real Red, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Hearts Collection Framelits (retired), rhinestones

Typhoon Shelter #2

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  So on Saturday, my surprise turned out to be lunch with the hubs (always great), and then I got a facial and a detox treatment :)  And THEN he took me to Kohl's and told me he know my clothes didn't fit anymore because I've lost weight, so he told me to get some new ones.  I got two pairs of jeans and several new bras and dang, I'm a lucky lady to be married to him!

So!  Over the weekend I finished scrapbook pages from my 30th birthday (a.k.a. my second 29th birthday) but I haven't taken pictures of them yet so instead, here's our second house in Japan.

They were renovating the houses there so we got moved out of our old one and into a newly-renovated one partway through our time in Japan.  Isn't that patterned paper FANTASTIC?  It's from the See a Silhouette DSP in the current catalog.  We jokingly called our house a typhoon shelter (hence the page title), and I liked that the paper kinda made me think of waves or a typhoon on radar.  Plus it's just gorgeous.

Today's color palette:  Poppy Parade, Pacific Point, Old Olive, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, and Whisper White, which are all colors from that DSP pack though the pattern I used only features the blues.  Oddly enough, I'd chosen the colors before I picked stamps for accents, and the colors worked amazingly well for the stamp with the koi fish.

That's it for me today.  Gotta get shoes on the kiddo and head out to the Y.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Larger Than Life Alphabet & Numbers, Rough Edges Alphabet, Oriental Brushstrokes
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Poppy Parade
Paper:  Poppy Parade, Old Olive, Mossy Meadow, Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White, See a Silhouette DSP
Accessories:  Watercolor Pencils

Seaside Posies

Mornin' y'all!  I had a good birthday yesterday; we had pizza for dinner and then ice cream for dessert, and it's been so long since I had that much sugar that my head was buzzing afterwards.  It's fun to splurge once in a while but I think I'll be back to my regular very low sugar diet today :)

I got one more card made the other day and I want to share it before the challenges close, so here it is:

I busted out a very long-retired stamp set for this one, more on that in a minute.  First up is the Library Challenge, to be inspired by Romeo and Juliet:

She mentioned the "rose by any other name" quote, and that stuck in my head when I saw the Retro Rubber Challenge:

Roses + winter = Roses in Winter!  When I first started stamping, Roses in Winter was *the* stamp set to have!  I posted my first card with it way back in 2006, so I've had this stamp set for 14 years now?!  Anyway, I used the sentiment from the set that uses the word winter, and I decided to go with a wintry color combination too:  Seaside Spray, Purple Posy, and Mint Macaron.  I got my Purple Posy ink pad in the brief window that they were available, but SU! couldn't get the color consistent enough so they've retired the ink pad.  Oh well, I can still use mine, and the cardstock is beautiful.  I stamped the roses on Shimmery White but that doesn't show up in my photo.

So my hubs has something planned for today, but I don't know what.  All I know is that we're leaving in about an hour and a half and our kid is going to the babysitter's house.  Guess I'd better go get ready!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! (retired)
Stamps:  Roses in Winter
Ink:  Seaside Spray, Purple Posy, Mint Macaron
Paper:  Purple Posy, Shimmery White
Accessories:  long-retired label punch, Dimensionals

New Beginnings

Hey y'all!  I was hoping I'd have a card to post yesterday, but it didn't happen...Ryan had a fever Tuesday and Wednesday, so we couldn't go anywhere and it threw off our groove.  He's feeling better so now we're potty training...oh yeah that's fun.  But TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY so we're gonna celebrate!  I'm having PIZZA for dinner tonight!!! (I haven't had pizza in almost 3 months!)

And I also have a card to share today.  When I first laid eyes on the Sale-a-Bration catalog, there was one stamp set that I just HAD to HAVE and I finally inked it up!

I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and so did my parents, so of course I spring for anything Oriental that SU! comes up with.  I'm almost finished with all my Japan scrapbook pages but I still wanted this stamp set in my collection!  I love it.

My card fits three challenges today.  First up is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Next up is the Paper Players challenge:

The Japanese lady in the kimono was the first image that came  to mind when I saw this challenge.  Kimonos are fashion, right?  My card is definitely clean, but I do have a couple layers on there so I hope it still qualifies as simple.

Last up is the pretty color combo from Color Throwdown:

I used Night of Navy, Lovely Lipstick, and Mint Macaron for my colors.  I wanted the lady to be the only pop of pink with the blue and green giving the card a serene feel.  What do you think?

Have a great day, folks!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Power of Hope
Ink:  Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, Lovely Lipstick, Basic Black, Petal Pink, Versamark
Paper:  Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Clear EP

SUO Challenges: Floral Fantasy

Good morning friends!  How are you today?  We think Ryan is coming down with a cold so I don't know if we'll get to go to the Y today, but I still got an early-morning workout in so at least I'm not missing that.  And today is fun because it's time for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This challenge is all about the flowers!  We wanna see your floral cards.  Stampin' Up! has a LOT of flower stamps; in fact, I think everyone on the design team used a different stamp set!  I decided to ink up a new Sale-a-Bration stamp set, Lovely Lily Pad.  Here's my card:

I also used the coordinating Lily Impressions DSP, isn't it gorgeous?  It was hard to pick which pattern to use because they're all so pretty.  The Lovely Lily Pad stamps are marketed as reversible, so you see the Melon Mambo fill-in?  That's the back side of the outline stamp.  Since it's not symmetrical, using the backside of the stamp kinda gives a fun, more free-flow feeling I think.  I don't have the coordinating dies yet, so I just gave the flower and leaves a quick snip with scissors.  And rhinestones usually don't photograph well for me, those are PINK rhinestones from the Noble Peacock rhinestone set.  They look so much prettier IRL!

So we know you've got some SU! flower stamps...why not make your own floral fantasy card and share it with us at SUO Challenges?  Hope to see you in our gallery!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely Lily Pad, A Big Thank You
Ink:  Melon Mambo, Blackberry Bliss, Granny Apple Green, Garden Green
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Blackberry Bliss, Thick Whisper White, Lily Impressions DSP
Accessories:  Frosted Bouquet dies, Noble Peacock Rhinestones, Dimensionals

Snowboarding

Scrappy Monday!  I didn't get this posted this morning because this is what happens when my hubs is home from work, he was on the computer and then I had to take Ryan to the Y so here I am now!  It is FREEZING COLD here today (yeah, the sweatshirt and sweatpants I wore over my workout gear were not sufficient against the wind today!) so I thought I'd pick some snowy pages to share.  Here's the hubs on his first snowboarding trip!

He went with a friend who taught him how to snowboard, but sometime over the weekend he fell on his shoulder and when he finally got it checked out MONTHS LATER, discovered he had fractured it.  (He says the arthroscopy to look at the injury hurt much worse than when he actually hurt it.)

I kept the pages very simple with just a bit of a pop of color on the title--I chose red to go with the marks on the snow.  I have no idea what those marks are or what they're for, I am NOT into skiing or snowboarding (leave me in the lodge with some tea or hot chocolate and a good book, please).  That lovely snowflake print and the tiny dot pattern behind the focal point photo are both from Wintergreen, one of my all-time favorite packs of DSP.  I love the current Garden Lane pack, but it doesn't have snowflakes in it :)

Today's color palette is mostly retired and that's okay.  Soft Sky, Sage Shadow, Night of Navy, Watermelon Wonder, and Whisper White.

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

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet
Ink:  Watermelon Wonder, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Soft Sky, Night of Navy, Wintergreen DSP
Accessories:  None

Elegant Hydrangea

Mornin' y'all and happy Friday!  I've been working in my craft room, but still focusing on scrapbook pages, so I've made just one card this week.

I was inspired by the Color Throwdown challenge to pull out these elegant colors!

I used Night of Navy, Pretty Peacock, and Crushed Curry for my colors.  I stamped off once for the Pretty Peacock leaves or else I think they would have overpowered the Crushed Curry hydrangea.  Which reminds me, I need to re-ink my Crushed Curry and Night of Navy ink pads.

I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I traced a dinner plate and just cut with scissors to get the curve.

I chose the birthday sentiment so this would fit with the Global Design Project theme challenge:

And as luck would have it, Just Add Ink is doing the same theme!

I like the picture on their graphic, maybe I'll make time this weekend to make a card using the picture as inspiration.

Hope you have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Friendship, Seaside Notions
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Night of Navy, Pretty Peacock
Paper:  Night of Navy, Shimmery White, Pretty Peacock DSP
Accessories:  rhinestones

Holyrood Palace & Abbey

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Wow, did we have a humdinger of a storm come through in the wee hours of this morning.  I was afraid that Ryan would start crying with all the thunder and wind, but he either slept through it or didn't get scared, so yay!  I was still up early this morning and got in a workout and a bit of cross stitching before anyone else got up.  Oh!  I also did some work on photo organization yesterday so woo on that!

For today's scrapbook offering, I have two more layouts from Edinburgh.  I think these are the last two layouts for that 2012 trip.

See the original pictures here.  I broke out some textured Pale Plum for my page bases, I love it.  I don't have a lot of that Enchante' DSP so I'm trying to make the most of it.  When I do pages from castles or abbeys or whatnot, it's usually a lot of gray in the pictures, so I can play around with all kinds of colors because gray is a neutral and goes with everything.  Except brown.  I don't like gray and brown together.

For example, see the floral pattern on the right page?  It looks like it would be one solid block under the pictures, right?  Nope.  I only had a little bit of it left so I cut creatively so it would show where I want it, but it's scraps under the pictures.  I also used a full sheet of that striped pattern between the two layouts.  Not like I don't have an enormous patterned paper collection.

Today's color palette is straight out of the DSP:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Sage Shadow, and Very Vanilla.  All of the colors are retired except the Vanilla.  I wouldn't put the two greens together on my own, but they do seem to work here in combination with the purples.

Hope you have a great week, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Spencerian Alphabet Upper & Lower, Rough Edges Alphabet, Carte Postale, Angelic
Ink:  Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Pale Plum, Basic Gray Marker
Paper:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Thick Very Vanilla, Enchante' DSP
Accessories:  None

And Now a Baby Ewok

Hey hey hey it's Friday!  Hope your week is going well.

I said yesterday that I needed two baby shower cards this week, so here is the second one:

Oooh non-SU stamp on this one! I'm going to a baby shower tomorrow for a gal who loves Star Wars about as much as I do.  I got this Ewok stamp set to use in my future nephew's baby book and of course I had to use it for this card too :)  I used the same congratulations stamp as yesterday because it was already out on my table so that was convenient.

Here's the Global Design Project sketch I used:

And the color palette from Color Throwdown:

I used Crumb Cake for the card base, Soft Suede for the Ewok, and Old Olive for my green.  I pulled out some retired epoxy dots for a touch of gold in the upper left corner to help balance out the Ewok and sentiment on the right.  Very quick card, but since I'm a naptime crafter, I have to be fast!

Hope you have a great Friday, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies:

Stamps:  First Frost, Confetti, Furball stamp set from The Ink Road
Ink:  Soft Suede, Old Olive, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  gold epoxy drops, Dimensionals

Wee Baby Panda

Mornin' y'all!  I have been hard at work on my scrapbooks lately but yesterday I sat down and made cards for two upcoming baby showers.  So up first is the one I made for my sister-in-law, whose little boy is due on my kid's 3rd birthday :)

My brother used to collect panda stuff when he was younger so I thought this stamp from Wildly Happy was just perfect.  I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, then colored with watercolor pencils.  Pretty quick and easy.

Check out this week's sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

I like it!  And the theme challenge from Paper Players:

Obviously I went for baby as my something new, ha.  Although I still have a pile of new stamps I need to play with!  However, my goal this year is to focus on scrapbooking rather than cards (I have a large pile of cards I've made and never sent out), so most likely I won't be making as many cards this year.  I'm already up to 10 pages done for my scrapbook goal though, so that's pretty awesome.

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wildly Happy, First Frost
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Seaside Spray, So Saffron, Thick Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Watercolor Pencils

SUO: Designer's Choice Adventure

Hey y'all!  Happy Tuesday.  After a short break, the SUO Challenges design team is back with our first challenge of 2020!

This challenge is Designer's Choice, which means anything you make with only Stampin' Up! products qualifies.  Easy peasy, right?  Here's what I made:

As soon as I saw the Occasions Catalog, I knew I was getting the Parisian Beauty bundle.  The stamps, dies, and paper are so GORGEOUS!  I've actually used the DSP on a scrapbook layout already.  I used champagne rhinestones on this card; rhinestones never photograph that well for me but they look great IRL.  A friend of mine recently told me that her dream is to visit Paris, so I'm going to send this card to her.  I hope she makes "going to Paris" a serious goal for this year :)

Your turn!  Share your SUO creation with us on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Parisian Beauty
Ink:  Cherry Cobbler, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Pool Party, Petal Pink, Thick Whisper White, Parisian Blossoms Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Parisian Dies, Ornate Frames Dies, Champagne rhinestones, mini Dimensionals

St. Giles Cathedral

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I had a productive weekend; I'm up to 6 pages for this year so far and I've got another layout on my table already halfway done.  Working on those 2020 goals!

Today's layout is another one from a 2012 trip to Scotland with my hubs, my parents, and Bennet & Missy.

See the original pictures here.  I reallyreallyreally wish we could buy single color packs of 12x12 cardstock because I neeeeeed more Shaded Spruce!  And Balmy Blue.  I would use both of those for a LOT of layouts if I had an unlimited supply.  I keep running out of Mango Melody too.  Anyway, this is yet another example of a page with Missy on it where the primary colors are Baylor green and gold.  Apparently I can't help myself.

Today's color palette:  Shaded Spruce, Crushed Curry, Ballet Blue (long retired but I still love it), Early Espresso (not black, I promise), and Whisper White.

I'm ready to start this week off right--going to HIIT class at the Y this morning.  How's your morning looking?  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Spencerian Alphabet Upper & Lower, Rough Type, Timeless Textures, Bella's Bloom
Ink:  Early Espresso, Ballet Blue
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Early Espresso, Ballet Blue, Crushed Curry, Thick Whisper White, Country Lane DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

Ikebana and 2020 Goals

Happy New Year, y'all.  I didn't get as much time in my craft room as I wanted to yesterday because the hubs asked me to help him wax my car, and I couldn't say no since it's my car ;)  I did work on finishing up a scrapbook layout yesterday (well, it will be done when the hubs does the journaling on it) and I will be ready to start a new one during naptime today provided *I* don't have to take a nap.  Ryan was afraid of the noise from the fireworks last night so I ended up sleeping on the floor in his room, which means I didn't get enough sleep : /  Ryan, of course, is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this New Year morn.  (I started writing this post at 7:30 this morning, but didn't finish it until after 3:30 in the afternoon.)

Anyway, let's start out with a scrapbook layout from Okinawa.  I don't have a whole lot of layouts left to do from our time in Okinawa...on the one hand, that means I can finish up those scrapbooks; on the other hand, that means no more Japan pictures.

You can see more pics here.  Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, but you know how I like macro shots of flowers so most of my pictures are closeups instead of the whole arrangement.

Today's color palette includes Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant (it's dark purple, not black, I promise), Lemon Lime Twist (I put Granny Apple Green in the palette but it's actually Lemon Lime Twist), Highland Heather, and Whisper White.  I've done Pink Pirouette as the page base for floral pages several times, something about that soft pink just appeals to me with flower pictures.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Morning Post Alphabet, Strength & Hope, Carte Postale
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Whisper White, Botanical Butterfly DSP
Accessories:  None




Okay, so now it's goals time.  First, let's check in on my 2019 goals.

Scrapbooking:
1.  Make 200 pages.  Well, if I count my future nephew's baby book, I ended 2019 at 188 pages, which is nothing to sneeze at.  Not quite up to the goal, but pretty darn close.
2.  Finish Ryan's baby book.  DONE, BABY!  I'll start sharing those pages soon.  The album is all put together (it's huge, I'm sure it weighs more than Ryan did when he was born) and it is now at my parents' house because I didn't want to chance something happening to it when we move overseas this spring.
3.  Organize pictures.  Uh, this one didn't happen.

Reading:
1.  Have fewer unread books on my Kindle than I started with on this day a year ago.  Yeah, 2020 me is laughing at 2019 me.  I started 2019 with 125 unread books; I ended with 134.  Oops.

Cross stitching:
1.  Finish The Accolade.  DONE, BABY!  I finished this in late July and immediately went on a pattern-buying binge and have a zillion more projects I want to tackle.  I need to clone myself.

So, out of those five goals, two were unequivocal successes, one was pretty close, and two were failures ;)  Still, I did a lot of scrapbooking, reading, and stitching in 2019, and that's good.

And now it's time for 2020 goals.

Scrapbooking:
1.  Make 200 pages (100 two-page layouts).  I was SO close last year, I'm going to keep that as my goal this year.  Might be more difficult since we're moving overseas and I might not have access to my stuff for a couple of months, but I'm really going to have a go at this.  I don't have a specific scrapbook project I'm working on, just plugging away at years and years of pictures.

ETA:  Oh, I have to change this goal.  Plan is for me to find a job once we get to Germany, which obviously will take away a lot of my scrapbook time.  So let's shoot for 100 pages.

2.  Speaking of pictures, I really DO need to get those organized and pared down a bit.  This goal fell by the wayside, and I need to tackle it.

Reading:
I don't think I'll make a reading goal this year because I have a feeling my TBR (To Be Read) pile will only ever increase.  I'll just read as much as I can and give myself permission to not finish books if I'm not enjoying them.  I did read two nonfiction books near the end of last year that I found fascinating, if rather depressing:  The Five and The Radium Girls.  Maybe this year I'll just track how many books I read.

Cross Stitching:
3.  The Accolade is finished (and I finished a couple of other projects last year too), but I have one last Scarlet Quince that I've started and not finished yet:  The Quarry, by Julian Onderdonk.

I pulled this one out after a 5-year timeout and I remember vividly why it was in timeout.  It's 99% blended threads and 99% confetti, which means it is SLOW and it's hard to feel like I'm making any progress on it.  There's a lot of electric blue and purple in the bluebonnets, which I like, but this might just kill me :p  I'm at 31% done, so my goal for this year is to get to 40%.  Might not sound like a lot...might not look like a lot...but it's going to take a lot of work to get there.  This is my odd days project (so I work on it on odd-number days), and I've got another project for even days, because if I worked on this one and nothing else I'd probably set it on fire.  Here's what it will look like probably when I'm 80:

I've completed six Scarlet Quince designs (all large, full-coverage pieces) so this ain't my first rodeo, but this is still on another level even from The Accolade, which may be slightly larger (150,000 stitches vs. 130,968 on this one) but didn't have nearly as much confetti as this one.  This goal is going to be hard to achieve.

Fitness:
So I think I've joked on here that I joined Missy's fitness cult (Missy:  "Stop calling it a cult!") at the beginning of November.  I've worked hard on improving my diet and still working out, and I'm down around 18 to 19 pounds from when I started, so yay me!  I can actually wear my wedding and engagement rings after several years of them being too tight to wear.  I'm wearing pants I haven't worn in years and they're loose so I have to wear a belt (which is now two notches tighter than it used to be, too).  I don't necessarily have a specific weight goal in mind, but I do have a fitness goal:

4.  Be able to do a full chatturanga (which I don't know how to spell).  It's a yoga move, basically a slow tricep pushup.  Since I started this program, I've been working on trying to strengthen my wrists as I've had longstanding issues with both of them (especially the right one) which has kept me from doing pushups and necessitated the modification of lots of exercises.  My flexibility has improved A LOT over the last two years thanks to regular yoga and pilates classes, but this is one thing I haven't been able to do yet.  I'm gonna have to figure out those dang tricep pushups.

So there are my four goals for this year.  I'd better get off the computer and start working!