Getting Sketchy with SUO Challenges

Mornin' y'all!  Guess what today is?  (Is anyone keeping track of what day of the week it is now???)  It's time for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time we're asking you to use a sketch from page 42 of the Occasions Catalog, which means you have three lovely choices!

Confession:  I peeked at what my fellow Design Team members did and picked the sketch no one else played with :D  That was the second one, so here's my card:

I resized it to a standard A2 card, and since I was CASEing the sketch I decided to CASE some other elements too:  the watercolor background and fussy-cut, popped up image with sequin accents.  Since today is the last day of Sale-a-Bration, I had to ink up Power of Hope again, and the sentiment is from Sending You Thoughts, another SAB offering that I hadn't used before this.  My unscheduled blogging break means I didn't get to play around with my SAB freebies as much as I might like, so you'll probably be seeing them here now and again for a while yet.  I did a huuuuuuuuge order a while back and haven't inked up everything yet!

Check out the three cards above and CASE the layout of one of them (or more, that would be awesome too) and post it on the SUO Challenges blog.  And since we're all social distancing right now, why not send out your creation to someone and let them know you're thinking about them?  I am going to try to send out more fun mail in the coming weeks.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Power of Hope, Sending You Thoughts
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Shaded Spruce, Pear Pizzazz, Poppy Parade
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Petal Pink, Thick Whisper White, watercolor paper
Accessories:  Basics Sequin Assortment, Tailored Tag punch, Dimensionals

Crate Expectations

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  And it was a relatively scrappy weekend too--I got one layout done start to finish yesterday, and a second one is about 75% done, which will bring my year to date page total up to 90.  Pretty dang good!

Since Blogger got over its snit and is letting me upload pictures again, I can share one of my recent layouts:

The pictures are from the end of December in 2010, so they're not new, but I just finished this layout in the past few weeks and I am *ridiculously* proud of my page title.  We had to get new travel crates for the doggos when we moved to England (even though they hadn't gotten any bigger since we moved them to and from Japan, the airline insisted) and I'm over her still giggling about crate expectations.

Today's color palette is a blast from the past:  Tip Top Taupe, Ruby Red, Brocade Blue, and still-current Basic Black and Very Vanilla.  Very simple layout, and not as many pictures as I usually cram in, but I like how it turned out.

Hope your week is off to a good start, y'all.  We're in quarantine day 156...

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Headline Alphabet, Back to Basics Alphabet, Happy Tails
Ink:  Brocade Blue, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Tip Top Taupe, Brocade Blue, Thick Very Vanilla, Holiday Lounge DSP
Accessories:  Dog punch

Best Dressed Friendship

Mornin' y'all!  Surprise Sunday post...and a big surprise because Blogger has somehow gotten over its snit and is letting me upload new pictures again.  I know it's not anything I did to fix it, but yay!  So I got up early this morning and made a card before kiddo wanted to get up.

Alas, it was very hard to photograph, the embossing powder shows up better in real life.

I embossed the big flower from Beautiful Day with Shimmery White embossing powder and now there's glitter everywhere in my craft room :)

Happy I had the opportunity to play along on the challenge for this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I used Petal Pink and Purple Posy as my colors, with just a smidge of Soft Sea Foam for the leaf.

Well, the hubs has Ryan in the tub right now so maybe I can get a little work done in my craft room.  Getting back in there is helping with my mental health during quarantine so I need to figure out how to make that happen more when our schedule is so upended.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Day, So Sentimental
Ink:  Versamark, Gray Granite
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Soft Sea Foam, Best Dressed DSP Stack
Accessories:  Shimmery White EP, Dimensionals

Ryan: One Month

Hey, y'all.  What a week.  Looks like we're going to be doing the shelter-in-place thing for another MONTH.  Crazy.  And for some reason I can't get Blogger to let me  upload new photos, so I haven't been in my craft room because I couldn't post anything anyway.  I do have a lot of scrapbook pages as draft posts, including all the rest of Ryan's book, but I'd like the option to put up something new, ya know?

Anyway, on to this week's baby book layout:  Ryan at one month.

That Yoda onesie was a hand-me-down from my brother's besties and we're all Star Wars fans.  I think I sent it to my brother and his wife for Baby Luke?  My mom made the green and brown striped baby blanket in the pictures, and I got the Yoda hat from an online friend.  This was our first monthly photo shoot and I think that top left photo is hilarious because it looks like Ryan's saying, "You're gonna do WHAT?!"

Today's color palette is Confetti White, Pear Pizzazz, Marina Mist, and Early Espresso.  This is the *only* time I've ever used Confetti White for a page base.  I never used it much for cards either, so I can see why SU! retired it so long ago ;) But it seemed to work here.

I'll be back on Monday with a scrapbook layout.  Still trying to figure out how to solve my photo uploading problem...

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nursery Necessities
Ink:  Marina Mist, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Confetti White, Early Espresso, Coffee Break DSP
Accessories:  Star punch

AAFES Spring Bazaar

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I did spend a little bit of time in my craft room over the weekend, got a couple of layouts finished up and started on another one.  I also took pictures of a big stack of finished layouts, but for some reason Blogger won't let me upload pictures.  Don't know what the deal is.

So here's a layout blast from the past!

These pics are from 2009, see 'em up close here.  I've traveled from one end of the galaxy to the other, I've seen a lot of strange stuff.  But I've never seen anything...like VENDING MACHINE HOT DOGS.  Amber had to try one (for SCIENCE) and I got one too and we didn't die so that's a plus.  I used the fun Broadsheet Alphabet for part of the title and a couple of Kettos (the little girl fairies) for accents.  Kettos were a big thing from Stamping Bella years ago and I have quite a few of them, they're darling.  I try to use them on my scrapbook pages from time to time.

The orange and yellow on my layout were inspired by the hot dog machine :D  And I just picked some other colors to round out the palette:  Coastal Cabana, Tangelo Twist, Pineapple Punch, Pacific Point, Basic Black, and Whisper White.

And so we begin Week 2 of the Great Quarantine.  So far we've done okay, here's hoping we keep it up.  Good luck to all of you out there!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Broadsheet Alphabet, Back to Basics Alphabet; Maisy Ketto, Anise Ketto, Kenya's Sparkle, Anise's Flowers from Stamping Bella
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point, Pineapple Punch, Tangelo Twist, Granny Apple Green, Petal Pink Stampin' Blend, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point, Pineapple Punch, Thick Whisper White, Confetti Celebration DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits

Ryan: February

Hey y'all!  Didja miss me?  I haven't been in my craft room all week, except for about 15 minutes yesterday (I got one whole image colored in before I had to go back out).  What with the virus craziness happening, the Y is closed, so I don't get my 2 hours in the morning to work out and/or stitch, so I've been stitching in the afternoons when Ryan does quiet time, which means I haven't been stamping or scrapbooking at ALL.  Sigh.  I hope we can resume our regularly scheduled programming soon.

In the meantime, I can still share Ryan's baby book layouts because it's all done :) So here is the first monthly layout for his book:

Wow he was so tiny!  I mean, he started out at 8 pounds, 10 ounces, so lots of babies start out smaller than he did, but it's quite a difference to look at these pictures and look at Ryan now--he's 3 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs just over 32 pounds.  Growing so much!  Anyway, there's his first picture with Mimi and Grandpa, when he was 8 days old, and I love the three pictures on the bottom of the right page.  Just fun to see Ryan looking at his daddy, and then the other two Ryan's facial expressions are hilarious.  That one on the far right looks like "Hey Mama, how YOU doin'?"

Today's color palette is Balmy Blue (I will never have enough of this in 12x12 so a layout has to be really special to rate this color for the page base), Gable Green (long retired), Blueberry Bushel, and a touch of Real Red.  Usually I make blank baby books for other people, so I can just use whatever seasonal color combination I want; since I did this one after I had all the pictures, I tried to use colors to complement the photos.  And for a lot of the layouts, pictures were taken through an entire month, so finding a cohesive color combination could be a challenge.  But I'm quite pleased with how the whole giant album turned out.

Here's hoping I get some time in my craft room this week.  Stay healthy, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Background Basics, I {Heart} Hearts
Ink:  Real Red, Blueberry Bushel, Gable Green, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Gable Green, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Large Letters Framelits

SUO Challenges: Spring

Hey y'all!  How is your social distancing going?  They Y has closed its childcare for at least two weeks, so I get no break from Ryan until quiet time (and sometimes he's not great at the "quiet" part), and I had to cancel my girls' weekend trip, which makes me sad.  But yesterday, our first day of pseudo-quarantine, actually went okay.  I was going to do my Scrappy Monday blog post, but our mouse was D-E-D dead, so instead I read a book and really enjoyed it ;)  Ryan behaved pretty well, the weather was nice so he got to play outside and get dirty, and I managed not to bust into the stash of brownie mix on day 1.  So, success.

And today it's time for a new challenge as SUO Challenges.

The theme this time is SPRING!  My brain was going international...I kept thinking about the song "I love Paris in the springtime" and also how the appearance of cherry blossoms is the herald of spring in Japan, and that's how I ended up with cherry blossoms on the Eiffel Tower.

And since today is St. Patrick's Day, I had to use green too!  The card base and DSP are Mint Macaron.  Yeah, I could have picked a brighter shade of green, but I wanted something soft and pretty for my spring card.  Whenever I want to send this, I can stamp a sentiment on the inside if I want to.

Okay, Ryan wants me to watch Paw Patrol with him, so that's next on our agenda for quarantine.  If you get a chance, make a spring-inspired card and share it with us at SUO Challenges.  We'd love to see!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Wishes
Ink:  Petal Pink, Mint Macaron
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Soft Sea Foam, Thick Whisper White, silver foil, Mint Macaron DSP
Accessories:  Parisian dies, First Frost dies, Dimensionals

Introducing Ryan Luke

Trucking right along with Ryan's baby book!  When he was 8 days old, we had a professional photographer come to our house to do newborn photos.  I loved them all so much, I did THREE layouts of them for Ryan's book...and I just did four MORE for my regular chronological album too.

There's Ryan's birth announcement on the left, we used one of the newborn photos.

I kept that Yoda hat (and the R2-D2 hat) and I love them and if Ryan ever has kids, I will ask him to take some pictures of his kid(s) in those hats because they're so adorable.  I love the picture of our hands with Ryan's teeny-tiny little baby feet!

We even did some Baylor pictures!  We have that tin bucket that says Baylor on the side, so the photographer put some pillows and blankets in it to take the pictures.  We had some bottles of Dr Pepper because Waco is where Dr Pepper was invented--and Baylor has Dr Pepper Hour once a week where students can go to the Student Union Building for a free Dr Pepper float.

Today's color palette:  Pistachio Pudding, Coastal Cabana, Baked Brown Sugar, Hello Honey, Handsome Hunter, and a little bit of Brilliant Blue (not pictured), plus Whisper White.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Moon Baby
Ink:  Pistachio Pudding, Coastal Cabana, Handsome Hunter marker
Paper:  Pistachio Pudding, Coastal Cabana, Handsome Hunter, Brilliant Blue, Lullaby & Best Year Ever DSP
Accessories:  Sunshine Wishes Thinlits

Going for the Green

It's Friday the 13th!  Let's all have good luck today, how's that sound?  :)  And I'll start off the day with a supergreen card!

I love The Fifth Element :) and here's my card!

AHHHH I love that lizard and his derpy little face!  He's from The Gang's All Meer.  I wasn't sure what to do with the little horizontal strip on this week's Freshly Made Sketch until I decided to perch a lizard on it:

And here's the green and more green color challenge from Color Throwdown:

I used Granny Apple Green and Call Me Clover for my greens; I've got a scrapbook layout 90% finished in similar colors.

I'm off to get ready for yoga...after being sick at the start of the week, I've been taking it easy so this is my only workout for the whole week.  I'll be starting back up again next week.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Witty-Cisms, The Gang's All Meer
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Granny Apple Green and Call Me Clover
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Granny Apple Green DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Lovely Little Ladybug

Hey hey hey!  My in-laws came into town last Thursday and they gave me the FLU (thanks a lot!).  I was out of commission on Sunday and Monday, starting to feel better on Tuesday, and then Ryan had a fever on Tuesday night so I kept him home yesterday but he seems fine now.  At least I didn't stay sick for long but really, WHY go traveling when you know you're sick?!

Anyway, the hubs took Ryan out for ice cream last night and I got some extra time in my craft room as a result.  I made two cards and got a lot of work done on a scrapbook layout yesterday, and then it took me forever to get to sleep because my brain was bubbling over with ideas for more paper crafts.  So here's the first card I made:

My niece Clara turns 4 next month, and when she was born her room was all done in ladybugs so I just HAD to get this Little Ladybug stamp set!  It's so cute.  I'm also thrilled to have the Stitched So Sweetly dies, I'm going to get a lot of use out of those.  I did not get the ladybug dies so I just fussy cut this one.

I started with the Sunday Stamps sketch:

The ladybug is standing in for the circular element, and I did put it in front of the rectangle because that just worked better for my card.  I used the colors from the Paper Players:

I used the dark Calypso Coral Blend to color the ladybug's wings, and some weird trick of the light (I did take my photo last night after 9 o'clock, so no natural light) makes it look more red instead of coral.  Promise it's coral!

The ladybug stamp set was perfect for this week's Global Design Project theme challenge:

This will be Clara's birthday card in a few weeks; I've already got a couple of things waiting to be packed up and sent to her.  Here's the inside of the card:

Oh yeah, loving those new dies!  I was so happy to get back in my craft room yesterday after not feeling well for a few days, and I was really happy with everything I made yesterday too, so that was pretty awesome :)  Hope you have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Little Ladybug, A Big Thank You
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Bermuda Bay, Blends in Calypso Coral & Smoky Slate
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, white baker's twine, Dimensionals

Ryan Luke

Happy Saturday!  I'm so excited to finally be sharing Ryan's baby book on here :). Since he's going to be our only kid, I pulled out all the stops and really worked to make this book special.  And I've finally gotten to the first layout after he was born!

Hard to remember that he was ever that small.  Now he's 3 years old, over 3 feet tall, 34 pounds, and constant noise and motion.  Anyway, you'll see that I continue to use the Letters for You alphabet on his entire book; his is the only baby book I've used it for (most of the time I do die cut letters, which are faster).

Today's color palette:  Hello Honey, Calypso Coral, Handsome Hunter (how's that for a blast from the past!), Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  Got my green and gold in there since Ryan came home from the hospital in a Baylor outfit :)

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Letters for You, bear by Whipper Snapper
Ink:  Night of Navy, Handsome Hunter, Hello Honey, Soft Suede, Versamark
Paper:  Hello Honey, Night of Navy, Handsome Hunter, Thick Whisper White, Best Year Ever DSP
Accessories:  Large Letters Framelits, Circles Framelits, scalloped circles from Nestabilities

Friends Like You

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ryan woke up late yesterday morning so I grabbed a few minutes in my craft room and made a quick card.  It actually took me three tries to get it how I wanted it, but I like what I ended up with:

I busted Timeless Textures out of retirement for the background on this Freshly Made Sketch:

My elements are larger than what's on the sketch, so I had to scooch the sentiment down to the bottom.  I paired that with the color challenge from Inspire. Create.:

I used Terracotta Tile as my third color, though it was hard to narrow down my choices.  My first thought was to use the fern stamp from Positive Thoughts with Mint Macaron ink, but it's even bigger than the flower so I stuck with the smaller image.  You can't tell from the photo but I painted the flower with Wink of Stella for a bit of sparkle.

Hope y'all have a great Friday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Positive Thoughts, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Night of Navy, Crumb Cake, Terracotta Tile
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Nature's Thoughts dies, Happiness Blooms Enamel Dots, Wink of Stella, Dimensionals

Water Lily Wishes

Oyy, it's been tough to get time in my craft room this week, which I usually do when Ryan has quiet time in the afternoons.  Yesterday I snuck off into my craft room after the hubs got home and made this real quick while hubs and Ryan were playing together.

Gold embossing powder FTW!  I embossed the water lily image onto a pattern from the Lily Impressions DSP so it's got some texture to it and I didn't have to color it ;)  I used gold glitter enamel dots as embellishments, which might possibly be retired but I don't care.

Check out the Global Design Project sketch:

I was kicking around other ideas for this sketch, but when I saw the inspiration photo from Hand Stamped Sentiments, I couldn't resist the water lily.

The idea to do the sentiment on the lily pad die cut really sold me on it ;)  I think the Lily Impressions paper was made for this challenge.

And since I used embossing powder, I can enter this at the Paper Players too:

When we first moved back to the States from England, I embossed ALL THE THINGS for a while.  I *could* do heat embossing in England, but I had to go to a different room and plug the embossing gun into the transformer so it wasn't convenient.  Once I could just plug it in without leaving my craft room, I wanted to emboss everything :D

Well, we've got my in-laws arriving this afternoon so I need to get to work on a couple of things.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely Lily Pad, Itty Bitty Birthdays
Ink:  Versamark, Garden Green
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Granny Apple Green, Lily Impressions DSP
Accessories:  Lily Pad Dies, Layering Circles Dies, Gold EP, Gold Glitter Enamel Dots, Dimensionals

SUO Challenges: Color My World

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

This time the challenge is coloring!  We've done this one several times and it's always fun.  Use Stampin' Blends, do watercoloring, use your regular markers, watercolor pencils, whatever you like!  Lots of options for this challenge.  Here's my card:

I just got a very large order of Stampin' Up! goodies, so I looked through my new stamp sets for something fun to color and Under My Umbrella popped out at me.  I used the coordinating Pleased as Punch DSP and took my colors from that...well, Mango Melody isn't listed on the colors for the paper, but that sure looks like a mango stripe to me!  I used Stampin' Blends to color the umbrella and the flowers, and for something really different, this card even went out in the mail already!  I've been doing pretty well about sending out happy mail lately.

Something that makes me happy?  I *finally* got the Layering Ovals dies.  I almost reached for my trusty favorite Stitched Shapes dies, but then remembered that I just got the ovals.  Why did it take me so long?!

Color up something gorgeous and share it with us on the SUO Challenges blog.  We'd love to see you in our gallery!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Under My Umbrella
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Balmy Blue, Stampin' Blends in Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Highland Heather
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Highland Heather, Thick Whisper White, Pleased as Punch DSP
Accessories:  Umbrella punch, Layering Ovals Dies

29 Again, Part 2

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I'm back with more pages from my 30th birthday.  I've started thinking about a layout for my 40th birthday but I need to get some pictures printed for it :D

Bright sunny colors today!  I pulled out some Summer Sun cardstock for these two layouts, and Good Morning Sunshine DSP.  What do you think?

Alas, poor Elmo.  He dead.  But it was fun to use the Calling All Heroes stamp set to make my Batman-esque words on the right!

Today's color palette is mostly the same colors as last week's, just switching out where I used them:  Summer Sun, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Real Red, Cameo Coral, Basic Black, and Whisper White.

I got some good work done in my craft room yesterday--I'm now up to 72 pages done for 2020!  Pretty amazing considering it's the beginning of March :D

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, first layout:
Stamps:  Eastern Blooms
Ink:  Real Red, Cameo Coral, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Summer Sun, Pacific Point, Real Red, Thick Whisper White, Good Morning Sunshine DSP
Accessories:  None

Supplies, second layout:
Stamps:  Calling All Heroes
Ink:  Real Red, Pacific Point, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Summer Sun, Kiwi Kiss, Real Red DSP, Good Morning Sunshine DSP
Accessories:  None

Birthday Meerkat

Sunday surprise post! ;)  I had a card to share on Friday, but I thought the color balance was off on it (like, on the actual card, not that my photo was terrible) so I decided to wait and redid the card yesterday.  I loved the color combination from Color Throwdown so I wanted to take another stab at it and do something different...and I ended up doing another birthday card with an animal on it ;)

Different animal, different sketch, and a slightly different take on the colors:

This time I used Melon Mambo, Balmy Blue, and Crumb Cake.  Also, I use the Stitched Shapes dies so often that they just live on my hutch where the die cut machine is, I don't bother to put them away anymore.

This time around I used the new sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch:

Do you want to see the first version?  Here it is:

It felt like way too much Crumb Cake and not enough Balmy Blue.  I liked the sentiment on a not-white circle idea, but it just didn't work on this particular card.

The hubs has taken our spawn to go play at an indoor playground so I'm going to enjoy my kid-free time!  I already did some yoga, and next I'm going to go play in my craft room.  I just got a giant order of Stampin' Up! goodies on Friday....

Cheers!

Supplies, first card only:
Stamps:  The Gang's All Meer, Birthday Backgrounds
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Melon Mambo, Balmy Blue, Memento Tuxedo Black, Crumb Cake Blends
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Melon Mambo, Balmy Blue, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals