Niagara Falls, Part 1

Scrappy Monday!  I've run out of draft posts of Europe scrapbook pages, so today we're going to Canada instead.

In September of 2017, we drove up to New York to visit our friends Scott and Tiana, and then all of us drove up to Niagara Falls and spent several days on the Canadian side.  (Ryan was only seven months old so he won't remember it at all.)  The Falls were *amazing* and I could totally have spent hours just watching the water.

The water is a really neat green-blue color, which drove my color palette choices:  Tranquil Tide, Mint Macaron, Blackberry Bliss, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.

Stay tuned for part 2 coming next Monday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Brushwork Alphabet, Rooted in Nature, First Frost
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, Blackberry Bliss, Thick Whisper White, Frosted Floral DSP
Accessories:  Labels Collection Framelits, Frosted Bouquet Framelits, Nature's Roots Framelits

Ryan: December

Howdy y'all!  Ready for another baby book layout?

Since I used the traditional Christmas colors on Ryan's 10-month layout, I wasn't worried about doing that for this layout.  I chose Baked Brown Sugar to coordinate with the bear onesie in the top picture, and that led me to the Retro Fresh DSP.  I love that pattern with the multicolored squares so I was happy to use some of it on here.  The bottom three pics on the right are all from Ryan's first trip to Texas; he got to take a bath in his Mimi's kitchen sink.  He's way too big (and wiggly) to fit in a kitchen sink now.

Today's Retro Fresh color palette is Baked Brown Sugar (apparently I was confused when I took the palette picture, I used Soft Suede), Tangerine Tango, Call Me Clover (which is not in the DSP but the color seemed to jive with the rest of the color palette), Coastal Cabana, So Saffron, and Very Vanilla.  Not at all traditional Christmas or winter colors, but I like it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Baked Brown Sugar, Call Me Clover, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Baked Brown Sugar, Call Me Clover, Tangerine Tango, Very Vanilla, Retro Fresh DSP
Accessories:  Retro Fresh Accents & Stickers

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Scrappy Monday!  I'm back with another Europe layout; today we're in Italy!

Check out the original pictures here. I said a while back that I used Dusty Durango on several layouts in a row, behold the evidence!  I've done a lot of layouts with castles and other buildings that are primarily gray, so it's always been a personal challenge to make the layouts look different from each other and play with different colors.  For this one, there were some orangey accents on the not-Leaning-Tower buildings, so that led me to Dusty Durango, and I "cooled it down" with greens and gray taken directly from the pictures.

So here's today's palette:  Dusty Durango, Smoky Slate, Pistachio Pudding, Garden Green, and Whisper White.  What do you think?

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Make a Difference, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Smoky Slate, Garden Green, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Dusty Durango, Pistachio Pudding, Garden Green, Thick Whisper White, All Is Calm DSP
Accessories:  None

Ryan: Ten Months

Mornin' y'all!  It's time for another baby book layout and we're up to 10 months :)

I totally chose Ryan's monthly photo shoot outfits with specific patterned paper and/or color combos in mind for his baby book (which is totally normal, right?).  How cute is that tree pattern with Ryan's onesie?  Plus since the paper was in black and white I was able to pick whatever other colors I wanted to go with it.  Signs of Santa has now made appearances on at least three different Christmas layouts (another benefit of scrapping out of order).

Today's color palette:  Gumball Green, Marina Mist, Real Red, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  Easy peasy!

Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Signs of Santa
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Gray marker, Stampin' Blends in Real Red, Petal Pink, Daffodil Delight, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Gumball Green, Real Red, Marina Mist, Thick Whisper White, Merry Little Christmas DSP
Accessories:  Signs of Santa dies, Stitched Shapes dies

SUO Challenges: Gettin' Sketchy

Heeeeyyyy yooouuuuu guuuuuuys!  Ready for another SUO Challenge?

This time we're getting sketchy!  We even have two options for you; please excuse my terrible photo of the catalog but I was in a hurry before the movers came to pack up everything so this is what I've got:

That's page 94 of your catalog, aren't they both fun?  (Side note:  I do need to get my hands on that bundle, it's adorable!)  I decided to go with the card on the left and used two brand new stamp sets to make this:

Oooh pretty roses!  I did cheat a bit and use the no-longer-available Purple Posy ink pad, but you could get a very similar look by stamping off Highland Heather ink for the largest rose image, then full strength Highland Heather for the middle part and Gorgeous Grape for the darkest part.  I think my glitter enamel dots are retired too, I don't keep track of what accessories are current because I typically don't use them very quickly. *shrug*

So which sketch will you choose, left or right?  Make your choice and upload your card on the SUO Challenges blog.  Have a great day, Goonies!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  All Things Fabulous, Stacked Stone
Ink:  Gray Granite, Purple Posy, Highland Heather, Gorgeous Grape, Just Jade
Paper:  Gorgeous Grape, Gray Granite, Highland Heather, Purple Posy, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Fabulous Florals dies, Dimensionals, Glitter Enamel Dots

Paris

Scrappy Monday!  Bet you can't guess where we're going today...

Okay so my page title isn't exactly ambiguous :) These pictures are from our first trip to Paris in May 2012; these four didn't fit in any of my other Paris layouts but I didn't want to leave them out so here they are (see some of them here).  Usually I'm trying to figure out how to get a zillion pictures on a single layout, so working with only four pictures was something new and different for me.  I picked a sketch that I've always really liked but never had few enough pictures to use, so this was extra fun, but it did pretty much eat up four sheets of patterned paper.  I loooooooooooved the Parisian Blooms Specialty DSP so it was nice to showcase one of the Eiffel Tower prints on this layout.

Today's color palette:  Cherry Cobbler, Pool Party, Petal Pink, Blueberry Bushel, and Whisper White.  The Parisian Blooms colors (top row) were the easy choices, but I was surprised when Blueberry Bushel turned out to be the accent color I needed.  I used Blueberry Bushel ink for the page title, stamped accent, and journaling.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet Upper, Artistic Etchings
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Thick Whisper White, Perfectly Artistic DSP, Parisian Blossoms Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Painted Labels dies, corner rounder punch

Ryan: November

Trucking right along with the baby book layouts, and here we are up to November!

I scrapped all of 2017 chronologically (unusual for me, the perennial skip-arounder) and I did a few Thanksgiving layouts for our regular scrapbook albums using Wonderfall for the stamped accents as well, though completely different colors.  One benefit of skipping around is I can use the same stamp sets multiple times and not have several layouts in a row that all look alike ;) Anyway, I've got some cute pics of Ryan on here and one very silly one of the hubs which I am just so glad I managed to include on here.  People around me should know, if you make a silly face and I catch a picture of it, it's going either on my blog or in my scrapbooks.

Today's color palette includes Baja Breeze (perhaps my all-time favorite SU! color), Not Quite Navy, Garden Green, and More Mustard.  And a bit of Soft Suede which I didn't put in the palette picture.  Baja Breeze might be an unusual choice for a fall color palette, but I liked it.

Peace out, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Wonderfall
Ink:  Not Quite Navy, More Mustard, Garden Green, Soft Suede
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Garden Green, Thick Whisper White, Autumn Vines DSP
Accessories:  none

Verona

Scrappy Monday!  Once again, I'm sharing pages from our European travels because I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get to travel again once this pandemic thing gets under control.

See these pics (and more) here and here.  I kept this layout very simple, but since I usually don't crop my pictures very much and I like to cram in as many as I can get on a single layout, I kinda have to keep things simple :)

Today's color palette:  Mint Macaron, Dusty Durango (this layout started a Dusty Durango spree, I used it on three or four layouts in a row but since I skip around when I scrap, they won't be next to each other in my albums), Midnight Muse, Tangerine Tango, and Very Vanilla.  I think I use Whisper White for 85% of my scrapbook pages, but around the time I went on a Dusty Durango spree I also started using a lot of Very Vanilla.  When I'm really in a scrapping groove and making lots of pages, I pretty frequently gravitate towards a color and use it several times on different layouts.  It's fun to think up different ways to use a specific color.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Morning Post Alphabet, Positive Thoughts
Ink:  Dusty Durango, Midnight Muse
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Dusty Durango, Thick Very Vanilla, Paisley Petals DSP
Accessories:  None

Ryan: Nine Months

Today's baby book layout features one of my favorite outfits from when Ryan was a baby.  Before I had him, I guess I liked foxes okay, but man, once I saw all the cute foxy baby clothes...yep, every time I saw a fox outfit, I bought it (and also bears, but that's only to be expected since the hubs and I are both Baylor Bears).  So naturally I had to use the fox onesie for a monthly photo shoot.

This photo shoot was done in two parts; we started taking pictures in the orange long-sleeved onesie and Ryan got angry about something, so he ended up taking a nap during which he messed up that onesie so I redressed him in a coordinating fox onesie for the other pictures.  And since our dogs Sadie and Vader are both gone now, I'm glad I have a few pictures including them here and there in Ryan's book.  I miss those puppers.

Anyway, orange was a given thanks to Ryan's onesies, and I pulled out my favorite Thankful Forest Friends and the coordinating Into the Woods DSP to make this layout.  The page base is Taken with Teal, but all the other colors are taken straight out of the paper:  Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, Daffodil Delight, Early Espresso, and Whisper White.

Cheers, folks!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Forest Friends
Ink:  Tangelo Twist, Soft Suede, Daffodil Delight, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Taken with Teal, Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, Thick Whisper White, Into the Woods DSP
Accessories:  1 3/4" circle punch

SUO Challenges: What's Your Favorite?

Hey hey, it's time for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time we're asking you to use your favorite stamps.  You could use your all-time favorite, your favorite new stamps, your favorite stamps in the current catalog...just something that you would call your favorite in some category!  I used my favorite stamps from when the new catalog debuted this summer, and also my two favorite new In Colors, and I made this:

Nothing's Better Than was tops on my list as soon as I saw it.  It's got cookies and chocolate and coffee (uh, they're teacups in my house) and cocktails all in a fun retro style and what's not to love?  I couldn't resist using my two favorite new In Colors, Just Jade and Cinnamon Cider, to make this card.  Who knew I'd go gaga over a shade of brown?  But it's just amazing, I love it.

So now you've seen my favorites, let's see what is tops on your list!  Upload your card creation at the SUO Challenges blog and have fun!

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nothing's Better Than
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Just Jade
Paper:  Just Jade, Early Espresso, Cinnamon Cider, Thick Whisper White, Early Espresso DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Stockholm: Gamla Stan

Scrappy Monday!  Our first round of packers arrives today (hurricane permitting), which means this overseas move is officially kicking off today.  Wooo!  So I thought I'd share a layout from the last time we lived in Europe.

These pictures were taken in Stockholm, which we visited as part of a Baltic Sea cruise (see the original pictures here, I plan to revive my other blog once we get to Germany).  I hope that we'll get to travel again once we get to Germany.

Today's color palette feels kind of unusual to me but I thought it worked with the photos:  Crisp Cantaloupe, Tangerine Tango (both in the Venetian Romance DSP), Pacific Point, Cucumber Crush (taken from the photos), and Very Vanilla.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Jayne's Type Alphabet, Best of Shelli
Ink:  Cucumber Crush, Basic Gray
Paper:  Crisp Cantaloupe, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Very Vanilla, Venetian Romance DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches 1" and 1 1/8"

Ryan: October

Okay kids, since we have the movers arriving on Monday and then we'll be living out of suitcases for most likely at least two months when we get to Germany (and pretty much a month between now and then for good measure), I am writing up a bunch of blog posts to go live in between now and whenever I have my new craft room up and running.  So please enjoy these prerecorded messages, heh.

Time for October in Ryan's baby book!

I always feel like I don't get to use much purple in my scrapbooks (even the regular ones, not just Ryan pages), so when I do manage to sneak it in I'm proud of me.  Happily it seemed to work for these pictures.  These are the last few pics of Ryan with his Beatles mop top hairdo; you can see in a few of them it's post haircut.  The hair on that kid.  Anywha, I am particularly proud of the picture on the bottom right of Ryan with the vacuum cleaner; I took it on my phone and when I had it printed as a 4x6 both Ryan and the vacuum were cut off.  So I had it reprinted as a 5x5 and voila!  We got the whole picture in there.  Ryan was too little to stand up on his own, my hubs is holding him steady while Ryan holds the vacuum, we just thought it was funny.

Today's color palette was definitely Halloween-inspired:  Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Granny Apple Green, Bermuda Bay, Gorgeous Grape, and Whisper White.  As I type this I am trying to talk myself out of buying all the Halloween stuff in the mini catalog this year; I have a bunch of Halloween paper and stamps already, and I don't even really send out Halloween cards, but I might as well have SUCKER stamped on my forehead.  Well, we'll see which side of me wins the argument.  What do you think, do I need more Halloween stamps and paper?

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Spooky Bingo Bits
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Basic Black, Gorgeous Grape, Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Pumpkin Pie, Thick Whisper White, Ghostly Greetings DSP
Accessories:  Large Letters dies, Stitched Shapes dies