A Pair of Wings

Mornin' y'all!  I have a super quick pair of cards to share today and I love how they turned out.

Wonderful Wings is one of those stamp sets that has been in my collection for many years and I just hadn't done anything with it recently, but the Just Add Ink challenge was the perfect excuse to change that:

And I was thinking about this challenge when I saw the As You See It sketch:

I chose some simple ombre paper from Shades & Hues DSP stack, stamped my wingy-dingies and the greeting in the coordinating ink color, and tore the bottom edge on the ombre just for a little extra interest.  These two came together so quickly that I kinda want to go back and do the other two wingy-dingies in the Wonderful Wings stamp set.

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

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wonderful Wings, Art Gallery
Ink:  Fresh Freesia, Pool Party
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Pool Party, Basic White, Shades & Hues DSP Stack
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Mini Dimensionals, Tinsel Gems

ETA:  I did it.  I made two more cards : )

There's Petal Pink on the left, and Misty Moonlight on the right.

And the full set of four.  And really, all four cards together probably took less than twenty minutes start to finish.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wonderful Wings, Art Gallery
Ink:  Petal Pink, Misty Moonlight
Paper:  Petal Pink, Misty Moonlight, Basic White, Shades & Hues DSP Stack
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Mini Dimensionals, Tinsel Gems, Round Faceted Gems

Eisriesenwelt Ice Cave

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Continuing with my Alpine Adventure series, I have THREE layouts to share today!

Eisriesenwelt is the world's largest ice cave, tucked away near Werfen in Austria.  We lucked out, they were closed for all of 2020 with the pandemic, and had only reopened for tourists on July 1.  We got tickets for July 3, and it wasn't busy at all.  So you start out taking a steep, windy road up into the mountains, park at the visitor center, and then do a 25-minute hike up to a gondola.  The gondola ride is only 3 minutes, but it's pretty zippy and also nearly straight up.  Then there's *another* 20-minute hike to get to the ice cave, so you gotta WORK to visit here.  But man oh man, the mountain views!

Our tour guide, David, was really great and conducted the tour in both English and German.  He said that it's about 1400 stairs each time he takes a group through, 700 up and 700 down, and when they're running at full capacity he would do several tours in a day, I forget how many.  But every day is leg day if you're a tour guide here, that's for sure!  Our only illumination was carbide lanterns and the magnesium flares that David carried, so taking pictures inside was a challenge.  Usually you're not allowed to take pics in there but since it was a small group we got the go-ahead to do it.

And of course after the ice cave tour, you have to do all the hiking to get back down to your car!  We stopped at a restaurant on the mountainside to eat lunch and we all got dessert because we deserved it after all that physical activity.  Ryan did great with it, he only asked to be carried towards the end of the ice cave tour and did a good job with all the hiking.

So for the first and third layouts, my color palette includes Balmy Blue, Azure Afternoon, Calypso Coral, Mossy Meadow, Granny Apple Green, and Whisper White.

For the Ice Cave layout in the middle, I kept Balmy Blue, Azure Afternoon and white, but used Blueberry Bushel as my accent color.  Plus snowflakes to really sell the ice theme.

Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!, first & third layout:
Stamps:  Alphabest, Art Gallery
Ink:  Azure Afternoon, Calypso Coral, Granny Apple Green, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Azure Afternoon, Granny Apple Green, Awash in Beauty DSP
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies

Supplies, all SU!, second layout:
Stamps:  Alphabest, Snowflake Wishes
Ink:  Azure Afternoon, Blueberry Bushel, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Azure Afternoon, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Basic White, Snowflake Splendor DSP
Accessories:  So Many Snowflakes dies

Rustic Wreath

Hey y'all!  Hope your week is going well.  I am meeting a friend for lunch today and I have a present for her and I'm SO EXCITED to give it to her!  But in the meantime, I made a card this morning and I'm pretty happy about it too, check it out:

So how many sets of dies can I use on one card?!  A CAS card, no less.  Lots of retiring items (and two already retired items) on this card--Celebrate Sunflowers and Art Gallery are both retiring, as are the Painted Labels dies and the Stitched Rectangles dies which they can pry out of my cold, dead hands.  I use those so much that they just stay sitting out next to my die cutting machine.  I also used the Sunflowers dies and one of the Layering Circles dies to cut out the center of the Painted Labels die shape.  So yep, four sets of dies.

And this card will be entered in four challenges as well.  First up is Cupcake Inspirations:

So using Celebrate Sunflowers was the obvious choice.  Then came the CAS Colours & Sketches color challenge:

Crushed Curry and Shaded Spruce are fabulous sunflower colors, and I immediately decided that a bright pink butterfly would be just the ticket.  I also used a fair amount of (retiring) Soft Suede for my neutral.

Swimming right along to the Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch:

I thought it was nice and CAS to go with the color challenge and I only just now see that I missed a layer, it's supposed to have a border at the top and bottom.  Whoops!  My apologies to the Challenge Police ; )

Last up is the Retro Rubber challenge:

It's always good to have a stash of birthday cards, so that drove my choice of sentiment.  Celebrate Sunflowers has been in my collection for a year and a half; Art Gallery (the birthday sentiment) is over two years old, and The Gifts of Spring (butterfly) is a whopping 17 years old.  I was looking for a smallish butterfly drawn in a style that would go well with the sunflower stamps and it fit the bill.  The butterfly is actually part of a much larger stamp with three bunnies and another butterfly, I just stamped the bit I wanted and fussy cut it.

And that's it for me!  I've got about 30 minutes before I have to leave for my lunch date so I'm going to go do some more crafty stuff.  It took me forever to do my SU! order yesterday but I'm excited about how much cardstock is now heading my way--I stocked up on the retiring 12x12 packs and picked up the new colors in ink pads and both sizes of cardstock.  Last night I realized that I had mixed up the names of two 50% off stamp sets from the Occasions catalog so I harrumphed at myself and did a second order to get the one I'd originally intended to buy (and got a bit more cardstock because I can't help myself sometimes).  Next time I'll be more careful about what I'm ordering but for now I've got a bonus stamp set heading my way (I got Picturesque by mistake, when I was thinking of Better Days, if you're curious).

Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Celebrate Sunflowers, Art Gallery, The Gifts of Spring
Ink:  Soft Suede, Stampin' Blends in Daffodil Delight (dark), Shaded Spruce (light), Melon Mambo (light), Soft Suede (light)
Paper:  Thick Very Vanilla, Soft Suede
Accessories:  Sunflowers dies, Painted Labels dies, Layering Circles dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Mini Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, glitter Enamel Dots

Spring Wishes

Happy Friday, y'all!  We're about to head out on a trip for the weekend so I gotta type fast.  I was a very busy little bee in my craft room this week and finished TEN pages, which makes me very happy!  And I made a card to share today:

I hadn't played with Art Gallery in a long time, but it seemed like a good fit with the Color Throwdown:

Which I paired with this week's challenge from Freshly Made Sketches:

For the colors, I used So Saffron/Crushed Curry, Petal Pink, Very Vanilla, and Old Olive/Pear Pizzazz (the DSP is Old Olive, but I stamped the leaves with Pear Pizzazz, and my ink pad is so juicy that it looks like Old Olive anyway).  A few Milky Dots to finish it off and I've got a nice spring card to send out soon.

Better go grab the last couple of things and get out the door.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  So Saffron, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz
Paper:  Petal Pink, Thick Very Vanilla, Design a Daydream DSP
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Milky Dots, Mini Dimensionals

CAS Floral Triple Challenge

Happy Friday, y'all!  I unexpectedly have the day off so I plan to play in my craft room as much as I can. Wooo!

But first, a card for today.  And it's a triple challenge card!

Check out the Retro Rubber challenge:

I did the left column, watercolor + flowers + die cut.  I did a very fast watercolor wash on the card base (had to be super quick to get this done before I had to leave to pick Ryan up the other day) and added some splat stamps for a bit of extra texture.  I've had Art Gallery for over a year, Painted Poppies is two years old, and Flowering Tulips (the sentiment) isn't retro...yet.

Here's this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I used Mint Macaron, Sweet Sorbet, So Saffron, and Night of Navy, though the sentiment looks black in the photo I promise it's navy.  Kinda wish I'd used a different blue.  Also I really thought the second color here looked like Cajun Craze, but the challenge write-up said "strawberry", so I figured that was a good reason to use the new Sweet Sorbet.  It's very pretty and I also covered it in Wink of Stella because why not?

Hope you have a great Friday, peeps.  I'm going to go be productive!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery, Painted Poppies, Flowering Tulips
Ink:  So Saffron, Mint Macaron, Sweet Sorbet, Night of Navy
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Dimensionals, rhinestones, Wink of Stella

Kenilworth Castle

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Today is a holiday for us so I think we're going to try to get out and DO something--maybe tour a small castle.  Like ya do.  Today's scrapbook layout also features a castle.

You can see lots more pics here and here.  If we take 100 pictures, I usually blog about 25-30, print 15-20, and actually scrap 8-10.  I'm never going to catch up even if I only scrap about 10% of the pictures we take.  At least I'll never be bored!  Once I decided to use the Fine Art Floral DSP, I had to use the coordinating Art Gallery flowers as a stamped accent.  We did spend quite a bit of time exploring the castle's gardens, so that's appropriate.  I love when I find DSP/stamps that perfectly accent my pictures!

Today's color palette:  Petal Pink, Terracotta Tile, Merry Merlot, Mossy Meadow, and Whisper White.  I've used Merry Merlot several times on scrapbook layouts lately, but since I skip around as I scrap I won't have a bunch of layouts all together that have the exact same colors.  Unless that's what I intentionally decide to do, but mostly I like to use lots of different colors.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Make a Difference, Art Gallery
Ink:  Terracotta Tile, Merry Merlot, Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Petal Pink, Terracotta Tile, Merry Merlot, Thick Basic White, Fine Art Floral DSP
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Tasteful Labels dies

Polished Pink Posy

Hey y'all!  How's your Thursday going?  I just finished this little card in my craft room:

Having a hard time getting a true-to-life photo here because for once it's too SUNNY!  But cold, there's a possibility of snow for the next two days.  This was the best I could do, photo-wise.  It's a triple challenge card :) Let's start with the theme from Inspire. Create:

Which I paired with the colors from The Card Concept:

I'd say my card falls definitively in the clean & layered style:  clean lines, multiple layers, DSP/embellishments, but still keeping a fair amount of white space.  I loved the bold stripes from the inspiration pic along with the bright pink flower, so I used all the colors (Black, Polished Pink, Petal Pink, gold) plus a squee bit of Soft Sea Foam because my flower needed some leaves.

Finally, check out the Try Stamping on Tuesday sketch:

I let my stripey DSP stand in for the two different patterns on the sketch.  Happily I have some (I think retired?) gold glitter enamel dots that were perfect for the embellishment in the upper right corner.

Ryan's daycare is closing a little early today so I'm going to go try to get as much done as I can before I pick him up.  Have fun today, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Polished Pink, Soft Sea Foam
Paper:  Petal Pink, Thick Basic White, Pattern Party DSP, gold foil
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, Dimensionals, Gold Glitter Enamel Dots

Blackberry Beauty Best Wishes

Mornin' y'all!  I had so much fun making yesterday's card for the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge that I made another one:

Here's the challenge graphic:

This time I kept my layout a bit more similar to the inspiration card, and layered several floral elements together.  But I went in a different direction with the patterned paper rather than leaving a lot of white space, so my card doesn't feel nearly as CAS.  I love that owl pattern!

Hope you have a great day, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beauty of Tomorrow, Art Gallery
Ink:  Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Thick Basic White, Blackberry Beauty Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Intricate Leaves dies, Blackberry Beauty Ephemera Pack, Dimensionals

Happy Birthday, Man

Hey y'all, this week has just been wearing me out!  I meant to post this card yesterday but I ran out of time to do it, so here it is today instead.

We have a lot of birthdays coming up in the family in October and November, so we're kicking off birthday season (and also fall! my favorite!) with a card for my brother-in-law.  I used both sides of a single piece of Beauty of the Earth DSP and who else is in love with the Intricate Leaves dies?  I felt like the leaf needed some kind of embellishment so I dug up a long-retired Candy Dot.  Remember those?  I *loved* those, they were my favorite embellishments, especially because they came in ALLLLLL the colors.

I used the Paper Players sketch:

And the Global Design Project theme:

I used the "best wishes" sentiment on the front just because it fit on the die better than "happy birthday", so I stamped "happy birthday" on the inside of the card.  Now I just need to get the hubs to sign it and it can go off in the mail...it might actually get there ON TIME even!

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Bumblebee, Thick Basic White, Beauty of the Earth DSP
Accessories:  Intricate Leaves dies, Tasteful Labels dies, Candy Dot

Vibrant Bloom

Hey y'all!  How's it going?  Hubs, Ryan, and I got back on Friday night from spending the week in Switzerland--it was amazing!  But I think we're all glad to have a low-key weekend to relax before we get back in the swing of things tomorrow.  Had to check out what challenges were posted while we were gone, and then of course I had to make a card!

And today I'm just GOING FOR IT with ALL THE COLORS!  It's bold, but I like it.  I tried the color blocks and flower on a white card base and it just didn't seem to work quite right, so I went with the green.  Have I mentioned how much I love Just Jade?

Also love this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

Okay yes, I did pile a few elements on top of the sketch, but I definitely started here!  And if I wanted to go more CAS, I think it would have worked to just do the color blocks and add a sentiment to it.  I sponged a bit of ink around the edges of the blocks and added Wink of Stella to the flower because I always add Wink of Stella.

The fabulous colors are courtesy of the Color Throwdown:

I used Magenta Madness, Pumpkin Pie, Bumblebee, and Just Jade for my colors, though Granny Apple Green might have been a good choice too.  I'm sure this card will be on its way somewhere soon!

Have a great Sunday, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Just Jade, Bumblebee, Pumpkin Pie, Magenta Madness
Paper:  Just Jade, Bumblebee, Pumpkin Pie, Magenta Madness, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Poppy Petals

Mornin' y'all!  How are you today?

I have enjoyed playing with the Art Gallery stamp set lately.  It was the first stamp set I thought when I saw the Just Add Ink color challenge:

I love it when Shaded Spruce shows up in color challenges :)  For the flower, I used a sponge to apply ink to the stamp for the first layer so it would stamp lighter, and then for the darker layer I inked it up with the ink pad normal-normal.  Easy way to get multiple strengths with one ink pad!  It doesn't work with the super pale colors though, the bottom layer just wouldn't show up in that case.  I paired the color challenge with the sketch from As You See It:

The strip across the bottom reminds me of the last card I made with this stamp set, but as Cogsworth would say, if it's not Baroque, don't fix it!  I had die cut the rectangle for a different card and then ended up not using it, so it was already sitting on my craft table and seemed perfect for this sketch.

Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce
Paper:  Petal Pink, Thick Basic White, Fine Art Floral DSP
Accessories:  Nature's Thoughts dies, Floral Gallery dies, Dimensionals, retired adhesive sequins

SUO Challenges: DSP

 Hey hey hey stampy friends!  Are you ready for a new challenge from SUO Challenges?

I think you're going to like this one--we challenge you to use Designer Series Paper! Easy peasy, right?  I still have a few packs of DSP from the current catalogs and SAB that I haven't even cut into yet, so I picked one of those and went to town.  Here's my card:

Mary Fish shared a sketch on her blog last week and I thought it would be great for showing off some great DSP.  I used both sides of a single sheet of DSP for my card :)  Gotta love that!

So what patterned paper projects are stewing in your brain?  Share links on the SUO Challenges blog!  Cheers, y'all, and have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Bumblebee, Terracotta Tile, Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Bumblebee, Mossy Meadow, Thick Basic White, Fine Art Floral DSP
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Rectangles Stitched dies, In Color enamel dots, Dimensionals

Lovely Peacock Bloom

Oh wow, did I get some work done in my craft room yesterday!  It was pretty awesome.  I made three cards and worked more on my current set of scrapbook pages (I'm working on five layouts at the same time because...well sometimes I just do that).  Maybe I'll actually get some of those pages done tomorrow, which is my next day off work.  In the meantime I'm going to share one of the cards I made yesterday.

In today's edition of Inspiration is Everywhere, I loved the outfit my kid picked to wear yesterday and after I dropped him off at daycare I made a card in the colors of his clothes:  Pretty Peacock, Mint Macaron, and Crumb Cake.  My other inspiration was the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I kept the layout of my card similar to the inspiration pic and of course Crumb Cake is a major color on my card too.  I didn't add as many layers to the collage because that is just not my style--I struggle with too many pieces on a collage so I kept mine to just three elements and the rhinestones.

Anyway, I'd better get moving so we'll be ready to go on time today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Art Gallery
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Mint Macaron
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Pretty Peacock, Thick Basic White, Neutrals DSP Stack
Accessories:  Floral Gallery dies, Fabulous Floral dies, Dimensionals, Noble Peacock rhinestones (retired), Wink of Stella

Leafy Greens

Mornin' y'all!  Yesterday I decided to take the day off from working around the house and I dug into a brand new book from my favorite author and drank copious amounts of tea and okay, I also did five loads of laundry because I can't ignore that for long ;) Once I finished the book, I had enough time to make a quick card in my craft room!

Saint Patrick's Day might have been yesterday but I approve of green any day because it's my favorite color.  The card base on this is Granny Apple Green, the square is gold foil and I had trouble getting a good picture of it because it was so rainy and dark out yesterday (which made it an even BETTER day to stay in and read!).

There you can see the gold a bit better.  I could not resist the supergreen challenge from Color Throwdown (and you get a million bonus points if you know what movie "supergreen" is from):

I used Garden Green, Granny Apple Green, and my trusty gold foil to go with the white.  I quite enjoyed this sketch from Fab Friday:

And I'm entering this card over at Retro Rubber as well:

Neither Love of Leaves nor Art Gallery count as retro as they are under a year old, but I broke out Post Script, which is one of my favorite-ever background stamps and I acquired it in 2017.  I hadn't decided on a sentiment to use when I pulled out Post Script, but something about that stamp makes me want to make "I miss you" cards, so I did.

I'm hoping to get some scrapping done today, and then tomorrow I'm working at the arts & crafts center again.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Love of Leaves, Art Gallery, Post Script
Ink:  Garden Green, Versamark
Paper:  Granny Apple Green, Garden Green, gold foil, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched Leaves dies, Floral Gallery dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals