Bye-Bye Baby Bear

Mornin' y'all!  I really need to figure out something better to do for my card photos.  I made two cards yesterday afternoon (you'll see the other one tomorrow) and that second card's photos came out ALL WONKY.  Like, very very blue.  I'll have to try to get a better picture of it today so I can post it tomorrow, I'm actually pretty happy with that card so I want it to look good.

But let's talk about today's card, shall we?

I admit, I have not used Baby Bear very much because I find it a little difficult to work with.  It only took me two tries to get the bear to look okay this time at least (the bow took three).  I mean, the bear IS super cute when all the stamps are lined up juuuuust right, but even though I'm a pro Stamp-a-ma-jigger, this stamp set is still hit or miss for me.  But I do like how the bear looks on here today.

The Inspire. Create. challenge inspired me (teehee) to make a baby card today:

Oh yeah, the inside of the card says "Welcome to the world!" but I didn't photograph it.

Just had to use the Paper Players sketch:

And my colors are from the Color Throwdown:

I used Petal Pink, Soft Suede, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  Well, I did use a wee bit of Blushing Bride to do the two-step stamping on the bear's bow because two layers of Petal Pink just didn't work.  I did use ONLY Soft Suede for the bear.  For the lightest layer, I inked up the stamp with a sponge; for the middle layer, I inked it up with the ink pad like normal, but then I used the sponge to remove a bit of the ink to make it a little lighter than full strength; and for the darkest layer, I just inked up the stamp like normal (and worked very hard to get it to line up right with the first two layers).  Then I cut it out and stuck it on my card :)

Have a great day, peeps.  I'll be taking a stitching project to the Y to work on today since we don't have barre class until the find a new teacher...the last one is 8.5 months pregnant and moving in June anyway :p  I loved her, she was so much fun to take classes from.  Hope we get a good new instructor!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Baby Bear
Ink:  Petal Pink, Blushing Bride, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Petal Pink, Twinkle Twinkle DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Hello Baby Bear

Hey y'all!  I have a cute little card to share today.

With the way the sun was coming in the window while I took the picture, you can really tell that the bear and the bees are up on Dimensionals!  The inside of the card completes the sentiment with "Welcome to the world!"

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge:

I'm counting the three bees as one of the floral elements on the sketch.

I also played along with this week's color challenge from Just Us Girls:

I used Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, and Daffodil Delight as my colors, plus some Soft Suede for the bear.  I tried sponging on some color for the grass and it looked a mess so I redid it with just the grass stamp.  It looks a lot cleaner and much mo' bettah now.

And finally, here's the challenge from What Will You Stamp?

I'm really DYING to make a pink elephant card, but the bear just worked better for the sketch I chose so I went with him instead.  That elephant's time is coming, though.  I just know it.

Well, in a little bit I'll be off to try my first piyo class.  Wish me luck?

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Baby Bear
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Memento Tuxedo Black, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella on the bees' wings

Baby Bear

Bonus card this week because I'm an overachiever! :) And guess what?  It's not flowers.

I love bears (my college mascot!) but I haven't used this stamp set very much.  I've had more luck with it since I started using my piercing mat as a pad when using photopolymer stamps, but even then I had some ink coverage issues this time around.  But Baby Bear ended up looking okay.  And he fits in with this week's SUO Challenge:

I also used the color combination from Inkspire Me:

I really like Wild Wasabi, I'll miss it.  For the additional color, I added Soft Suede...used that on the bear with Early Espresso to get some nice shading on it.  You can't see much white on my card, but I did stamp the bear on white ;)

Finally, here's this week's sketch from Retro Rubber:

Baby Bear is almost two years old because I got him one October when SU! did a sale on select stamp sets, but then I didn't use him for months afterwards.  The speckles on the background are from Magical Mermaid, but she's not quite a year old yet so she doesn't count as retro.  I did leave off the small circular element from the sketch because I couldn't think of anything to put there.  Alternatively you could say I moved that element to the bear and it's his gold bow.

That's it for me today.  I'm going to go see Solo!!!!  Can't get a babysitter, so I'm going to see it solo.  And I will make that pun all day long.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Baby Bear, Magical Mermaid
Ink:  Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Wild Wasabi, Versamark
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Thick Whisper White, gold foil
Accessories:  Gold EP, Dimensionals

Hey, Kit

Happy Friday, y'all!  The hubs and I were both saying yesterday that we were confused what day of the week it was; both of us thought yesterday was Wednesday for a while.  Don't know why but heyyyy Friday!

Ryan took a THREE-HOUR nap yesterday so I managed to make a couple of cards and work on a scrapbook layout.  So here's one of the cards I made:

A baby fox is a kit, right?  I think so.  Meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I loved Rita's foxy card so I was inspired to dust off Foxy Friends, which I haven't played with nearly enough.  Lucky for me, this week's Color Throwdown was foxy as well:

I used Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, Tangerine Tango, and Pool Party for my colors.  I admit I didn't think "baby" when I first saw these colors...in fact, I hadn't decided on a sentiment when I put the rest of the card together.  So I just went through my stamps to find a sentiment that would fit right and that "hello, baby" from Baby Bear jumped out at me.  (The inside of the card says "welcome to the world!")  I thought hey, why not make this a baby card?  Honestly, these colors are pretty similar to Ryan's bedding in his nursery and I looooooove all the baby clothes with foxes on them.  So baby card!

Ryan and I are heading out in about 10 minutes to do our daily gym time.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Baby Bear
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Tangerine Tango, Pool Party, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Thick Whisper White, Always Artichoke, Pool Party
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits (to make a mask), Dimensionals

Cherry Vanilla Coke Bear

Mornin', y'all!  How's your day going so far?  Ryan decided to wake up at 5:30 this morning; I was not amused.  But I'm working on my morning cuppa so things are improving :)  Now if I could convince Ryan that *he* doesn't want my tea.  He's also helping me type (read:  making it more difficult).

How about a beary adorable card?

I got Baby Bear last year I think when it was on sale from Stampin' Up! and this is the first time I've gotten it inked up.  The inside of the card says "beary much" because OF COURSE IT DOES.  I was inspired by the Cupcake Inspirations color challenge:

This made me think of cherry vanilla Cokes from Sonic, which I miss but I quit drinking Coke almost three years ago.  Anyway!  I used Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, and Early Espresso.

I was also inspired by this sketch from Clean & Simple:

So glad they've started posting there again.  My bear image ended up being larger than planned, so the sentiment ended up migrating to the bottom panel, but I did at least start with this layout.

Okay, Ryan is totally getting grabby-hands with the keyboard so I'm going to go try to wear him out so he'll take a nap.  He did NOT want to nap yesterday!  Oy.

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Baby Bear
Ink:  Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  retired Cherry Cobbler ribbon