Technik Museum Sinsheim

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  We had a pretty relaxing weekend and didn't really do much, and sadly my French toast casserole experiment yesterday didn't turn out all that great (way too eggy).  But I'll look for other recipes and see if I can find one we do like.

Since Father's Day is this weekend (and oops, I haven't made cards for it yet), I thought I'd share a manly man layout today:

This museum was an hour or an hour and a half from where we lived in Germany, and even I, not a car nut at all, enjoyed it.  Ryan got bored because 4-year-olds don't like to just look at things, no matter how cool the things are.  They had quite a collection of cool cars and also several planes that you could tour, including a Concorde.  One plane perched on top of the museum has a three-story slide in it so you can slide down from the plane to the first floor of the museum, so that's pretty cool and definitely fun for little dudes.

Today's color palette is in the Man Rainbow, though that light blue might be pushing it ; )  The Man Rainbow is gray, black, navy blue, and khaki and admit now that the wardrobes for the guys you know are 90% those colors.  The colors I used are Boho Blue, Smoky Slate, Night of Navy, Basic Gray, and white.

That's it for now.  The hubs is working some later shifts this week which means he's here to walk Daphne with me, so that's what we're going to do as soon as I finish my cuppa.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Metro Type Alphabet, Geared Up Garage
Ink:  Boho Blue, Smoky Slate, Night of Navy, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Boho Blue, Night of Navy, Basic Gray, Thick Basic White, Take to the Sky DSP
Accessories:  Garage Gears dies

Burg Thurant

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Birthday celebrations are done, for me at least--the hubs, Ryan, and Daphne all have their birthdays in February.  We had a busy weekend doing All The Things like the Pikes Peak cog train on Saturday and the ice castles near Cripple Creek yesterday.  I need to take a look at all the photos from the weekend and they'll be future scrapbook pages : )

For today's scrapbook layouts, I have another German castle.  We went to Burg Thurant on the same day we visited Burg Eltz, so these pages will be next to each other in my scrapbooks.

I actually liked Burg Thurant better than Burg Eltz; it's much smaller and cozier, and while Burg Eltz is still intact and inhabited, Burg Thurant is neither.  But I got a good vibe off it and we enjoyed our very short visit since we arrived like 30 minutes before they closed.

I was having fun taking some detail shots around the castle and Ryan got to hold a sword.

Today's color palette was inspired by the flowers all around the castle grounds:  Fresh Freesia, Daffodil Delight, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Pebbled Path, and Whisper White.  It felt a bit out of the ordinary for me, but I thought they worked well with the photos.

Time to get Ryan to school and for once there's no delay or anything, hurrah!  I was halfway expecting a delay or cancellation today because we got several inches of snow over the weekend, so I'm glad that I was wrong because that means after I go to the grocery store and walk Daphne, I get some crafty time.  Woohoo!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Letters for You, Carte Postale, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Thick Basic White, Watercolor Wonder DSP
Accessories:  1" and 1 1/4" square punches

Burg Eltz

Scrappy Monday, y'all, with an emphasis on MONDAY.  I was about to get Ryan out the door for his first day of soccer camp and we discovered a giant roach in the house.  So I took care of that, dropped Ryan off, and went to Walmart to buy Sphaghetti-Os because Ryan thinks they're a food group and we were almost out.  I was walking towards the store, minding my own business, when a big black bird whacked into my head!  (I don't know if he's a raven or a crow, but something like that.). I yelled "REALLY?!  WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" while the bird strutted off, supremely unconcerned by my indignation.  So I bought Star Wars Oreos to soothe my ruffled feathers (pun intended) and on the way back to my car THE SAME DANG BIRD DID IT AGAIN.  And that is why I am eating Oreos for breakfast.

Anyway, I did finally take pictures of a giant stack of scrapbook layouts last week so for today I have two layouts from that batch.  Here's the first one:

Unlike most of the castles we visited in Europe, Burg Eltz is privately owned by the Eltz family to this day and they still live there.  It was about a two-hour drive from our house to the castle, which is situated in a forested valley so you pretty much can't see it until you're super close to it.

Ryan paid attention to the tour guide's spiel and asked a question or two about the castle that showed he really was listening, which surprised the tour guide (and to be honest, the hubs and I were wondering what was going to come out of his mouth when his hand shot up to ask a question).  We got some snacks in the castle's cafe before we left, and we decided to hike back to the parking lot so we got more pictures of the castle from the surrounding forest.  It was pretty cool and obviously I had a lot of pictures I liked and I couldn't narrow it down more than this, so two layouts it is.

Today's color palette:  Pale Papaya, Balmy Blue, Pear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, and Whisper White.

Okay, I have just over an hour and a half left before I have to go pick Ryan up, so I'm going to work on my last batch of scrapbook layouts before I get things ready to move--packers will be here next Monday!  Eek!  But maybe I'll eat one more Oreo first.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Letters for You, Carte Postale, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Pale Papaya, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Thick Basic White, You're a Peach DSP
Accessories:  1" and 1 1/4" square punches

Saying Goodbye to Sadie

Yesterday was a very hard day for my friend Krissy, who had to unexpectedly say goodbye to her dog Joplin.  I am doing my best to support her in her grief because Krissy's dogs are her babies and I totally understand that.  I ordered a small memorial gift that will be delivered today and I will be sending her many cards in the mail, since that's pretty much all I can do from two states away.

So today I'm sharing my scrapbook layout from when we said goodbye to our own girl, Sadie, nearly four years ago when she was 14 years old.

Man, this was a tough layout to make, but I am glad I have it for my furbabies' scrapbook.  The two pictures on the bottom right were taken just two days before Sadie passed.  I chose that multicolored washy background because it reminded me of a low-key Rainbow Bridge for my girl.  I miss her and Vader still every day, but we are looking forward to adopting a dog or two after we move again this summer.  I miss having furbabies.

I used black for my page base, Cherry Cobbler to match Sadie's collar, and the other colors are in the watercolor wash background, Misty Moonlight, Blushing Bride, and So Saffron.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Happy Tails
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Misty Moonlight, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler, Misty Moonlight, Thick Basic White, Sand & Sea DSP
Accessories:  Dog Builder Punch

Season's Greetings 2021

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Ryan was at his grandparents' house for the weekend, so I went to a craft fair on Saturday morning at my high school alma mater with my mom, SIL, niblings, and my friend Missy.  Then I spent some time in my craft room with my BRAND NEW Occasions catalog preorder :) and spent several hours on Saturday evening addressing my Christmas cards.  Those are going out today!

Since we moved last summer, I kind of expect not to get as many cards this year, but one of my favorite things to do every year is to gather up the photo cards I get (plus an extra one of ours) and make collage layouts.  Like these ones from 2021:

First I put the cards down where I want them, and if the card has something on the back I use those photo corners so that I can take the card out later if I want to.  Then I choose a DSP pack from that year and fill in the spaces around the photo cards.  This time around, I used the Penguin Playmates DSP, which is one of my all-time favorites and I got a LOT of it during Sale-a-Bration that year.  I love the adorable little animals on some of the patterns, so I went to town fussy cutting the characters and adding them to my color block pieces.

Really I might have gone a little overboard but they're just so cute!  I even used some of the polar bears that was going off the edge of a page, look at the one in the center of my left page here and on the far right.  I haven't decided what paper I might use for this year's color block, I have both of the bear-centric packs plus Merry Bold & Bright, which sold out a while back.  I haven't done the 2022 color block yet so maybe in January after Ryan starts the new semester at school, I'll do this year and last year's color blocks.  This is also a really fun thing to do with the 6x6 DSP stacks, which a lot of times I *don't* use on my scrapbook pages because I like to do long strips that span the 12-inch page.  But with this idea, I just need little pieces.

Today's color palette comes straight from the DSP:  Just Jade, Soft Sea Foam, Fresh Freesia, and Misty Moonlight.  Just Jade is now retired, but Fresh Freesia and Misty Moonlight are now on the regular color lineup.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Penguin Place, Back to Basics Alphabet
Ink:  Just Jade, Fresh Freesia, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Just Jade, Thick Basic White, Penguin Playmates DSP
Accessories:  Tasteful Labels dies

Celebrating Karyn

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I tried to schedule a bunch of posts before we left Germany and didn't realize that I'd run out of scheduled Scrappy Monday posts already : p  Ryan and I are still waiting to get our household goods here in Texas, but at least we have the Internet (even if the computer is sitting on the floor and I'm on a yoga mat with the keyboard in my lap).  Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

In the meantime, how about a layout from our time in England.

I hosted a Peter Pan-themed baby shower for my friend Karyn who has twin boys (actually, I have no fewer than FOUR friends who have twin boys!).  The page accents are those dimensional Jolie's Boutique stickers, but since I like to keep things flat in my scrapbooks, I pulled them apart and took out the pop dots that make them stick up.

Today's fun color palette:  Cucumber Crush, Bumblebee, Berry Burst, and Magenta Madness.

Kiddo and I are off to the Y this morning.  I already did a workout today but I do like to take yoga classes in person and now I can : )  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Coffee House Alphabet (Inkadinkado)
Ink:  Berry Burst, Cucumber Crush, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Cucumber Crush, Magenta Madness, Berry Burst, Thick Basic White, Whole Lot of Lovely DSP
Accessories:  stickers

Ryan & His Dad

Hey y'all, how's the holiday weekend treating you?  We got back from a weekend in Munich a couple hours ago.  It was still a bit cool out but we have ridiculously gorgeous weather today!  Finally warming up to 70 degrees where it's been in the low 60s, tops, for a long time.  We enjoyed getting out of the house, though I have to say Munich isn't our favorite.  It was fine, just not superfantastic.

Anywha, I've got a new layout to share today for Scrappy Monday and I forgot that I decorated it with fall leaves so whoops.  It's still cute.

When I work on a lot of scrapbook pages in a row, I tend to get in a groove and use one or two colors over and over.  So I made this layout and a couple of other ones with Dapper Denim and Dusty Durango (maybe not together).  It's fun to revisit retired colors on my scrapbook pages.  I haven't done much scrapping lately--I have FIVE layouts that only lack journaling and yet they've been sitting unfinished in my craft room for MONTHS.  Need to get back in the scrappy groove, but lately I've been distracted by my Friday Flashback project.

Today's color palette:  Dapper Denim, Dusty Durango, Wild Wasabi, Bumblebee (I think this was the very first time I used that color!), and Whisper White.

Have a great week, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Larger Than Life Alphabet, Falling Leaves
Ink:  Dapper Denim, Dusty Durango, Bumblebee
Paper:  Dapper Denim, Dusty Durango, Wild Wasabi, Thick Whisper White, Dusty Durango & Wild Wasabi DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies

Ryan's First Snow and New Year Goals

That most benighted year 2020 is finally OVER!  Let's all work on making 2021 extra super totally amazing and fun, k?  There's a lot of superstitions that what you do on January first sets the tone for the whole year so you shouldn't do things like laundry or take out the trash.  So far today, I've done a yoga workout with a focus on BALANCE (I think that might be a word to focus on this year), and I bought a couple of books because I just can't stop doing that.  So let's start the new year off right here and have a look at a scrapbook layout:

Aww, Ryan was so tiny!  The pictures were taken in March 2017, when he was just a month old.  That polar bear onesie was one of my favorite things I bought for Ryan clothes-wise and he only got to wear it a couple of times, so I'm glad I have these pictures to remember it.  I used my all-time favorite SU! color, Baja Breeze, and the longtime favorite Ski Slope DSP.  I bought like a zillion packs of it and love it every time I find a place to use it in my scrapbooks.  The letters on "snow" are from the Mod Alphabet, which I've had forever but rarely use because even a short title takes up a lot of space, but I liked it on here and it inspired me to do my journaling in a circle on the other page.

Today's color palette:  Baja Breeze, Real Red, Whisper White, and Early Espresso.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Festive Flurry, Mod Alphabet
Ink:  Early Espresso, Real Red, Baja Breeze
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Early Espresso, Thick Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
Accessories:  circle punch, Festive Flurry Framelits

Okay, so, on to the goals portion of today's blog post!  I posted my 2020 goals here, so let's revisit those and set some intentions for 2021. 

1.  2020 goal: make 200 pages (100 two-page layouts).  Later I amended this to 100 pages, thinking that we were supposed to get to Germany in April and I'd get a job, but then the pandemic hit and everything when haywire.  In the end, I DID achieve my original goal and finished the year with 208 finished pages.  Woo! 

2021:  I have a tentative job offer for the arts & crafts center here, but it is currently shut down because we're in lockdown until I think mid-January.  So I'm going to leave this goal TBD for now until I can get started on the new job and establish a schedule and figure out what might be reasonable here.

2.  2020 goal:  organize and pare down pictures...once again a fail.  I am consistent with not reaching this goal, so there's that.  I did fairly well with organizing as we took new pictures throughout the year, but I did not go back and work on older photos.

2021:  I almost always make something fun for breakfast on Sundays (muffins, waffles, what have you), so every time I do that, I'm going to take my fun breakfast in the computer room and spend 30 minutes or more working on organizing the pictures.  If I can do just that little bit of time once a week, then I should be able to make some good progress by the end of the year.  Wish me luck.

Reading:
2020:  no goal for reducing the size of my TBR pile (good thing, because it grows ever larger), so I just tracked what I did read.  I read 86 books and 2 novellas; I did not track the zillions of kids' books I read to Ryan at bedtime every night ; )  My favorite book from 2020 was Liza Mundy's Code Girls; it was an incredibly fascinating look at the role women played in WWII and it inspired me to read several other nonfiction books about the war, especially female British agents working in occupied France.  I also read two books about WWI because I didn't really remember much about it from my history classes and I'm a giant nerd.

2021:  I liked what I did last year, just tracking what I was reading and not trying to pressure myself into shrinking my TBR pile, which seems to grow no matter what.  So I'm going to do the same thing this year.

Cross Stitching:
3.  My goal was to get to 40% done on my huge Scarlet Quince project.  By the end of December, I had actually just passed FIFTY PERCENT on it!

I'm thrilled with the progress I made on this one.  I also finished several other small cross stitch projects, and I managed to get to 50% even with putting this aside for a couple of months while we moved.  So my goal for 2021 is to get to 65%.  I recently bought a whole bunch more SQ patterns but I'm making myself wait to start any of those until this one is finished.  Better get to stitchin'!

Fitness:
2020 was my first full year of doing Missy's fitness cult and I have lost over 30 pounds since November 2019.  I did gain a couple of pounds at Thankgsiving that I have yet to work back off, but I'm still in a lot better shape than I was and pretty happy about it.  My one specific 2020 fitness goal was to do a full chaturanga (like a slow tricep pushup) and guess what?  I CAN.  I did one during my yoga workout this morning.  There's still room for improvement, and I'm going to work on that, but I CAN DO IT!  So I think my 2021 goal is to continue to improve that chaturanga and maintain my weight loss.  Get rid of that bit of Thanksgiving fluff ; ) but otherwise just maintain.  Doable!

So that's my start for 2021.  Best wishes to you for the new year!

Ops Group Thanksgiving

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Since Thanksgiving is this week, I have to share a Thanksgiving layout today!  I made this one earlier this year, though the pictures are from 2009...I, uh, have to work hard not to have pictures that are over 10 years old still waiting to be scrapped. #needmorescrappingtime

Pretty sure this is the Thanksgiving that I was first introduced to sweet potato casserole and I absolutely fell in love.  Hubs and kiddo aren't very big on sweet potatoes, but I'm still planning to make a casserole for myself this week just because I can.  Anywha, for the layout, I pulled out some old, old patterned paper called Autumn Vines and the longtime favorite scarecrow stamp from Happy Fall Y'all to make this.  The thing that took the longest was coloring the scarecrow.

Today's very retro color palette includes More Mustard, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, and Whisper White; every single one of those colors is retired except, of course, for the white.

We have a teeny-tiny oven in this house, so I need to strategize my Thanksgiving plans.  I think it's just going to be the three of us, but I'm still planning to do it up right...at least I'm limiting myself to only two pies.  And of course sweet potato casserole.  But I did get both turkey and ham...

Have a great holiday, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Brushwork Alphabet, Back to Basics Alphabet, Happy Fall Y'all
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Sage Shadow, More Mustard, Close to Cocoa, Soft Sky, Buckaroo Blue, Versamark
Paper:  More Mustard textured, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Thick Whisper White, Autumn Vines DSP
Accessories:  Clear EP

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

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

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

United States Capitol, Part 1

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Yesterday I managed to get pictures of no fewer than TWENTY-EIGHT scrapbook layouts, woohoo!  And I have three more layouts that are done except for journaling by the hubs (yeah I make him do journaling on some of the layouts, if it's stuff he did without me or if it's pictures from something with his side of the family).  Oh, and I finished another layout yesterday afternoon, so there's another one that needs photographed soon.

So!  Today I'm sharing one of the layouts I photographed yesterday.  Now I need to get all those pages put in the right albums!

I really slacked off on posting on my other blog after Ryan arrived, so I never did blog posts over there for when we went to the US Capitol on July 4, 2017.  But here's the first layout anyway!  We really enjoyed the tour; the inside of the dome is beautiful and as a student of Greco-Roman mythology, it's interesting to see how that's incorporated in the artwork there.

When I made this layout, it so happened that I did several layouts in a row with a patriotic theme or red-white-blue color scheme.  While I do probably 99% Stampin' Up! only for my paper crafting, they just never have enough stars and stripes paper and stamps!  So I found this star pattern from a different company in my stash, and it worked beautifully here.  But I only had one piece of it, so I had to use a different one on the other two layouts (which I'll be sharing next Monday).  If SU! did a pack of DSP with just stars and stripes, I'd buy a ton of it.

So here is today's patriotic color palette, 3/4 of which is now retired:  Midnight Muse, Riding Hood Red, Creamy Caramel, and Whisper White.  That's not to say we don't have some wonderful reds and blues in our current color lineup, but I like to use current and retired colors on my scrapbook pages based on what looks best with my pictures.

Hope your week is off to a great start, kids.  Ryan and I are going to watch some of Monsters Inc. before we head off to the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:   Back to Basics Alphabet, Letters for You, Land That I love
Ink:  Midnight Muse, Riding Hood Red, Creamy Caramel
Paper:  Midnight Muse, Riding Hood Red, Thick Whisper White, K & Company patterned paper
Accessories:  Large Letters Framelits

Stoke-on-Trent

Mornin', y'all.  I am dragging today...all three of us were sick this weekend.  I took some cold medicine last night to help me sleep and apparently it's not done "helping" yet :p But I need to get Ryan up because he's making noise.

So real fast:  pages!

See the original pictures here.  And surprise, I used Grapefruit Grove as my page base!  I didn't think I'd particularly care for that color (I despise grapefruit, it's Satan's citrus) but I really like it here, especially paired with Poppy Parade.  I used a bit of Lost Lagoon and Pear Pizzazz to tone down the warm colors just a little bit, too.

Oh, I'm proud of how I did the title too.  Of course my alphabet stamps typically don't come with a dash, so I used the Empire Alphabet for the letters and I turned a capital I sideways from the slightly smaller Back to Basics Alphabet and voila!  Dash.  I is smart.

There's the color palette for today, which I already talked about.  I'm going to go get Ryan up and hope he doesn't run me too ragged today...can't go to the Y because he's still coughing a bit.  Wish us luck.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet, Back to Basics Alphabet, Array of Sunshine
Ink:  Grapefruit Grove, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Grapefruit Grove, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Thick Whisper White, All is Calm DSP
Accessories:  None

Cocok's Toes 2009

Scrappy Monday!  Well, now that it's June I thought it was going to be really sunny and warm...nope, lots of clouds and it's actually pretty cool outside right now.  As someone who hates the heat and humidity that come with summer in the South, I'll take this :D  But I do have a summery layout to share today, and it's all about TOES!

When we lived in (on?) Okinawa, about every six weeks or so I'd go to a place called Cocok's (the K is silent, I know it's weird) for a pedicure.  For about $40, you could get an hour long massage and then whatever intricate design you could think up painted on your toes.  It was pretty awesome.  So of course I always took pictures of my toes, and this is the kind of thing you do with friends so I took pictures of my friends' toes too and here are all the Cocok's toes for 2009.

Ya know I love my mixed font titles.

If you click the picture of the whole layout to see it bigger, you'll see I modeled my scrapbook pages after my favorite toe design with the green stripes and bright yellow flowers.

We've got three long-retired colors as part of the palette today.  The page base is Green Galore, the stripes are Glorious Green, and Pink Passion for the flowers.  The other three colors are Daffodil Delight, Basic Gray, and Whisper White.

Time to feed the kiddo and then get going to the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Broadsheet Alphabet, Flower Patch, Island Blossoms
Ink:  Gable Green, Glorious Green, Daffodil Delight, Pink Passion, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Green Galore, Glorious Green, Pink Passion, Whisper White, Beyond the Garden DSP
Accessories: none

We're Going to Disneyland!

Scrappy Tuesday!  Thought we'd do scrapbook pages today since yesterday was Guest Designer Day :D  And here are some of the most recent pages to come out of my craft cave!

Pics are from when we went to Disneyland with friends in April of last year.  These same friends are driving down for Thanksgiving next week!  Very excited about that.

Also excited about my title and patterned paper here.  That pattern is one of my VERY FAVORITEST EVER by Stampin' Up!, I just love it.  So for the title, I used the same colors and added Pacific Point.  I sponged ink on the background rectangle rather than inking up straight from the ink pad, which made the colors light enough that you could still tell the letters are BLUE and they look good.

Second layout!  I matted all the photos with different colors from the patterned paper too.  Pacific Point isn't anywhere in the pattern, but I thought it went well with the other colors.

And there's the colors:  Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, and smidge of Basic Black and Whisper White.  Wish my photos of the pages were a little better today but we've been socked in with clouds for what seems like forever so it's hard to get good pics.  Ah well.  The trip was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to seeing those friends again next week!

Cheers, y'all!  Ryan and I are heading to the gym for the first time in a week since we both had colds last week.  Wish me luck.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Layered Letters Alphabet, Back to Basics Alphabet
Ink:  Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, Basic Black
Paper:  Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, Basic Black, Whisper White, Birthday Bash DSP
Accessories:  Mickey punch by All Night Media, circle punches from SU!

Salt Mine

Scrappy Monday, y'all.  It's another gray day here in Snapdragonland, and as it happens my scrapbook layout is gray today too.

Pictures are from the ancient salt mine near Krakow in Poland (see 'em all here). 

Very simple title with the Back to Basics Alphabet.  I do this thing where I delay getting alphabet sets until they go on the retiring list and *then* I buy them right before they're gone forever.  I got the Layering Letters Alphabet a couple weeks ago but I haven't used it yet ;)

Today's color palette includes Basic Gray, Pink Pirouette, Marina Mist, and Very Vanilla.  I chose to use the pink (even though there really isn't much pink in the pictures) because sometimes you can find pink salt in the grocery store.  True it's usually Himalayan sea salt or something, but it's salt so it all connected in my brain.

That's it for now, I'm going to go try to figure out why my iPod isn't connecting to the computer to sync up.  Hubs is feeding the kiddo :D  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet
Ink:  Marina Mist, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Basic Gray, Marina Mist, Beau Chateau DSP
Accessories:  None

Scrappy Showcase, Part 3

Mornin, kids!  While everyone else is New Years resolution-ing, I made scones for breakfast.  With a sugary glaze on top because of course.  I'm 8 months pregnant and I want to bake ALL THE THINGS.

But now that I've made (and eaten) the scones, it's time to get some things done today.  Aside from the giant pile o' dishes I washed this morning and the load of baby laundry in the washer (ooh, I should go switch that out).  But right now we're talking the last of the 2016 Scrappy Showcase!

I actually made this layout more like at least two years ago but it only showed up on the blog last October.  This was from Halloween in 2004 and was the first time hubs and I carved pumpkins.  Then we didn't do it again until last year ;)  Anyway, I love this layout and I still miss my little Chewie and he's been gone for over 10 years now.

Next up is this Tokyo Disney Sea layout, which I dearly love and maybe I should buy more of that patterned paper before it retires.  (Or maybe not, I have a giant stash of paper.)

And here's a fun Thanksgiving layout for you, I love the contrast of the dark blue page base with all the warm colors in the patterned paper.

And my last layout for the 2016 Scrappy Showcase is this simple one from the Great Wall Marfon.  Partially because I'm just tickled that I got the words "marfon" and "chompuns" immortalized in my scrapbooks since hubs and I still say them (and so do Missy and Bennet, for that matter).

So there you have it!  The 2016 Scrappy Showcase is now concluded.  And I need to get in my craft room today and see what new goodness I can whip up.  Cheers, y'all!

Early Christmas

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Since it's December (how is it December already?) I thought we'd go Christmasy for scrapbook pages today.  Happily for me I just finished this layout last week:

Pics are from 2011; we had my parents and Bennet and Missy visit us in England for Thanksgiving and since we were all together we decided to do Christmas right after Thanksgiving.  Hence "Early Christmas".

There's my mixed-font title, you know how I love me some mixed fonts.  And I've been having fun with both of those alphabets of late.  Since SO MUCH of the layout was Crumb Cake with a bit of red, I had to toss in a spot of green.  And I haven't used Emerald Envy nearly enough.

Colors courtesy of the Candy Cane Lane DSP:  Crumb Cake, Real Red, a smidge of Emerald Envy, plus Early Espresso and Whisper White.  I really let the DSP do the heavy lifting on this layout for accents...I figured if the paper is that cute on its own why bother to stamp a bunch of accents?  The title takes long enough by itself ;)

Festive cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Brushwork Alphabet, Jingle All the Way
Ink:  Real Red, Early Espresso, Emerald Envy
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Real Red, Candy Cane Lane DSP
Accessories:  None