2014 Showcase, Part 1

Howdy, stampers!  As 2014 winds to a close, I thought I'd take a look back at all the stuff I've posted here for the past year and pick a favorite project for each month.  So instead of a Friday Flashback this week, here's the 2014 Showcase, Part 1!  And lemme just pat myself on the back here, haha.

Features Snow Swirled

For January, I chose this snowy layout.  I love the bright blue with the three pastel colors, and I love those photos from our house in England.  And I miss snow.  I think I've worn a jacket like, maybe three times since we moved to Alabama.  Okay, maybe four.

Perfectly Penned, Starburst Sayings, Nacho card!

February's pick is this bright and fun birthday card (even though there's a dog hair stuck in the middle of it in the photo).  Plus this blog post was one of the funniest ever I think; this is what happens when I blog late at night.

Best of Butterflies, Happy Day, Nacho card!

My March pick is all about the butterflies.  It's hard for me to do CAS cards, but this one just worked for me.  And who wouldn't want to get a butterfly smile in the mail?

Swallowtail, Yippee-Skippee!, Nacho card!

My April card is also butterfly-riffic, this time giant size.  I love bright fun happy colors and that Nacho color challenge delivered bright, fun, and happy in spades!  And you know what?  Three out of four projects I picked for this post were Nacho cards!  Love the Nacho challenges.

Showcase Parts 2 and 3 coming up soon.  Cheers, peeps!

Butterfly Smiles for the Nachos

Howdy friends!  Are you ready for another awesome color challenge courtesy of Nacho Average Challenges?  I hope so, because here it is:

I thought these colors would be perfect for a little boy birthday card and then...I did something totally different instead : )

I went kinda CAS this week; it's hard to tell in the picture but there's a touch of Marina Mist ink on the little tiny spots along the outside edges of the butterflies' wings.  The butterflies were embossed with black EP for a nice crisp look (and also because then I don't have to worry about the black ink bleeding when I watercolor).

Stop by the Nacho blog to see what beautiful projects the rest of the design team has cooked up, and then give it a whirl yourself.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best of Butterflies (only available until March 31!), Happy Day
Ink:  Versamark, Pumpkin Pie, Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi, Baked Brown Sugar (on the butterflies' bodies, if you were like "umm...where?")
Paper:  Whisper White, Marina Mist
Accessories:  Black EP, rhinestone

Friday Flashback: Floral

Time for the Friday Flashback again already!  This week's randomly chosen retired stamp set is just one stamp, the background Floral.  Back in the day before I had tons of patterned paper and embossing folders and such to play with, I used background stamps a LOT so today's Flashback is longer than like the last three put together (no wait, four flashbacks, I looked), and I didn't even post all my previous cards with Floral : )  So let's flash back with a visit to the archives, shall we?

This one features an old favorite, Roses in Winter, plus It's Your Birthday for the sentiment.

One of my favorite color combinations ever!  Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, and neutrals.  Main images on this one are from Eastern Influences (another favorite of mine).

 Flower and definition stamp on this one are from Bloomin' Beautiful.

A nice springy card with the morning glories from Morning Soft and sentiment from Warm Words.

Main image from Perfect Petals, "wish" from Small Script.

Here's a more autumnal take with a hummingbird from Spring Song and a second background stamp, Sanded.  I like this card but I wish I could move that sentiment up onto the main image panel--it would have fit just fine underneath the bird!

And here's something a bit different, I stamped the floral pattern with a contrasting color on light cardstock instead of doing tone-on-tone like I did with everything else.  So that's it for the flashback part, here's my new card:

This time I wanted the Floral stamp to take center stage, so I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with Early Espresso powder, then colored with an Aquapainter.  You can't tell from the picture, but the white bit with the sentiment is popped up from the card base, and then the butterfly is popped up again from there so it's multidimensional.

I used the colors from Dynamic Duos' Triple Threat Week:

So there you have it!  I've done nothing but flowery cards (and even a floral scrapbook layout) for over a week now, so I promise that next week I'll have at least two non-floral projects to share.  In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Floral, Best of Butterflies, Fancy Flexible Phrases
Ink:  Versamark, Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango, Wild Wasabi, Elegant Eggplant (because pansies have to be purple!)
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Whisper White, retired Wild Wasabi DSP
Accessories:  Early Espresso EP, Circles Framelits, Artisan Label punch, Dimensionals, random ribbon from my stash that's probably not SU

Kensington Gardens

Morning seemed to come really early this Monday...that's what happens when I get hold of a good book and can't put it down.  Anyway, today's scrapbook layout is the one I finished on Friday afternoon and that put me at my goal for January, take a looksie:

See the original photos here and here.  And so continue my habits of using nine photos per layout and either blue or green for the page base.  What can ya do?  I tried it on Crushed Curry and it didn't work for me.  However, I continue to love my color swatch book, it makes it so easy to pick out several colors to use together.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'm off to take a walk with my doglets since it looks like a pretty day outside.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best of Butterflies, Notable Alphabet, Cottage Garden
Ink:  Island Indigo, Orchid Opulence, Basic Gray, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Island Indigo, Crushed Curry, Whisper White, Cottage Wall DSP
Accessories:  Artisan Label punch

CreativeCrew: Elegant Birthday Wishes

After two days of Venetian Romance, I think it's time to switch gears a bit and showcase the Afternoon Picnic DSP.  Behold!

This card was for one of the CreativeCrew challenges this month.  And yep, I'm still in love with Stippled Blossoms :)  Check out the link above to see the challenges, and then click here to see the gallery.  Have a lovely day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Blossoms, Best of Butterflies, Bring on the Cake
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Basic Gray, Coastal Cabana, Wisteria Wonder, Pear Pizzazz, Soft Suede (no really, I used it on the butterfly)
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Basic Gray, Very Vanilla, Afternoon Picnic DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Orange Flowers for Tanya!

New goodies in da houuuuuuuuse!  Yep, I got my first new catty order yesterday.  I am officially in love with the Venetian Romance and the Eastern Elegance DSP.  And I got some fun new stamps too!

Too Kind was one of the first new stamp sets to catch my eye--I just love the easy breezy beautiful style of it, and who doesn't need more flower stamps, am I right?  And remember when I did the Inspired by Nature Friday Flashback and I did the flowers in pink over and over?  Tanya commented that she always did orange, so today's Pumpkin Pie flowers are for Tanya! *waving madly* HI TANYA!

Oh, must add the Quatrefancy Specialty DSP to my list of paper I'm in love with.  And it's not just for mosaic cards either :)  At first the right side of the card felt a little too bare with the DSP and flowers both on the left, so I added the cut-out sketchy bug from Best of Butterflies on the right to help balance it out.  Today's superfun sketch is from Retro Sketches:

I simplified it ever-so-slightly by doing a plain mat and leaving off the little embellishments at the top left.

Also making me happy today?  I finally reorganized my punches and ribbon for the new catalog.  All my current punches and ribbon are separated from the retired stuff, which doesn't mean I don't use the retired stuff--it just means I know for sure what's current ;)  Organization makes me happy!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Too Kind, Best of Butterflies
Ink:  Wild Wasabi, Island Indigo, Pumpkin Pie, Versamark
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Island Indigo, Whisper White, Quatrefancy DSP
Accessories:  white EP, Island Indigo baker's twine, Dimensionals

Punchtastic

Have you ever seen a color challenge online and just thought oh my word, those colors do NOT belong together?  Well, I have.  I've said this before, there are certain pairs I don't like--Baja Breeze and Bashful Blue or Marina Mist; Basic Black and Night of Navy (blame my mom for that one); Elegant Eggplant and Concord Crush, Calypso Coral and any of the real pinky-red shades.

So then this Splitcoast color challenge comes along to use Calypso Coral, Primrose Petals, and Whisper White.  And even though I shudder at the thought of Calypso Coral with Primrose Petals, I gave it a shot.

But I didn't stick the butterfly down too firmly because YIKES.  Instead, I did this:

OH MY GOODNESS THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER.  The butterfly pops out so much better against all the coral and hey, Bermuda Bay lookes *awesome* with Calypso Coral.  I thought about adding a sentiment, but the butterfly is on Dimensionals and this time I *did* stick it down good, so I'll just wait till I want to use this card and then put a sentiment on the inside.

Color crisis averted.  I saved the Primrose Petals butterfly and stuck it on my ink pad caddy.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Mixed Bunch, Best of Butterflies (is that butterfly not totally gorgeous?!)
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Primrose Petals, Bermuda Bay
Paper:  Whisper White, Calypso Coral, In Color DSP Stack
Accessories:  Decorative Label, Blossom, and Elegant Butterfly punches, Dimensionals

In Color Butterflies

I love getting new colors in my hot little hands.

That, my friends, is a card front featuring not only the five brand spankin' new In Colors, but also the new neutral, Smoky Slate.  I had to include that one as I have at least one lady who can't wait to get a look at the new gray :)  And it is awesome!  I haven't put the cardstock next to Going Gray but I think this one is a bit softer and will work better with other colors.

So I had the idea to use the postage stamp punch and that really cool butterfly from the Best of Butterflies set to showcase all the new colors, but when I saw this card by Mary Fish, that's when I decided to CASE her layout.  I quite like the new colors all together, what do you think?  Can't wait to get some more new DSP and really play with them!  I've already been studying the new In Color cards for the Color Coach and can't wait to get the new Coach when the new catty goes live.

Did I mention I love colors?  And playing with colors?  And putting them in fun and different combinations?  Ok, so generally I don't think that gray and brown should go together, but just this once it doesn't bother me so much.  I just really wanted to get all six brand new colors on one card front, both the ink and cardstock.  Mission:  accomplished.

Pretty sure this card also qualifies for the challenge over at SUO Challenges to use butterflies, doncha think?

Have a fantastic start to your week and thanks for stopping by!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best of Butterflies, My Paper Pumpkin welcome kit (oh how I love that "hey there friend" stamp!)
Ink:  Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Smoky Slate, Whisper White
Accessories:  Elegant Butterfly & Postage Stamp punches, Dimensionals