2016 Showcase, Part 1

Mornin', y'all.  I have entered the phase of pregnancy when I'm tired all the time but CANNOT SLEEP more than 3 hours a night.  I swear this kid kicked me around 4:30 this morning so hard that I heard a noise when he did it.  Not even exaggerating.

Happily for me, it's time to do the annual look back at favorite projects from the year.  Most challenges are on hiatus until January and I haven't spent much time in my craft room so this is a great time to not worry about making something new :)  So today let's take a look back at cards from January through April.

This card was for my SIL's baby shower in January; my niece's nursery is decorated with ladybugs but I did this card with the colors we used for her Cinderella baby shower.

I loved this card from February, I don't use big bold sentiments like that too terribly often and this one just speaks to me.

For March, this punch art bear wins the prize for my favorite card of the month.  I actually just sent this one to my friend Missy a few weeks ago, how I managed to hold onto it for 9 months before I mailed it to her I really don't know!

And last up for today is this card from April, which was inspired by the color palette of a bathroom in Disneyland.  Inspiration is everywhere!

I'm off to the gym.  Hubs and I made sticky toffee pudding on Monday night and I feel like I need to live at the gym for a week to offset that.  Cheers, y'all!

Krakow, Poland

Hey, kids, how's it going today?  I had a busy day yesterday and NO time at all to spend in my craft room, so today is a bonus scrapbook day.  Check it out:

Not the best picture of the layout, but it was raining the day I took it and that makes it more difficult to get good lighting.  Anywha, you can see the original pictures here.  Krakow was the first place I'd ever had pizza with pineapple and black olives on it; the combination sounds so weird but trust me, if you like those ingredients, it's a dang good pizza.  My weirdo hubs doesn't think pineapple belongs on a pizza and he hates black olives, so I had to eat the whole pizza myself :)

I got the Metro Alphabet stamp set (top word) just before it retired and this is its maiden voyage.  I found that the little flowers from the Sale-a-Bration set Botanicals for You match the small flowers in the Botanical Gardens patterned paper I used, happy day.  I got that paper specifically for this layout but I'll enjoy using the other patterns too...it seems like a lot of my photos involve the color Cajun Craze because a lot of times roofs or bricks are kinda that color, so I like having paper that incorporates it.

And there's today's color combo, taken straight from the patterned paper:  Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey, Cajun Craze, Mint Macaron (I wasn't too sure about how Mint Macaron would fit in with the other colors, but I'm okay with it), Basic Black, and Whisper White.

Well, I've got doglets to walk and groceries to buy, so that's it for me today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Metro Alphabet, Empire Alphabet, Botanicals for You
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey, Cajun Craze, Mint Macaron, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Cajun Craze, Basic Black, Whisper White, Botanical Gardens DSP
Accessories:  None

Just Hanging Around

Ya know, sometimes I get an idea stuck in my head and I just have to make it as soon as possible.  And sometimes that idea turns into a bear hanging out on a card.  Like this.

I don't hardly ever do punch art, but I got the idea for this bear and it just wouldn't leave me alone, and when I saw this week's color challenge at Create With Connie and Mary, I couldn't resist making a black Baylor bear card.

Well, it doesn't have green, but I think Hello Honey is close enough to gold :)  Basically I pulled out every single SU! circle punch I have and just experimented with different sizes for my bear.  The black part of the eyes is actually a Word Window punch cut in pieces to fit on the smallest circle punch I have, and then the toes are made with a little hole punch.  I'm kind of in love with the hearts for the  nose and feets.  I wanted to use Hardwood for the background, but I didn't want it to be overpowering, so I used a sponge to ink up the stamp and that worked out way better than I even thought it would so yay.

The sketch at Fab Friday was actually what gave me the idea for the bear, but I'm too late to link up over there:

And my bear is a bit of a stretch on the sketch anyway, but I do still have elements above and below the horizontal strip.  Ah well, I love how my bear turned out and I hope you liked her too :)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hello, Botanicals for You, Hardwood
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Hello Honey, Whisper White
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Cajun Craze, Hello Honey, Basic Black
Accessories:  multiple circle punches, Word Window punch, hole punch, Itty Bitty Punch Pack heart

Because You're Awesome

Mornin', y'all.  Guess what?  It's snowing here again, or at least it was a little bit ago.  However, the temperature is far enough above freezing that it melted as soon as it hit the ground, so for all intents and purposes it was more like raining.  Schools are still on a delay here or cancelled altogether.  Panic much?  Well, maybe it was below freezing in Maryland.

Anyway, card for the day.

That, my friends, is the superfantastic Botanicals For You Sale-a-Bration set, and this is its maiden voyage.  I like the giant sentiment and those flowers are very forgiving--the only thing I used a Stamp-a-Ma-Jig for was the part on the Blushing Bride banner, the rest was freehand stamping.

My color combo today is from Fab Friday's first challenge of the year, welcome back Fab Friday:

Imma tell you a secret:  I don't like any of those colors together.  Even the Watermelon Wonder and Blushing Bride that are paired up in the Birthday Bouquet DSP.  I don't know, I think they clash, like navy blue and black together (MOM).  But anyway, this is a *challenge*, so I tried it.  And I do like my card today, I think having the three pink/red shades in just small stamped images helps it not look so clashy to me.  So I'm still glad I gave it a shot.

That's it for me today, peeps.  I am in fact coming down with the crud that my hubs and my mom have had, and every time I cough my girl dog looks very concerned and runs away.  Why am I apologizing to the dog that my cold is inconveniencing her?  I think she wants me to get rid of this cough even faster than I want to get rid of it.  She's weird like that.

Cheers, peeps!  *cough cough* ; )

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Botanicals For You
Ink:  Basic Black, Watermelon Wonder, Real Red, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Watermelon Wonder, Blushing Bride, Whisper White
Accessories:  Hexagon punch