Big Bold Sunflower

Mornin' y'all!  Hope your week is going well.  I have had so many ideas for cards swirling around in my little brain that yesterday I felt like I had a pack of overcaffeinated squirrels using my head as a gymnastics studio and I did something that turned out to be very smart:  I got a piece of scratch paper and wrote down the card ideas I had swirling around.  It was that simple.  I didn't feel like I was going to forget a gymnastic squirrel while I worked on something else and I crossed off the top four or five of my ideas yesterday and I felt like I got so much accomplished!  It was great, I was in the zone for sure.  I'm hoping to tackle the second half of my list after I take Daphne for a walk, but first, let's talk today's card:

I've had some fun playing with the new Radiant Sunflowers suite but I had to pull out Celebrate Sunflowers for the AAA Birthday Challenge:

And that worked very well with this Color Dare Challenge:

I used Flirty Flamingo, Darling Duckling, and added Peaceful Pine.  I could have gone with Calypso Coral and Daffodil Delight, but I use those colors a lot more so I thought I'd go for two colors I don't usually play with very often instead.

Daphne and I will be leaving for our daily walk shortly, which will hopefully make my tummy feel better.  I woke up this morning craving chocolate cake, so once Ryan was off to school I made a chocolate mug cake because there's no one here to stop me doing things like that and it turns out I need someone here to stop me doing things like that because that was waaaayyyy too much this early in the morning.  I am no longer craving chocolate cake, at any rate!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Celebrate Sunflowers
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Darling Duckling, Peaceful Pine, Pecan Pie
Paper:  Darling Duckling, Peaceful Pine, Basic White, Flirty Flamingo DSP
Accessories:  Celebrate Sunflowers dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, In Color Flat Pearls

Floral Silhouette

So I went to work at Arts & Crafts yesterday and for the last hour I was there, my coworker was sketching and I was cross stitching, so we were both artsing and craftsing.  Ha!

Bit late with my post today but that's because I just finished making this:

I absolutely love the Enjoy the Journey DSP pack, and when it was made a freebie option for Sale-a-Bration, I got several packs (don't talk to me about my paper hoard).  After seeing Helen Read's post about the silhouette technique, I really wanted to give it a try with the flowers from Greatest Journey.  After creating my blended background, I stamped the line-art image with Starry Sky ink and then used a Starry Sky marker to fill in the image and turn it into a silhouette.  Check out the silhouetted tree on this week's Inspired By Nature challenge:

That picture is what made me think to do an ink blended background for my silhouetted flowers.  I also used the sketch:

As for the colors, I chose the middle three from Sunday Stamps:

I used Melon Mambo, Polished Pink, and Starry Sky.  I think Polished Pink might be my favorite SU! pink to date, which is funny because when it was released I thought we didn't need another shade of pink.  And now it's my favorite : )

Have a good weekend, y'all.  Tomorrow we're attending a birthday party for Ryan's fiancee.  They're both six.  Ha!!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Greatest Journey, Celebrate Sunflowers
Ink:  Polished Pink, Melon Mambo, Starry Sky, Versamark
Paper:  Polished Pink, Melon Mambo, Basic White, Enjoy the Journey DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles dies, Dimensionals, white EP

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

Sunflower Hello

Howdy, y'all!  I think we're starting to get settled in a routine for Ryan's school day.  With the way my work schedule is, it usually leaves me roughly 45 minutes in the morning and a bit over 30 minutes in the afternoon that I can hop in my craft room before or after getting Ryan on/off the bus for school.  I've been working hard to utilize that time to the max, and in fact I've made several cards and finished a scrapbook layout in those little blocks of time.  The hubs pointed out that I actually get MORE craft stuff done when I have other things scheduled that I have to do, like work--yeah he might be right.

So!  Here's a card I completed yesterday morning in between getting Ryan on the bus and me heading out for work:

I loved the sketch this week from Hand Stamped Sentiments:

In fact, there's such a bounty of great sketch challenges this week that I don't think I'll get to do them all.  I paired this sketch with the Color Throwdown:

I used Bermuda Bay, Summer Sun, Early Espresso, and Old Olive for my colors.  I tried coloring in the flower with So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie Blends first, but it didn't look bright and cheery enough, so I stamped another flower and used my old Summer Sun marker on it.  Yeah, that marker is drying out pretty bad now but at least I got the sunflower done first.  Wish we had Blends in Crushed Curry, the So Saffron ones are just too pastel I think.

Kept my card simple so I could finish it before I had to go to work.  Whee!  Hope you have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Celebrate Sunflowers, Biggest Wish
Ink:  Early Espresso, Bermuda Bay, Old Olive, Stampin' Blends in Cinnamon Cider, Old Olive, and Pool Party; Summer Sun marker
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Early Espresso, Old Olive, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Sunflower dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Sending a Sunflower

Mornin' y'all.  We got back late Tuesday from a trip to the Côte d'Azur (Nice, Monaco, and Provence) and yesterday I was just too tired to work on a blog post.  But I did get a couple of things done in my craft room so I have a card to share today.

This is the maiden voyage for both Celebrate Sunflowers and Sending Smiles.  I got Celebrate Sunflowers a few months ago when it was one of the bundles on sale for a short time, and I got Sending Smiles on my most recent order after seeing so many pretty cards made by the Paper Players design team.  The Hardwood background stamp is older and retired : )

For this card, I started with the Global Design Project sketch:

And I paired it with the Color Throwdown:

I used Blends to color in my sunflower with dark So Saffron (to look like Crushed Curry), light and dark Pumpkin Pie, and light and dark Crumb Cake, with Early Espresso to ink up the image.  The sunflower popped into my head as soon as I saw these colors and I thought the GDP sketch was perfect to showcase it.  Love it when things come together!

I'm off to do laundry and other fun stuff.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Celebrate Sunflowers, Sending Smiles, Hardwood
Ink:  Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Stampin' Blends in So Saffron, Crushed Curry, Crumb Cake, Old Olive
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Sunflower dies, Sending dies, Mini Dimensionals, retired Glitter Enamel Dots