Friday Flashback: Choose Happiness

Happy Friday, y'all!  Once again I didn't get in my craft cave until a lot later in the day than I planned...I had an accidental two-hour nap in the middle of the day (oops).  But here I am and today's Friday Flashback stamp set is Choose Happiness!

Also features Petite Pairs, Hardwood

I think this is my favorite of the older cards for this set, I just like the soft watercolor on the background panels.

Stampy collages aren't really my forte, but I keep trying anyway.

Also features Gorgeous Grunge

And this one uses a lot of colored embossing powder and was a cooler idea in my head than it is on paper.  So that's it for the Flashback, here is my new creation:

It's got several layers, but it's still totally flat and easily mailable.  I stamped the flowers, then sponged that whole panel while making the flowers darker, and then I used the script stamp from French Foliage to fill in the empty spaces around the flowers a bit.  Didn't take long and I like how it turned out, all with just one color of ink.  I ran the edges of the panel on my Basic Black ink pad to give them a little definition on the card front.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Paired with the Color Throwdown:

I used Basic Black, Crushed Curry, and Marina Mist for the colors.  At first I thought this combo was really similar to the one I had trouble with earlier this week, but I think my problem with that one was mustard + silver.  Granted, today I used Crushed Curry instead of Delightful Dijon (lighter kind of mustard, maybe) but I think I like it a lot better with black than silver.

Well, I'm gonna take my sweet hubs out to dinner tonight for date night.  Cheers,  y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Choose Happiness, French Foliage
Ink:  Basic Black, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Basic Black, Marina Mist, Very Vanilla, Beau Chateau DSP
Accessories:  None

Floral Wishes

How are you this rainy Wednesday morning?  I'd better bust a move if I want to get to my 11:00 gym class, so I'm gonna make this fast.

I was perusing my retiring stamps this morning looking for something to go with the color challenge I'd picked out, and I came across Choose Happiness which I haven't used very much and voila!  This card was born.  Petite Pairs is retiring too, but luckily our beloved Hardwood is sticking around for another year.

All of the cardstock (except the mat on the main image) is Thick Whisper White; I just scribbled some marker on acrylic blocks, misted with water, and stamped it for the Calypso Coral and Night of Navy panels, which gave me lovely pastel versions of the colors.  Added bonus:  the water made some stripes appear on the paper, which is a happy accident.

Here's this week's Global Design Project color combo:

I do like these colors together, I saw a lady wearing this combination the other day.  (I'd totally wear an outfit in this palette too.)  I also used this week's Paper Players sketch:

And I'd better fly out the door.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Choose Happiness, Petite Pairs, Hardwood
Ink:  Night of Navy, Calypso Coral, Sahara Sand
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Sahara Sand
Accessories:  Circles Framelits, 2 1/2" circle punch, Dimensionals

Nachos: Choose Happiness

Good morning!  I admit, I meant to type up this post last night but I was so pooped I just forgot.  Oops.  But here I am this morning with a Nacho-riffic color combination:

It's perfect for a Christmas card, right?  So, of course, that's what I DIDN'T do.

This was a bit of an experiment and sadly I think it was less than successful.  I used three embossing powders:  gold, Wild Wasabi (which is a Dynamic Duo with Garden Green so it counts), and Cherry Cobbler on Early Espresso cardstock.  I wanted to use something like the retired French Foliage but I was trying to use only current stuff...I think the flower stamp (the red EP) is a little too abstract to tell what it is easily on this card, and the Wild Wasabi EP ended up being much lighter and in-yo-face than I expected.  Still, don't let this put you off trying this color combo since I'm sure you can do something prettier with it!

Check out the Nacho blog for some beautiful stampy inspiration (and notice that I was the only one contrary enough to try to do something not Christmasy!) and then go forth and stamp!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Choose Happiness, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Versamark, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green
Paper:  Garden Green, Brushed Gold, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Gold, Cherry Cobbler & Wild Wasabi EP, Cherry Cobbler seam binding, Bracket Label punch, Dimensionals

Choose Happiness (Even on Monday)

Mornin', folks!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Hubs and I spent a good portion of the day yesterday working on framing pictures and choosing photos for giant collage frames.  We have so much stuff to hang up on the walls, I think we're gonna need to live in a gallery.

But anyway!  You're here for today's card, not the story of my weekend.

And there you go.  I got this stamp set, Choose Happiness, when it was on sale as part of the Stock Up & Save thing at the beginning of the month, and for this card I used every stamp in the set except for one.  I also used the sketch from Fab Friday:

I like that sketch, how about you?  Easy to use and makes a great card.  And you can see I continue my love affair with Blackberry Bliss (don't tell the hubs).

That's it for me at the moment, gotta keep moving on several projects today and hopefully get a workout in.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Choose Happiness
Ink:  Versamark, Blackberry Bliss, Old Olive, Calypso Coral, Soft Suede, So Saffron
Paper:  Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, Park Lane DSP
Accessories:   Gold EP, Curvy Label & Artisan Label punches, Subtles Candy Dots, Dimensionals