More Glitter Dragonflies

Mornin' y'all!  It is Ryan's last day of school (whaaaat) so I will be picking him up for early release day and probably taking him out for ice cream to celebrate.  Hubs and I really liked Ryan's teacher this year and I hope we are as lucky next year.

Anyway, I did what I said I was going to do yesterday and remade my glitter dragonfly card with the colors reversed.  Only I thought I'd play with more than one shade of purple so I have two:

That's Highland Heather on the left and Orchid Oasis on the right, which purple do you like better?  Or do you like the purple dragonfly from yesterday?  I like that I have several friend cards to mail out in the near future : )

Once again I used the Color Hues Challenge:

And the Retro Rubber sketch:

That's it for me today, peeps.  I'm going to take Daphne out for a walk and then put up the laundry that I washed earlier this week.  See you tomorrow for the Nancy Drew Challenge!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Highland Heather, Orchid Oasis
Paper:  Highland Heather, Orchid Oasis, Basic White, Granny Apple Green glimmer paper
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonflies dies, Dimensionals, Purple Fine Shimmer Gems, In Color Pearls

Glitter Dragonfly

Mornin' y'all!  Hope your day is going well.  I am hoping to get some Serious Card Making done today because tomorrow is Ryan's last day of school so I won't have as much uninterrupted kid-free time after that and I will be doing my taxi service for a good part of the summer.  So I gotta craft now, right?

Okay, here's my card for today:

This week I have been having trouble connecting to challenges and actually sitting down to make things, it happens sometimes.  So I was looking through my stamp shelves yesterday and I was thinking about a couple of themes from different challenges and nothing was clicking and then I saw Dragonfly Dreams and it works for *two* challenges, neither of them the themes I was looking for to start with, but the idea for this card popped in my head fast so I'll take it.  DONE.  I had a hard time photographing this card though, the first picture showed the Highland Heather glimmer paper on the dragonfly better but made the Lemon Lime Twist card base look radioactive, so I used this photo.  Imagine the dragonfly is more purple, but hey, you can see the sparkle this time!

First up is the Retro Rubber sketch challenge:

I had no idea in mind for this sketch when I was looking through my stamp sets, but that dotty fill-in stamp in Dragonfly Dreams ended up working nicely.  I just checked through my older posts and I got Dragonfly Dreams about a month before Ryan was born, so it is also nine years old, which is retro in stamp years but not kid years.

Next up is the Color Hues Challenge:

I used Lemon Lime Twist and Granny Apple Green for two hues of lime green, and Highland Heather and Gorgeous Grape for two hues of violet.  I wanted to do something not-floral with these colors and had kinda been thinking about going for a Halloween card (it's never too early for Halloween at my house), but I do like the dragonfly with these colors.  Ooh, I have Granny Apple Green glimmer paper, I could make this card again in reverse!  I might just do that.

Daphne says it's a nice day out and she wants to go for a walk.  We've gotten some rain this week, which is great, but it's been so cool out it feels more like March than May.  So I'll take some nice sunny weather before I go up to the craft room, which is my reward for doing four loads of laundry yesterday.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Gorgeous Grape
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Basic White, Highland Heather glimmer paper
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly dies, Dimensionals, Tinsel Gems

Dragonfly Friend

 Mornin' y'all!  Gotta write this quick because it's almost time to take Ryan to school.  So here's today's card!

Playing around with more retired stamps for today's card.  Take a look at the Inspire. Create. sketch:

Getting in just under the wire there : )  Next up is Cupcake Inspirations:

I entered a card for their 600th birthday challenge and found out on Monday that I won a drawing for a $50 gift card!  Woohoo, so exciting!

Finally I'm entering this at the Color Hues challenge:

I used Copper Clay and Shaded Spruce, which I thought were good colors for my friendly dragonfly.  Gotta run now, cheers peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Copper Clay
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Thick Basic Vanilla, Shaded Spruce DSP, All About Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Dragonfly dies, Lots of Labels dies, Brushed Metallic Dots, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Thoughtful Bee

Howdy y'all!  I managed to snatch a couple of minutes on Easter Sunday to crank out a really quick card to share today.

Just because it's quick, that doesn't mean it can't be cute!  I was inspired to pull out some retired stamp sets by the Fusion challenge:

I had intended to do the bottom part with Coastal Cabana ink, but I started stamping and didn't realize I'd actually grabbed Bermuda Bay until I'd already done the bottom part and I didn't want to start all over since I knew I wouldn't have much time to work on this.  Darker than I'd intended but I still like it.  I fussy cut the bee; Dragonfly Dreams has matching dies, but none that just cut the outline of that bee and he wasn't too bad to cut out anyway.  Since I'm mailing cards to my mom and my college roommate every week, who are both undergoing treatment for breast cancer, I need a lot of thinking of you or general hello/just a note cards lately.  I perused my personal stamp catalog until I came across Best of Greetings, which was from the 25th anniversary year and I just liked that font to go with my bee.  I swiped some Wink of Stella on his wings for a bit of sparkle and finished up with some retired enamel dots for my quick CAS card.

Hope your week is going well, peeps!

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Best of Greetings
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Bermuda Bay, Mango Melody, Mango Melody Stampin' Blend
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, retired clear enamel dots

Bye-Bye Dragonfly

So the Stampin' Up! retiring list dropped on Monday afternoon and of course some stamp sets that I adore are on it.  Not that it matters to me since I keep all my stamps, but I definitely don't use the retired ones as often.  So I'll probably make cards with the soon-to-retire stamps for a while, starting with Dragonfly Dreams.

I have several different dragonfly stamps in different sets, but I love that this one has big, bold dragonflies and some beautiful dies to coordinate.  I started with the sketch from Fab Friday:

Of course I immediately thought of the stitched rectangle dies when I saw that sketch, those are going to be favorites for a long time.

Here's the color challenge from Global Design Project:

I chose Tranquil Tide as my color.  I love that color!!  I already got a few extra packs of cardstock and some ink refills.  Tranquil Tide and Lemon Lime Twist are the two retiring In Colors that I'll miss the most.  You can't tell from the photo, but all the white is Shimmery White cardstock, and I added some Wink of Stella on the dragonfly for extra sparkle.  I've also decided I need some new white embossing powder; I tried using that and it looked terrible.  To be fair my pot of EP is probably nearly 10 years old, so I guess it's time for a new one!

In happy news, I'm a winner!

The folks at GDP chose my butterfly card from last week as a winner for that challenge, woohoo!  Definitely a bright spot in what's been a tough week.  I'm still trying to recover from the nasty virus that's knocked me on my rear since Tuesday.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Whisper White
Paper:  Shimmery White, Tranquil Tide
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, metallic sequins

Inspired by Real Life

Friends, I have a slightly odd confession to make.  When I go running at the gym, I run around a track and since there's nothing else to do, I think about what I want to make for cards or scrapbook pages, my current stitching projects, and...I pay attention to what other people on the track are wearing.  Like, if I see a color combination that I like, when I finish my run I make a note of the colors on my phone.  I currently have 9 color combinations written on my phone, and today's card uses one I saw on Monday of this week.

(The inside says "Thanks for the smile and everything else.")  Say hello to Tranquil Tide, Pumpkin Pie, and Basic Black.  Thank you, lady who was walking around the track wearing these colors on Monday :)  That's not all though--you might be thinking that Tranquil Tide would be the more natural choice for the dragonfly color.  Au contraire, mon frere!  I was sitting in the Panera drive-through yesterday and there was a bright orange dragonfly who was apparently quite interested in my car.  And he was really, REALLY orange.

But what really sealed the deal for this card was this week's Fall-To Layout:

I immediately thought of that dragonfly die when I saw the circles on the right side of the sketch.  So then once Ryan went down for his nap, I had my sketch, colors, and dragonfly all picked out so this card came together in under 15 minutes.  It did take a couple of minutes to paint Wink of Stella on the dragonfly die cut.

I'm also entering this at Retro Rubber for their Anything Goes challenge:

I've had Dragonfly Dreams for a year and a half, so it counts as retro now :D

Here's hoping that I actually get to work out at the gym today.  The local schools started this week, and apparently all the mamas have decided that now is the time to start back at the gym and put their younger-than-school-age kiddos in the nursery at the Y.  So I got all dressed and ready to go yesterday, only to find that they were over capacity at the nursery so Ryan and I went to Target instead.  Much as I love Target, I woulda rather gotten to work out.  Wish me luck, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Versamark, Tranquil Tide
Paper:  Basic Black, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Wink of Stella, White EP

Greatest Dragonfly

Mornin' y'all!  It's a bright shiny morning here and we've got friends visiting and the house is loud :). How about a fun tropical card?

I'm entering this at SUO Challenges, where the challenge is to use your favorite Stampin' Up! stuff from the new catalog.  Tropical Chic and the Tropical Escape DSP were two of my favorite things in the new catalog and I couldn't wait to get them in my hot little hands!  Dragonfly Dreams and the Wink of Stella pen are two long-time favorites :)

I also used this week's color challenge from the Paper Players:

Very fun!  I love that the Tropical Escape DSP has a lighter version of Granny Apple Green in it.  I stamped off the flowers in Highland Heather to kinda match the saturation of the patterned paper and let the greeting shine.

Last up is this week's sketch from Retro Rubber:

Of course Tropical Chic is new, but the star of today's card is Dragonfly Dreams, which I've had for a year and a half.  I thought that dragonfly paired well with the tropical theme.

That's it for me today.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Tropical Chic
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Highland Heather, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Lovely Lipstick, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Dragonfly Smile

Hey y'all!  How's your morning?  The hubs is off work today so at the moment he's chasing the boy around instead of me :D  But we've got a busy day ahead so let's get to it.

Dragonfly Dreams is NOT retiring, I'm happy to say.  I like this set and its matching Framelits.  I don't think they show up too well on the photo, but I put some glitter epoxy dots on this...they look pretty cool IRL, promise.  I also used Wink of Stella on the dragonfly's wings so this card has a nice sparkle to it.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Also, my Painted Harvest card was chosen as one of the winners for last week's sketch!  Squee!

Next up is the color palette from Sunday Stamps:

AND they picked my swan card as a winner for the previous challenge!  Double squee!  Anyway, I loved this color palette because green is my favorite color and blue is my husband's favorite color and so this palette is just US.  I used Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, and Night of Navy as my colors.

Okay, I'd better get moving...sounds like kiddo is about to be done with his bath :) Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Sahara Sand, Night of Navy, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Thick Very Vanilla, Naturally Eclectic DSP scraps
Accessories: Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Glitter Epoxy Shapes, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Wonderful Dragonfly Friend

Sooo we got some snow last night.  Not, like, a ton of snow, but enough that hubs is on a two-hour delay for work.  So he goes out to shovel the snow out of the driveway in case kiddo and I want to go anywhere later today and then...the garage door won't shut.  He was able to manually shut it, but now it won't open again so even with the driveway shoveled, I won't be going anywhere.  He's been working on it for the last ten minutes and...well it sounds like now maybe it works?  I probably still won't go anywhere just in case!

So.  On to today's card!

You may notice I haven't been using anything from the brand new Occasions catalog or Sale-a-Bration...well, I didn't do the preorder.  I did order some things yesterday, so I can start playing with new schtuff in about a week.  In the meantime, I still love the stamps I already have and this dragonfly is pretty awesome.  And hey look!  You can kinda tell that I put Wink of Stella on his wings!

Here is this week's Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping.  It's sort of similar to yesterday's Freshly Made Sketch but this layout is such a classic.

The challenge from Inkspirational right now is to just use stamps, ink, and paper--no fancy dies, or patterned paper, or stuff like that.  Oooookay I just remembered that I used a bit of linen thread and the aforementioned Wink of Stella, but based on their design team's cards I think mine will be allowed.

Okay, time to get the kiddo up.  Y'all stay warm.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Pool Party, Tranquil Tide
Paper:  Pool Party, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Linen thread, Wink of Stella pen, Dimensionals

Pacific Dragonfly Friend

Afternoon, y'all.  I did not get into my craft room yesterday (except when I let the dogs out, since the door to the backyard area is down in the basement too) but I took Ryan with me this afternoon so we could both play in the basement for a bit.  And this is what I made!

Whee dragonfly.  I love dragonflies :)

I put some Wink of Stella on the dragonfly's wings, which made them a little sparkly (this is my totally ineffective attempt to capture the sparkle in a photograph) and had the added benefit of making the ink blur just a teensy bit so it's more watercolory looking.

You may recognize this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And because of the layered square elements, I married that sketch with the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I kept the dragonfly (but used a different one), the polka dots (but used the splatter stamp from Awesomely Artistic), the two squares (but tilted them to fit with the FMS sketch), and the single-word sentiment.  I started out with my Pacific Point dragonfly, then went looking for colors to go with it--I ended up using Sahara Sand and Cajun Craze on the suggestion of my long-retired Color Coach, which I still bust out often enough that it lives in the top drawer right next to my crafting table. 

In addition to all that, I'm also entering this over at SUO Challenges, where the current challenge is to use something new and fun from SU!  I used the Post Script background for the larger square element; that's one of just two new stamp sets I've bought from the new catalog thus far (that's....going to change in the not too distant future!  I need new stamps, right?).  Anyway, I do love Post Script so it was fun to use it here.  I'm also in a group on Facebook that's about to start sending some happy mail to each other, so I need some fun friend cards for that.  Yay for actually mailing the things I make!

And since I talk about Sodapop so much, here's a selfie I took yesterday with the squirt in question.  Yes, he is chewing on Post-It Notes, and he also refuses to look at a camera or a phone.  He's five months old and I swear he knows what a camera is!  And he's already decided not to cooperate with it.  But I love my stinker.  Starting to agree with the hubs that we're going to need to cut his hair though...

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Awesomely Artistic, Post Script
Ink:  Pacific Point, Sahara Sand, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Pacific Point, Sahara Sand, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, Rhinestones, Wink of Stella pen, Dimensionals

Orange Blossom Smile

Happy rainy Thursday, y'all!  It's been raining almost nonstop since sometime in the middle of the night, and it has to be coming down pretty hard for me to hear it in my bedroom on the third floor so yep, water water everywhere.  Good thing all our out-of-town guests left yesterday before the deluge really got going!

I got some time in my craft room this morning to make this:

Oh look, I used the Orange Blossom stamp set to make an ORANGE!  Haha.  The colors are slightly wonky because, as I said, rainrainrain but the orange is stamped with Tangerine Tango and is definitely orange and not red.  And the chevrons are stamped-off Lemon Lime Twist so they actually are the same color as the little leaf sprig behind the orange; it looks like two different colors but it's not.  The bigger leaves ARE a different color (Old Olive) and I think I might not be making sense anymore and the cloudy skies just made the colors look weird so let's juts go with that.  But anyway!  Here's the Global Design Project sketch:

The card above was actually my second hack at this sketch; first I tried doing the chevrons a little offset and I didn't like it as much:

Buuut we need some thank you cards and not every card can be your favorite. 

So the last week and a half has been ridiculously busy with family in town, the hubs' promotion ceremony, party here at the house afterward...so here's one pic from the promotion:

That bow tie!  I DIE OF THE CUTE.  And also my hubs is a dang good-lookin' dude, I'm a lucky lady.  So after all that celebratin', we also had to deal with one girl dog who isn't feeling so hot, and then Saturday night my gallbladder attacked me so we spent the night in the ER.  Fun times.  I'm okay, but I'm not eating ice cream for the foreseeable future, which is a shame because we have a freezer full of it and I'm a sucker for cookies 'n' cream.  I'll have to figure out if the gallbladder and I can reach some kind of truce or if I need to declare war and have it annihilated.

Well, I'm going to take advantage of sleeping babe and see if I can get anything else done in my craft room.  I've missed it!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! (first card)
Stamps:  Orange Blossom, Work of Art, Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Lemon Lime Twist, Daffodil Delight, Basic Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Paper snips?  Do those count as an accessory?

Supplies, all SU! (second card)
Stamps:  Orange Blossom, Work of Art, Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Basic Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Paper snips

Dragonfly Birthday

Mornin', y'all!  Once again I have Ryan trying to help me type...his spelling isn't so great, so it's a good thing he's extra cute :)  As it happens, he also inspired today's card!

You'll see how in a minute.  Anyway, for this one I used the very last Mojo Monday sketch:

I only played along with the Mojo sketches occasionally, but it's sad when challenges stop.  Still, I understand why Julee had to give up something to get her life more in balance, so I wish her well!

I also used this week's Paper Players theme:

Easy peasy!  We have a lot of birthdays in my family coming up in July so this is a good time to stock up on birthday cards.

Okay, so here's how Ryan inspired today's card:

See the colors on his onesie?  It's all Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, and Pacific Point!  This isn't a really great picture of Ryan though; I took it this morning and he was like why aren't we eating breakfast already? instead of smiling for me.  That's okay though, I have this one from Sunday:

New favorite picture, right there.  They were watching me cook dinner.  Yep, buncha guys standing around watching the only woman do the work!  ;)  I love my boys.

Anyway, I think it's time to read to Ryan for a little bit before he goes down for his nap.  Have a fabby-dabby Tuesday, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Awesomely Artistic, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Pacific Point
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Pacific Point, Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Emerald Dragonfly

Hey kids!  How's it going?  It is a gray and rainy day where I am, but that's okay by me because I've been having a good time in my craft room.  I got a card made a couple hours ago and started work on a scrapbook layout and then I Skyped with my friend Missy (HI MISSY!!!) so it's 4:30 and I'm just now getting this post written.

But guess what?  I got NEW SCHTUFF as an early birthday present to meeee!

And of course the first new thing I had to break out was the Dragonfly Dreams bundle, which is an awesome stamp set with dragonflies and bees and sentiments and other stuff, plus a set of coordinating Framelits and I just wanna hug 'em and squeeze 'em and call 'em George.  I considered tying some Emerald Envy ribbon between the patterned paper and the white bokeh layer, do you think it needs that extra touch?  And oh yeah, the dragonfly was painted with clear Wink of Stella for some sparkle.

So for today I started with the Global Design Project sketch:

And I paired that with the Paper Players color challenge:

I chose Emerald Envy for my third color and somehow (I'm not at all sure how I did this) I ended up with two green thumbs plus several other green fingers.  I mean, I'm not really a tidy stamper, but in general I don't get *that* much ink on myself.  Anyway, I stamped the sentiment on the black card base with Whisper White ink and it just wasn't oomphy enough, so I heat embossed it with white EP which means I can enter the embossing challenge over at SUO Challenges too!

Okay, I wanna get my scrapbook layout done today so I'm going to head on back downstairs to the craft cave.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Emerald Envy, Whisper White
Paper: Basic Black, Emerald Envy, Thick Whisper White, Pop of Paradise DSP
Accessories:  Detailed Dragonfly Framelits, clear Wink of Stella pen, white EP, Dimensionals