China: Arrival in Guilin

Mornin' again y'all!  We had a good week with my parents here and they left yesterday morning.  So now the kiddo is back to just running me and the hubs ragged and not his grandparents :p  I missed making cards for challenges this week though.

In any case, it's time for another China layout, and today we start the Guilin pages!  That was the favorite stop for three of us (I was so excited to see the terra cotta army in Xi'an that it was my favorite).  To start with I have an airport picture and some hotel pictures courtesy of Missy because I don't usually think to take hotel pictures.

She also took a pic of Chinese money.  It's not terribly often I do layouts with as few as four pictures (generally I'm trying to cram in at least eight), so this was a bit different for me.  It's got some open space but I think it turned out pretty well.

Today's color palette includes Always Artichoke (I've been using that for more scrapbook pages lately, and now it's retired), River Rock (which retired a while back, I thought I'd never like it but surprise, I do), Cajun Craze (not retired), Chocolate Chip (surprisingly retired), and Very Vanilla.  It seems like for a long time like 85% of my layouts used Whisper White, but as of late I've done quite a few with Very Vanilla.  Guess my color brain goes in cycles.

I'm in the middle of making waffles for my boys, so I'm going to go finish that up so we can eat a delicious breakfast.  Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.  You're jealous, aren't you?

Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Etruscan
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, River Rock
Paper:  Always Artichoke, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Brocade Background DSP, Ski Slope DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

Old Wardour, Part 2

Yep, I liked this castle so much (and the pictures that we took there) that I had to do two layouts for it :)  So here's the second one.

Again, if you want to see the original pictures, check them out here and here.  I'm off to do more work around the house, bleargh.

Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Etruscan
Ink:  Garden Green, Ballet Blue, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Baked Brown Sugar, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Very Vanilla, Afternoon Daydream SSK
Accessories:  square punches

Friday Flashback: On Angel Wings

This week's Friday Flashback set is one that I really love, On Angel Wings.  It was a hostess set in 2004, the first year I started stamping.  It's not just a Christmas set, though one of the sentiments in here is Christmas-related, so I'm including it in my holiday Friday Flashbacks :)  Up first are two cards from the archives.

Here's the first card I ever made with it, for a combination sketch/color challenge on Splitcoast.  And from the looks of my SCS gallery, it took me three years to make anything with the stamp set...though I think that I may have gotten it long after it retired from the BST boards.  That's my story anyway.

I made this one last year as a sympathy card.  How is it that I can use the Stamp-a-ma-jig and *still* have the sentiment be crooked??  I really like this color combo though, Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder, and Concord Crush.

Ok, here's my first new card with this stamp set.  I'm still plugging away at catching up on all the SCS color and sketch challenges though sometimes I think that kind of warps my creativity a little bit, do you ever feel like challenges are stifling?  But I keep at it because I've only got about 30 to 40 more of each to go and I can combine those for the most part.  I kind of threw the kitchen sink at this card though with the stripes stamped with snowflakes (somebody please remind me to re-ink my Whisper White ink pad!) and then the holly on the Certainly Celery layer.  I meant to stamp the angel on Shimmery White cardstock but I forgot so instead I spritzed it with vanilla Smooch Spritz.  She's watercolored with WWC and since I stamped her with Early Espresso, the ink ran a little bit when I wasn't careful enough with the Aquapainter.  I'm hoping it looks like a nice softening of the image and not like she's wearing camouflage-print robes.  Good grief.

Because I'm an overachiever this week (and I was waiting for that Smooch Spritz to dry) I made a second card, this time going more CAS, and I like it better.  Plus I wanted to try stamping the angel in a color without coloring the image in afterward.  I was inspired by the current color challenge on Create with Connie and Mary, but I didn't use any silver so I won't link it up over there.  I think I'll do that color challenge sometime next week, it looks awesome...maybe I'm trying too hard on the SCS challenges and that's why I'm not loving my cards for those.  Hmm.

Hope you enjoyed this angelic Friday Flashback, thanks for stopping by!

Supplies, card #3:
Stamps:  On Angel Wings, Background Basics, Snowflakes
Ink:  Early Espresso, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Rose Red, Early Espresso, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Subtles DSP Stack
Accessories:  Vanilla Smooch Spritz, Dimensionals

Supplies, card #4:
Stamps:  On Angel Wings
Ink:  Baja Breeze, Wisteria Wonder
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Shimmery White, In Color DSP Stack
Accessories:  Baja Breeze seam binding ribbon