Friend Like You

I'm finally on the mend from having the flu last week and I couldn't let the several challenges pass me by, so I made this yesterday while the hubs and the kid were out playing in the snow:

I'll be honest, this didn't turn out as well on paper as it looked in my head; I blame the flu.  Nevertheless, here's this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

The Color Throwdown:

I used both Basic Gray and Smoky Slate, Night of Navy, and white.

Next up is the Inspired By Nature challenge:

I was absolutely thinking of this image when I stamped the large snowflake on the left side of my card, I think maybe I should have left off the smaller ones. 

Last up is the Retro Rubber Challenge:

Flurry of Wishes is over 6 years old and Peaceful Moments is 3 years old, so both retro.

Still think I might redo this card though...after I put in another load of laundry.

Stay healthy y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, Peaceful Moments
Ink:  Night of Navy, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, Versamark
Paper:  Basic Gray, Night of Navy, Whisper White
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, White EP

Cool Snowflake

Friday again already, y'all!  And it might only be October (YAY OCTOBER I LOVE YOU) but for today's card I'm channeling snow.

I had the color combo thanks to Cupcake Inspirations, and snowflakes were a no-brainer to go with navy, white and silver, but then I needed a sentiment.  I wanted some kind of "hello" type sentiment rather than Christmas, so I started looking through my stamps and the "You're Cool" from Cool Treats made me laugh so that's why I picked it.  Here's the Cupcake Inspirations challenge graphic:

I stole the sketch from Dawn Olchefske's blog, but it looks like that was a challenge for her team of demonstrators and not a general challenge.  Either way, I liked the sketch (and I'm totally an orphan demo, out here all by my onesies, and I am by far and away my own best customer).

Well, I'm going to get Ryan and me ready to go to the gym today.  Friday's class is a boot camp, which I didn't go to last week--we got out of the house too late for me to make the class so I did elliptical.  Anyway, hoping that class is good.  Tomorrow's class is my favorite--step!  I did it for the first time with this teacher last Saturday and she totally kicked my butt.  It was awesome.  So yep, breakfast and then we're out the door.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, Cool Treats
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Shimmery White, Night of Navy, Silver foil, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Rhinestone

2016 Showcase, Part 3

Mornin' kids, welcome to the last post in the 2016 showcase, at least for cards.  I think I'll pick out some favorite scrapbook layouts over the next few days too because it's fun to go back and look at those (which is the whole reason I make them, right?).  So let's get started.

October's pick is this Halloween card featuring Agnes, whom I dearly love (along with her pals Frankie and Vlad).

Here's a pretty Thanksgiving card for November's pick.

And I really liked two cards for December, the first one being this Christmas Magic train.

And my other favorite is this CAS snowflake card.  That wraps up the card showcase for 2016, hope you enjoyed it!

Sugarplum Snowflakes

Happy Wednesday mornin' to ya!  Wow, this week is going fast--hubs only has to work tomorrow and then he's off for five days in a row, which will be nice.  Anyway, I keep thinking I'm done with Christmas cards and then I find out I need just one more, so here's today's "just one more"...

Once again this looks much better IRL than in the picture; the white cardstock is Shimmery White and of course the rhinestones never photograph well.  It looks pretty and sparkly in person.  Very simple design but who has time to get all super-elaborate at this time of year?

The folks at What Will You Stamp? cycled back to a set I have, so here's their challenge banner for Flurry of Wishes:

I stamped the sentiment in Rich Razzleberry, the largest snowflake in Sweet Sugarplum, and the smaller snowflakes are stamped-off Sweet Sugarplum, which helps give the card more depth even when only using two ink pads.  Anyway, this is going to my purple-loving friend Vicki, along with this gift (I am 95% sure she doesn't check this blog on the regular, ha):

It's a 10x10 frame with a space for a 5x7 picture; Ringo is the name of her horse.  I did a really simple design but I think it's still cute?  I figured Vicki could choose her favorite photo with Ringo to put in the frame so she can look at it when she can't be down at the stable.  Usually I'd kinda try to make the card match the gift but I just couldn't shake the idea of the sugarplum snowflakes for the card, and I really think these colors will go better with Ringo's coloring for the picture frame :)

Well, as usual I have dogs to walk and errands to run.  Holiday cheers, peeps!

Supplies for the card, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Sweet Sugarplum, Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Sweet Sugarplum, Rich Razzleberry, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Rhinestones

Supplies for picture frame:
Stamps:  A Happy Heart (long retired)
Ink:  Riding Hood Red (also long retired)
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Marina Mist, Manchester DSP (also also long retired)
Accessories:  lettering template

Let's Talk Snow

Hey kids!  Taking a break from getting my Christmas cards ready to go so I could make a card for today.  The picture isn't great but I have to leave in 10 minutes so here it is anyway:

Pretty simple design but I like it.  The white is actually Shimmery White cardstock, as always it's hard to capture in a photo.  I started with the Create with Connie and Mary color challenge:

They're an SUO challenge, so I must point out that the silver cord *is* SU!, albeit retired.  I still have quite a lot of the metallic cord from several years ago, the year that it wasn't elastic.  I can't even remember if there's metallic cord in this year's holiday catalog.

Anyway, I paired the colors with this week's Global Design Project sketch:

This would have come together really, really fast if I hadn't had to contend with my little Sadie girl dog laying down RIGHT BEHIND my chair so I couldn't move to get to the paper trimmer (or anything else).  But she's just so cute I didn't make her move.

Anyway, I've got to get out the door.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, Crazy About You
Ink:  Soft Sky, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Soft Sky, Sweet Sugarplum, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Tags & Labels Framelits, 1/8" hole punch, retired silver cord

Simple Snowflake Birthday

Mornin', folks!  It's a good day today.  The sun is shining and I actually slept for SIX HOURS STRAIGHT last night!  All hail the powers of the Zantac prescription to stop the heartburn/acid reflux that was waking me up every two hours or more.  I hope it works like that consistently and that it's not just a fluke (I now think it was worth waiting two hours at the pharmacy yesterday to get that prescription).

Anyway, you're here for the card not my medical woes! :)

My friend Karyn has a mid-December birthday, so I thought she'd like a wintry birthday card that wasn't at all Christmasy.  So I turned to the latest Freshly Made Sketch:

And this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Basic Black, Pear Pizzazz, Rich Razzleberry, and Coastal Cabana for my colors.  Coastal Cabana may be retired, but I have quite a stash of cardstock that color and it just seemed like the right choice for my big ol' snowflake.  I also used Shimmery White cardstock to give the card a little something extra, though of course that doesn't show up in the picture.

That's it for me today, kids.  Stop by tomorrow for the Friday Flashback!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, Crazy About You
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Rich Razzleberry, Pear Pizzazz, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Hello You Thinlits, Dimensionals, Metallic Enamel Shapes

Touring the Tower of London

Happy 4th of July!  It's supposed to be rainy here all day so I think we're just going to stay at the casa and chill with our dogs this year.  Which is fine by me :)

I don't have any scrapbook layouts to share that are really Independence Day-related, so here's one from London instead:

This was from 2011, when Bennet and Missy visited us in England.  The hubs had to work this day so I took our visitors down to London to visit the Tower of London, and then afterwards we got back to my car only to discover that my battery was dead.  It took us an hour to find someone with jumper cables to help us out, so after that Bennet bought me a set to keep in my car (Merry Christmas to me).  And I never ever ever killed a battery again :)

The "London" stamp is not an alphabet, it's all one stamp and I so wish whatever company that was had made ones like that for Rome and Paris and all kinds of other cities but apparently it's only London because I looked a couple months ago.  Since the pics were taken in December, I decided to put a couple snowflakes on there but I think maybe I should have used a more saturated blue color because the Bashful Blue is washed out.  Too late now.

Today's color combination:  So Saffron, Old Olive (green and gold for Missy!), Baked Brown Sugar, and a bit of Bashful Blue.

Have a great holiday, y'all, and stay safe!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, non-SU London stamp
Ink:  Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Soft Suede marker
Paper:  So Saffron, Baked Brown Sugar, Thick Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
Accessories:  Snow Flurry punch

Stay Frosty

So the AC guys should be here to start work in the next hour or so, and I can't wait because it hasn't been cooler than 80 degrees in the house since last Thursday afternoon.  And today I thought I'd make a card with snowflakes on it to try to think cool thoughts.

Didn't really work.  Paper snowflakes can't do much when the actual temperature is 85 degrees :p  But I tried.  And I used this week's Global Design Project sketch:

That's it for me today, y'all.  Stay frosty.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Island Indigo, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Thick Whisper White, Blooms & Bliss DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Snowflake duo punch, rhinestones, Dimensionals

The Last Nacho

Well children, are you ready for the last Nacho Average Color Challenge?  Because it's here.

After this week's challenge, the Nachos will be going to a monthly blog hop instead of a weekly challenge.  I'm going to miss the Nacho challenges though, so I just wanted to say...

Thanks.  It's been fun being on the Nacho design team.  But we'll still be back for blog hops!

Anyway, about this card.  I wanted to do something simple but still oomphy, so glimmer paper to the rescue.  I cut out the "thanks" Thinlit three times, once in silver glimmer paper and twice in Night of Navy cardstock, and then I stacked the three together to give it some dimension.  Couple of snowflakes and a rhinestone, and my card was done.

Hope you'll try your hand at this color challenge and post it over on the Nacho blog.  Cheers, peeps!

Uh, I just got done watching two episodes of Doctor Who, so is it weird if I tell you I wrote this whole post with a British accent?

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Soft Sky, Silver Glimmer
Accessories:  Hello You Thinlits, rhinestone

Celebrating Fabulousness

I was going to say good morning, but it's just after noon where I am so afternoon, y'all!  I am starting to get very excited...only ONE MORE SLEEP until I get to see STAR WARS!!!  Woo!

And there's another celebration happening:  today is my friend Karyn's birthday.

I'm afraid this won't get to her in time...well I know it won't, I just made it this morning and it has to get to Germany!  But anyway, I try to make her a birthday card that isn't necessarily Christmasy.  This one is still wintry though, and I do admit the red stripes remind me of a candy cane.  Oh, and check out the fiber I used to top my tag--it's more red IRL than it looks in the picture and I've had it in my stash for no kidding FIFTEEN YEARS.  And I only used a little piece of what I have.  It's kinda shiny metallic red wound around black thread, but I thought it would work on my sparkly birthday card.

The colors on my card are from the current Cupcake Inspirations Challenge:

Such an adorable cupcake!  And I picked a stamp that specifically says "celebration" on it because that's the Global Design Project theme of the week:

But wait, there's more!  I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

Okay, kids.  Time for me to go put in some more work in the old craft cave...and probably clean the floor again because it rained Monday night.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, almost all SU!
Stamps:  Happy Happenings, Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Pool Party, Real Red
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Glimmer Paper, Cherry on Top DSP, Real Red DSP
Accessories:  Tags & Labels Framelits, Crop-a-Dile punch (which used to be SU!), Snow Flurry punch, rhinestone, Dimensionals, fiber from Magic Scraps

One Good Flake Deserves Another

Or, Snowpocalypse Part 2.

What?  It was still out on my craft table.  And let's talk about that for a minute.  My craft room is starting to look like Stampocalypse Central.  I'm working on yet another baby book, so I keep grabbing patterned paper and I've got stacks of it that I haven't put back up yet, and oh yeah I also pulled out about 20 stamp sets for different ideas and if I could stamp as fast as I come up with ideas, I'd be the world's most prolific stamper and I'd need a heck of a lot more cardstock.  And my husband already says my cardstock makes up almost half the weight of all our worldly possessions (he might be right but don't tell him I said so).  Plus I'm still making cards for the daily blog post so it's quite the mess.  My craft table looks like a kindergarten art room, only with less paste.  And also it rained buckets last week and I haven't mopped up all the dog paws all over the floor.  Uh, seriously, my craft room has never looked this bad (in this house, at least).

I'm gonna have to work on that.

But first take a look at this inspiration pic from Just Add Ink:

Oooh, ahh.  So pretty.  At first I was going to do aqua with a nice saturated green, like Mossy Meadow, but then I decided to keep it all in the blue family.  And silver.  Because they go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Now I want a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  Or three.

To distract me, let's look at the hot-off-the-presses Create with Connie & Mary sketch challenge:

Of course I thought of the snowflakes as soon as I saw the sketch, but that might be mostly because the snowflake stamps were still sitting on my craft table and hadn't been buried yet under a tower of other stamps.  I used the "hey there friend" from the My Paper Pumpkin welcome kit because I love that stamp and it fit better than the Christmas sentiments that come with the snowflake stamps. 

Okay, peeps.  I'm going to go clean up my craft room.  If you don't hear from me soon, please send chocolate.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes, My Paper Pumpkin
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Shimmery White, Silver Foil
Accessories:  Flower Medallion punch, Dimensionals, rhinestone

Snowpocalypse

Actually it doesn't really feel that wintry here at the moment--we're warming back up to the 50s and 60s.  The stamping world, however, is all about the cold.  And I haven't played much with my Flurry of Wishes stamp set, so guess what you get today.

Haha I should have done a big lead-in about snow and then shown you a card with a giant sun on it.  But the stamping gods are positively yelling SNOW at anyone who will listen, so I listened.  Anywha, I do like these snowflakes and the fact that they coordinate with punches--I think punches are easier for me to line up than Framelits.  But I puffy heart love Framelits too.

Today's card sketch is brought to you by the Global Design Project team:

I liked all the open space to add my flurry o' flakes.

Also check out this week's Cupcake Inspirations Challenge (and a ridiculously terrifically gorgeous cupcake):

And the word prompt from Inkspirational Challenges:

And the new theme challenge at The Paper Players:

Question:  is it cheating to count one card for three inspirational challenges if all three challenges are basically the same thing?  Because if it is, I think I'm about to get pelted with paper scraps again.

Well peeps, as usual I have lots to do today so I'd better get to it.  Hugs and kisses and stay warm!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Wisteria Wonder, Pool Party, Pacific Point
Paper:  Wisteria Wonder, Pool Party, Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Snow Flurry punch, Lots of Labels Framelits, white baker's twine, Dimensionals, rhinestone

Friday Flashback: Jewish Celebrations

Happy Friday, y'all, and welcome to the Friday Flashback.  I try to do all Christmas stuff in December, but let's not forget the other major December holiday--Hanukkah starts this Sunday.  One of my favoritest people in the world is Jewish so I bought today's Friday Flashback stamp set to make her a card every year...let's revisit Jewish Celebrations.

Last year's card was really CAS because I ran out of time to do anything complicated.

The year before that I did get more complicated :)  And really, this is all I use this stamp set for and so that's it for the Flashback.  Here's today's new creation:

Had I realized that I'd used the menorah on both of the other cards, I would have chosen the big Star of David stamp for today's card.  Oops!

I added rhinestones to the candle flames this year because my girl Sarah lurves her some bling.

To make this card, I started with the Fab Friday sketch:

I had to adapt the sketch a little bit since my circle element was so much larger than the sketch.  But I think you can still see the bones of the sketch?

And this one also meets tic-tac-toe criteria for the Paper Players:

Snowflakes (two!), sparkle or shine (rhinestones plus brushed silver cardstock), and a punch *and* two circle dies.  Whee!

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Jewish Celebrations, Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue
Paper:  Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue, Brushed Silver, Whisper White
Accessories:  Circles Framelits, rhinestones, Snow Flurry punch

Frozen

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Today's layout shares a name with a Disney movie you may have heard of.

Actually I got some Frozen stickers that I had intended to use on here, and then I changed my mind and just went with snowflakes.  Somehow I never posted these pictures on my other blog, but this was from February when we actually had a freeze in Alabama.  These deer statues were at the entrance to the housing development we lived in, and they usually have a fountain of water spraying on them so that's why they froze over like that.

Just got these snowflake stamps and I love them :D

When I was still planning to use my Elsa sticker on here, I found a lettering template that was similar to the one they use for the movie title but I used a snowflake for the O.  I don't know why Disney doesn't use a snowflake for the O.

Today's color palette:  Mint Macaron, Lost Lagoon, Rich Razzleberry, Smoky Slate, and Whisper White.  Although the "Frozen" part is right now wishful thinking...the high here on Saturday was 78 degrees.  In November!  Global warming, y'all.

Happy birthday to my brother, who doesn't read this blog, but you'll see his birthday card here tomorrow.  Cheers!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Flurry of Wishes
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Lost Lagoon, Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Lost Lagoon, Thick Whisper White, All is Calm Specialty DSP
Accessories: Flower Medallion punch, lettering template