Doubled Up (Again)

Hey y'all, happy Thursday.  Apparently this is my week to do double duty on certain challenges because I made two cards with the same sketch yesterday : ) Here's the first one:

We are going DEEP into the vault for this one!  Check out the Retro Rubber Challenge:

Fall Whimsy (the leaf stamp) was one of the first stamp sets I ever bought; the oldest card with it in my Splitcoast gallery dates to 2006 but I think I've had it even longer than that, so let's just say it is probably approaching 20 years old.  Print Pattern (the diamonds) dates back to at least 2006 as well; French Foliage is at least 13 years old, and Bright Blessings is a wheel that I unmounted and turned into a stamp set and it is also 13 years old.  We are definitely retro today, and I very much enjoyed playing with these older stamp sets.

Speaking of Retro, Atlantic Hearts is going retro and revisiting some of their earliest sketches to celebrate their 600th challenge, so here's the retro sketch:

That is a classic sketch and I couldn't resist making two cards for it, so here's the second one:

I wanted a doggo-riffic card to send to my friend Krissy and this sketch made it super easy.  I kept it really simple with this one, stamping directly onto the card base for both the dogs and the sentiment, then adding some ribbon from my stash.  We might be visiting the Humane Society this weekend to check out puppers for adoption : )

That's it for me today, peeps.  I'm going to work on getting a few more things listed on Ebay to sell...wish me luck!

Supplies, fall card, all SU! (mostly retired)
Stamps:  Fall Whimsy, Print Pattern, French Foliage, Bright Blessings unmounted wheel
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Versamark
Paper:  Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Gold EP, Sycamore Street ribbon in Crushed Curry

Supplies, dog card, all SU!
Stamps:  Doggone Friendly, Lighthearted Lines
Ink:  Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake
Accessories:  Early Espresso 3/8" taffeta ribbon (retired)

L'Automne en France

It's French Friday!  : )  That's not really a thing, I just made it up because I used two stamp sets on today's card that have "French" in the name.  Also I took French classes for something like 7 years and used to be at least minimally functional in the language, but I haven't practiced much except for when we visited France.  And Belgium.  Anyway, card!

So I've been stamping for nearly 20 years and I almost never get rid of any stamps or supplies which is why my craft room is trying to take over the entire house and also why I occasionally like to take a trip down Memory Lane with some long-retired stamps.  This time I paired said stamps with some new DSP and accessories because it's fun to see how they play together. 

For challenges, first up is the Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge:

I loved that!  I zoned in on French Foliage for my leafy stamps right away but what seemed to take forever was choosing patterned paper.  I kept coming back to Thoughtful Journey, though.  I'm also entering this at Shopping Our Stash, where the theme is leaves.  Last up is the CASE the Designer challenge at Inspire. Create.:

I kept the basic layout but switched where the sentiment and the images go, and I stamped my French Script over the dark DSP on the left side of my card.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Ryan is off school, we have the hubs' first post-op appointment this afternoon and then we're going to see the new Transformers movie.  But first I have to go clean bathrooms : p Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  French Foliage, French Script, All-Year Cheer I
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, Pretty Peacock, Versamark
Paper:  Cajun Craze, Thoughtful Journey DSP Stack
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Basic Borders dies, White EP, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

Okefenokee Swamp

Scrappy Monday, folks!  We're in Tennessee this week but I've made some cards to share this week while we're gone.  I decided to go with a theme, so welcome to the start of the CREATURE FEATURE!  Everything I share this week is going to have an animal on it, including today's scrapbook layouts :)

We're starting the week with alligators!  If you're so inclined, you can see the original pics here, here, and here. I just finished these layouts a week or two ago so they were fresh on my mind when I decided on the creature feature.  The photo of the layout came out a bit dark, sorry about that, I've never found a good place to take pictures of my scrapbook pages in this house. *shrug*  Maybe I'll have better luck at the next place.

Anyway, it seems like I use the Becky Higgins sketch book for the majority of my scrapbook layouts, but nothing in there was speaking to me for this one so I pulled out my personal sketch book.  I've got all the BH sketches in there plus lots more from Creating Keepsakes magazine (I had a subscription to that for years) and ones I came up with on my own.  I found a sketch in there really quickly that turned out to be perfect for these photos!  Once I had the sketch, the layout came together lickety-split.

My color palette is Tip Top Taupe (I love that color, it's another brown In Color that's different from anything else SU has had before or since), Sahara Sand, Basic Black, Mossy Meadow, and Pear Pizzazz.

But wait, there's more!

Audra, Frank, and I were in the swamp to do a photography workshop to learn how to take night sky photos with long exposure times, so here are my tree pictures from that.  And in keeping with the creature feature theme, I wrote about the extreme mosquito problem in my journaling :)

I used the leaves from Rooted in Nature as accents on my first layout, but I needed some larger leaves in a similar style for this one, so I pulled out the long, long, loooong-retired Lovely Leaves and French Foliage for this one.  No dies for those, so I just fussy cut the three leaves.

The color palette for the second layout is a little different:  still Tip Top Taupe, Sahara Sand, and Basic Black, but Mint Macaron and Mossy Meadow for the greens.  (Sorry again that the photo is so dark.). I've been doing a thing lately where if I have more than one layout for a specific event, I keep the same page base color and some similar elements, but I use different patterns or add different colors for subsequent layouts.  So for this one, I chose a different pattern from the Garden Lane DSP that had different greens than the first one.  They're similar enough style-wise that it's obvious they go together, but since I used different papers it's like they're siblings instead of twins :)

Have a great week, peeps!

Supplies, first layout:
Stamps:  Well-Worn Alphabet, Rough Type, Rooted in Nature
Ink:  Tip Top Taupe, Sahara Sand, Pear Pizzazz, Mossy Meadow, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Tip Top Taupe, Sahara Sand, Basic Black, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  Nature's Roots dies

Supplies, second layout:
Stamps:  Lovely Leaves, French Foliage, Rooted in Nature
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Mint Macaron, Tip Top Taupe, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Tip Top Taupe, Sahara Sand, Mint Macaron, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  None

Happy Thanksgiving 2003

Scrappy Monday!  Since I didn't share a Thanksgiving layout last week, and it's still November since Thanksgiving was early this year, here's a layout from 2003, which our first Thanksgiving after hubs and I got married.  We were living in Pensacola at the time, so my parents came out there for a couple days and then we all drove to Alabama to do Thanksgiving dinner at the hubs' aunt and uncle's house along with his cousins and his parents.

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll see that the couch we're all sitting on is PLAID, which definitely directed my choice of patterned paper for this layout ;)  Also, I used a Becky Higgins sketch I never thought I'd use for this layout; I hardly ever crop most of our photos very much anymore, but the way that these ones were taken I was able to cut off substantial sections without losing the subject of the picture at all.  In fact, I think there's only two photos out of the 10 that I didn't crop at all.

Most of the colors are directly out of the Sweater Weather DSP, with the addition of a Mellow Moss page base that seemed to harmonize with the patterns.  The color palette includes Mellow Moss, Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango, Soft Sky, Early Espresso, and Very Vanilla.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  All-Year Cheer (I forget which), French Foliage
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Mellow Moss, Soft Sky
Paper:  Mellow Moss, Dusty Durango, Very Vanilla, Sweater Weather DSP
Accessories:  Ovals Collection Framelits

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

Friday Flashback: Perfectly Penned

Hey kids.  My Friday started off with a bang--my little boy dog Vader injured himself again.  He was trying so hard to run up the stairs to get breakfast faster and he's busted his left knee this time.  So I'm stressed out and feeling bad that he's hurt and he's stuck up on the middle floor of the house until the hubs can get home and carry him downstairs.  Hope he doesn't have to tinkle...

Anyway, here I am with today's Friday Flashback, and I'm going to have to be quick because I need to be out of the house in under 10 minutes.  So here we go!

Also features Perfectly Preserved

I think I have at least three stamp sets with apples in them.  No wait, four.  I must like apples :)

Also features By the Seashore

Perfectly Penned is one of my favorite sentiment stamps ever ever ever, so I just picked out some favorites for today's post or else we'd be here until next Friday.  And I started to notice something...

By the Seashore again :)

I also really like By the Seashore, and...

Also features Stippled Blossoms

A lot of my favorite cards are in fall colors.

Also features Gently Falling

Also features French Foliage

See what I mean?  Ooh, I love the copper brads on this one.  I still have quite a stash of those.

one more time for By the Seashore

Haha, more seashells, which I had so much trouble typing the word "seashells" you'd think I was trying to stumble through saying "She sells seashells by the seashore" six times fast.

Also features the All Dressed Up Framelits which were pretty cool

One last happy yellow card and I would totally wear that if it were a real dress.  Now for today's new card:

My friend Missy (a.k.a. Baylor bear extraordinaire) had a birthday earlier this week and I musta been sticking my head in the sand because I DIDN'T SEND HER A CARD and I'm very distraught about this, so I made a Baylor bear card.  But I do feel a bit guilty because this one came together really fast so maybe I should spend some more time in my craft room tomorrow and really make her a masterpiece.

Anyway, I revisited this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I switched the main image panel to the left side so the bear would be looking into the card rather than off the side, I think about these things (comes up even more in scrapbooking).  And to add a bit of glam, I painted the balloon with clear Wink of Stella.

Okay, I've got two minutes to get out the door.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Perfectly Penned, Thankful Forest Friends, My Paper Pumpkin (balloon)
Ink:  Basic Black, Garden Green, Daffodil Delight, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Garden Green, Thick Whisper White, Garden Green DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, black taffeta (retired), Dimensionals, clear Wink of Stella

Good Feathers

ACK!!!  This day has totally gotten away from me and I almost forgot to post something on here today.  Soooo this is all I've got for now:

Again, another combo SCS sketch/color challenge...though I don't like that one lone fussy cut feather so much.  Oh well.  As Scarlett says, tomorrow is another day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies (all SU!):
Stamps:  Fine Feathers, French Foliage (retiring, get it fast!), Pursuit of Happiness
Ink:  Certainly Celery (retiring), Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Certainly Celery (retiring), Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Dimensionals

French Foliage Birthday

Happy Tuesday!  Hope you're having a fabulous day.

For today's card, I turned to the latest Inkspirational challenge:

I really liked the colors, which I read as Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie, and Daffodil Delight.  And then I just really wanted to see how those colors would look with some French Foliage:

We've got lots of fall birthdays in our family so I'm sure this will get sent off in a few months.  The leaves are all rock 'n' rolled--even the Razzleberry ones are stamped off once, then rolled in more Razzleberry ink to make them darker on the edges.  Then I sponged the image panel a bit on the edges because that seems to be de rigueur for this stamp set (oooh, I threw in some French on this French Foliage card!).  I kinda wished I'd embossed the sentiment in Early Espresso EP to make it stand out a little better, but oh well.  The card is based on an old SCS sketch;  I ended up liking it more than I thought I would.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  French Foliage (get it now, it's retiring!), Perfectly Penned
Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, Early Espresso
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla, Brights DSP Stack
Accessories:  Neutrals brads (also retiring!)

Favorites Showcase 2012, Part 2

2013 may have started already, but I've still got to do the last 6 months of the 2012 retrospective.  So let's go!

I live in England and I have grown really fond of tea this last year.  I made this birthday card for a friend because we sent him a whole lotta tea for his birthday!  I used Morning Cup, the Take a Sip wheel (I cut it up into individual stamps), and Curly Cute.

I think By the Seashore and Perfectly Penned are two of my favorite stamp sets, and I really like the look of the shells thumped with markers.

I couldn't pick just one card for August, so here's an Artistic Etchings/Pursuit of Happiness card.  Generally I hate those "color" challenges that involve only neutrals and no colors, but I really liked how this card turned out.  (And I'm proud of myself for using Artistic Etchings but *not* the Eiffel Tower!)

This French Foliage card was for a September combo color/sketch challenge at SCS and I lurve those fall colors!  Had some good times with my leafy stamps this year...and we had a gorgeous autumn in this part of England, too.

Here's a pink birthday card for October using Papillon Potpourri, Perfectly Penned, and Elements of Style.  Sometimes it's fun to stamp on patterned paper.

More fall colors for November; this was a Friday Flashback card for Lovely Leaves.  Still really like that layout sketch too, I should re-use that soon!

I had a LOT of Christmas cards to choose from for December, but I thought I'd go with this sweet Scentsational Seasons gingerbread man instead of our personal tea-riffic Christmas cards.  Sentiment is of course from More Merry Messages, which got quite a workout this year!

I'll be back tomorrow with something all-new.  Hope your 2013 is off to a great start!

Favorites Showcase 2012, Part 1

My humble little stamping blog here is less than a year old so I didn't realize the year-end favorites showcase was a thing until I saw everyone else was doing it and so I'm hopping on the bandwagon slightly late because I wanna go to the party too.  I'm a teensy bit hampered by the fact that it looks like I was a bit sporadic in uploading to my SCS gallery this year, but I've got a few fun cards from the first 6 months of 2012.  (Detailed supplies lists for all my cards are included in my gallery.)

This one uses Curly Cute and Mixed Bunch and I think that might be this year's SAB paper?  Hope I have a hoard of that somewhere ;)

Here's a Valentine card with nary a heart to be seen, but the Eiffel Tower is romantic, right?  This one uses Artistic Etchings, Grateful Greetings (retired), and En Francais.

I didn't have a whole lot in the gallery for around March, but I thought this kid birthday card was tolerably cute.  I like how the background came out--it's just scribbling on the acrylic block with markers, spritzing with water, and smooshing it around on the paper.  This one uses Dinoroar and I forget the alphabet.

So this uses the retired sets Bronc Buster, Wanted (which now live in the same stamp case because I almost always use them together) and Cute & Curly.  I needed an encouragement card for my dad who is a die-hard Oklahoma State Cowboy.

Here's something more CAS-y, again with Mixed Bunch and Curly Cute.  (I kind of love both those sets.)

I couldn't pick just one for June so I've got one manly card and one girly card.  Love this one with French Foliage and one of the retired All-Year Cheer stamp sets; I think I need to use this layout more often 'cause I love it.

One more CAS creation with Kindness Matters and the (sadly retired) Thank You Kindly.  That Beau Chateau DSP is now on the clearance rack...and I am resisting buying any more retired DSP because I think I've hit critical mass when it comes to patterned paper o.O

Stay tuned for the second half tomorrow and Happy New Year!