Girl Time with The Paper Players

Happy Sunday,  y'all!  Seems like stampers enjoyed Stef's sketch last week for The Paper Players just as much as I did : ) and now it's time for a new challenge brought to us by the wonderful Jaydee:

Girl time!  Your card doesn't have to be pink, but mine is.  Here's what I made:

I once went on a girls' trip to Paris with my friend Krissy (we lived in Germany at the time so it was just a short train ride away, so why not) and I had Paris on the brain because I recently bought some address labels with artwork of the Eiffel Tower and flowers on them, so I thought I'd make that in card form.  I actually started this card with the Eyelet Blooms die that was the April product of the month and built everything else on top of it.  I love the look of pale Pink Pirouette with black accents, and added in a bit of Pool Party just because I liked it.  The big flowers are from an old, old stamp set called Embrace Life, and I used a blending brush to add some ink to the flower centers and then used a marker to add darker pink too before I fussy cut them.  A few rhinestones and some crocheted trim and here we are.

Hope you'll enjoy this challenge too, after all we have Mother's Day coming up so we need some feminine cards, right?  The hubs asked me the other day if I wanted anything in particular for Mother's Day and I told him he bought me two more orchids at the store the other day...okay I bought them but he has to take care of them because both my thumbs are the blackest black and I can't keep plants alive for anything.  We already had a yellow orchid, and I got a blue-violet one with freckles and a teeny-tiny one with white flowers.  I do love to have orchids by my kitchen sink, especially since I'm not the one taking care of them.  We had five tiny ones above our kitchen sink in Germany.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Parisian Beauty, Embrace Life, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Pink Pirouette
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Pool Party, Basic Black, Basic White, Parisian Blossoms Specialty DSP 
Accessories:  Parisian dies, Eyelet Blooms die, some kind of label punch, rhinestones, black crocheted trim, Dimensionals

Check out the other design team creations on the Paper Players blog, and you can hop through their individual blogs to leave some comments too:

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier

Stef Perry

you are here --> Christy Stanford

And then upload your card at the Paper Players blog!  Keep in mind a few simple rules:
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL
4.  Have fun!

A Really Retro Birthday

Happy Friday, y'all!  Hope you've had a good week back.  The gym has been TOUGH this week--amazing what taking just one week off will do!  But I'm getting back in the swing of things and also getting in my craft room, so I'm happy.

Retro Rubber is celebrating challenge #100, so I had to pick out some really retro stamps to make my card!  Sweet Treats (the cake stamp) is really REALLY retro, as I've had it since 2006; Happy Happenings (the sentiment) is from 2015.  All the paper is really retro too; all my colors are long-retired as well as the DSP.  That patterned paper is what first popped into my head when I saw this challenge so I went with my first instinct here.  Check out the Retro Rubber challenge:

I did the far right column and the bottom row; I painted the cake with Wink of Stella for sparkle but it doesn't show up in the photograph (and I took several, trying to get it to cooperate).  I used pewter embossing powder (also long retired) to count as a metallic and the heat embossing.  I'm efficient that way.

I also used a retro sketch, this one from Palm Trees & Pogo Sticks:

I love that sketch, would definitely use it again.

That's it for me today, y'all.  I've gotta get the house ready because my in-laws are on their way here for a visit.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sweet Treats, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Versamark, Regal Rose, Lovely Lilac, Certainly Celery, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Regal Rose, Lovely Lilac, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Flowers for You DSP
Accessories:  pewter EP, corner rounder punch, hexagon punch, Dimensionals

Bonjour, Beautiful Butterfly

Hey kids!  How's your Wednesday?  Once again, I have a squirmy babe in my lap, but what's funny today is he keeps trying to sing along to the music I'm playing on the computer.  He's not so great with the lyrics (well, he is only three months old) but he makes up for it by being adorable in his fire truck onesie.

But anyway, I bet you're here for a card, not my singing infant, who is getting squirmier by the second.

OOOOOHHHH I like it.  And it was pretty quick and easy to make, too.  For the background, I did a watercolor wash of Powder Pink ink all over Shimmery White cardstock, then hit it with my heat tool until it dried.  Then I stamped some Gorgeous Grunge splats on it with Powder Pink ink (hey, I used the other two splat stamps too, not just my favorite one!), making it the heaviest under where the butterfly would be.  Then just a quick stamped sentiment and a gorgeous gold foil butterfly and VOILA!

And kudos to whoever at Stampin' Up! came up with the color combo of Powder Pink, Pool Party, and Tranquil Tide...it's in one of the patterned papers in the new catalog and I have some pictures I'm hanging onto until I can get that paper because I'm so using it for scrapbook pages.  Love.  It.

Okay, so this card started out with the CASE the Designer challenge at Global Design Project:

I kept the gold die cut (though I had butterflies on the brain rather than roses) and the pink as the main color under it, and my white panel is the same size as this one and the sentiment is in the same place.  I was going to use a sentiment from Rose Wonder, but the butterfly was just a bit too wide to accommodate any of the stamps in that set, so I broke out "Bonjour, Beautiful" from the soon-to-retire Happy Happenings.

And since I had butterflies on the brain, how about the Paper Players' challenge:

I'm not 100% sure this card counts as CAS...I would have used the Shimmery White as the card base, but of course it kinda warps when you wet it so I needed to glue it down to something.

This pic kinda gives you an idea of the bling on this card--not just the gold foil butterfly, but the shimmer on the white cardstock.

We are fast approaching naptime (kid is now squirming around on his blanket on the floor, he seems happy), so I'm hoping to get some scrappin' done today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Powder Pink, Tranquil Tide
Paper:  Tranquil Tide, Shimmery White, Pool Party, Gold Foil
Accessories:  Butterfly Thinlits

Nachos: We're Back!

Ack!  I thought I had this post all set up and ready to go live last night and when I checked it this morning it wasn't there.  So I'm fixing that really fast!

So, after a six-month hiatus for blog hopping, Nacho Average Challenges is back!  And we're starting off with a great sketch:

I know the 4th of July was yesterday, but stars are great any time, and of course you could use a different shape if you wanted to.  However, since I made my card in advance and I still needed ones with stars, here's what I did:

This is for my mom, whose birthday was on the second.  She seriously has multiple outfits of all stars and stripes stuff to wear at this time of year so I know she'll like this :)  And she likes shiny things so glimmer paper and rhinestones for the win!

There's the inside of the card...sadly she didn't have a fabulous birthday, she woke up with a bad case of the flu.  She's feeling better now and we'll just have to celebrate her birthday again next month when the hubs and I fly out to Texas.

Okay, kids.  Check out the Nacho Average Challenges blog for more inspiration and don't forget to post your sketch-tastic creations there!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Happy Happenings
Ink:  Real Red
Paper:  Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White, Gold Glimmer Paper
Accessories:  Stars Framelits, Lucky Stars EF, rhinestones, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Starburst Sayings

Happy Friday!  It is time once more for the Friday Flashback, and today's featured stamp set is Starburst Sayings, which seems kinda appropriate to kick off the 4th of July weekend.  So let's take a whirl through the archives, and if all you want to see is today's new card then scroll to the bottom :)

Also features World Map

Starting off with this lovely map card.  I wish that SU! had done some more stamp sets (or even just one more!) to coordinate with the Starburst dies before they retired them all, but oh well.

Also features Perfectly Penned

That little starburst stamp on the left is covering up a booboo on the embossing powder at the bottom of the H :)

Also features Something to Say

Ahh, my favorite stamp from this set.  What's not to love about a giant Happy Day stamp!

Though apparently that little starburst stamp is the runner-up for favorite stamp from Starburst Sayings.

Works on any color combination!

And lots of different card layouts.

Also features Alphabet Rotary, Gorgeous Grunge, Positively Chevron

This is quite possibly my favorite card in the history of ever.  The inside says "You know the rest!" and I sent it to my dad :D

Also features Wood You Be Mine?

And here's a little lumberjack thank you card.

Also features Too Kind, My Paper Pumpkin (tiny chevron stamp)

Last one, another brightly-colored thank you card.  Now for today's new creation!

My SIL's birthday is on July 5th, so I'm going to send this out to her ASAP for her birthday.  Hey, it looks like this is the first time I used the little celebrate stamp so woohoo for me!  The fireworks and star stamps are from a stamp set called July Fourth.

And I stamped on the inside of the card too.  My patriotic color combo is courtesy of Fab Friday:

And of course I re-used the Freshly Made Sketch that I used yesterday:

And that's it for today.  See you back here tomorrow for another baby book layout :)

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Starburst Sayings, July Fourth, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Night of Navy, Real Red
Paper:  Temping Turquoise, Night of Navy, Pacific Point, Shimmery White, Whisper White (just for the inside)
Accessories:  Starburst Framelits, Dimensionals

Bonjour Butterfly

Bonjour from the land of computer issues.  I don't know what was up with the Mac this morning, but it was being super-slow about opening photo files (so I could post today's card) and saving things.  I did a restart and so far, so good.  Maybe our computer is coming down with techno-Alzheimers.  It *is* like 9 years old...

Anyway, card:

Yesterday was better than the day before in the mojo department, I got this card made pretty quickly.  And then I went to go see the original Ghostbusters on the big screen, can't be a bad day when that happens :)  FYI, those are rhinestones flanking the sentiment; for some reason they didn't catch the flash when I took the picture and they look a little weird.  Anyway, I used the brand new Freshly Made Sketch:

And paired it with the Color Throwdown:

I used Peekaboo Peach, Watermelon Wonder, and Elegant Eggplant for my colors, though I wish I'd gone with Rose Red.  The Watermelon Wonder DSP is lighter than the ink (my WW ink pad is still very juicy) and I think Rose Red would have contrasted better.  But too late to peel it all apart.

I'm off to the gym for kickboxing.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Watercolor Wings, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Peekaboo Peach, Elegant Eggplant, Watermelon Wonder
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant & Watermelon Wonder DSP
Accessories:  Rhinestones, Dimensionals

CAS Congrats

This must be my week for CAS/clean lines cards, because I have another one for you today.

I thought about adding something else, like texture or stamping to the card base, but I just really liked it the way it is so I left it.

Thanks to this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

Got my card done lickety-split.  Or at least, it would have been lickety-split had I not been arguing with my Cucumber Crush ink pad; in the end, I had to squish it with a plastic spoon so it would ink up the stamp better.  In fact, I got an entire box of plastic spoons just for that purpose.  Anyway, I interpreted the Color Throwdown colors as Crumb Cake, Cucumber Crush, and Very Vanilla (which would make for a very weird meal if we were eating them).  I also added some Chocolate Chip for the sentiment, and I stamped the coordinating Congrats! on the inside.  I added the Crumb Cake Candy Dot even though it's retired because I thought the flower needed something in the middle.  And why not have a green flower?  There was some kind of plant I saw in Alabama that had bright lime green flowers.  Or maybe this one is some kind of succulent plant or something.

Wow, tomorrow it's already time for another Friday Flashback!  See you then, peeps.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Crazy About You, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Cucumber Crush, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Flower Medallion Punch, Dimensionals, Neutrals Candy Dot

Spring Trio

Happy Wednesday, y'all.  Does it look like spring in your neighborhood?  The trees behind my house are all blooming, though when we went out last Saturday the cherry blossoms in DC weren't in full bloom yet.  But anyway, that brings me to the Paper Players challenge:

One of the things I loved most about living in England was the flowers.  I think gardening is England's national pastime, so in January I would see some snowdrops, February brought crocuses (croci), March was all about the daffodils, April was for tulips, May was purple with lilacs, and June brought out all the roses for June weddings.  And those are just the flowers I saw in my daily walks around our tiny village.  So I decided to make a trio of CAS spring cards for today:

I really liked how my shamrock card turned out for the Nacho blog hop, so I did the same kind of thing on these three.  I don't have current SU! stamps that look like the specific flowers I was going for, so I just used the colors of each to inspire my Flower Patch flowers.

This one is inspired by a crocus, all beautiful deep purple with a bright yellow or orange center.  I love that Bonjour, Beautiful stamp from Happy Happenings...originally I was going to do different sentiments on each card but I liked that one so much I just stuck with it :)

This one is my daffodil card, bright yellow with an orange center.  In March, daffs would spring up all over the village, even a few in my yard--and I can't keep plants alive for anything so you know they're pretty hardy if they survived being in my yard.

And last up is my tulip.  We went to Amsterdam one year to see the tulips, and let me tell you they come in an absolute rainbow of colors and they're all gorgeous.  But I decided to go with a pink and rosy red tulip for this card.

There you have it, my spring flower cards.  Hope you enjoyed them :)  I'm off once again to walk my doglets.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flower Patch, Happy Happenings, Work of Art
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Blackberry Bliss, Tangelo Twist, Pool Party, Daffodil Delight, Mint Macaron, Rose Red, Pink Pirouette, So Saffron
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Flower Fair Framelits, Dimensionals

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

The Force Is With the Nachos

Happy Tuesday, stampy friends!  Get ready for another Nacho Average Sketch Challenge, because it's here:

Confession time:  this sketch made me very, very glad that I can see our challenges in advance, because it was a real head-scratcher for me.  And then I came up with an idea...and then it took me over two hours to actually make it.  But here's what I did:

I have a fever, and the only cure is more Star Wars.  I was looking at a picture of R2-D2 while I made this, but I think my scale is off a little bit.  But by golly, I tried really hard, and I think you can tell what I was going for here.  This card is for my brother, who is also a giant Star Wars nerd (the Force is strong in our family!).

Plain and simple on the inside, but that Artoo sucked up all my mojo for an entire day.

So now it's your turn to tackle the sketch!  Don't forget to share on the Nacho blog.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Alphabet Rotary, Happy Happenings, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Pacific Point, Basic Black, Whisper White
Paper:  Pacific Point, Basic Black, Smoky Slate, Real Red, Whisper White
Accessories:  not sure I remember them all right, but Circles & Ovals Framelits, 1/2" circle punch, 1" square punch, hole punch and a lot of patience.

Bonjour, Beautiful!

Thursday already!  I can't believe we're already halfway through October.  I have so many more fall and Halloween cards I want to make.  I should really mail out more of the cards I make too...

So I bought Happy Happenings partially for the "Welcome to the world!" stamp and also for this "Bonjour, Beautiful!"  (There's also a "Hello, Handsome!")  I mean come on, who wouldn't want a card with that on the front!  And I paired it with some fun leaf stamps from Lighthearted Leaves.  The color combo is all me this time (no color challenge) but I did use the Fab Friday sketch:

Very fun, right?  I couldn't let that one go by without trying it out.

Anyway, I hope you have a happy Thursday and just think, tomorrow is Friday!  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lighthearted Leaves, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Versamark, Rich Razzleberry, Pink Pirouette
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Rich Razzleberry DSP
Accessories:  Leaflets & Banners Framelits, clear EP, Dimenisonals

Baby Books: Twin Boys

Scrappy Monday, peeps!  I'm back with another baby book layout.  My goal this week is to work on scrapbook pages for myself...it would be nice to have a few layouts done before I start the next baby book.  But anyway!

Twin boys...that about says it all.  These boys should be arriving in the next few weeks.  Let's take a closeup look at the journaling block:

The globe is from a stamp set called Love You More that was available for like one month a year or two ago.  I cut it apart from its sentiment ("you mean the world to me") and instead paired it with one from the new stamp set Happy Happenings, which I bought specifically for this layout and I love it.  It has lots of other great sentiments too (I love the "Hello Handsome" and "Bonjour Beautiful" ones!) so I'm sure I'll be using it for lots of things besides baby books.

Today's color palette includes Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Pool Party, Basic Gray, and Whisper White.

Well kids, I've got dogs to walk and errands to run.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Love You More, Happy Happenings
Ink:  Basic Gray, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Whisper White, Sent with Love DSP
Accessories:  Sizzix Alphabet