Tiny Tranquil Tree

Mornin' y'all!  I am on my second cuppa tea this morning and I had pumpkin coffee cake for breakfast because Ryan picked Sunday breakfast yesterday and he almost always chooses pumpkin cake.  I think I took a page from his book too because for some reason I was getting crumbs everywhere, but at least I clean up after myself.

Anyhoodle, the hubs and I were both in the warcraft room on Saturday (where he plays World of Tanks and I do crafts) and the following conversation took place:

Me:  Do bonsai count as trees?
Hubs:  ...Yes?  (definitely questioning)
Me:  Okay cool *stampy stamp stamp*

Result:

Ohhh yeeaahhh we're CAS today and I like it.  I used the Color Dare Challenge for my colors:

The card base and the stamping are done in Pretty Peacock (it looks extra dark in the picture, and I even took more than one but they all looked dark), the shading under the bonsai is Coastal Cabana, and I used watercolor pencils in Calypso Coral and Bermuda Bay to color the bonsai.  As to why I needed a tree, here's the Addicted to CAS challenge:

I hope they agree with the hubs that bonsai count as trees.  Bonsaaaaiiiiii!

Daphne is ready for her morning perambulation so I'm going to take her because I am totally stalling about all the phone calls I need to make today because I hate calling people on the phone but I need to make appointments and pretend I'm a functioning adult.  Wish me luck.  Bonsaaaaiiiii!!!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Calming Garden, Kanji
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Coastal Cabana
Paper:  Pretty Peacock, Basic White
Accessories:  Corner rounder punch, watercolor pencils

My darling Daphne.  Sun's out, tongues out!

Misty & Gene

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  And the last one of the year.  I slept in a bit this morning so I'm just now sitting down to eat breakfast and it's 10am.  I have the last piece of pumpkin coffee cake and Ryan is trying to bamboozle it away from me; I told him puppy dog eyes don't work when there's pumpkin cake on the line.  When he's a teenager and trying to eat us out of house and home, I'll have to start making this as a double recipe or the hubs and I won't get any of it : )

Anyway, my scrapbook layout for today:

My friend Misty got married on New Year's Eve and I thought today was a good day to share this simple layout.  I told Misty that I would stitch her a wedding sampler, and she chose a pattern with kanji on it, that's why I have the kanji stamped on my page.  Also my dress had a mandarin collar and a pattern of bamboo embroidered on it... I wonder if I still have that.

Simple page title with my favorite Lovely Letters Alphabet.

And here's the color palette:  Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red, Brocade Blue, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  The red and blue are from our clothes and I just needed the neutrals to tie the color palette together.

That's it for me today, peeps.  I'm going to enjoy my pumpkin cake and contemplate taking Daphne out for her daily inspection tour...but it is really super duper ridiculously windy outside so she might have to convince me that she neeeeeds to go on that tour.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely Letters Alphabet, Kanji
Ink:  Basic Black
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Brocade Blue, Whisper White, Bella Rose DSP
Accessories:  None

Heian Shrine

Scraparrific Monday to you, peeps!  If you recall, I said on last Monday's post that I had forgotten a 5x7 photo and I just really didn't want to redo the pages.  So instead, I incorporated it into this layout, which will go right in front of that one in my book:

See the original pics here.  Sorry for the glare on that 5x7, it's been two years and I still can't find a place in this house to take reliably good pictures of scrapbook layouts.  But anyway, that was the 5x7 in question :)

This layout is a little different for me...I nevereverEVER arrange my pictures so they are flush against each other with no mat in between, but for those three pics on the left-hand page, I just COULD NOT trim even a little bit off and so there you have it.

After wanting it for YEARS, I finally bought the Headline Alphabet off eBay.  I think when it first came out, I decided that I would only get either the Letterpress Alphabet or this one, and I chose Letterpress.  Of course now I want ALLLLL the alphabets :)

Today's color palette:  Rich Razzleberry, Mint Macaron, Tangerine Tango, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  There was a LOT of Tangerine Tango in the pictures, so I only used a teensy bit of it for narrow photo mats and then of course the page title.

Well, I've got dishes to do while Ryan is asleep.  Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Headline Alphabet, Empire Alphabet Lower, Kanji
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Basic Black
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Tangerine Tango, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Succulent Garden DSP
Accessories:  None

Scrappy Showcase, Part 2

Afternoon, y'all, and happy new year.  I thought I would get this done in the morning, but then I made waffles with my new BB-8 waffle maker and then it seemed imperative that I take a nap :)  So anyway, it's part 2 of the scrappy showcase!  The layouts are basically in the order in which they were first posted here on the blog, not in order of how much I might like 'em, but we're in the middle of my 12 favorites for 2016.

First up is the layout from the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto, Japan; once again it's the color combination that makes it a favorite for me.  Color is the absolute number one thing I notice about scrapbook pages, cards, clothes, etc.  If I can get a color combination to work with my pictures then I am a happy camper and more likely to be happy with the end results.

Next up for today is this layout from the Great Wall of China; while I do love the colors (Handsome Hunter for the win, and I'm almost out of it now) what I love best about this one is that picture on the left page.  It's one of my favorites of all time.

And here's the first layout I did for the Harry Potter studio tour, I love the title my friend Tiana cut out for me with her Silhouette.

Last up for today is the giant panda layout from our China trip.  I love the colors (Baja Breeze will always be one of my favorites), but the other thing I love about this layout (aside from the memories it documents) is that I found some bamboo-print paper that turned out to be the perfect color for my photos. It's always exciting when I've had a particular pattern in my stash for a long time and then I find the perfect layout to use it on.  The hubs thinks I get excited about weird things but I don't even care :p

Hope your new year is off to a great start!  Hubs and I are starting to get things washed and organized for the nursery.  Fun times.  Cheers, y'all!

The Silver Pavilion

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Hubs and I are back from a week at Disneyland with some good friends.  It was fantastic, but trying to re-acclimate from West Coast time to East Coast is so not fun :p  But here it is Monday morning and that means it's time for a scrapbook layout.  How did you like last week's all-scrap theme?

Today's layout takes us back to Kyoto, Japan, specifically the Silver Pavilion.  It was built by the son of the man who built the Golden Pavilion, and he had intended to silver-plate the building (hence the name) but didn't get it done before he died in 1490.  It's been a Buddhist temple ever since.

I looked back at my Golden Pavilion layout (linked above) to see how I'd done the title, and decided to do the same here--just hand-write it instead of stamping the whole thing.  And of course I had to use one of the Kanji stamps on this :)  I'm a little sad though, I used up ALLLLLL of that Baja Breeze stripey floral paper on this layout.  I mean, it's a great use for it, but now I've run out of it and can't use it again! :)

Today's color palette is the super-serene Smoky Slate and Baja Breeze, with a bit of Garden Green, Basic Black, and Whisper White tossed in for good measure.  I lovelovelove this color combination and I'll have to keep it in mind for future layouts.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Got lots of other stuff to do, so ta-ta for now!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Kanji
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Smoky Slate textured, Garden Green, Basic Black, Whisper White, Green Tea DSP
Accessories:  Word Window & Modern Label punches

Friday Flashback: Symbols of Solicitude

Ok, so I'm just running late all week :)  But it's still Friday and we're still doing the Friday Flashback!  Today's featured stamp set is Symbols of Solicitude, which lives in the same stamp case as the similar set Kanji.  Having lived in Japan for almost three years, of course I have to have pretty much all the Oriental stamp sets that SU! makes.  So let's go!

The picture doesn't show it very well, but I stamped the "peace" kanji and embossed it with silver on the left page.

Also features Embrace Life

What is it about Japanese/Chinese stuff and the color red?  Yep, I use them together a lot.

Also uses Kanji

This was a wedding present for a friend of mine; she wanted something Japanese (and nope, they're not Asian at all).  I made both the card and the cross-stitched piece.  And now for today's new card:

Still red, I couldn't help it :)  I'll just need to remember this card next February when my friend Chris' birthday rolls around, I think he'd like this.  I based it on a past Retro Sketch:

The card actually came together really fast once I finally got in my craft room to work on it.  I'm gonna get back in the groove so I can have posts ready ahead of time, it's my new goal.  For now though, thanks for joining me for this week's Friday Flashback and have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Symbols of Solicitude, Four You
Ink:  Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, Haiku DSP
Accessories:  Hexagon punch (to flag the ends of the sentiment strip), Dimensionals, Square Lattice EF

Kyoto Garden

Four more days to study for this stupid exam...bleargh!  And here's one more scrapbook layout.  Man, I can't wait to get back in my craft room for some fun creative time.

You can see my original blog post about these pictures here.  I love that picture of the two ladies dressed up as geishas (we had the distinct impression that they were just playing dress-up and having a photo shoot rather than being real geishas); I had a 5x7 of it but silly me I forgot that when I was working on this layout.  Oh well.  We've also got an enlargement of that picture hanging up in our living room.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Now back to studying, ick.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Four Frames, Kanji
Ink:  Baked Brown Sugar, Wild Wasabi, Blue Bayou, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Baked Brown Sugar, Very Vanilla, Porcelain Prints DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Decorative Label punch

Friday Flashback: Pretty Peony

Wow, it's time for a Friday Flashback again already!  Today's randomly-chosen stamp set is a good one, and one I've used a lot so this is a long post :)  Let's take a flashback to Pretty Peony!  Oh wow, no posts in that gallery since 2011?  We're about to change that.

So this is from before I learned how to tie knots where they don't stick out all akimbo like that, but I still like this card.  I also used Sanded and Sweet Serendipity (both retired).

Here's another super-simple layout with one of my favorite colors:  Elegant Eggplant.  The other color is Close to Cocoa, which I still miss.  I remember being kinda surprised how well those two colors worked together when I did this card. The sentiment is from longtime favorite Sincere Salutations (retired).

I made a set of these for a friend of mine as a farewell gift (her first initial is S).  Kind of in love with this stamp set. I also used French Script (retired) for the background and the initial is from Lovely Letters.

Here's the Mother's Day card I made a couple years ago, again with Lovely Letters.  I love these peonies in all kinds of colors!

Made this for my SIL's November birthday a couple years ago, so I went with fall colors on this one.  The sentiment is from Heard from the Heart.

Hey look, I've also used Pretty Peony on a scrapbook layout!  It's a bit of a pain to cut out the flowers and leaves, but I've done it a couple times.  So those were all the Flashback pics, here's a new one!

The color combo was a challenge on Still Addinktive recently but I didn't get a chance to play at the time, so I was excited to use these colors today--Pretty in Pink, Old Olive, and Rich Razzleberry.  I was flipping through my binder looking for a sentiment to put on this and came across Elegant Cheer and thought perfect!  The card came together pretty fast thanks to the Nacho sketch challenge:

Hope you enjoyed today's Friday Flashback!  I had fun revisiting this particular retired stamp set today.

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Pretty Peony, Elegant Cheer (both retired)
Ink:  Pretty in Pink, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Haiku DSP & Pretty in Pink DSP (both retired)
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Oriental Retrospective

So before I left England to visit Texas for two weeks, I scheduled a bunch of blog posts to show up on here.  However, I forgot to factor in that I would leave Texas on a Thursday and wouldn't arrive back in England until Friday, so I didn't have another Friday Flashback post ready to go.  Oops.

So instead, I thought I'd just pick out some old favorite cards to post today, and the first one that caught my eye was using one of SU!'s old Asian sets so I thought hey, why not?  So this Friday Flashback is an Oriental retrospective.  (It's my blog, I can do that.)

Let's start off with a nontraditional Asian Valentine, shall we?  I think this is from the first year that SU! had In Colors, still love that Cranberry Crisp.  The stamp sets used are Artfully Asian and Kanji, and the Artichoke panel is done using the ghosting technique.

I loved Eastern Influences the moment I saw it, and this was a swap card I did as soon as I got those stamps in my hot little hands.  Love Baja Breeze and Pink Pirouette together.

Asian Artistry was a hostess set one year, the year we got Crushed Curry as an In Color.  I think I've said it before, but I wish they'd bring Crushed Curry back--that was probably my favorite yellow ever.  I need to bust out this stamp set again too, I really liked it.

I've always loved dragons, so I hunted down Ancient Asia on the Buy/Sell/Trade boards because that little dragon is pretty cool.  The background stamp is Bamboo II and the "Imagine" sentiment came from Natural Beauty.

Last one for today, another Artfully Asian card.  That flower is colored with Tempting Turquoise ink, just watered down so much that it looks like Cool Caribbean.  I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Artfully Asian, I've used it on a bunch of scrapbook layouts too.

Hope you've enjoyed this slightly different take on the Friday Flashback.  I'm going to go spend time with my sweet little stinky dogs since I haven't gotten to see them for two weeks.  Ta-ta!