Zesty Lemons

Mornin' y'all!  How's your day going so far?  I got an order of some Stampin' Up! goodies late on Tuesday (a couple of stamp sets and the new In Color markers and Blends, mostly) but for some reason I am still busting out the retired stamps instead of breaking in the new ones.  Case in point:

The inside of the card continues the thought with "Live it with zest!"  I painted the cut lemon with Wink of Stella but of course it doesn't show up.  I had to use Lemon Zest just for the inspo pic at Sunday Stamps:

I used Sweet Sorbet, Delightful Dijon, Lemon Lolly, white, and Boho Blue for my colors.  The lemon in the back was stamped with Delightful Dijon; it was too dark stamped at full strength so I used a sponge to soften the color a bit before I stamped it.  I thought the Sweet Sorbet plaid gave off picnic blanket vibes.

Check out this week's sketch from Atlantic Hearts:

And that's all I've got for today.  I'm going to take Daphne out for her walk and we're going to get blown all over by the wind but that's okay.  Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest
Ink:  Lemon Lolly, Delightful Dijon, Boho Blue
Paper:  Boho Blue, Thick Basic White, Sweet Sorbet DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Nested Labels dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Lemon punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, Milky Dots, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Disney Cruise: Key West

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Once again I managed to do some sorting on photos yesterday, so I'm 3 for 3 on Sunday mornings for this year.  Woo!  I've also made some scrappy progress, I am currently at 10 pages completed for the year so far.  Of course the first four layouts were mostly finished last year and I just finished the embellishments and journaling on them, but yay I'm making progress.

Time for today's layout!  Our first port on the Disney cruise:

Bright, fun colors, right?  I seem to be using a lot of Lucky Limeade lately.  Key West is known for Key lime pie (of which we did partake) so Lucky Limeade seemed to be a natural choice for my page base, and I pulled the bright orange and pink from Ryan's and my shirts.  And how many citrus stamps do I own?  Enough to have limes in two sizes on here, at least.

So there's the palette:  Lucky Limeade, Tangelo Twist, Pixie Pink (wow has that been retired for a long time), Dapper Denim, and Whisper White.

We actually got a decent amount of snow over the weekend, so I think later today we're going to take Ryan out sledding.  Cheers, y'all, and stay toasty!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Lemon Zest, Cute Fruit
Ink:  Lucky Limeade, Dapper Denim
Paper:  Lucky Limeade, Pixie Pink, Tangelo Twist, Thick Whisper White, Tangelo Twist DSP
Accessories:  Circle punch

Birthday Margaritas?

So I sat down in my craft room yesterday and not five minutes later, Ryan woke up from his nap and started crying.  Usually he doesn't wake up crying, we think maybe he's teething?  I finished making a really really REALLY fast card and went to grab him, and never got back to writing a blog post for it.  Doesn't matter since I didn't like the card anyway, and last night Ryan grabbed it and kinda crumpled it but that's pretty much what I thought of the card so that's okay.  So today I just got a few minutes and I made this!

I bought Lemon Zest kind of on a whim, and I don't think I've used the coordinating punch very much, but I'm using the stamps more often than I thought I would!  I was inspired to make some limes by the Paper Players challenge:

I paired that with a sketch from Inkspire Me:

Okay, I'm kinda loving this sketch.  My card base is Lemon Lime Twist; I cut a piece of thick Whisper White cardstock to be 1/2 inch shorter than a standard card front, and then I adhered a 1/2 inch strip of Call Me Clover on top of the white.  It's amazing what a clean, graphic feel those two 1/2 inch bands of green give this card!  Stampin' Up!, I want MOAR FROOTZ PLEASE because this would be fun with apples and strawberries and pumpkins and why are there no pumpkin stamps in the new holiday catalog?!  I may be busting out last year's stamps this fall.

Anyway, Ryan just started to make noise again.  At least I got a card done today that I actually LIKE!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest
Ink:  Lemon Lime Twist, Call Me Clover, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Call Me Clover, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Wink of Stella

Target Inspiration

Happy Friday, y'all!  I've got a bright and cheery card to help us coast into the weekend.

Last week I saw a cup at Target that said "Squeeze the day" on it, and I actually wrote the phrase down on a Post-It Note stuck to the Lemon Zest stamp case so I'd remember it the next time I came across a good sketch to use it.  And happily for me, Freshly Made Sketches delivered one this week:

My orange was inked up with Mango Melody and then I used a sponge dauber to apply some Pumpkin Pie ink to the outer edges.  And then once I had it on my card front, I put some Wink of Stella on it to give it a bit of citrus shine.  I'm seriously loving the Tropical Escape DSP.  I liked this polka dot pattern to kind of coordinate with the weathered look on the stamps.

Hope you have a great Friday, folks.  Here in a little bit I'll be heading off to the gym to go run and then do yoga.  The lady who teaches my pilates and yoga classes told me on Wednesday that she can tell I'm getting stronger.  Always nice when someone else can tell you've been working hard!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Mango Melody, Pumpkin Pie, Shaded Spruce
Paper:  Mango Melody, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  1 3/4" circle punch, Everyday Label punch, Lemon Builder punch, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Birthday Boy Octopus

Mornin' y'all!  It's supposed to rain every day this week so it's possible that by the weekend we'll all be underwater.  So maybe that's what the What Will You Stamp? crew was thinking of when they chose this week's featured stamp set? ;)

You KNOW I'm gonna play along with this one!  Any excuse to bust out the as-yet-nameless octopus.  So here's my card for today:

Tiana was telling me when she was here that she doesn't have any birthday cards for boys (she's got two girls, and I gave her a ton of cards but let's be honest I like girly stuff so that's a lot of what she got from me), so that's why I chose to make this a more boyish birthday card.  I thought the bright Mango Melody made a nice contrast with the Tranquil Tide/Soft Sea Foam pattern.

I followed the basic layout on this week's CAS(E) The Designer challenge on Global Design Project:

I kept the patterned paper layer and the circle element, and let the linen thread stand in for the horizontal strip.

I'm also entering this at the Paper Players:

It might be difficult to tell in my photo, but the circle is actually cut out of my card front and the octopus and greeting are stamped on the inside of the card.  That's how I was able to wrap the linen thread around the sides, and then I tied each piece in a knot and cut it off right at the knot so there's no loose threads.

We'll see you here tomorrow, peeps.  Have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sea of Textures, Lemon Zest
Ink:  Mango Melody, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Linen thread

Lemon Sunshine

Hey y'all!  How's your day going?  I'm looking forward to Ryan's second swim lesson this afternoon.  His first lesson went well I thought, he smiled the whole time and didn't even mind getting dunked.  That kid loves the water.

Anywha, I've got a very sunny card to share today!

This reminds me of Ron's spell to turn his rat yellow in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid fat rat yellow!"
*excessive wand waving*

It didn't work, but maybe this card will work to put some sunshine in someone's day when I mail it out.  I sent out cards to my friend Tiana's daughters last week and they were both so excited to get mail.  Heck, I get excited to get mail (which might explain my Amazon addiction...).

My lemon sunshine card is a triple challenge effort.  First up is the color combination from Cupcake Inspiration:

Heyyy I only used the three colors called for!  Yay me.  I used Pineapple Punch for the yellow, I am enjoying all the new colors.  I need to work on building up my cardstock stash for the new shades though, I only have like three sheets of Pineapple Punch at the moment.

Next up (alphabetically) is Global Design Project's sketch:

And finally, this is my first time playing along at Just Us Girls:

I figured the color combination and this word prompt were made to go together and that's how I got my lemon wedges.  I put Wink of Stella on them too, which you can actually see in the picture if you click to embiggen.  It's a miracle!  That never shows up in pictures ;)

Hope you have a sunshiney day, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest, Sunshine Sayings, Magical Mermaid (splatter, why is that my favorite stamp from this set?!)
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Whisper White
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Thick Whisper White, Basic Black
Accessories:  White EP, white baker's twine, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, circle punch

Octo-Squeeze

Mornin' folks!  I hope you had a safe and fun 4th of July yesterday.  We let the kid play in a sprinkler and his kiddie pool, and then we lit some small fireworks on the back deck and scared him, poor thing.  I had to pick him up sopping wet and sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider until he quit crying.  Then we fed him apple pie and everything was okay again.

So, on to today's card!

I told you I was gonna pair that sentiment with my favorite octopus!  I'm funny like that.  Next time the hubs travels out of town I'll have to sneak this into his bag before he leaves.

I'm entering this in the Under the Sea challenge at Cupcake Inspirations:

I love this sketch from Palm Trees & Pogo Sticks (formerly Clean & Simple Stamping):

And I used the color challenge from Global Design Project:

I probably would not have put those three colors together on my own, but I do like the combination.  And happily for me, the only DSP I have from the new catalog contains both Mint Macaron and Fresh Fig patterns :)  I did another order on July 1 with more paper (because sale!) but it hasn't shipped out yet so I await it impatiently.

We're off to the Y again today because I'm not sore enough from Tuesday.  I'm kidding, it was difficult to get my shirt on over my head this morning because we did chest and back flies on Tuesday and OWWW.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sea of Textures, Lemon Zest
Ink:  Groovy Guava, Mint Macaron, Fresh Fig
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  Under the Sea Framelits, Dimensionals

Main Squeeze

Happy Friday, y'all!

Guess what.

Today's card does NOT have an octopus on it.

But it has just occurred to me that an octopus with that sentiment would be pretty funny :D. Watch this space, I'm sure that's coming soon now that I've thought of it.

Meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Just Add Ink color challenge:

Greens and blues are my jam so I had to make something with these colors.  The limes are inked with Lemon Lime Twist (appropriate) and then I used a sponge dauber to sponge some Granny Apple Green around the edges, and then I painted the segments with Wink of Stella.  The background is just the wee splatter stamp from Magical Mermaid (sooo the mermaid is gorgeous but I think that splat is my favorite?) in Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, and Pacific Point.  Lots of colors but it's not overwhelming because it's teeny splats, I like it.

That's it for me today.  As soon as I feed Ryan his breakfast, we're off to the Y...I've been every day this week, woo!  It's nice because I'm doing fitness classes again, and I can have Ryan in the daycare for up to two hours, so sometimes I'll do an hour-long class and then just read for a half hour while he plays and has fun and interacts with other kids (and adults, for that matter).  We've got him signed up for swim lessons next month too.

Cheers, y'all!  Have a great weekend!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest, Magical Mermaid
Ink:  Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Lemon Pineapple Punch

As Smee would say on the movie Hook, I had an apostrophe this week.  When I saw the challenge on Freshly Made Sketches, an idea popped into my head immediately.  Here's the sketch:

 And here's what I did:

And if you're wondering why I'm so excited about this, look what it does... 

And open one more time... 

I probably have not invented something totally new here but I just love how it turned out.  The Blueberry Bushel piece is just flat, a 4.25" by 5.5" rectangle (standard card size).  Then the Call Me Clover piece is 4.5" by 7.5", folded in half and adhered to the right side of the card base.  The thick Whisper White piece is 3.5" by 7.5", folded in half and adhered to the left side of the card base.  I left the inside plain so I can write a message when I send this out.

So let's talk new schtuff!  First, new colors.  Blueberry Bushel is pretty close to the old Brilliant Blue, which is great news for me because I use Brilliant Blue on my scrapbook pages A LOT and I only have a few sheets of it left.  I love Call Me Clover too, though I can't remember offhand how close it is to Emerald Envy or any of the other past greens we've had.  And Pineapple Punch is even brighter than the old Yoyo Yellow.  But anywah, these three colors would be right at home in an 8-pack of basic Crayola colors and they're fun.  I decided to get the Lemon Zest bundle now before it un-bundles with the new catalog and costs 10% more.  I should pair up Lemon Zest with Mango Melody and make mango-colored oranges!

Anyway, I should go rescue Ryan.  He's getting into EVERYTHING today so I put him in his playard just so I could eat breakfast and type this up real fast.  But now I'm fueled up with my morning tea, so I'm ready to chase him around.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel, Call Me Clover, Pineapple Punch
Paper:  Blueberry Bushel, Call Me Clover, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals