Germany, Part 3: Eibsee

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I'm back with layout #3 from when hubs and I visited Germany in 2013.

Again, see the pics up close here.  I went really old skool and used Lovely as a Tree for my accent on the right-hand page; I still can't hardly believe that set finally retired.  It was already in the catalog when I first started stamping!  This is my least favorite of the five Germany layouts; I just feel like it's missing something but I don't know what.  But done is better than perfect, and not every layout can be my favorite, so it's okay.

Today's color palette includes Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, Mossy Meadow, Gray Granite, and Whisper White.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Lovely as a Tree, Tim Holtz Christmas Alphabet
Ink:  Night of Navy, Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Night of Navy, Gray Granite, Mossy Meadow, Thick Whisper White, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  None

Fixed It!

Anyone else ever make a card and something's just not right with it and it BUGS YOU until you fix it?  Well, my Lovely As a Tree card from earlier this week was like that.

I fixed it.

I carefully peeled everything up and just switched the card orientation to landscape instead of portrait.  The sentiment fits SO MUCH BETTER this way and now it's not making my brain itch.

*sigh of relief*

Back to your regularly scheduled Saturday!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Bye-Bye Oak Tree

Mornin' peeps!  How's your week going?  I am very grateful that I am feeling much better than I was last week.  I really really missed yoga for two weeks!

Today I'm sharing another card featuring retiring stamp sets.  Three of 'em, in this case.

I started stamping in 2004 or 2005, and Lovely As a Tree was in the catalog then so it predates me.  I'm not 100% shocked that it's finally retiring though because we now have Rooted in Nature, which I like to think of as an updated LAAT with sentiments.

Anywha, check out the Global Design Project sketch:

I admit I just couldn't get my sentiment to work how I wanted it to.  I really needed one that was shorter, but I also wanted one that would be good for a sympathy card (why do I always think of LAAT for sympathy cards?) so that's how I ended up where I did.  I used some probably retired Garden Green ribbon for the accent under the square piece.

I'll also enter this at Retro Rubber:

As I was saying before, Lovely As a Tree is the longest-lived stamp set in the SU! catalog and I've had mine probably since at least 2006, so 13 years is pretty dang retro.  Tree Rings is only about a year and a half old and poor little Wishing You Well is one I just got about two months ago, so not retro at all.  I thought it was going to carry over to the new catalog but it isn't...which is okay because I own it and I like it.

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  In a little bit Ryan and I will be off to the Y so I can take pilates and get my stretch on!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Get Well Tree

Mornin', y'all!  How's it going today?  Kiddo is already down for his nap so when I finish this blog post I'll be heading down to the ol' craft cave to do some stamping!  But here's the card I made yesterday during naptime:

I seem to always gravitate toward blues and greens when I use this stamp set.  The current challenge at Retro Rubber is anything goes:

And then I happened to see the theme challenge at SUO Challenges, "Out in the Garden", so I put those two together and came up with probably the two oldest stamp sets in the SU! catalog.  I've had Lovely as a Tree since at least 2006, and Teeny Tiny Wishes since 2009, so they're both really retro ;)  And I continue my watercolor wash obsession; the watercolor paper has taken up semi-permanent residence on my stamping table.

Anyway, I also used the sketch from As You See It:

This card came together really fast.  Maybe a little too fast...I didn't use my heat tool to dry the watercolor panel because I thought it had dried enough while I was working on the other card elements, so after I adhered it to the card front it warped a wee bit.  Word to the wise:  use your extra-strong adhesive for watercolor paper ;)  I stamped the oak leaf cluster on the banner, but I stamped it off once so that it wouldn't compete with the tree for attention.  So it's just got a little bit of subtle pattern on there.

Okay, off I go now.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely as a Tree, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi
Paper:  Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi, Very Vanilla, Watercolor Paper
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Candy Dot (I know it's retired, but why not use what I've got?)

Friday Flashback: Holidays & Wishes

Happy Friday, friends!  So the hubs and I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens last night, and despite my best efforts I had to blink at least a half a dozen times during the movie so we're going back tonight so I can catch anything I missed the first time around ;)  But you're here for the Friday Flashback!  Right?  Right!  Today's retired stamp set is Holidays & Wishes, so here we go!

Also features Lovely as a Tree, Bella Toile

I love greens and blues together, I think they make a nice sympathy card when you use more subdued tones.

Also features Heartfelt Thanks, Paisley

Playing with Heartfelt Thanks and inchies.  Also, I miss Almost Amethyst and all the other purples :(

Also features Snow Burst

This was before I learned how to tie pretty knots, but otherwise I like this one.  It's shimmery white cardstock for a bit of shine.

Also features Simply Said, Kindness jumbo wheel

And there's a pink and purple Valentine...

Also features Scandinavian Season

And a Scandinavian Christmas tree.

Also features Lovely as a Tree, French Script

One more sympathy card, and now it's time for today's new creation!  Spoiler alert, it has blue and green on it, but it's not subdued for a sympathy card and it might be one of my favorite cards this year.  Take a look:

I just had to use Joyful Christmas again because that flower is so pretty.  And I was inspired by these colorful poinsettias at my local grocery store:

They have glitter on them in addition to being a wonderful shade of royal blue.  Aren't they pretty?

I also used this week's Pals Paper Arts sketch:

And this week's Color Throwdown is a free-for-all Christmas challenge:

I used Garden Green, Pacific Point, and Blackberry Bliss, and I think I love that combination.  The poinsettia was inked with Versamark, then Blackberry Bliss, and I used Iridescent Ice embossing powder plus it's stamped on shimmery white cardstock.  For the leaves, I just stamped them in Garden Green, so they ran a little bit when I watercolored them.  I waited until the water dried and then used the fine tip of my Garden Green marker to go over the lines again, and I like how that worked out for me.

Anyway, I've got to get moving.  Have a great weekend, peeps, and if you haven't seen the new Star Wars movie yet I won't spoil any plot points for you.  May the Force be with you!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Holidays & Wishes, Joyful Christmas
Ink:  Versamark, Pacific Point, Garden Green, Blackberry Bliss, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Pacific Point, Garden Green, Blackberry Bliss, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Iridescent Ice EP, rhinestones, Decorative Label punch, Ovals Framelits, Dimensionals

Happy Bearthday

Ya know, sometimes the stamping gods are just smiling down upon you, and that happened this week.  It started with the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

And I thought, hey cool, but I don't have penguins.  Enter the Cupcake Inspirations challenge for this week:

I can definitely do something with bears.  And then, the icing on the cake was the What Will You Stamp? challenge to use Lovely As a Tree:

Add those three together, and you get...

A Baylor bear birthday card.  This is going to my friend Missy's husband, who is also a rah-rah Baylor bear...I added the flower so Missy would know that one is her :)

That's it for me today, peeps.  Off to start making pies for Thanksgiving.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Forest Friends, Lovely As a Tree, Ray of Sunshine, Petite Petals
Ink:  Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Crushed Curry, Soft Sky, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Express Yourself

Happy Friday, peeps!  This week's Friday Flashback stamp set is Express Yourself, a collection of sentiment stamps that was a hostess set in the 2013-14 catalog.  A lot of times I don't use hostess sets a whole lot, but I do love this one so let's go!

Also features Hello Lovely

Something CAS to start off with; I think that Eastern Elegance DSP was one of my all-time faves.

Also features Falling Leaves

This was for one of the crazier Splitcoast sketches; I haven't done one of their challenges in a long time actually.

Oops, I chose the pic that doesn't have the entire card front on it but you get the idea.  Made this for the hubs for our 10th anniversary a couple years ago.

Also features Hearts a Flutter

Another CAS creation...

Also features Best of Autumn

And here's another fall card.  I like that leaf, it's a pretty image.

Also features Serene Silhouettes

I loved how the color wash looks on the silhouette image panel, and then right when I was finishing up this card I got a smudge on it.  Oops.

Also features Lovely as a Tree

Are you seeing a trend with the sentiment stamp yet?  The other sentiments are perfectly good too but I seem to be drawn to that "always thinking of you one".  And for my next trick:

Yup, I used the same sentiment on today's new card.  I do love how this one turned out though, I used the color challenge from Colour Q:

Those colors just screamed FALL to me so I went with it (though I do have some flower stamps that look like the images on that phone case).  Fall is my favorite time of year; I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures, sweaters and scarves without being absolutely frozen solid, and of course fall baking.  Because Thanksgiving.  And I just love baking.  Washing the dishes afterwards, not so much :p

I based my card layout off of this older Sketch Frenzy Friday sketch, but the linky is closed for it.

That's it for me this week, have a great weekend.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Express Yourself, Gently Falling, Sanded
Ink:  Early Espresso, Pumpkin Pie, Taken with Teal, Rich Razzleberry, Sahara Sand
Paper:  Early Espresso, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Autumn Meadows DSP
Accessories:  Wide oval punch, Dimensionals

Celebrate the Season

Ok, I'm feeling much better today than yesterday :)  I laid down for a bit, then when the hubs got home we took the dogs for a walk and I felt better after that, and we did indeed order pizza for dinner.  And then we went to bed kinda early and I was even lazy this morning so I'm now headache-free and feeling pretty good :)  And I got a card made today!

I was working on something with this sketch yesterday that ended up in the trash so I'm glad it worked out today.  And it fits in several challenges, like this one from Around the World:

And this sketch from As You See It:

I was on the nose with this one, I even used a tree.  And finally, I tic-tac-toed with the Paper Players:

Go down the right side of the board, and I used white, snowflakes (stamped in my oval), and my favorite kind of glitter--the type that's not at all messy:  shimmery white cardstock.  It DOES have a sheen to it although it's hard to catch on camera.

And now I'm off to the store so we can have tacos for dinner tonight.  And maybe do some Christmas shopping :)  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely as a Tree, Endless Wishes, November 2014 My Paper Pumpkin (snowflake stamp)
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point, Night of Navy, Mossy Meadow, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Smoky Slate, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Oval Framelits (used as a mask)

Distractions

Yesterday evening I got the latest Percy Jackson book (just came out on Tuesday!) so I was up late last night reading that and then spent a good portion of the day today finishing it up.  And now I need to reread the book that came before it and then read this one a second time.  Which is why it's now 7 p.m. and I'm just now posting today's card :)

No sketch or color challenge today, I kind of made this up as I went.  I wish I'd placed the color blocks a little better, but what can ya do.  I had to do the blocks first since I misted the blocks with water before stamping them, and the stamped trees would have run if I'd done them first.  But anyway, I think this counts for the current SUO Challenge to make a card with something you'd find in the woods.

Anyway, I imagine my hubs is getting hungry for dinner :)  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely as a Tree, Tags 4 You
Ink:  Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie
Paper:  Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Bracket Tag punch, Neutrals Candy Dots, Dimensionals

Nachos: Winter Trees

Happy Tuesday!  Are you ready for a great sketch challenge from the Nachos?

Super simple and easy to work with!  Here's what I did:

What's funny is that two other Nachos used that exact same stamp this week!  I hadn't used Lovely As a Tree in such a long time, too.  I just had to laugh when I saw how often these trees showed up this week.

For the background, I scribbled Pool Party and Pistachio Pudding markers on a large acrylic block, misted with water, and then stamped it on Very Vanilla cardstock.  I had to do it two or three times before I got one I really liked, I like how this one looks like crayon scribbles.  I let it dry completely before I stamped the trees and sentiment with Island Indigo.

So go see what the other Nachos have done with this sketch, then get to your own stampy station and show us what you've got : )  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree (a.k.a. The Set That Will Never Retire), Express Yourself
Ink:  Pool Party & Pistachio Pudding markers, Island Indigo ink pad
Paper:  Island Indigo, Very Vanilla, Venetian Romance DSP
Accessories:  Subtles Candy Dots