Guest Designer: AAA Cards Challenge

Good mornin' y'all!  Okay so it's really the middle of the night my time but I have fun news to share, I'm a guest designer for AAA Cards Challenge today!  Here's the challenge:

I am not afraid to say that I had to ponder these colors for a while before I figured out what to make.  I translated them to SU! colors as Cinnamon Cider, Elegant Eggplant, Cloud Cover, and Perfect Plum, three of which are retired colors, and here's what I made:

I actually came up with the idea for this one when I saw someone selling Night of Flight on a Facebook group and it occurred to me that a moth would be PERFECT with these colors!  My Elegant Eggplant ink pad is still extra juicy so while it might read as nearly black, I promise, it's purple.  I used the fill-in stamps in the set to add color to the moth's wings, and then added a bit more on the moth's body and the lightest portions of his wings.

I hope you'll play along at the challenge at AAA Cards Challenge.  Don't forget to keep it CAS and have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Night of Flight, Power of Hope
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Cloud Cover, Cinnamon Cider
Paper:  Cloud Cover, Thick Basic White, Cloud Cover DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, In Color Flat Pearls, Dimensionals

SUO Challenges: Silhouettes

Goooooood morning stampy friends!  Get ready for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

So we're all about silhouettes this time.  I saw some beautiful cards by Helen Read earlier this year using this technique and I suggested it for a challenge.  So you stamp an image and use a dark marker to color in the image to get a silhouette for a different look on line art images.  I had to give it a try with the moths from Night of Flight, so here's my card:

For the background, I sponged Mossy Meadow and Moody Mauve ink onto an acrylic block, spritzed it with water, and then stamped that on some watercolor paper.  I had to spritz more water and stamp again actually as the colors didn't blend together enough the first time, and then I used my heat tool to dry it because I'm impatient ; )  Then I stamped the moths with Pretty Peacock ink and colored them in with the darker Pretty Peacock Stampin' Blend.  I like that you can still see a little bit of the detail on the wings but it's very subtle.  I left the moths' bodies uncolored just because I liked the look.

At first I had stamped the greeting on the Pretty Peacock circle and heat embossed with some truly ancient copper embossing powder (like for reals, I bought it the first time Stampin' Up! had copper embossing powder, I'm pretty sure it's over 10 years old), but I tried taking pictures of this card several times, in several places, on different days, and I just couldn't get the greeting to show up in pictures.  So I stamped it on Very Vanilla and glued it on top of the other circle and I like it better now.  The copper cord *is* from SU!, but like the embossing powder, it is quite old.  One year in a holiday mini catalog, they had non-stretchy cord in gold, silver, and copper; I bought them all and I still have them.  Couldn't resist getting it out to coordinate with the All About Autumn DSP Stack.

I hope you'll give silhouette stamping a try and share with us on the SUO Challenges blog.  Have fun getting inky!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Night of Flight, Nature's Prints
Ink:  Moody Mauve, Mossy Meadow, Pretty Peacock
Paper:  Moody Mauve, Pretty Peacock, Thick Very Vanilla, watercolor paper, All About Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Circles dies, copper cord, Dimensionals

Side note, check out the sunrise rainbow we had here yesterday!

A few minutes before I took this picture, I looked out side and the entire sky was PINK with the sun coming up.  Not just a little bit either, everything was pretty much Barbie pink.  Then I went outside to take the trash out and saw this beautiful rainbow!  Had to get Ryan to come out and look too, and I'm glad I did because when we left the house a few minutes later to take him to school, the rainbow was gone.  Beautiful start to the week!

Rosy Maple Moth

Hey y'all!  I told my hubs I feel like I've got the house about 90% unpacked and organized, but that last 10% might be the hardest bit.  I try to do at least a couple of things every day so I know I'm making progress, but I'm also building in some time to decompress because this has been A LOT.  So I took a bit of time and made a card!

This is for the CAS challenge from the Paper Players:

And the sketch from Sunday Stamps:

Both fun challenges!  I have several options for buggy stamps but I couldn't resist the moths from Night of Flight.  The sentiment is from Softly Sketched and continues with "how amazing you really are" on the inside of the card (that's another set I got during the one-day stamp sale).  Ever since I got Night of Flight, I've seen several pictures of different very cool moths, like this one:

So my moth was inspired by a real-life Rosy Maple Moth, isn't it pretty?  I didn't know moths came in a pink and yellow color scheme : ) I screen-shot a couple of different pictures of the moth from the National Park Service, and I highly recommend you give them a follow on Facebook.  Their social media team is on point and frequently hilarious : )

That's it for me today.  I started writing this post last night, and then the kiddo said his stomach was upset and we spent a lot of last night with him throwing up, poor kid.  So it's going to be a sit-at-home kind of day today.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Night of Flight, Softly Sketched
Ink:  Night of Navy, Bubble Bath, Stampin' Blends in Lemon Lolly & Bubble Bath
Paper:  Night of Navy, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Mini Dimensionals, retired In Color rhinestones in Pale Papaya

Night at the Lagoon

This week has been even more chaotic than I thought it would be when I scheduled posts for this week--on Tuesday morning Ryan came down with PINKEYE.  I had to take him to the ER on Tuesday morning (didn't have time to wait to get an appointment at the pediatrician) and we got back to the house ten minutes before the hubs had to leave to sell his car.  Ryan is doing better now but it seemed to be a worse case than what he had back in February.  Man, this move has been stressful!

Anyway, I got four new stamp sets last week right before I packed up my craft room, and I managed to squeeze in just enough craft time to make a card or two with each of the stamp sets.  Today's card features two of my new acquisitions, Night of Flight and Next Destination:

And the Inked Botanicals DSP for that matter, which I used for a lot of the cards I made.  I'll be sharing those over the next few weeks so it's not just crickets chirping here on my blog while all the stuff is in transit to Texas.

Lucky for me, this card fits in the current Paper Players challenge:

I used the second-largest moth stamp from the hostess set Night of Flight, for some reason this stamp set is really appealing to me.  I used Blends to color it in, though when I get my next craft room set up I'll have to try embossing the moths on colored cardstock and see what other looks I can come up with.

Hope your week is less chaotic than ours is.  And to think, we're going to be moving again a year from now!  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  Oh well, needs must.  Cheers!

P.S. Joanne, if you happen to read this, my craft room is all packed up and on its way to America, but I still managed to make a cup of tea this morning because I still have my electric kettle : ) Priorities!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Night of Flight, Next Destination
Ink:  Night of Navy, Lost Lagoon, Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon & Pool Party
Paper:  Pool Party (card base, which you can't see), Thick Basic White, Inked Botanicals DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies