Work Smarter, Not Harder

Hey hey, y'all!  How's your week going?  For me, on the plus side, I finally finished my giant stitching project!  Woohoooooooooo!  I'm very excited, I need to get some better pictures of it.  On the minus side, I feel like I'm either coming down with something or else allergies are trying to kick my butt.  Things are a-bloomin' here, except the cherry tree in our yard which has yet to get with the program.  C'mon, TREE.

Anywha, I have a quick and cute card to share today and I definitely let the DSP do all the work here.

The Bloom Where You're Planted DSP is retiring soon and it was absolutely made for the challenge at Fusion!

I played with both sides of the challenge this time around.  For the inspo photo, I chose a paper with a white background but the plants reminded me of the plant in the lower right corner of the picture, and then I stuck to a neutral color for my sentiment strip.  Easy peasy!  Ornate Thanks is also retiring soon and I feel like I should have used it more.  Heck, I want to use ALLLLL my stamps more often ;)

Hope you have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ornate Thanks
Ink:  Gray Granite
Paper:  Just Jade, Gray Granite, Thick Basic White, Bloom Where You're Planted DSP
Accessories:  None

More Polar Pals

Mornin', y'all!  I have the day off of work, the hubs just took Ryan to daycare, and I have a list of things to do today.  Other than laundry, it's all crafty stuff! : )  I'm working on another scrapbook layout, I have stamps to unmount (I really need to quit looking at eBay...), it's time for an update on my giant cross stitch project, the list goes on!

But first, a card for today!

Have I mentioned that I'm obsessed with the Penguin Playmates DSP???  Because I *totally* am.  I think I'm going to need more ; )  I did some simple stamping for the sentiment, and then fussy cut the polar bear and penguin out and glued them down on the tree pattern.  Since polar bears live in the Arctic and penguins are Antarctic, does that make this duo bipolar pals?

Check out the fun sketch from Inspire. Create.:

I liked the idea of using those thicker edges around the horizontal strip for the smaller words in the Ornate Thanks stamp set and I'm still wishing the polar bears and foxes were stamp sets too.  Don't get me wrong, the penguin stamps are adorable, but I'm in LOOOOOOOOVE with the polar bears and foxes on this DSP!

Anyway, I'm also entering this at the Global Design Project:

I always need thank you cards, don't you?

Hey, writing this blog post means I get to mark one thing off my list of things to do.  I'm off to conquer a mountain of laundry and do crafty things.  Cheers, polar peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ornate Thanks
Ink:  Balmy Blue, Just Jade
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Just Jade, Thick Basic White, Penguin Playmates DSP
Accessories:  None

Amazing Tiger

Hey, y'all!  I had some trouble focusing yesterday morning in my craft room, but I finally found my groove and ended up making a whole bunch of cards.  I'm particularly proud of the one I'm sharing today.

One of my favoritest people in the entire world was my friend Neelu, and she loved tigers.  She died of cancer a few years ago and every time I see anything tiger-related I think of her.  So of course that's why I bought the Wild Cats stamp set and dies.  This card ended up being pretty busy, but I think I like it!  The two patterns of DSP are actually both sides of one sheet, how's that for thrifty?

I started out with the Sunday Stamps color challenge:

Hopefully the colors of the In the Wild DSP are a close enough match--I used Soft Succulent, Cajun Craze, Merry Merlot (in the jungly DSP), and Evening Evergreen, only leaving out the purple.

I paired that with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And I thought I'd enter this at As You See It since I love tigers because I associate them with Neelu:

Apparently I have LOTS of favorite animals ;)

Have a great day, peeps.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wild Cats, Ornate Thanks
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Evening Evergreen, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Cajun Craze, Soft Succulent, Thick Basic White, In the Wild DSP
Accessories:  Big Cats dies, Layering Ovals dies, Potted Succulents dies, Dimensionals

Poppy Power

Howdy, folks!  How's it going?  Yesterday I placed a big fat order from the SU! holiday catalog and then I had a wee bit of time in my craft room before I had to go pick up the kiddo.  Wanna see what I made?

I actually had to leave it half-done to go pick Ryan up, and then finish it after I got him back home.  I've been working on organizing and cataloging my dies and punches lately, and it occurred to me that I don't think I had ever used the Poppy Moments dies to, ya know, make a die-cut poppy.  So here's two!  I cut out the poppies and then built the rest of my card around them.  Poppy season around here has pretty much been and gone; now it's sunflowers and something else--maybe gladiolus?--in the blumen fields on the edge of town.  We should go back out there and take pictures.

Anyway, I was inspired by the Global Design Project theme challenge:

POPPY POWER!!!  Which actually makes me think of Scrappy on the Scooby-Doo cartoons (his catchphrase was "Puppy Power") but I like these poppies better than Scrappy.  He was always the most annoying character :)

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ornate Thanks
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Real Red
Paper:  Pool Party, Real Red, Poppy Parade, Basic Black, Garden Green, Old Olive, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Poppy Moments dies, Tailored Tag punch, Dimensionals

Coffee Talk

Ugh, yesterday was NOT a good day, but I'm hoping that today will be better.  I did manage to make a card yesterday though, and I inked up two more brand-new stamp sets!

The mug is from the set Nothing's Better Than and HOW did I make my first card with COFFEE CUPS and not the CHOCOLATE or the COOKIES?!  I don't even DRINK coffee!  But I thought they worked best with the color challenge I wanted to use.  I got Ornate Thanks on my first big catalog order as well; I didn't get the dies for it because I didn't think I would use them, but I love the font styles on the sentiments in the stamp set.

So three challenges for today!  Let's start with the Global Design Project sketch:

This was fun, I just stamped the mugs randomly on the card front until I liked it and thought I had enough of them.  Next up is the Hand Stamped Sentiments color challenge:

It's hard to tell the difference between Pool Party and Mint Macaron on my card, but I promise I used both.  The solid stamp on the mugs is Pool Party (with some Wink of Stella because I love it), and the steam is Pool Party stamped off once; the cardstock strip for the sentiment is Pool Party.  The little star accents are Mint Macaron.

Finally, here's the Paper Players theme challenge:

This gave me the excuse to ink up Ornate Thanks for the sentiment, and I still had lots of white space to keep this card CAS.  I do have lots of friends who drink coffee (and think that me and my hubs are weirdos because we don't) so I'm sure I'll have a use for this card soon.

Hope your day goes well, kids.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nothing's Better Than, Ornate Thanks
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Pool Party, Mint Macaron, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pool Party, Bermuda Bay DSP
Accessories:  Wink of Stella, Mini Dimensionals