Big Bold Birthday Rose

Mornin' y'all!  Bit late with posting but it's been a busy morning of running errands.  Daphne was just shoving my elbow with her nose, she knows it's past her normal walk time, but I had things I needed to do first and that includes writing this blog post.  So here's my card for today:

I was inspired by the current challenge at Time Out Challenges:

The first big, bold flower in my stamp collection that came to mind after seeing this challenge was the one from Rose Wonder, so I went with that.  There are two very similar color challenges out there right now featuring pinks and greens but I think I managed to choose colors for my rose that don't exactly fit either of those challenges, dangit!  Ah well, I think this card will go to my sister this summer, it just looks like an Adrienne card.  I embossed the image with gold EP and then colored with Blends, two shades of pink and two shades of green.  This is what the back of the paper looked like when I was done:

I just thought it was interesting.

Okay, I'd better go take the Daphinator for her walk so I can come back and whip up some cookie dough.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rose Wonder, Nature's Symphony
Ink:  Versamark, Berry Burst, Crumb Cake, Stampin' Blends in Granny Apple Green, Mossy Meadow, Polished Pink, Berry Burst
Paper:  Polished Pink, Basic White
Accessories:  Gold EP, Gold baker's twine, Dimensionals, Brushed Metallic Dots

Floral Sympathy

Mornin' y'all!  As I mentioned yesterday, I made two cards for the current SUO Challenge.

This was actually the first card I made:

I needed a sympathy card, so I decided to use Pressed Flowers, one of the host sets in the back of the catalog.  It's easy to forget about those stamp sets, isn't it?  I used Fresh Fig, Mossy Meadow, Soft Suede, and Pear Pizzazz for the colors on this one, and Very Vanilla for the main panel.  When I made the card I shared yesterday, my goal was to make something with the same layout as this one, but with a completely different feel.  I think it worked pretty well :)

Anyway, it's time to get some breakfast so Ryan and I can hit up the gym again today.  Hope you have a great day, peeps.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pressed Flowers, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Fresh Fig, Mossy Meadow, Soft Suede, Pear Pizzazz
Paper:  Fresh Fig, Thick Very Vanilla
Accessories:  None

An Experiment in Navy

Hey y'all!  Do you ever sit down to make something and then you just can't think what to do?  I had that happen yesterday.  I'd put Ryan down for a nap after we got back from Target, but he was refusing to go back to sleep (curse you car naps!) and there I was, trying to steal like 15 minutes to make a card and my mind was a blank.

Then I thought about this card that I saw yesterday morning (someone had posted a question about it on the demo-only forums on Splitcoast) and finally (finally!) an idea struck me.  So here's what I made.

So on her card linked above, Elizabeth stamped on colored cardstock with Whisper White ink, then stamped over it with a color (same stamp).  So I thought I'd try it.  I stamped the base of the flowers in white, then over-stamped with Flirty Flamingo; the flower petal detail was done in white and then Berry Burst so it's got a bit of colorful dimension to it (this card was hard to photograph).  The centers are done with white and then Blackberry Bliss.  The ferns are Night of Navy, stamped off once, and a few little white dots just for interest.

The color combination came from Sunday Stamps: 

The closest I could get that palette to SU! colors was Blackberry Bliss, Berry Burst, Flirty Flamingo, Island Indigo (didn't use that one), and Night of Navy.  The colors on my card came across a lot more muted but I don't know, I kind of like it?  I used the sympathy stamp from Rose Wonder just because you can never have too many sympathy cards in your stash, and it fit well in the space I'd left next to the flowers.  I lined the inside of the card with Whisper White so if/when this gets sent out, the recipient will be able to read the message inside.

I'm also entering this in the Paper Players challenge again:

For some reason the card doesn't look really CAS to me, maybe because the flowers take up the majority of the space on the card front, but really it's a one-layer card except for the sentiment.  Maybe it would look more CAS to me if I'd done it on a white card base, but I wanted to experiment!

That's it for me today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Whisper White, Blackberry Bliss, Berry Burst, Flirty Flamingo, Night of Navy
Paper:  Whisper White, Night of Navy
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Fear Not

So yesterday afternoon I had an idea what I wanted to do for today's card, and I was cruising through my stamps looking for a sentiment that would fit in the big maple leaf Framelit when I came across this Bible verse from Rose Wonder and all of a sudden my card turned out very different from what I had planned.

I have never made anything with this stamp before but I was compelled to ink it up yesterday.  And here is the maiden voyage of Tree Rings, which I stamped off once before stamping on the watercolor paper so it's more like the suggestion of tree rings which isn't exactly what I had planned but I think it looks okay.  And I still added a leaf from Vintage leaves, just a small one.

I was inspired by the photo at Fusion:

In general I don't like making cards with only neutrals and this one is made with ONLY Soft Suede ink on Very Vanilla and watercolor paper.

I used the Fab Friday sketch:

Just turned it on its side to accommodate the verse.

And the Cupcake Inspirations challenge is perhaps my favorite:

Though I think I need to make another card for this challenge and do LOTS of very COLORFUL leaves ;)

Looks like Ryan is waking up so I'm going to go get his bottle ready.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rose Wonder, Tree Rings, Vintage Leaves
Ink:  Soft Suede
Paper:  Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Watercolor Paper
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes & Leaflets Framelits, Dimensionals, pearls

Mum's the Word

Mornin', y'all!  How's it going?  I am enjoying the slightly cooler mornings here (although we're supposed to warm back up to the 80s this week).  First thing in the morning at least it feels like fall is finally here!  Love it.

Initially my brain resisted doing anything but sunflowers with those floral stamps in Painted Harvest, but today they're mums.  This card looks pretty similar to the leafy birthday one I shared on Saturday, but I doubt my mother-in-law and childhood friend are going to compare birthday cards....and neither of them reads this blog ;) I used the color combination from Fab Friday:

Those colors seemed like a natural fit with the Paper Players theme challenge:

And just like that, my card was finished :)  I did add a teeny bit of Crumb Cake to the color combination for the little dots around the flowers.

Better get myself and the kiddo fed so we can hit the gym.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Cajun Craze, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Shimmery White, Rich Razzleberry
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Dimensionals, Tranquil Tide ribbon

Shimmery Birthday Leaves

Bonus Saturday card today!  I was completely incapable of resisting the color challenge at Create with Connie and Mary:

I think autumnal color combinations are my favorites...I love the jewel tones.  Fall is my favorite season and I don't even drink pumpkin spice lattes...though I do make lots and lots of pumpkin-y goodies in the fall.  I'm having pumpkin baked oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  But I digress!  This color combination was another chance to play with Fresh Fig, so I did.

We've got lots of birthdays coming up in the next couple of months (my brother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and nephew, not to mention all my friends with fall birthdays and why am I friends with so many Libras?) so I thought a birthday sentiment would be a good idea for this one.  Very simple for the leaves, I just stamped one in each of the challenge colors on Shimmery White cardstock and then cut them out with the matching Framelits.  I spritzed the background with water and did a little Pear Pizzazz watercolor wash, dried it with my heat tool, and then stamped some flecks from Touches of Texture on it.  The part that was difficult was deciding how to arrange the leaves on top.  The Calypso Coral and Pear Pizzazz leaves are simply glued on, and the Fresh Fig leaf is popped up on Dimensionals.

So anyway, y'all have a good weekend.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, Rose Wonder, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Fresh Fig, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Fresh Fig, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Leaflets Framelits, Dimensionals

Beach Wedding

Happy Friday, y'all!  We're getting the kiddo back on his regular schedule of naps; he took two pretty good ones yesterday so I managed to get today's card done and got started on a scrapbook layout.  And I like how this card turned out!

I used some retired stamps on here, we'll get to that in a minute.  Do you like the color variation on the shell and starfish?  I inked them both up with Crushed Curry, and then used a sponge dauber to add some Cajun Craze ink.  For the shell, I just did a bit on the center of the whorl; for the starfish, I held the dauber at an angle to only get the outside edges of the starfish.  Took me a couple of tries to get them both looking how I wanted, but we got there in the end.  The bottom part is Thick Whisper White (I ran out of regular WW, can you believe it?) sponged with Dapper Denim; the strip with the sentiment is another piece of Whisper White adhered on the top of the sponged piece, and I tore the bottom edge of that strip so it would look kinda like a wave coming in.

I'm entering this card in several challenges!  First up is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Next is the challenge from Fusion:

(Obviously I used the picture but not the sketch, hee).  But we're not done yet!  I squidged this challenge together with another theme; check out the challenge from Retro Rubber:

A beach wedding card sounded like a good idea today.  I've had By the Seashore (shell stamps) since at least 2012, so five years, and in fact I used that stamp set on my very first blog post here.  Gorgeous Grunge has been in my collection since 2013, and Rose Wonder is the baby at a mere one year old.  And my fishy card from a couple weeks ago was chosen as a Top Pick at Retro Rubber, so that's cool!

And just one more challenge for good measure, the Color Throwdown:

The challenge writeup said dark red for the first color, but it really looked more like dark orange to me, so I used Cajun Craze with Dapper Denim, Crushed Curry, Whisper White and of course Crumb Cake for the sand.  (I almost used Sahara Sand because...sand...but I thought Crumb Cake worked a little better with the other colors this time.)

I think my kiddo will be ready for his nap pretty soon, so we're going to read a book until he falls asleep ;D and then I'm going to go work on that scrapbook layout.  Cheers y'all, and happy Friday!

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  By the Seashore, Gorgeous Grunge, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Dapper Denim, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, retired Pearls, Dimensionals

Inlaid Rose and a Bonus Card

Happy Friday, y'all!  How's it going?  I'm eating breakfast with Ryan on the floor next to me...he's laying on a blanket and kicking his feet like crazy.  I swear this kid is gonna grow up to be either a world-famous Irish river dancer or else a karate champion.  At least he's a happy little kicker.

So for something new and different, I made a card! ;)  Actually, two.

Like yesterday's card, it's an oversized flower made with a smoosh technique, but this one was a little bit different.  Helen Read had posted a card this week with a link to a tutorial on Patty Bennett's blog, and I just had to see how it was different than what I'd been doing.  Actually I do a few different watercolor wash techniques; sometimes I spritz water on watercolor paper and use AquaPainters to add some color (like this card); sometimes I scribble on my largest acrylic block with markers, then spritz that with water and use it like a stamp (like on this card).  Yesterday I dabbed the edge of my ink pad on a Stamp-a-ma-jig imaging sheet, spritzed *that* with water, and then smooshed it on my white cardstock.  So today, following the video tutorial, I inked up some smaller acrylic blocks with my ink pads and smooshed them around on wet watercolor paper.  Then I sent that through the Big Shot with the Rose Garden Thinlits and used it to make an inlaid design with some Tranquil Tide and Elegant Eggplant cardstock.  I'm just going to keep typing "smooshed" until my computer gives up and accepts it as a real word.  Smooshed smooshed smooshed.

Haha, the red squiggles DID disappear.

Anyway!  Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I traced the edge of a dinner plate to get my curve.  Easy peasy.

Also take a looksie at the beautiful colors at the Color Throwdown:

I used Elegant Eggplant, the retired Pistachio Pudding (there just wasn't a good substitute in the current greens), Flirty Flamingo (hubs heard Patty Bennett say "Flirty Flamingo" on the video tutorial when I watched it the other night and he made fun of it), and Tranquil Tide.  I thought Tranquil Tide stamped on the Pistachio Pudding cardstock would be a little too stark for what I wanted, so I inked up the Post Script stamp with Pistachio Pudding ink and then sponged on some Tranquil Tide.  I ended up with a green kind of in between those colors and it was soft enough that I was quite pleased with my genius idea.  Whee.

But after I made that card, I had a perfectly usable watercolor outline of the rose and leaf, so I made a second card.

This one is kind of a stepped-down version; I used a mask to stamp the Post Script curvy bit right on the white card base, and used just the outline instead of doing another inlay (which looks great, but takes a while to make and will leave you with glue all over your fingers).  To jazz it up a bit, I added a few metallic enamel shapes...I'm never sure about just where to put those to look like a random scattering.

And there's both cards together.  The rose watercolor was done with Flirty Flamingo and Elegant Eggplant; the leaf with Pistachio Pudding and Tranquil Tide and I'm beginning to think Tranquil Tide is one of those colors that gets along with EVERYBODY and I love it.

Wow, I've been a Chatty Cathy today.  Shutting up now.  Cheers y'all, and have a great weekend!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rose Wonder, Post Script
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant, Flirty Flamingo, Tranquil Tide, Pistachio Pudding
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pistachio Pudding, Elegant Eggplant, Tranquil Tide, Watercolor Paper
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Metallic Enamel Shapes, dinner plate for tracing

Dragonfly Birthday

Mornin', y'all!  Once again I have Ryan trying to help me type...his spelling isn't so great, so it's a good thing he's extra cute :)  As it happens, he also inspired today's card!

You'll see how in a minute.  Anyway, for this one I used the very last Mojo Monday sketch:

I only played along with the Mojo sketches occasionally, but it's sad when challenges stop.  Still, I understand why Julee had to give up something to get her life more in balance, so I wish her well!

I also used this week's Paper Players theme:

Easy peasy!  We have a lot of birthdays in my family coming up in July so this is a good time to stock up on birthday cards.

Okay, so here's how Ryan inspired today's card:

See the colors on his onesie?  It's all Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, and Pacific Point!  This isn't a really great picture of Ryan though; I took it this morning and he was like why aren't we eating breakfast already? instead of smiling for me.  That's okay though, I have this one from Sunday:

New favorite picture, right there.  They were watching me cook dinner.  Yep, buncha guys standing around watching the only woman do the work!  ;)  I love my boys.

Anyway, I think it's time to read to Ryan for a little bit before he goes down for his nap.  Have a fabby-dabby Tuesday, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dragonfly Dreams, Awesomely Artistic, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Pacific Point
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Pacific Point, Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Polynesian Cultural Center

Mornin', y'all.  I'm a little grumpy today because little dog woke me up at 1:30, and then little baby woke me up at 3:30 and didn't want to go back to sleep EVER.  Yeah, that was fun.

So anyway, let's take a look at another scrapbook layout today, shall we?

These pics are from the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii; see them (and more) here.  Somehow I managed to whittle down the pictures A LOT to only have one layout instead of, like, three.  I try to limit stuff to one layout because I still have zillions of pictures left to scrap, but sometimes things do get multiple pages.  But anyway, I was rather pleased with this one, click on it to see it bigger.

Today's color palette is straight from the Botanical Gardens DSP:  Old Olive, Mossy Meadow (retired), Cajun Craze, Hello Honey (retired), and Whisper White.  Normally I wouldn't have paired Old Olive and Mossy Meadow so I was surprised how much I liked them together.  It took me forever to get to this color combination...I'm wearing a red shirt in the photos, but most of the flowers are more magenta, and red + magenta is clashy so I was kinda stuck for a bit.  Then I decided to ignore the red and magenta altogether and use deep dark orange Cajun Craze just as an accent color, with the greens as the main colors and voila!  It worked.

I'm off to eat breakfast and feed Ryan too.  He's a lot cuter at 8:30 when he wants to talk to me than at 3:30 when we should all be sleeping.  I'mma teach this kid somehow...sleep is GOOD.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Summer Silhouettes, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow marker
Paper:  Old Olive textured, Mossy Meadow, Thick Whisper White, Botanical Gardens DSP
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits

Think Pink

Hey kids!  I was *determined* to get a card made for today and here it is 6:30 but I made it.  And it's PINK!

We met up with some friends of ours on New Year's Eve who now live in Hawaii, and they gave us some cute baby clothes so this is the card I made to send to them.  Ashlea loves her some hot pink and bling, so this is not the first flamingo she's gotten from me :)

I used the first new Freshly Made Sketch of the year:

I didn't do my stripes on the left *exactly* like on the sketch but I think it's not too far out of line.  Don't call the challenge police on me.

The Color Throwdown has the perfect combination for a flamingo card this week:

I used Basic Black, Melon Mambo, and Old Olive for my colors.

And now the hubs is making me dinner, I'm a lucky girl.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pop of Paradise, No Bones About It, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Melon Mambo, Old Olive, Basic Black
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Old Olive, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rhinestones, corner rounder punch

Moroccan Birthday

A rainy Tuesday morning to ya, stampy friends!  I have to admit, I'm a little relieved to have an excuse not to take my doglets for a walk today.  What can I say, I'm lazy.

Anyway, I have a super-fast card to share!

Yes, you saw that same medallion on yesterday's scrapbook layout.  What can I say, I'm lazy and it was on my craft table still ;)  Plus I just really like it.  If you look closely at the colors on the medallion, you might be wondering what I used...well, I used sponges and sponged Tempting Turquoise over most of the medallion but not the edges, and then Pacific Point around the edges.  I thought it would look kind of like the rock 'n' roll technique but a little softer...well, the colors kind of blended on the stamp so it's kind of a cross between Tempting Turquoise and Pacific Point and I like it :D 

Today's inspiration was provided by the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

I used similar colors, and I kept the yellow polka dots but my patterned paper is retired (because I don't have any left of the current Daffodil Delight polka dots).  I used Night of Navy rather than black as my neutral just because I liked it with the blues I already had on there.  And I kept my card a birthday card as well.

I also used last week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Their challenge closed yesterday, but I liked the sketch so much that I had to use it.  Plus it worked so well with that Moroccan medallion, ha.

Well, I'm going to see what I can get done before I have to leave for another doctor's appointment.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Moroccan Nights, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Daffodil Delight DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Metallic Enamel Shapes

Moroccan Lanterns

Greetings, friends!  I am very, very, VERY pleased to report that we once again have air conditioning.  It was miserable for days here, lemme tell ya.  It was still 80 degrees in the house when we went to bed last night, but now it's down to a very lovely 75 and I want a cupcake to celebrate.

Instead, I made a card.

Moroccan Nights was one of the very first stamp sets I wanted to get my grubby little paws on when the new catalog was released (and at least one of my paws looks grubby right now, as I managed to cover half my pinkie with Dapper Denim ink while making this) and then it sat in my collection for what seemed like forever (but was really a couple of weeks) and I'm glad it's having its maiden voyage now.  And once again there's the beautiful Moroccan DSP, which I puffy heart love and the only reason I can bear to cut into it is because I know I have 11 months left to buy more :D  Don't tell my hubs I said that.

Anyway, I used this week's Paper Players sketch:

I kept the circle because I love the new Layering Circles Framelits and they're just sitting out right next to my Big Shot because why put them away if I'm just going to use them again almost immediately?  This card will be going out in the mail tomorrow because it's already past my friend Sarah's birthday but I want to send this to her anyway because it feels like a Sarah card.  Except maybe I'll add some Wink of Stella to the lanterns because Sarah likes her bling.

See you here tomorrow, folks.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Moroccan Nights, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Emerald Envy, Dapper Denim, Delightful Dijon
Paper:  Emerald Envy, Delightful Dijon, Very Vanilla, Moroccan DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Dimensionals

Flowers for Grandma

The rain has finally stopped for a couple of days (woohoo!  Though now that I've said that it will probably start raining again any minute now) and I'm still playing around with the new In Colors and getting a feel for some new color combinations.

My husband's grandmother's birthday is next week, so I asked him what her favorite colors are and he doesn't know.  Neither do his parents, so hubs said to use purple and green (which are my favorite colors).  I added a bit of yellow because I thought it worked.  So for this card I used Sweet Sugarplum, Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron, and the sentiment is Blackberry Bliss because it's like a much darker version of Sweet Sugarplum.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I actually did put my sentiment on a banner, but both it and the card front are Thick Whisper White so it's hard to tell in the photo above.  I really should work on getting better photos of my cards.

Anyway, I'm also entering this over at Retro Rubber:

I got Summer Silhouettes in 2012, so it's four years old and it's retiring.  The birthday sentiment is from Rose Wonder so that's not retro at all ;)

Well kids, I've got errands to run, so that's it for me today.  See you tomorrow for the Friday Flashback!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Summer Silhouettes, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Sweet Sugarplum, Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron, Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Sweet Sugarplum, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  hexagon punch, Dimensionals, pearls

Rose Sympathy

So we had brilliant sunshine all day yesterday, and to make up for it today it's going to rain All. Day. Long.  Yay.  I want to move to Arizona.  At least the sun shines there.

Anyway, I have two cards for you today.

Thought I'd try some kind of free-form watercolor today.  I was inspired by this week's Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

I don't have the stamps that Paula used, so I picked a different floral stamp and kept the color combo and simple layout.  And I picked Rose Wonder because of this week's What Will You Stamp? challenge:

I thought the sentiment I chose would work well for a sympathy card, and it's always good to have a couple of those on hand so I made another one.

This time I used the color challenge from Cupcake Inspirations:

I used Blushing Bride and Cherry Cobbler, and the rose is embossed in gold.  Then I added Tip Top Taupe for the leaves, but since I watercolored both of these at the same time there's a wee bit of cross-contamination--look closely and you'll see a smidge of blue on the pink card and vice versa.

I got the watercolor paper a little too wet on the pink card and the ink overflowed especially around the leaves, but the way that it did it with the pink and brown together I thought was kind of cool so I just went with it.  And now I have two sympathy cards for my stash, which I hope I won't need anytime soon.

That's it for me today, kids.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rose Wonder
Ink:  Versamark, Pool Party, Tip Top Taupe, Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler
Paper:  Pool Party, Tip Top Taupe, Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler, Watercolor paper
Accessories:  Gold EP