Snow & Ice 2017

Mornin', y'all!  I woke up this morning and it was 34 degrees, and we had frost on the ground.  We had like two days of fall weather and all of a sudden it feels like winter!  Okay, it's going to be in the 60s later today but still, awfully chilly this morning.  Which definitely influenced my choice of scrapbook layout to share today...

These pics are from late January 2017, when we got some winter weather just before Ryan's due date (although he didn't arrive until a good two weeks after I took these pictures).  I walked down to a little wooded area down the block from our townhouse to take some pictures of the snow on the trees, and took a few more of the doggos out in the common area.  Sadie loves her some snow.

Okay wow it must have been really overcast the day I took pictures of this layout and color palette, those colors look all wonky.  I used Coastal Cabana, Island Indigo, Smoky Slate, and Whisper White for my wintry layout.

I don't hear Ryan moving around yet, so I'm going to go drink my morning cuppa before I get him up.  Cheers y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Snowflakes, Empire Alphabet Upper, Big Deal Alphabet
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Island Indigo, Whisper White, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Island Indigo, Winter Frost DSP
Accessories:  None

Sapporo, Part 6: Polar Bears

Hey, y'all!  Long time no see!  My moving-induced blog hiatus ended up being much longer than anticipated.  Long story short, two days after we got to North Carolina, the hubs and the babe both got the flu, and my gallbladder viciously attacked me and I spent two days in the hospital waiting to have it surgically removed.  Then I got the flu too.  I strongly recommend everyone avoid the contraction of any malady which causes coughing directly after having abdominal surgery.  Pro tip, that.  After the surgery, we had the grandparents here for a long time because I wasn't allowed to lift more than 15 pounds, and Ryan weighs 23...and he just put my shoe in the trash can.  But anyway, my dad left on Saturday and now it's just me and Ryan and the doggos and maybe things will start getting back to normal.

To that end, Scrappy Monday!  I thought I'd finish with the Sapporo pictures in February but hey, better late than never.

I have no idea how I ended up with only FOUR pictures on this layout.  Lots more pics here.  The Old Olive patterned paper has itty bitty snowflakes on it, and I paired that with Baja Breeze and Blackberry Bliss and I love how this color combo turned out.

There it is:  Baja, Blackberry, Olive, and a bit of So Saffron and Whisper White thrown in there (I think the polar bears are actually more yellowy in person than white).  .31021 111100.31
0..3
20

30.00

Ryan just typed you a message.  Apparently baby talk is best written in number form.  Anyway, I've got my new craft room all set up and ready to go...I actually made a couple of China pages in there already, so hopefully this week we can start to settle into a routine and I'll get back to card making and more scrapping.  When I'm not trying to keep Ryan from chasing Sadie, our grumpy old girl dog.  Ryan is fascinated by her and she is not feeling it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tall Tales Alphabet, Snowflakes
Ink:  Baja Breeze, Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon marker
Paper:  Baja Breeze textured, Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, Merry Moments DSP
Accessories:  None

Whisk It Good!

I now have a song stuck in my head (guess which one).  So I feel like today's card requires a bit of explanation...there's a guy who works in my husband's office and he and his wife are expecting their first baby any day now.  Whenever they get back from the hopsickle with their new baby, I'm going to make dinner for them and take it over, and I just happened to buy the set Yummy Little Christmas from the holiday catalog so...

Voila!  Okay really my favorite stamp in the set is the big Kitchenaid mixer, but I thought these cooking implement snowflakes were pretty funny and now I have a card where I can write in reheating instructions for whatever I make them for dinner (I'm thinking THIS).  Sorry my picture's not the best, but we currently have a disassembled crib sitting in front of the place where I take my pictures and it's kinda crazy in there right now.

So anyway, today's colors are from Cupcake Inspirations:

I used Tempting Turquoise and Night of Navy for the two blues, I thought they worked great for a pseudo-snowflake design.  I pulled out the long-retired stamp set Snowflakes for the Night of Navy panel because I just needed a little snowflake background stamp and don't have anything like that that's current.

And here's this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I have to say it kinda threw me for a loop at first so I hope I did the sketch justice with my culinary snowflakes.  Anyway, I should get back downstairs to my in-laws so cheers, y'all!  Hope to be back tomorrow with a Friday Flashback, we'll see how it works.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Yummy Little Christmas, Snowflakes (retired)
Ink:  Versamark, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise
Paper:  Tempting Turquoise, Night of Navy, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Gold EP, circle punches, Layering Circles Framelits (for the largest snowflake), Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Tags Til Christmas

Happy Friday, peeps!  It's time for this week's Friday Flashback, and this time around it's a pretty short one.  We're taking a look at Tags Til Christmas...well, one stamp from that set anyway :)

Also features More Merry Messages

That's my single solitary card using this set.  And I didn't look through my photos to see what I'd done before I made today's new card, so I used the ornament stamp again and even did it the same color!

Well, what can you do.  I do like the CAS feel of this card though, I like it better than I expected to.  I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the current Pals Paper Arts color challenge:

DANGIT I just realized I did Crumb Cake instead of Baked Brown Sugar!  It's close enough I hope?  I added a smidge of Early Espresso for the sentiment, too but it's all still food colors.  And now I'm kinda hungry.

Hubs and the pups are all currently napping on the floor in my craft room, which presents a bit of an obstacle course when I'm trying to get to certain stamps and cardstock.  But hey, at least we're all hanging out together.

Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Tags Til Christmas, Snowflakes, Four the Holidays
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Ornament punch, Pearls, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Make a Mitten

I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving yesterday!  Sweet potato casserole makes for good breakfast food :)  Anyway, it's time for a Friday Flashback, and now that Thanksgiving is over we can concentrate on Christmas cards!  Today's featured stamp set is Make a Mitten.  As usual, I think I need to use this cute stamp set more often!

Also features Snow Swirled

So let's start out with a baby book layout just for funsies.  These cute mittens are perfect for any winter-themed project, including a January layout.

Also features Snow Swirled & Bootiful Occasions

There are two different stamps that are patterned mittens, but the set also includes several stamps you can use to decorate your own mittens any way you want so that's what I did here.  I really need to use the adorable tiny reindeer stamp!  So here's today's brand new project:

I had planned to use the reindeer on this one but it didn't fit!  Oh well.  I found a scrap of that patterned paper in my stash and thought they, that's perfect!  I wanted to use some bright, fun colors today and it doesn't get brighter and funner than Tangerine Tango.  I used the sketch from The Paper Players:

That's it for me today...it's time to take the doglets for a walk and then get cleaned up to go to the movies.  Have a great Black Friday, everyone!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Make a Mitten, Snowflakes
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point
Paper:  Soft Sky, Old Olive, Whisper White, Frosty Day DSP
Accessories:  Mitten punch, Banner Framelits, white baker's twine, button, Dimensionals

Christmas Eve 2012

Oy vey.  This week has been so crazy!  I was out running around most of the day yesterday shopping and running errands, and I'll be doing more of the same today, but I hope that we're closing in on the last of the Christmas shopping.  I need to get some packages out in the mail by Saturday!

So, nothing really really new to report stamping-wise, but I do have a Christmas scrapbook layout I did last month.  I just got the 5x7 printed and stuck down, so it's sort of new.

It was after I finished up these pages that I realize just how often I start with a blue or green cardstock base for my pages.  Well, blue is my sweet hubs' color and green is mine, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  Still, I think I'll try to mix it up a little bit.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Snowflakes
Ink:  Always Artichoke, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Night of Navy, Riding Hood Red, Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla, Wintergreen DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

Friday Flashback: Serene Snowflakes

Happy Friday and welcome to the Friday Flashback!  Today's stamp set of choice is Serene Snowflakes, and I'm a total sucker for snowflake stamps.  Let's get started!

This was our 2009 Christmas card.  The main image is Patterned Pines (I actually got two of that set, one to keep the three trees as one stamp and the other one to cut them apart); the green snowflake background is from today's stamp set.  The main image is on Shimmery White paper to make it a little more special...I was going for a flat easy-to-mail card (plus easy to make multiples).

And here again the snowflakes are in the background...the main image is *cough cough* contraband but I needed a polar bear image to make a Hanukkah card for my friend Sarah :)

And there's a couple of baby book layouts.  For the first one, I just took the color combo from the patterned paper (which is when I fell in love with Bordering Blue, so of course they retired it immediately thereafter) and the second one I did more purple because that book was for my friend Melissa's daughter, and Melissa loves purple so her book was purpled up pretty good.

I made this one for a challenge last year, it was one of the earlier posts on this blog.  I don't like those white-on-white challenges though, I love COLOR so this was definitely a one-off for me!

And that's it for the Flashback, here's today's brand new card:

I am kinda totally in love with this color combination:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, and Wisteria Wonder.  I saw a gift bag with a snowman on it and the bag was done in these colors and I couldn't wait to try it out myself.  I think I might make a few of these with Festive Flurry to send out to my SU ladies...the sentiment is also retired, but it's from Snowflakes.  I stamped the smaller snowflakes in Whisper White on the Cabana layer but they're not showing up too great on the pic.  Oh well.

Anyway, this awesome sketch is brought to you by Create with Connie and Mary:

Thanks for stopping by today, have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Serene Snowflakes, Snowflakes (really, it's two different stamp sets)
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Whisper White
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Wisteria Wonder, Whisper White, Winter Frost DSP
Accessories:  Circles & Apothecary Accents Framelits, Subtles Candy Dots, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Snowflakes

Today's Friday Flashback stamp set is a real oldie, Snowflakes...and the first of *indistinct mumble* snowflake stamp sets in my collection :)

I made this for my very first stamp club workshop when I became a demonstrator; my friend asked to do polished stone (still probably one of my favorite techniques).  I did another one of these where I wrapped the silver cord around the outside of the brads rather than having it go around the inside corners, and I liked that one better but I think that was the card that Sadie thought it was a chew toy so I never got a picture of it (Sadie is my little girl Lab mix).  You can see the full supply list here.

Another oldie, I can tell because it's a scan rather than a photo.  How's that for some less-traditional snowflake colors?  I still miss Cool Caribbean.  And Happy Everything, I loved that stamp set.  Supply list for this one is here.

And here's my two new cards using Snowflakes.  I finally got to do the Create with Connie & Mary color challenge to use Baja Breeze, Wisteria Wonder, and Silver but too late to enter the challenge.  And I think I might like that one better if I'd stamped the snowflakes on white paper instead of the Baja, but I was trying something different.  The Pacific Point/Bermuda Bay one on the right just looks more crisp to me.  These are both variations on the current CAS(e) This Sketch challenge:

Happy Friday, and thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Snowflakes
Ink:  Versamark, Baja Breeze, Wisteria Wonder (left card); Pacific Point & Bermuda Bay (right card)
Paper:  Wisteria Wonder, Brushed Silver, Baja Breeze (left); Pacific Point, Bermuda Bay, Whisper White (right)
Accessories:  Silver EP (left)

Friday Flashback: On Angel Wings

This week's Friday Flashback set is one that I really love, On Angel Wings.  It was a hostess set in 2004, the first year I started stamping.  It's not just a Christmas set, though one of the sentiments in here is Christmas-related, so I'm including it in my holiday Friday Flashbacks :)  Up first are two cards from the archives.

Here's the first card I ever made with it, for a combination sketch/color challenge on Splitcoast.  And from the looks of my SCS gallery, it took me three years to make anything with the stamp set...though I think that I may have gotten it long after it retired from the BST boards.  That's my story anyway.

I made this one last year as a sympathy card.  How is it that I can use the Stamp-a-ma-jig and *still* have the sentiment be crooked??  I really like this color combo though, Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder, and Concord Crush.

Ok, here's my first new card with this stamp set.  I'm still plugging away at catching up on all the SCS color and sketch challenges though sometimes I think that kind of warps my creativity a little bit, do you ever feel like challenges are stifling?  But I keep at it because I've only got about 30 to 40 more of each to go and I can combine those for the most part.  I kind of threw the kitchen sink at this card though with the stripes stamped with snowflakes (somebody please remind me to re-ink my Whisper White ink pad!) and then the holly on the Certainly Celery layer.  I meant to stamp the angel on Shimmery White cardstock but I forgot so instead I spritzed it with vanilla Smooch Spritz.  She's watercolored with WWC and since I stamped her with Early Espresso, the ink ran a little bit when I wasn't careful enough with the Aquapainter.  I'm hoping it looks like a nice softening of the image and not like she's wearing camouflage-print robes.  Good grief.

Because I'm an overachiever this week (and I was waiting for that Smooch Spritz to dry) I made a second card, this time going more CAS, and I like it better.  Plus I wanted to try stamping the angel in a color without coloring the image in afterward.  I was inspired by the current color challenge on Create with Connie and Mary, but I didn't use any silver so I won't link it up over there.  I think I'll do that color challenge sometime next week, it looks awesome...maybe I'm trying too hard on the SCS challenges and that's why I'm not loving my cards for those.  Hmm.

Hope you enjoyed this angelic Friday Flashback, thanks for stopping by!

Supplies, card #3:
Stamps:  On Angel Wings, Background Basics, Snowflakes
Ink:  Early Espresso, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Rose Red, Early Espresso, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Subtles DSP Stack
Accessories:  Vanilla Smooch Spritz, Dimensionals

Supplies, card #4:
Stamps:  On Angel Wings
Ink:  Baja Breeze, Wisteria Wonder
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Shimmery White, In Color DSP Stack
Accessories:  Baja Breeze seam binding ribbon