Bear Book: December

Happy Friday, y'all!  Since Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are this weekend, I thought I'd just share the December bear book layout today and not worry about doing a Friday Flashback or posting again until Monday.  I wanna spend the weekend with my hubs :)

So here's the bear book layout:

The colors were taken from last year's Season of Cheer DSP, which I did really love (even though it includes Soft Sky which we know should be traded back out for Baja Breeze which is the awesomest color ever).

I've had this little guy for a while and isn't he adorable?  Glad I got a reason to use him on a project.

And I think the wee bear in the stocking is just as cute too.

I needed something to go in the dead space between pictures, and since the Soft Sky page base is so light I just stamped and colored directly on it.

And there's the palette:  Soft Sky, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow (I really miss this color) and Whisper White.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Bear stamps from Whipper Snapper, Something to Celebrate
Ink:  Basic Black
Paper:  Soft Sky, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Thick Whisper White, Season of Cheer DSP
Accessories:  Window Frames Framelits, Sizzix Alphabet, Prismacolor Pencils

Friday Flashback: Sketch an Event

Hey y'all, happy Friday.  I finally rustled up a card for today's Friday Flashback, which is in celebration of Sketch an Event.  So let's check it out...

When we lived in Okinawa, I made up some baby shower invites for a friend who didn't know at the time if she was having a boy or a girl (it was a boy) and I think this is the one we went with.  Even though it's green and blue she still liked it for a boy or a girl.

I also tried a Real Red version because Sarah likes her some bright, saturated colors.  And that is the end of the Flashback, because I've had this stamp set for a long time and I'm absolutely sure I made more cards with it but they musta been before I got a digital camera.  So y'know, ancient.

Here's the new card:

I stamped the flowers in Bermuda Bay and carefully watercolored with Cucumber Crush, trying not to blur the lines too much.  And then I got the bright idea to add Dazzling Details glitter glue to the wings and I should have used Wink of Stella instead because the Dazzling Details mostly blew bubbles everywhere and I'm not sure much actual glitter got on the card front but I didn't want to redo it.

I used the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

Granted I added the patterned paper on the left, and I only did three butterflies because they were too tall to do four and have room for a sentiment.

I also used the Retro Rubber color challenge:

I've had Sketch an Event since at least 2006, when it retired, and So Happy for You (the sentiment) was from 2011's Sale-a-Bration so both are quite retro ;)  I'll have to see if I can work this stamp set in on some scrapbook pages or something, it's pretty cute and it's sad that I haven't used it more.  Or that I don't have photographic proof that I used it more often, anyway.

Happy weekend, y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Sketch an Event, So Happy for You
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Cucumber Crush, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Cucumber Crush, Thick Whisper White, Bermuda Bay DSP
Accessories:  Dazzling Details glitter glue

A-Team Baby Book: One Year Old

Ya know, with big projects like baby books, a lot of the time I get project fatigue as I get to the end and the last couple layouts just aren't my favorites.

I like the bright colors okay, but the layout as a whole just isn't really doing it for me.

The cake is a little too high to be centered, but I'm not sure that matters since the design is so much fatter on the bottom than the top.

Today's '80s Day-Glo palette includes Strawberry Slush, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, and Whisper White.  And only one more page left for this book to share!!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Something to Celebrate
Ink:  Basic Black
Paper:  Strawberry Slush, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, PTI White, Party Animal DSP
Accessories:  Apothecary Accents Framelits, Floral Framelits, Sizzix Alphabet, Prismacolor Pencils

Cinderella's Baby Shower Invitation

Hey, y'all.  How's it going?  I got up with a headache today and I don't have time for that nonsense.  I'm kinda starting to get into last-minute panic mode with the baby shower, considering I have several projects left to do and I leave next Thursday.

At least the invitations were done and sent out weeks ago.

So I'm one of the hostesses for my sister's baby shower, and we're doing a Cinderella theme.  I thought the Birthday Bouquet paper in the Occasions catalog would be perfect for that, and when I was looking for something in my tub o' non-SU stamps I found a Disney castle.  So I put some glitter on it.

After making more than two dozen of these, I also had glitter all over my floor, my craft table, and my dogs, not to mention myself (I'm not even joking, I had to take a shower to get it all out of my hair, how did it even get up there?!).  The entire castle panel is embossed with Iridescent Ice and I would swear off the stuff entirely if it wasn't so darned pretty.  The "It's a shower" is from the long-retired set Something to Celebrate, so we're mixing old and new with non-SU.

The invitations are folded along the top, so on the inside I stamped Cinderella at the top and all the shower details went on the bottom.

Well, I have to get some packages ready to mail at the post office (seems like I was just there yesterday...oh wait, I was!) and I have all those other projects that I need to get to work on.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Something to Celebrate, Disney stamps
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Pool Party, Mossy Meadow, Versamark
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Watermelon Wonder, Thick Whisper White, Birthday Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  Ovals & Labels Framelits, Iridescent Ice EP, large heart punch, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Fall Whimsy

Happy Friday, peeps, and welcome to this week's Friday Flashback!  I am SO ready for the cooler temperatures and pretty colors of fall, and today's stamp set goes right along with that theme:  Fall Whimsy.  This was one of the first stamp sets I ever bought!

Also features Something to Celebrate

This was a baby shower invite for a friend; she named her daughter Autumn and she looooves fall leaves so there you have it.

Also features Priceless, Nursery Necessities

 And here's a baby announcement for a different friend who had her daughter ON Halloween!

Also features Tiny Talk, Print Pattern

Let's talk turkey...isn't this cute?  The turkey uses most of the stamps in Fall Whimsy; he's not hard to put together, just time-consuming to cut out.

Also features Sincere Salutations

 Seems like we have a lot of friends and family with birthdays in October.

Also features Print Pattern, Linen, All Year Cheer III

Oh, I like this one, it's a technique called crayon resist, a.k.a. finally a use for the white crayon.  You need glossy white paper (or photo paper now, since SU! doesn't sell it anymore) and you stamp your leaves in black or whatever color you want, draw in some highlights with the crayon, and then sponge on color.  The crayon resists the ink and you have white highlights.  Pretty cool, right?

So that's the flashback, and here's the brand new card for today:

This one took me a while to wrap my brain around.  I love the sketch I used, and the color combo, but I was just having trouble making it all work together.  I think the purple was messing with my fall leaves idea a little bit.  I do like how it turned out in the end though and I continue to be in love with my Sanded background stamp.

There's the color combo from ColourQ; I added just a bit of Soft Suede.

And there's the sketch from Pals Paper Arts.  I really like this one.

Well, I have a long list of things to do today so I'd better go get started.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Fall Whimsy, Sanded, Print Pattern, For All Things
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Taken with Teal, Lovely Lilac, Soft Suede
Paper:  Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Whisper White
Accessories:  just a pair of scissors :)

Friday Flashback: A Little Love

Happy Friday, peeps!  You know why I love the Friday Flashback?  It lets me dig back in my stash of retired SU! stamps and revisit some old favorites, and maybe make some new "old" favorites :)  Like today's set, A Little Love!  It's a cute little set of 12 bite-size images, so let's flashback!

Also features Ruff Day and All-Year Cheer

That little baby onesie with the "yeah, baby" sentiment under it is my FAVORITE stamp in this set.  I don't know why, but it makes me giggle every time I look at it.

Also features Loads of Love & Accessories and Something to Celebrate

I used the umbrella with the "showers of love" sentiment to make a background for this baby shower invite.  I think it can be difficult to come up with card ideas for such small images where they really take center stage instead of being more background elements like in those first two cards, so for today's new stuff I tried to really shine a light on the super-cute teeny stamps.

This quick little card was inspired by a couple of cards that Mary Fish posted not too long ago.  If the colors in the photo are off, I apologize--we won't get our new graphics card in for the Mac until next week, and sometimes I can't tell if a picture looks right on the laptop.  The card base of this one is Pink Pirouette and I stamped the little umbrella with Elegant Eggplant ink and then added a bit of color with markers.

When I saw the little candy machine stamp I thought hey, I have the perfect patterned paper to go with that!  So I had to make a bonus card for today's Friday Flashback.  Maybe I'll get crazy and make a few other cards with this set and next week will be A Little *More* Love?  Who knows!

Have a great weekend, peeps!

Supplies, last two cards:
Stamps:  A Little Love
Ink:  (first card) Elegant Eggplant, Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder; (second card) StazOn Black, Pool Party, Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Smoky Slate
Paper:  (first card) Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder; (second card) Pool Party, Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Whisper White, Sweet Shoppe Specialty DSP
Accessories:  (first card) what's the name of the punch pack in the current catalog?; (second card) 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" circle punches, scalloped circle punch, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Bundled in Love

Happy Friday!  Welcome to this week's Friday Flashback, featuring Bundled in Love.  This is a super-cute baby set and it's also got a companion set, Bundle of Joy.  I love to use those two sets together, the moon & stars stamp from Bundle of Joy is a great lil background :)  So let's Flashback!

This was an idea for a baby shower invite for my friend Sarah (I know last week's Flashback was baby themed and featured projects for Sarah too, that is completely coincidental as I pick out stamp set names at random.  As in, for reals, I have a big plastic container full of paper slips with stamp set names on them, which my mom thought was funny and OCD).  Our friend Tiana was planning Sarah's shower before we knew she was having a boy, so we were going for bright colors but more gender-neutral.  We ended up going with something else but I thought this was cute.

Tiana loves both these stamp sets and we used them for her baby announcements for both her girls (her older daughter's announcement featured the giraffe from Bundle of Joy, these are the ones for her younger daughter).

And here's a layout from Baby Girl #2's baby book.  And here's today's brand new card!

Seems like most mamas I know are having boys right now but I wanted to use this week's Dynamic Duo so a girl baby card it is!  The bunny shows up better IRL than she looks in the picture, perhaps I should have stamped her in darker ink to make her stand out more.  And crud, looks like I missed the challenge deadline on this one.  Oh well.

I stuck like glue to the color challenge, the only other color I used at all was Very Vanilla.  The sketch is this week's awesomely fantastic Sketch Frenzy Friday challenge:

I think I wanna go make another card with this sketch because I'm kind of in love with it.

Did you notice that giant shiny new badge in the right sidebar?  I'm gonna be on the Nacho design team starting in September, woot woot!  Super excited about that :)

Y'all have a lovely weekend!  Tomorrow I'm going down to London to meet up with my pal Vicki, so yay!!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Bundled in Love
Ink:  Sahara Sand, Pink Pirouette
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla, retired DSP in Pink Pirouette & Sahara Sand
Accessories:  Deco Label Framelits, Pearls, Dimensionals