Bunny Wishes

Hey y'all.  I did not get much sleep last night--I was up too late reading a book (which happens frequently, let's be honest) despite knowing that the hubs was going to get up in the wee smalls and that would wake me up and I have a hard time getting back to sleep, and I also know that when I don't get much sleep I am much more prone to headaches which is exactly what happened so that's how my day is starting.  But I finished my book last night and it was really good and also I'm pretty sure I have bought over fifty books on my Kindle this month.  I need to clone myself so I can read more and do all the other things I want to do too.  Also, speaking of clones, Ryan and I have watched all of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and we are now watching the Clone Wars cartoon series.  Love it.

Anyway, for the second day in a row, I have inked up a brand new stamp set.  Take a look:

Mixing old and new here; the bunny is from the March product of the month stamp set Notes of Spring, and the patterned paper is February's product of the month, the Painted Illusions DSP, while the Easter greeting is from 2011's Something to Celebrate.  I am entering this at CAS on Friday's challenge to make a spring card, and I had to have a go at the Festive Friday challenge:

I have pastel colors, two punches, a rabbit, and an Easter greeting.  I also used the latest sketch from CAS Colours & Sketches:

I cut a strip of Soft Sea Foam cardstock to go across the patterned paper as in the sketch, and I colored it with the light Blend marker to differentiate it a bit from the card base instead of using another pattern there since this is meant to be CAS.  The bunny was quick to snip out and happily the large oval punch was a good size for the bunny to fit into.

This is the second card I made for these two challenges; I won't show you the first one because I absolutely despise it because every once in a while, things just don't work out the way you want them to and a card has to go in the bin.  I've decided that for the first time in my 20+ years of crafting with SU! products, I am going to take an entire pack of DSP and chuck it.  I got the Easter Joy specialty paper and it's got this coating on it that makes the colors dull and smells weird and just feels ick in my hands.  I tried to use it and the longer I looked at it the more I hated it.  I have also discovered that I don't much like creating with the mix & match ephemera packs either, but at least now I know not to buy those in the future.

Anyway, I'm almost done with my morning cuppa and perhaps a walk in the sunshine with Daphne will make my head feel better.  Have a good one, peeps.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Notes of Spring, Something to Celebrate 2011
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Soft Sea Foam, Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Flirty Flamingo, Soft Sea Foam
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Thick Basic White, Painted Illusions DSP
Accessories:  large oval punch, modern label? punch, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Ocean Commotion

Happy Friday, y'all, and welcome to the first Friday Flashback of the year.  This week's stamp set is Ocean Commotion...it's funny to me, I'm not a huge ocean person but the hubs is, and we lived on Okinawa for a bit under three years so I do have some beachy/ocean-y pictures and basically I always get the marine sets and use them pretty frequently.  But I think Ocean Commotion might have been my first fishy set :)

Also features Rough Type

Speaking of Okinawa, here's a scrapbook layout from the Churaumi Aquarium in Nago.  I do love that photo with the sea turtle :)  Anyway, Ocean Commotion is a wee little set of just four stamps, and I used all of 'em on this layout--the fish, the seahorse, the seaweed, and the shell.

I did a couple of baby books for kiddos born on Okinawa so I made an ocean layout for those.

Also features Thank You Kindly

The hubs loves to scuba dive, so when he asked for some thank you cards I made up a set of six of these.

Also features Short & Sweet

Ocean images are perfect for using with polished stone!  I miss SU's glossy white cardstock just for polished stone backgrounds, that was one of my favorite techniques.

Also features Warmest Regards

Here's a birthday card for one of the hubs' scuba diving friends.

Also features Big Deal Alphabet

And one last scrapbook layout from the one and only time I'll ever go whale watching--I was so busy being seasick I didn't see not ONE STINKING WHALE!  But I did really like how this layout turned out.  I love the bright blues and orange together.  And while the hubs kinda laughs at how my photos all seem to tilt a little bit, I can categorically say all the crooked photos on this layout were taken by HIM, not me.

So there's the flashback, and here is my brand new card:

Why Father's Day?  Well, since I'm 8 months pregnant that means this year will be my hubs' first Father's Day as a daddy himself.  And the idea popped into my head when I was perusing stamp sets for a sentiment to put on this card so I went with it.  I was inspired by the Fusion challenge:

Obviously I used the sketch, but I also used the photo--completely different theme, but I took the colors Soft Sky, Tip Top Taupe, and Real Red from the picture.  So now I just need to put this card someplace the hubs won't see it, but that I won't forget where to find it in June...

Cheers, y'all!  Stay warm this weekend.

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Ocean Commotion, Something to Celebrate
Ink:  Soft Sky, Tip Top Taupe, Real Red
Paper:  Soft Sky, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Right at Home

Friday again, and that means it's time for a Friday Flashback!  This week's stamp set is Right at Home, and our flashback today is a bit on the abbreviated side.

Yep, that's it!  This card is from 2006, and I used my favorite technique of polished stone on it.  So here's the new card:

Ummm, I was trying too hard to use a sketch and I'm not overly fond of it but let's just keep moving shall we?  I now know why I hadn't used this stamp set more often:  it is a PAIN in the REAR to color!  The lines are super thin, the spaces are tiny, and it takes forever.  But my brother and SIL moved into a new house not too long ago so at least I have someone to send this to : )

I think THIS is the way to do the images in this stamp set:  don't color 'em!  So much faster.

That's it for this week, thanks for stopping by!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Right at Home, Background Basics, Something to Celebrate 2011
Ink:  StazOn Black, Real Red, Night of Navy, Whisper White
Paper:  Night of Navy, Real Red, Whisper White, Real Red DSP
Accessories:  Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Labels Collection Framelits, Dimensionals, Oval & Scalloped Oval punches, Hexagon punch

Friday Flashback: Garden Silhouettes

Good morning, everybody!  It's Friday Flashback time, and this week's randomly chosen retired stamp set (RCRSS?  Nah, that doesn't work) is Garden Silhouettes, which is kind of a companion set to Stem Silhouettes (or at least, I often use them together).  So let's take a peek in the archives, shall we?

Ah, the shaving cream technique background.  Fun, right?  You put a layer of shaving cream on a paper plate and then add a few drops of ink refill and swirl them around, then smoosh glossy cardstock in it.  Scrape off the shaving cream and you're left with this neat swirly background.  I should do this again...oh yeah, use the cheap white foam shaving cream for this, not some fancy-dancy gel stuff : )  Sentiment on this one was from Hugs & Wishes.

I made this one for one of those "color" challenges that makes me roll my eyes, where there's only one color and two neutrals.  Not that I mind doing cards like that from time to time, but when you do that for six weeks in a row it gets old.  I think color challenges should have multiple colors in them, not neutrals. *steps off very colorful soapbox*  Sentiment from Fabulous Flowers.

Ooh, purple.  I miss Almost Amethyst, Lavender Lace and Lovely Lilac.   Sentiment on this one was from Fancy Flexible Phrases.

Here's another one color/two neutrals card, very simple because I think I was making Mother's Day cards at the last minute.  That sounds like me.

So here's today's brand new creation:

The colors are this week's SCS color challenge (now with multiple colors!):  Soft Sky (bring back Baja Breeze!!), So Saffron, and Summer Starfruit.  When I first read that, I thought EWWW and couldn't imagine what to do with them.  Then I got the cardstock colors out and what do you know, the So Saffron turns the Summer Starfruit into a green color, hmm.   So I actually liked that color combo a whole lot more than I thought I would.  I kept wanting to add more stuff to this card but it insisted that it was done like this, so I said okay.

I used last Friday's Sketch Frenzy Friday sketch:

I think I love this sketch.  I've got some ideas to use it again.  Anyway, for today's card I moved the banner flaggy thing over to the right side because otherwise all the Summer Starfruit would have been on the same side of the card and I thought it just worked better with my design to have it on the other side.  I used up some DSP scraps too, that Starfruit strip was straight out of the scrap pile, all I did was flag the end.  Yay for using up a small scrap!

Anyway, that's enough yammering for me today.  Since it is our tenth wedding anniversary today (yay us!), hubs and I are heading out to Liverpool for the weekend.  Wonder if he'd mind listening to the Beatles the whole way there...

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies, last card only, all SU!
Stamps:  Garden Silhouettes, Noteworthy
Ink:  Summer Starfruit, Soft Sky
Paper:  Soft Sky, Whisper White, retired So Saffron & Summer Starfruit DSP
Accessories:  Deco Labels Framelits, I forget the name of the butterfly Embosslit thingie

Friday Flashback: Bird on a Branch

Salutations and greetings, welcome to this week's edition of the Friday Flashback!  Today's retired stamp set of choice is the elegant Bird on a Branch.  So let's see what I've got:

I sent this one to my mom a couple years ago (duh, it's a Mother's Day card!).  It was a combo SCS color/sketch card and dang I still miss that swirly floral paper I used in the background.  So that was today's short little flashback, and here's the new project:

More pages for Karyn's baby books!  I figured I could get away with doing these layouts ever-so-slightly girly since Mother's Day is the big day in May.  Well, that and Memorial Day, but I go all stars-and-stripes for July.  Actually this layout was kind of a surprise to me; when I went through all my DSP just to refresh my memory as to what all I have, I found that feather paper and thought hey, I can work with that.  Karyn likes to do things like putter around the garden so I went with a very green color combo here because it seemed to "fit" her personality:  Garden Green, Certainly Celery in the DSP, Tempting Turquoise, and Crisp Cantaloupe which I'm surprised I like so much :)

Thanks for joining me for today's Friday Flashback, have a wonderful weekend!

Supplies, scrapbook layout only:
Stamps:  Bird on a Branch, Fine Feathers
Ink:  Soft Suede, Crisp Cantaloupe, Tempting Turquoise
Paper:  Garden Green, Tempting Turquoise, Crisp Cantaloupe, Whisper White, Flock Together DSP
Accessories:  old Sizzix alphabet

Friday Flashback: Pocket Silhouettes

Hooray for another Friday Flashback!  Today's retired stamp set of choice is Pocket Silhouettes, a cute little set which retired not all that long ago if I remember correctly.  Let's open up the archives, shall we?

This first card is my favorite of the cards I have for today (much more so than the new card, but we'll get to that).  The one thing I'd change is just tying the ribbon 'round the DSP layer rather than the whole card front, and shortening the pierced line a little bit so it didn't go edge-to-edge on the image panel.  Well, I guess that's two things.  But I like the color combo:  Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, and Chocolate Chip even though it looks black.

Pretty sure this was for a combo color/sketch challenge and to be honest I kinda wonder why everyone else on the cardmaking planet is so in love with Crumb Cake.  I think it's okay I guess, but this much of it I think is drab.  And so MANY of the SCS "color" challenges are Crumb Cake, white or vanilla, and only one actual color (as opposed to a neutral).  YAWN.

And here's today's card, which is also a bit of a yawner to me.  I love Taken with Teal (retired, sniffle!) and Close to Cocoa (also retired, another sniffle!) but this card strikes me as trying too hard to catch up on the old SCS color and sketch challenges, and it just doesn't do anything for me.  Oh well, not every card can be your favorite, right?

Thanks for joining me on today's Friday Flashback!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Pocket Silhouettes
Ink:  Taken with Teal (marker, because my TWT ink pad does this weird shade that looks more like Baja Breeze, what's up with that?!) and Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Taken with Teal, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, retired Close to Cocoa DSP
Accessories:  Triple Flower punch (retired), Word Window punch, Neutrals brads

Friday Flashback: Strength & Hope

Today's Friday Flashback stamp set is one I adore, Strength & Hope.  There are four stamps in this little set, though of course the butterfly is by far my favorite (though it is TOUGH to cut out those teeny antennae!).  So I've got a little gallery for you today and it's not all cards!

Here's a scrapbook layout from when my parents visited us when we lived in Okinawa.  I think as soon as I finish this post, I'm gonna have to go pull out some photos to scrap...I looked at my scrapbook layout gallery on SCS and I just really want to add to it now!  (Supplies for this particular layout listed here.)

Here are a couple of name frames I made.  That Bella Rose DSP is still some of my very favorite, and I have a *lot* of DSP.  *giggle*

Here's more Bella Rose DSP and a CAS card.  If I ever draw Baroque Motifs as the Friday Flashback stamp set, that post is gonna be a mile long.  I love that giant swirl!

I made this for a friend of mine who was battling cancer when I sent it to her (I think the stamp set sales went to benefit cancer research of some kind).  Sadly, my friend lost her battle at the age of 31, but I still think of her every day and miss her always.

I think this is my favorite card I've made with this stamp set; that stamp I used on the border is part of Strength & Hope and the sentiment is from my fave Fabulous Phrases.  And for once I didn't cut out those stinkin' butterfly antennae!

So here's today's card.  It's a bit muted compared to the previous card, but I kinda like it.  I think Sahara Sand is my favorite pale neutral; I know everyone else is crazy for Crumb Cake but for me, Sahara Sand is where it's at.  The sentiment on here is from the also-retired set Friendship Flowers; I thought it went with the theme of Strength & Hope.  And there's that Cast-a-Spell DSP that I'm using once again for not-Halloween stuff :)

Thanks for joining me for today's Friday Flashback, have a wonderful weekend!

Supplies for last card:
Stamps:  Strength & Hope, Friendship Flowers (both retired)
Ink:  Always Artichoke, Sahara Sand, Perfect Plum, Rose Red
Paper:  Always Artichoke, Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla, Cast-a-Spell DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Dimensionals