Birthday Poppy Stars

Mornin', y'all!  Okay wow, what a difference a week makes--last week my kiddo wasn't feeling good and he was REALLY tough to handle, especially since I'm solo parent ops right now.  But the hubs was here over the weekend, and kiddo is feeling much better, and he's been SO happy and easy to get along with!  Which makes me one very happy mama.

Sooooo I kinda slid right past everyone's birthdays in October, but I'm hoping to do a little better in November, so I made this for my brother:

I started out with the challenge from As You See It:

I made my card in 9 minutes, 32 seconds, and my two shades of red are Poppy Parade and Cherry Cobbler.  Although I think I'm *always* doing a speed stamping challenge since I'm always trying to finish things before Ryan wakes up from his nap!

I'm also entering this over at Global Design Project:

In the spirit of this challenge, I dusted off the very first stamp set I ever bought, Stars & Swirls, and used it for the background on my card.  Then I chose my favorite ever happy birthday stamp from Perfectly Penned for the main element on my card.  And I pulled out some old favorite Framelits to set everything off.  It's fun to dust off the retired stamps periodically.  Now I just need to get this card mailed off today...

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stars & Swirls, Perfectly Penned
Ink:  Poppy Parade, Cherry Cobbler
Paper:  Poppy Parade, Cherry Cobbler, Thick Whisper White, Poppy Parade DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Dimensionals

China: Jade

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!  Ryan supervised as his dada made waffles with strawberries and cream for breakfast :)

I'm sharing two more China layouts today.  The first one has been seen 'round these parts before:

I didn't really notice until I was flipping through the finished albums, but I really like doing horizontal strips of patterned paper on my layouts.  And here is what comes next:

I think it's a law in China that the tour guide takes you to places specifically for you to shop and spend all your moneys.  And we did buy that jade pixiu (pronounced pee-shoo) so it worked this time.  See the pictures here.  Anyway, this is not my favorite layout but I tried.  I don't know, it's just not my favorite.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, Stampin' Up! had a color called Mint Melody which was the perfect match for the pixiu.  I only had a little bit of cardstock from an assortment pack I bought way back when, and I never got the matching ink, so I had to be creative with how I used it.  I stamped white swirls on it for the mat and used some to cut out my title.

Since I only had I think two pieces of the Mint Melody cardstock, I never cut a sample for my color swatch book.  But here's the palette anyway:  Peekaboo Peach, Dusty Durango, Brocade Blue, and Mint Melody.

I'm off to go play with the kid...or else get me another waffle, I haven't decided yet.  Have a great Sunday!

Supplies, Shanghai Museum layout:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Gifts from the Orient (floral vase), Asian Art (coin and characters), Ancient Asia (dragon vase), Asian Artistry (flower)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black, Marina Mist, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Primrose Petals, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Crushed Curry DSP
Accessories:  circle punch, Circles & Ovals Framelits, lettering template 

Supplies, Jade layout:
Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge, Stars & Swirls
Ink:  Brocade Blue, Whisper White, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Dusty Durango, Brocade Blue, Mint Melody
Accessories:  1/2" circle punch, lettering template

Bear Book: Poland

Hey, it's Saturday!  I'd pretty much finished posting my niece's baby book a while back, so today we're starting on a brand new book.  It's done like the regular baby books I make, but this one is special because I made it for a 4-year-old little boy that my good friends adopted earlier this year.  Because he needed a book too even if he wasn't a baby anymore :)

The first layout is for pictures they took while they were in Poland, where li'l boy is from.

Throughout this book, you'll see a lot of green and yellow, and bears on every layout.  And you'll see pretty quick that I think Whipper Snapper bears are pretty much the cutest on the planet when it comes to stamps.  This book took me quite a while because I had to color in alllll the images with colored pencils and I was trying really hard to make it all look nice.

Today's color combo:  Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, Marina Mist, and of course Whisper White.  I wish the letters had shown up on the Wild Wasabi DSP a little better, but otherwise I like this one.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rockin' Teddy from Whipper Snapper, Stars & Swirls
Ink:  Basic Black, Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Garden Green, Marina Mist, Thick Whisper White, Wild Wasabi DSP
Accessories:  Circles & Deco Labels Framelits, primitive star punch, Sizzix alphabet, Prismacolor Pencils

Friday Flashback: Star-Spangled Banner

Happy Friday, y'all!  I hope you're staying cooler than we are...the AC in our house went out.  The pipes on the AC unit have been freezing over and then it doesn't actually cool the house down at all, so someone is coming to check it out in about an hour and a half.  I might be a paper-crafting puddle by then.  But anyway, let's get to today's Friday Flashback, which is Star-Spangled Banner!  Very appropriate this time of year, no?

Also features Stars & Swirls

This, my friends, is a layout from the very first baby book I ever made in 2005.

Also features Confetti

And this is from probably the third one I ever made, in 2009.  The three stamps on the left on this one are from today's retired stamp set, and here is my brand-new creation:

Both of my parents and my SIL have July birthdays (Mom and SIL are both within two days of July fourth) so they all love stars and stripes stuff.  Well, I was born in January and I love stars and stripes stuff too, but I figured a star-spangled birthday card was just the ticket.  And it goes along with the theme for the Paper Players' 300th challenge:

I also used the Pals Paper Arts sketch:

And the Retro Rubber color challenge:

Okay, so mine is red, white, and blues since I used both Dapper Denim and a teensy bit of Soft Sky :)  To authenticate my stamps' retro-ness, I've had Star-Spangled banner since 2005 (when I started stamping!) and I'm pretty sure I've had Teeny Tiny Wishes since it came out in 2009, so my stamps are 11 and 7 years old respectively.  Yep, definitely retro in the stamp world.

I'm going to go do nothing until the AC dude comes to save me.  It's too hot in the house to do anything else :p  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Star-Spangled Banner, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Real Red, Dapper Denim
Paper:  Dapper Denim, Thick Whisper White, Soft Sky
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Letterpress Alphabet

Happy Friday!  Have you enjoyed Spring Break Scrap Week?  I'm finishing out the week with a Friday Flashback for Letterpress Alphabet, and you know how much I love my alphabet stamps :)  So let's take a whirl through the archives, shall we?

Also features Spencerian Alphabet

Geez, sorry about the terrible picture quality on this one.  Well, the original photos are fine, it's my picture of the layout that isn't good at all.  It was shortly after this that I figured out where to take pictures of layouts in our house in Alabama.

Also features Spencerian Alphabet

But not before I got both of these not-so-great ones.  Glare!

Ahh, here we go.  Much better photo of the layout.  And also the only time hubs and I have been to Turkey.

Also features Stars & Swirls, Amazing to Zany, Star Studded wheel

How about a card using the Letterpress Alphabet?  I'm still rather proud of this one, wait 'til you see it opened up:

It took a while to make with all the Stamp-a-ma-jigging but I still love it.  And it's Baylor Colors :D

Also features Spencerian Alphabet...again, and Noteworthy and Mosaic Madness

Here's a layout from California with some lovely bright colors.

And here's another one from Europe.

Also features Snow Flurries

I think I made this card when I was trying to come up with ideas using Snow Flurries.  I loved those little stamps but it was a challenge to make them the focal point of a card.

Also features Cold Play, Merry, Swirling Stars wheel

Oh man, this was from way back when Stampin' Up! had the spectrum ink pads!  I kinda miss those...

Also features Rough Type, Toxic Treats, Elementary Elegance, Carry On

Okay, there's the last England layout for today (though I do love it!) and now we're ready for this week's new creation!  Let's journey to St. Petersburg...

Oh dang, I got a glare on the photo in the bottom left corner.  It was really rainy and overcast when I took the picture of the layout and that makes a difference.  Anyway, this was the last place we visited in Russia before our cruise ship left, you can see the original photos here.  With no glare.

The cathedral is located on the Fortress of Peter and Paul, but it was the only thing we visited on the fortress so that's why I put "cathedral" rather than "fortress" on my page title.

Today's color palette:  Mint Macaron, Not Quite Navy, Hello Honey, and Whisper White.  And that's it for me today, hope you had a lovely week and are looking forward to a great weekend.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!, last layout:
Stamps:  Letterpress Alphabet, Rough Edges Alphabet
Ink:  Not Quite Navy, Hello Honey
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Not Quite Navy, Hello Honey, Thick Whisper White, Not Quite Navy DSP
Accessories: nothin' but a Stamp-a-ma-jig

Friday Flashback: Stars & Swirls

Guess what?  Today is my first blogiversary here at Snapdragon Stamps.  Yay!  With that in mind, I thought for today's Friday Flashback that it would be fun to feature the very first Stampin' Up! stamp set that I ever bought, Stars & Swirls.  So sit back and relax with a cuppa if you so desire, because today's Flashback is going to be longer than most as I love this stamp set : )

You might guess from the name that this little stamp set has both stars and swirls in it, though I admit I use the stars more than the swirls.  Like my mom, I'm a sucker for all kinds of papercrafty things featuring stars (and plaid, but probably not together).  This one also features Happy Everything which is one of my all-time favorite sentiment sets.

Ok, so this one is old-old-old from not long after I started stamping and before I discovered sketch challenges so I only had like three layouts for cards : )  I do still love polished stone though...greeting from A Greeting for All Reasons.

It's a license plate!  I thought it was cool for a Father's Day card.  Letters from Well-Worn Alphabet & Numbers.

I think I made a bunch of these for stamp club not long after I became a demonstrator.  Look, it opens up:

Fun, right?  Other stamp sets used are Letterpress Alphabet, Swirling Stars jumbo wheel, and one of the All-Year Cheer sets (what, they blend together).

Here's one with the swirl!  This layout also features my favoritest-ever scrapbook layout sketch.  I love it so much that I have to try to limit myself to using it ONLY once in any given album.  

More stars on a baby book!  Other stamps from House of Haunts.

And here's a layout from the first-ever baby book I ever made; also features Star-Spangled Banner.

Here's some gold embossing on gold cardstock and some gold Pearl-Ex on the card base, and again a sentiment from AYC.  I never much got into Pearl-Ex so I wasn't sad when SU! quit selling it.  I think this might be the only time I used it...and the only reason I had any was because someone else gave it to me.

So that's it for the vault, here's today's new creation:

I used this week's SCS sketch and three of my favorite colors:  Elegant Eggplant, Garden Green, and Raspberry Ripple.  I quite like those three colors together, I'll have to try that again sometime.

Thanks for joining me for this week's special blogiversary Friday Flashback!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Stars & Swirls, Happy Everything
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant, Garden Green, Raspberry Ripple, Whisper White craft
Paper:  Elegant Eggplant, Garden Green, Raspberry Ripple, Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Just Beakause

It's Friday, and that means it's time for another Friday Flashback!  Today's stamp set is Just Beakause, and the funky birds in this set always remind me of the Tiki Room at Disneyland.  I haven't used this stamp set a whole lot since I got it (wow, back in 2006 from the dates on Splitcoast?) but at least today's Flashback will be longer than last week's ;)

My first card with the set, done for a Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) challenge on Splitcoast.  The sentiment is punched out with the key tag punch (I think that was what it was called?).  I kinda miss that punch.

Hey look, I used the funky birds on a baby book layout for my friend Sarah's daughter.  Sarah likes bright colors so that's how this one came about.  I also used the retired set Tropical Party on this layout, and the fun Island Oasis DSP.

Ok, so a whopping two previous projects, but still longer than last week's ;)  And here's today's brand new card!

Ok, so it might seem an odd choice for a Mother's Day card, but hubs' parents both grew up in the Canal Zone in Panama and my MIL likes the bright tropical birds, so that's the reasoning behind the card.  Makes sense to me.

And this card came together in a flash thanks to the Fab Friday sketch:

Heyyy, this time I stayed pretty close to the original sketch, aside from putting my flag on the wrong side on the sentiment.  After I stuck everything down I kinda wished I'd done paper piercing around the bird image but too late now.  And have I been using those Glimmer Brads a lot lately?  Can't mail 'em from here (postmaster is super picky about anything dimensional) so luckily this will go in a package.

Ooh, tip for the day!  If you've got a Glimmer Brad with the legs stuck together, the paper piercing tool can help unstick them, just use the point to pry the legs apart.  I kind of had to work at it on both brads for today's card--I think that's the part that took me the longest in making this, to be honest--but it does work!

Thanks for stopping by for today's Friday Flashback, and I'll see you again in Monday.  And maybe some sneak peek goodiez from the new catalog!!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Just Beakause, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, Rose Red, Pacific Point
Paper:  Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Whisper White, Island Oasis DSP
Accessories:  Labels Collection Framelits, Brights Glimmer Brads