Bear Book: April

Happy Saturday!  Y'all, I totally had sweet potato casserole for breakfast for the second day in a row and it's still awesome.  Might not be awesome by next Friday, but we'll see.

Anyway, here's the next layout in the bear book I made for Missy!

Missy loooooooooooooves Haribo gummi bears, and swears that the ones made in Europe are way better than the ones made in the States, so when we lived in England I would occasionally ship her a giant box of gummi bears.  So imagine my joy when I found gummi bear stamps!

I ended up stamping each one with Versamark + colored ink and heat embossing, then coloring in with colored pencils.  I tried watercoloring and it seems like one other method and this just worked the best to get good-lookin' bears.  Generally I think Real Red and Calypso Coral are clashy, but they're pretty much the colors that real gummi bears come in so I went with that.

And the accent on the journaling block, just so ya know it's Easter.

Today's gummi bear-inspired colors:  Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Crushed Curry, Real Red, and Whisper White.

Despite the fact that I have 3/4 of a pumpkin pie and an entire pecan pie in the fridge, I'm off to make an apple pie for my hubs.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Gummy Bears by Avery Elle, Tag Time, Forest Friends, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Versamark, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Crushed Curry, Real Red, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Thick Whisper White, Best Year Ever DSP
Accessories:  dies from Avery Elle, Sizzix alphabet, clear EP

Nacho Blog Hop: St. Patrick's Day & Easter Projects

Happy Nacho Day, folks!  That's right, it's time for another Nacho Average Blog Hop.  If you came here from Anne's blog, welcome!  And fear not, there are links for the entire hop at the bottom of the post.

This month's theme is all about two spring holidays:  St. Patrick's Day and Easter.  I had to put my thinking cap on for this one because a.) SU! doesn't do many St. Paddy's Day stamps and b.) I didn't get any of the specifically-for-Easter stamps this year.  But let's see what I came up with, shall we?

No clover stamps?  No problem!  Use hearts to make your own--the hearts and background swish are from Work of Art...I jumped on the bandwagon when everyone else bought it but I've never done much with it.  So imagine my surprise when it came to the rescue for a St. Paddy's Day card!  The sentiment is from Greatest Greetings and just seemed like the perfect thing for my heart-y clover.  The stem is from Apple of My Eye, which continues its streak in my house of not making anything apple-related.  I could have done a few more swishes and made a rainbow but I just thought of that and I kinda like the simplicity of the green-and-yellow combination.  More on that in a minute.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Work of Art, Apple of My Eye, Greatest Greetings
Ink:  Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rhinestone

I mentioned in last week's Friday Flashback post that I got Tag Time specifically for this wee little clover and I could NOT resist busting it out again when I got the idea for this bear card.  And it's a Baylor bear card thanks to a whole lot of Garden Green and some Crushed Curry OH HI MISSY!  Ha, I always think of her when I make anything bear-related.  And since Baylor's colors are green and gold, that Go Green sentiment is doing double duty.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Forest Friends & Tag Time (both retired), Greatest Greetings
Ink:  Basic Black, Garden Green
Paper:  Garden Green, Crushed Curry, Thick Whisper White, Garden Green & Basic Black DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Regals Candy Dots

And finally, here's something for Easter...I remembered that Barnyard Babies has a sweet little lamb in it and of course Teeny Tiny Wishes has sentiments for just about everything.  Confession time:  I totally stole this layout from Rita Wright, who uses it as a fall-back layout from time to time and I like it :D  Anyway, I wanted my little lamby-toes to stay white so I got to pick any pastels I wanted for Easter colors.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Barnyard Babies, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Basic Black, Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzazz
Paper:  So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Thick Whisper White, Wisteria Wonder & Blushing Bride DSP
Accessories:  Chalk Talk Framelits, Hexagon & Petite Petals punch, Subtles Candy Dot


Happy St. Patrick's Day and also happy Easter from the Nachos!

Friday Flashback: Pinch Proof

Happy Friday, stampy friends!  As it happens, this week's Friday Flashback is the super seasonally appropriate Pinch Proof, just in time for St. Patrick's Day next week.  SU! doesn't do a whole lot of St. Paddy's Day stamps, so you'll see I used this one quite a few times in baby books.  You ready to flash back?

Also features Pinch Me, non-SU stamps

This one was for the most recent set of twin boy baby books.

Also features Pinch Me, All Holidays

I made this card for a friend whose birthday is on Halloween...it's a Halloween birthday card in costume as a St. Patrick's Day birthday card.  Does that make sense to anyone else?

Also features Happiest Birthday Wishes

This card was for a friend of mine whose birthday is actually on St. Patrick's Day, not Halloween :)

Also features Tag Time

The wee clover on the journaling block is from Tag Time, and that wee clover is pretty much the whole reason why I bought that stamp set.  Is that silly?  Don't answer that.

I like that leprechaun but I wish we'd get a stamp set with a pot of gold and stuff like that too.  Just for variety.  But I do also like that "lucky me" stamp.

Also features Sprinkles

...as you can see.

I think I had one day where I tried to come up with a whole slew of Pinch Proof cards.

And that's finally it for the flashback!  Here is today's new project:

Gasp, it's a one-layer card!  If you don't count the ribbon, anyway.  It so happens that the Fusion challenge this week was absolutely MADE for Pinch Proof, take a look:

I recycled my color combo from all those baby book layouts and used Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizzazz, and Garden Green instead of green ombre.  I thought about doing a rainbow theme but then if you start with red and go diagonally, then you'd only have two green shamrocks and that didn't seem right either :)

So that's it for this week!  Hope this post reminds you to get out a green shirt for next Thursday so you'll be Pinch Proof :)

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Pinch Proof
Ink:  Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  1/8" Daffodil Delight ribbon

Friday Flashback: Ruff Day

Happy Friday!  It's time for another Friday Flashback, and today's randomly-chosen retired stamp set is Ruff Day.  Let's get to it!

Also features All-Year Cheer I, A Little Love

Why is it that for baby clothes, all the boys' clothing has dogs on it and the girls' has cats?  Oh well, I thought this puppy made for a cute baby shower card anyway.

Also features Background Basics, It's Your Birthday

Here's a kick up your heels birthday card.

Also features Print Pattern, Tag Time, Tiny Talk

And a St. Patrick's Day card.  I bought Tag Time specifically for that tiny four-leaf clover.

Also features And Everything Nice, Background Basics

One more baby card that I made a couple years ago for a friend, who loved it and said it reminded her of a song in Labyrinth where David Bowie sings about snips and snails and puppy dog tails.  Love Labyrinth : )

So here's today's brand new creation!

I knew without even looking that I hadn't used this dog in the beret yet so he was a natural choice for today's card.  And I did take French for, like, seven years; when I was in high school, we used to speak French with an intentional (and terrible) Texan accent just to make our teacher holler at us.  So bone jour, y'all!

I used the colors from Colour Q:

Though I added quite a bit of black, and the only Chocolate Chip is on the dog's spots.  I used retired Watercolor Wonder Crayons to color in the dog, and then watercolored the beret and the "ground" with ink pooled in the ink pad lid.  I miss WWC!

I also used the fabulous sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

Wonderful sketch, right?  Super easy to work with.

Anyway, I think maybe it's stopped raining so I should take my pups out for a walk.  Otherwise we will have a Ruff Day :)  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Ruff Day, paw print from ?
Ink:  Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush
Paper:  Basic Black, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Accessories:  Chalk Talk & Circles Framelits, Neutrals Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Neutrals Candy Dots, Black EP, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Tag Time

Welcome to another edition of the Friday Flashback!  Today's randomly-chosen retired stamp set is Tag Time, which has lots of images in a variety of styles.  Ready to flash back?

Let's be honest:  I totally got this stamp set for that tiny 4-leaf clover.  I mean, really.  It said "good luck" under it in teeny-tiny letters, but I cut them apart so I could use the clover by itself.  And this card is one I made pre-SAMJ!  I can tell because I'm too OCD to have crooked clovers post-SAMJ.  The cute pupster is from Ruff Day, harlequin background is Print Pattern, and the sentiment is from Tiny Talk.

I've used that tiny clover over and over (teehee, that sounds funny) on baby book layouts, but I'll just share this one 'cause they're all pretty similar to this.  The larger clovers are from Pinch Proof.

And that's pretty much it for past projects, so here's the new card, hot off the stampin' table:

It's September, so I think we can officially start with the Halloween projects.  This card still seems a bit on the plain side to me but what can ya do.  I thought about adding some Midnight Muse ribbon, but I wanted to keep this easily mailable.  The Old Olive pattern is from a retired Halloween DSP pack (don't ask me which, I don't know), and then I stamped the pumpkin from Tag Time all over More Mustard CS in More Mustard and Whisper White ink.  I lined the inside with Whisper White CS and stamped a pumpkin on that too for good measure.  Think I'll send this to my friend Sarah because Halloween is her favorite holiday.  She even had her daughter on Halloween :)

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

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Tag Time
Ink:  Midnight Muse, Old Olive, More Mustard, Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Midnight Muse, Old Olive, More Mustard, Whisper White, retired Halloween DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Lucky March

After spending Memorial Day weekend hiking all over Bavaria, we're back home!  Honestly I haven't stamped in I think over a week...lucky for me I had a bunch of draft blog posts.  Now that I'm home though I need to really get crackin' on a BUNCH of projects!  For now though, here's another baby book layout:

So aside from using a different set of alphabet dies, this layout is practically identical to the ones I made three years ago.  I figured it worked pretty well then, and as my husband says, why reinvent the wheel?

Making pretty quick progress on these baby books!  I think I only have a half sheet of that patterned paper left now though, I'll be kinda sad when I use that last bit of it as it's been perfect for this layout several times already.  I like that it's kind of like playful abstract suns.  Oh well, I do have quite a few other So Saffron patterns; that must be one of corporate SU's favorite colors as it's featured in DSP quite frequently.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Pinch Proof, Tag Time
Ink:  Garden Green
Paper:  Certainly Celery, Garden Green, Night of Navy, So Saffron, Whisper White, Delicate Dots DSP (was for SAB a few years ago)
Accessories:  Sizzix alphabet, circle & scallop circle punches