Baby Luke: Luke James

Okay y'all, I'm going to start sharing Luke's baby book layouts on Saturdays I think.  So here's the first full layout:

Baby Luke was named after a friend and mentor of my brother's, who gave his life in service to our country on his first deployment, leaving behind his own infant son.  Ryan's middle name is Luke partially because of that too--when Ryan was born we didn't know if my brother and SIL were going to have any other kids (Luke has a big sister), or if they'd have a boy, so we chose that for my son's middle name to honor my brother's friend even though we never met him.  (And also Ryan's grandfathers are Rich and Larry, so he shares an initial with each of them.)  Anyway, bestowing this name on his son was very important to my brother, so I wanted to have a layout in the baby book where he could write about why they chose this name and maybe have a picture of the first Luke there.

I kept the colors muted, mostly greens and brown as a nod to Army uniforms.

Supplies:
Stamps:  For Your Country, The Free & The Brave, Land That I Love
Ink:  Always Artichoke, Dapper Denim, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, Dapper Denim, Very Vanilla, Manchester DSP
Accessories:  Sizzix letters

Friday Flashback: The Free & the Brave

Happy Friday, folks!  And if you're a government employee, happy three-day weekend.  Today's Flashback stamp set is The Free & the Brave, which might seem an odd choice for November but today is Veterans Day so it makes sense.

The main image and the words are from today's stamp set, paired with Sanded on the background and I noticed as I set this up that I seem to ALWAYS use Sanded with this stamp set.

See?  This eagle is my favorite stamp in the set.

Here's a scrapbook layout that was posted not all that long ago with my favorite eagle.

And when the set first came out, I used that eagle for swaps.  With Sanded.

So for today's new projects, I've got some scrapbook pages:

The pics are from November 2005, my first visit to DC.  Unfortunately this was before I started my other blog, so I'm left with what I can remember from the trip...and I've slept since then :p I might have just written on the journaling what I could tell from the photos (okay I totally did that).

The words again, I like it.

There's the second layout since I couldn't fit all the pics on one spread.  You can't tell from the photos, but the stars are lightly stamped with Sanded in Smoky Slate and then sponged a bit on the edges to kind of grunge them up a bit to match everything else.  I used Gorgeous Grunge on the Smoky Slate textured cardstock borders because it seemed to jive really well with the grays in the photos.

There's the regal eagle again, stamped tone-on-tone with Cherry Cobbler.

Today's super patriotic color combination includes Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy, Smoky Slate, and Whisper White.  And because it's Veterans Day, please please pretty please express your thanks to any veterans you know.  They work so hard to protect our freedom.

Supplies, scrapbook pages:
Stamps:  The Free & the Brave, Sanded, Larger Than Life Alphabet, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Night of Navy, Cherry Cobbler, Smoky Slate, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Night of Navy, Cherry Cobbler, Smoky Slate textured, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  retired star punch

Normandy

Today is Memorial Day, a day not for barbecues but to remember those men and women who died in the service of their country.  And today's scrapbook layout is particularly appropriate today.

While on a trip to France in 2013, we took a train from Paris out to Normandy and did a tour where we visited the D-Day beaches, a few towns and battlefields, and the American cemetery (see my original blog post about it here).  We happened to do the tour on July 4th, and when we arrived at the cemetery a small group of people was handing out roses and the names of soldiers.  All of the soldiers to whom we paid our respects don't have graves though; they're all known casualties of the D-Day invasions but their remains have never been recovered, so we left the roses at the wall inscribed with their names.  Even today, scientists are using DNA to identify remains, so there are some brass rosettes on the wall that indicate that that particular soldier has been found.

I kept the layout very simple but I just had to use this eagle stamp from The Free & the Brave.  I have a Post-It Note mask of the eagle's head, so I used it to watercolor around with Smoky Slate ink on a scrap of paper:

Then after it dried, I used the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to stamp the eagle on top of it with Dapper Denim ink so the eagle is white but the background is gray, but after I stamped it the Smoky Slate looked so pale you can't really tell the difference anyway :p  I used just a teeny bit of So Saffron ink for the eagle's eye and beak.

It was just my great good fortune that my title fit *exactly* on the journaling panel.

Today's color palette is Dapper Denim, Smoky Slate, and Whisper White, with a smidgen on So Saffron and Basic Gray ink for the journaling.  I thought about adding some red, but I figured there was enough red in the photos, and otherwise I liked the blue/gray combination.  And I like that the Perfectly Artistic DSP kind of mimics the pattern you'd see on marble.

Have a good day, folks.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  The Free & the Brave, Spencerian Alphabet (retired)
Ink:  Dapper Denim, Smoky Slate, So Saffron, Basic Gray
Paper:  Dapper Denim, Smoky Slate, Thick Whisper White, Perfectly Artistic DSP
Accessories:  Stamp-a-Ma-Jig

Friday Flashback: The Free & the Brave

Welcome to another patriotic special edition of the Friday Flashback!  In honor of Independence Day yesterday, this week's not-really-randomly chosen stamp set is The Free & the Brave.  So let's get started and see what I've got in the archives.

For the main image, I stamped it in Basic Black craft ink, heat embossed, and then watercolored it, except for the white which was done with colored pencil.  I think it's kind of a cool look stamping on colored cardstock for the main image vs. the normal white or ivory.

And here's one I did for a swap, same idea as above.  You can see I really like using Sanded with this stamp set, 'cause I did it again for today's brand new card!

This time the eagle is actually stamped on white paper in Night of Navy ink, and then I masked it and sponged on Bordering Blue ink.  Then I used a blender pen to add some Crushed Curry to his eye and beak.  It's been kinda fun lately doing a bunch of patriotic cards and coming up with variations on the red-white-blue color combo.  Pretty sure I've used this layout before but it seemed like a good match for Sam the Eagle here.  The Framelit wasn't wide enough to layer under the eagle image, so I cut it in half and spaced the ends out a little more.  Unless you peel up the main image you can't tell I did that :)  I did the same thing on the striped layer actually; I was using a scrap that was a little too short for what I wanted.  And that is how you make it work :)

Thanks for joining me for today's Friday Flashback, and have a safe and fun holiday weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  The Free & the Brave, Sanded
Ink:  Bordering Blue, Night of Navy, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Bordering Blue, Night of Navy, Whisper White, Champagne Glimmer Paper, retired Cherry Cobbler DSP
Accessories:  Apothecary Accents Framelits