Dinos Know How To Party

Mornin' y'all and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  I'm excited to dress up with Ryan this evening to pass out candy.  He's still too little to contemplate giving him a gigundor pile of sugar, so we won't be trick-or-treating; I do have a really, REALLY gigundor pile of sugar for the kids who come to our house (I've heard there are lots of trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood).

Anyway, my honorary niece Leora has her birthday today, isn't that fun?  Back in September Leora and her mama called me and asked if I could make invitations for Leora's birthday party.  Leora wanted something with DINOSAURS and BATS and THE MOOOOOOON!!!  I asked what her favorite colors are and she said RAINBOOOOWWWWWW!!!

So what would you do with those guidelines?  I can show you what I did...

Dinosaurs?  Check.  Bats?  Check.  The MOOOOOON?  Check.  And even dinosaur bones because Halloween.  And also lots of colors and even some glitter because what 7-year-old girl doesn't love glitter.  It took a while to heat emboss the dinosaurs and the moon after I stamped the dino bones and the bats, but then the backgrounds were done super-quick by inking up a baby wipe with drops of ink refill and swiping across the glossy white cardstock.  Navy blue and teal for the sky, dark green for the ground.  I made 20 of these during naptime over the course of a few days.  Hope Leora liked them!

Ryan and I will shortly be heading to the gym as a way to keep my paws off the Halloween candy.  Ryan is too young to read the bags so he doesn't know what he's missing yet, hahahahahaaaa!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  No Bones About It, Tiny Talk, Simply Circles, Wicked Cool
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Granny Apple Green, Mango Melody, Bermuda Bay, Night of Navy, Garden Green, Basic Black, Versamark
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, retired glimmer paper
Accessories:  circle punch, Decorative Label punch, clear EP, 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: Bold Basics

Mornin', peeps, and welcome to this week's Friday Flashback!  This week the randomly chosen retired stamp set is Bold Basics, which is one of those sets I got the first year I started stamping but still somehow didn't use a whole lot.  So let's go!

Also features Simply Spring, Bunch o' Bugs, Whimsical Alphabet

You saw this layout pretty recently when we did the Whimsical Alphabet Friday Flashback.  The flowers on the right page are from Bold Basics.

Also features Tiny Talk

Who doesn't love a red, white, and blue Valentine?  How do you like the split mat on the main image?

Well, that was it for the Flashback part, so here is today's all-new creation:

As soon as I saw this week's Color Throwdown I knew I wanted to use it with these flowers from Bold Basics.  I really wanted to use the bright and fun (and retired) Summer Sun, and I was looking through my old ribbon for some black grosgrain when I found the yellow and I thought PERFECT!  The greeting is from A Greeting for All Reasons, which just seemed to match the tone of the Bold Basics blossoms.

So here's the challenge swatch from the Color Throwdown:

Fun and cute.  I kinda wish I had used a pattern on the bottom of my card that had more black in it, but I liked the houndstooth so whatever.  Anyway, that's it for me this week, so I'd better get my last run in and then maybe I can treat myself to the movies this afternoon :)  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Bold Basics, A Greeting for All Reasons
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Summer Sun
Paper:  Whisper White, Night & Day DSP
Accessories:  Maize grosgrain, corner rounder punch

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