Fixed It!

Anyone else ever make a card and something's just not right with it and it BUGS YOU until you fix it?  Well, my Lovely As a Tree card from earlier this week was like that.

I fixed it.

I carefully peeled everything up and just switched the card orientation to landscape instead of portrait.  The sentiment fits SO MUCH BETTER this way and now it's not making my brain itch.

*sigh of relief*

Back to your regularly scheduled Saturday!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Bye-Bye Oak Tree

Mornin' peeps!  How's your week going?  I am very grateful that I am feeling much better than I was last week.  I really really missed yoga for two weeks!

Today I'm sharing another card featuring retiring stamp sets.  Three of 'em, in this case.

I started stamping in 2004 or 2005, and Lovely As a Tree was in the catalog then so it predates me.  I'm not 100% shocked that it's finally retiring though because we now have Rooted in Nature, which I like to think of as an updated LAAT with sentiments.

Anywha, check out the Global Design Project sketch:

I admit I just couldn't get my sentiment to work how I wanted it to.  I really needed one that was shorter, but I also wanted one that would be good for a sympathy card (why do I always think of LAAT for sympathy cards?) so that's how I ended up where I did.  I used some probably retired Garden Green ribbon for the accent under the square piece.

I'll also enter this at Retro Rubber:

As I was saying before, Lovely As a Tree is the longest-lived stamp set in the SU! catalog and I've had mine probably since at least 2006, so 13 years is pretty dang retro.  Tree Rings is only about a year and a half old and poor little Wishing You Well is one I just got about two months ago, so not retro at all.  I thought it was going to carry over to the new catalog but it isn't...which is okay because I own it and I like it.

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  In a little bit Ryan and I will be off to the Y so I can take pilates and get my stretch on!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

An Apple for Teacher

Well kids, we've done all the prep so now we're hunkering down and waiting for Florence to show up to the party.  I hope that it won't be too bad.

In the meantime, I sneaked into my craft room during yesterday's nap time to make this card.

I'm entering this at both Global Design Project and Retro Rubber since their challenges are the same.  I'm amused at posting this today because the local school district cancelled school for the rest of the week here.

Perfectly Preserved is now six years old, so definitely counts as retro.  I chose the apples, the green chalkboard, and the wood desktop for my inspiration but the colors came from elsewhere which I'll get to in a minute.

First check out the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

I like that sketch, it's cool!  And finally, here's the color challenge from the Paper Players:

Calypso Coral is my extra color.  Somehow I ended up with Blackberry Bliss only on the sentiment.  I tried two different color wash backgrounds for the card base and neither attempt worked AT ALL so I dug up a pattern from one of my favorite ever packs of DSP, Best Year Ever.

Cheers, y'all.  Hope I'll be back with more cards here...I just don't want the power to go out!!!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Perfectly Preserved (retired), Tree Rings
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss, Mint Macaron, Calypso Coral, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Mint Macaron, Crumb Cake, Best Year Ever DSP (retired)
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Foxy Hello

Hey, kids.  Man, this week has been tough!  The hubs' work schedule has been kinda all over the place so I've been pretty much single parenting the kidbot.  I think most of the time I'm ready for bedtime a lot earlier than the kiddo is!

But enough about that, how about a card:

I chose Foxy Friends because I was thinking of entering this over at Retro Rubber, but I'm not sure this fits the theme exactly.  I think of animals being out and about in the summertime, and they did say a summer theme card, but they also have a lot of beachy stuff on there and I don't think foxes are beach babes.  They're more forest-y.  But anyway, I can enter this in the Paper Players sketch challenge!

I kind of made up my color combination on the spot.  I started with the Cajun Craze fox, and I wanted to use Call Me Clover, so I looked on the Stampin' Up! color combos list and Crushed Curry was in a combo with Call Me Clover so I thought hey, that works.  And a healthy dose of Crumb Cake.  We're all about the C's with this color combination.  Except for the black and white anyway.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Have a great Thursday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Tree Rings, A Little Wild
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Everyday Label punch, Dimensionals

Let's Skip Summer

And go straight to fall!  I think that's what the folks at Global Design Project did.

Not that I'm complaining, I love making fall cards and scrapbook pages, but doesn't this color combination look like fall to you?  So I made a fall card even though it's June.

I'm so glad that SU! brought back glossy white cardstock, because it means I can do polished stone again!  You put a bit of isopropyl alcohol on a cotton ball, then a few drops of ink refill in whatever colors you want, then pounce it on the cardstock and it all blends together.  You just have to be careful with the color balance:  I used Real Red and Pumpkin Pie, and with two drops of red and three of orange it came out looking ALL red.  So I did two drops of red and five of orange, and that was a better balance.  Then I just cropped some leaves with the Seasonal Layers Thinlits.

I used this week's sketch from Clean & Simple Stamping:

You can just see the Rich Razzleberry circles peeking out beneath my leaves.  I'd wanted to use the Stitched Shapes Framelits, but even the smallest circle was a little too large to use on a regular A2 card front, so I switched it out for a 1" circle punch.

I hear my kiddo talking so I'm going to get him up, feed us both, and head for the gym.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Colorful Seasons, Tree Rings
Ink:  Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Rich Razzleberry, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Rich Razzleberry, Glossy White
Accessories:  Seasonal Layers Thinlits, 1" circle punch, Dimensionals

Fear Not

So yesterday afternoon I had an idea what I wanted to do for today's card, and I was cruising through my stamps looking for a sentiment that would fit in the big maple leaf Framelit when I came across this Bible verse from Rose Wonder and all of a sudden my card turned out very different from what I had planned.

I have never made anything with this stamp before but I was compelled to ink it up yesterday.  And here is the maiden voyage of Tree Rings, which I stamped off once before stamping on the watercolor paper so it's more like the suggestion of tree rings which isn't exactly what I had planned but I think it looks okay.  And I still added a leaf from Vintage leaves, just a small one.

I was inspired by the photo at Fusion:

In general I don't like making cards with only neutrals and this one is made with ONLY Soft Suede ink on Very Vanilla and watercolor paper.

I used the Fab Friday sketch:

Just turned it on its side to accommodate the verse.

And the Cupcake Inspirations challenge is perhaps my favorite:

Though I think I need to make another card for this challenge and do LOTS of very COLORFUL leaves ;)

Looks like Ryan is waking up so I'm going to go get his bottle ready.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rose Wonder, Tree Rings, Vintage Leaves
Ink:  Soft Suede
Paper:  Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Watercolor Paper
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes & Leaflets Framelits, Dimensionals, pearls