CAS Doesn't Mean Quick

Have you ever had a project that just WOULD NOT COOPERATE for anything?  That was today's card.  I worked on it for a solid hour and then decided to toss everything I had done and start it all over.  I was trying to do the multi-step stamping for the flowers from All Things Fabulous and no matter what I did I couldn't get the images to turn out how I wanted.  So then I had a look through my stamp sets and decided to use Free as a Bird instead, even with having to fussy cut the images.

So here's the card that I finally ended up with:

 
I was going to say it's the cause of all the frustration, but THAT card is in the trash.  Other than thinking I shouldn't have had the dots go through the middle of the circle element, I like what I ended up with but good GRAVY was it a journey to get here.  I'm telling you:  CAS doesn't mean quick.  Or easy.  Sometimes it's harder than a card with a bunch of layers and fancy techniques.

Here is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I used Flirty Flamingo, Grapefruit Grove, and Just Jade for my colors, with some Cinnamon Cider thrown in because I love it.  So the flowers are pink (Flamingo) and the dots in the background are orangey/coral (Grapefruit Grove).  Couldn't get a photo to show the difference in the colors better, but if you look you CAN actually see the Wink of Stella on the flowers.

I think I need a nap since I had the second Covid vaccine this morning...but I have to go pick Ryan up in 15 minutes.  At least I have all day tomorrow off...cheers y'all, and I hope your creative time is less frustrating than mine was!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Free as a Bird, Comfort & Hope, Waterfront
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Grapefruit Grove, Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Flirty Flamingo, Just Jade, & Cinnamon Cider
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Wink of Stella, Dimensional (yeah, just one)

Pinkety Pink Pink

Howdy folks!  Gotta type fast so I can hit the road and get to work.  Today's card is brought to you by the color pink.

I busted out some old Pink Pirouette for this one!  I flipped this week's Freshly Made Sketch by 180 degrees just because of how the rose image is done, this made more sense to my brain.

And the pinks are for this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Very Vanilla, and Sahara Sand for my colors.  I stamped the roses I think 3 times to darken up the Pink Pirouette a bit, and then I sponged some around the image panel too.  Beautiful Friendship is on the retiring list, and it's a gorgeous stamp set so get it now if you don't have it already! :)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Friendship, Waterfront
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Sahara Sand, Melon Mambo
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Thick Very Vanilla, Pink Pirouette DSP
Accessories:  Tasteful Labels dies, Dimensionals

Purple Mountains' Majesty

Happy Friday, y'all! I'm happy that I was able to get a good picture of this card yesterday so I could share it today :D

I don't use Waterfront very often but I ended up really liking this card when I finished with it.  I need to work with Shaded Spruce more, I love that rich green.  I started with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And chose my stamp set based on the theme challenge from Global Design Project:

And then I picked some colors I thought would look good together and just went to town making my mountain landscape.  I love mountains, hubs loves the beach, so I guess...we should live in Hawaii?  The sentiment is from Happiness Surrounds, which was a limited time only stamp set from last November I think, and for the Shaded Spruce piece on the bottom, I inked up the Marbled background stamp with a sponge before stamping tone-on-tone with Shaded Spruce ink.  It gave me juuuust enough texture without distracting from the main scene.  I love my background stamps.  I think the epoxy drops are retired but I've got them so I might as well use them.

Hope you have a great weekend, friends.  I'm hoping to get some more scrappin' done in the next couple of days...I finished a layout that I really liked yesterday, and got started on another one.  Having some fun in the ol' craft cave!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Waterfront, Marbled, Happiness Surrounds
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, Mint Macaron, Balmy Blue
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Shaded Spruce
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Space, the Final Frontier

Hey y'all!  The hubs had yesterday afternoon off, and kiddo absolutely REFUSED to take a nap, but my wonderful hubby took the kid outside to play so I could make a card.

I used the Northern Lights technique to make my background.  I would have chosen some slightly different colors if I'd looked at the Fusion inspiration picture again before I made it though:

I used some pink and orange, and I would have gone more for aqua and purple if I'd looked at this again, but I'm okay with how my galaxy background looks.  Though perhaps I'll give it another shot ;) The stars are done by stamping the splatter from Waterfront on the cardstock with Versamark and heat embossing with clear powder before I started sponging on all the other colors.  There's several stamp sets with splatters in them, Waterfront just happened to be the one I saw first (Magical Mermaid would be great too).

That's it for me today, y'all.  Have a good 'un!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Waterfront, Little Twinkle
Ink:  Versamark, Flirty Flamingo, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Pacific Point, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White, Silver glimmer paper
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, clear EP

Beach, Please

Mornin', y'all!  Wow, we had quite the storm last night--lots of lightning and high winds.  Fun to watch from our living room windows :)

So this is my first try at creating a scene with Waterfront.  The card base is Thick Whisper White; it turned kinda pink in the photo but I promise it's white on the bottom.  Anyway, like I said, this is my first attempt at creating a scene, so I think I need some practice.  But I think this is okay for a first try.  I added the "just breathe" sentiment from Colorful Seasons because I think we often need a reminder to breathe.  I resisted taking yoga classes for years and only started when we lived in Virginia, and then I liked them a whole lot more than I thought I would and I think it's because you spend so much time during the class just breathing and stretching.  And also doing crazy things like side planks and shoulder stands, but the teacher keeps reminding you to breathe while you turn into a pretzel ;). Anyway, "just breathe" seemed like an appropriate sentiment to go with my beach.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the challenge from Just Us Girls:

That's it for me today.  Have a great day, kids, and remember to breathe.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Waterfront, Colorful Seasons
Ink:  Pool Party, Flirty Flamingo, Mango Melody, Daffodil Delight, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Coastal Cabana
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Coastal Cabana
Accessories:  Metallic sequins

Retiring: Swan Lake

Mornin', folks!  Yesterday, Stampin' Up! dropped their retirement lists in preparation for the new catalog, so I'll most likely be revisiting some of the soon-to-retire stamp sets between now and June 1.  And first on the list is Swan Lake.

Honestly, a big part of why I got Swan Lake is to do scrapbook pages for Neuschwanstein (the castle in Bavaria that was the basis for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland; there are swan motifs everywhere in the castle).  I haven't gotten to those pictures yet, but I did use the swan on another layout already.  I do like this stamp set.  So anyway, I paired the soon-to-retire with a couple of brand new (and continuing in the next catalog) stamp sets:  Waterfront and Lots of Happy.  I can't wait to play with Waterfront a bit more, and Lots of Happy is part of a card kit in the Occasions Catalog...I can now report that 4 out of 5 of the Lots of Happy sentiments fit perfectly in that Tailored Tag Punch.  Yay!

Enough chatter, let's take a look at this week's color challenge from Global Design Project:

I love Tranquil Tide so I was happy to see this combination.  I inked up both the swan and the sentiment with Versamark and then Night of Navy ink, and embossed both with clear embossing powder.  That allowed me to watercolor some Crumb Cake shading on the swan without making the colors run.  For the lake and shore, I stamped off once on scratch paper before stamping on the cardstock here to make the colors a little lighter, and just added more stamping until I liked how it looked.

Here's the sketch from Sunday Stamps that I used:

I like this sketch, it was fun!  I left off the two little flagged pieces on the "any shape" element in the interests of keeping my card on the simpler side.  I just hand-cut the mat for the Tailored Tag punch, easy enough since it's all straight lines.  A few pearls and that was it!

Time to feed Ryan his second breakfast...he gets a bottle first thing and then a bowl of cereal a little later, and it's time for that.  Plus I'm hungry too!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Waterfront, Lots of Happy
Ink;  Versamark, Night of Navy, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Thick Very Vanilla, True Gentleman DSP
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, pearls, Dimensionals, clear EP