Lots of Happy Card Kit, Part 3

Hey y'all.  I was working on scrapbook pages yesterday and never made a card, so here at last is the third part of the Lots of Happy card kit!

This was the fifth design that I made multiples of from the parts and pieces of the cards in the kit.

And this is the card I made for the gal I gave the whole card set to, so just one of this.  I still have a few of those lavender stalks left to play with too.

Ryan is getting into the apothecary cabinet so I'm gonna run.  Byeee!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lots of Happy, Work of Art
Ink:  Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Old Olive, pieces in the Lots of Happy card kit
Accessories:  Dimensionals, pieces from the card kit

Boneless Dino

Salutations and greetings, stampy friends.  I'm glad it's Friday!

Super quick card for today.  Like, the only part that took a couple of minutes was cutting out the dinosaur, but I think it's still pretty cute .  No Bones About It and Work of Art are both retiring, and this card makes me wish I'd used Work of Art more often because I'm loving the triple stamped swoosh here.

Let's start with the Just Add Ink challenge:

I used orange and if you really want to stretch it then I used a din-O.  Hee.  Too bad I didn't see this challenge for yesterday's card, since that one had an oval and I used Orange Blossom and it featured a flaming-O.  Hee hee.

Next up is the CAS(E) this Sketch sketch:

And that is what made this card super fast.  And now I have a cute kid card to send out to someone.

Time to go give my cute kid a bath.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  No Bones About It, Work of Art
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Pool Party, Pacific Point
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Guest Designer: Retro Butterflies

Good morning y'all!  Today I have the honor of being the guest designer at Retro Rubber!  And this week's challenge is all about color.

Isn't that pretty?  The color that struck me first when I saw this picture was lots of GREEN, and I love green so I decided to make most of my card front Garden Green.  Then I pulled the plummy and peachy colors out of the photo and this is what I made:

You can see it just a little bit, but I added Wink of Stella to both butterflies so they sparkle.  That's also why the sentiment is smudged--I didn't allow sufficient time for it to dry before I started with the Wink of Stella so I got my fingers in it.  Dangit!  I didn't have time to redo the card so I'm chalking it up to the charm of a handmade item.  All my supplies today are still current, but Watercolor Wings is two years old and Work of Art (the sentiment) is three years old.

Hope you play along with the Retro Rubber challenge!  I had fun with it :)  And dyed my fingers green for a little bit.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Watercolor Wings, Work of Art
Ink:  Garden Green, Sweet Sugarplum, Fresh Fig, Peekaboo Peach
Paper:  Sweet Sugarplum, Garden Green, Thick Whisper White, Glossy White
Accessories:  Bold Butterfly Framelits, Beautiful Butterfly Thinlits, Rose Garden Thinlits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

You're the Best

Happy Tuesday, y'all.  We have a teething baby in the house and he's grumpy a lot so now his parents are getting a little grumpy too.  Bleargh.  At least baby naps a lot...

I made a MAN card for today!  I had book club last night, and since the hubs can't pick up the baby due to his back surgery, I asked Bennet to come over here and babysit the hubs.  And I made him this card and inside it says IOU one pumpkin coffee cake.  (YUM.)

I wanted to make a card for the Global Design Project theme challenge, but I stared at my stamps blankly for a few minutes before I decided exactly who I was making the card for and then it all came together pretty quick.

For the Cupcake Inspirations color challenge, I used Tangerine Tango and Bermuda Bay with a healthy dose of black and white.

Add in the sketch from Just Add Ink and voila!  Card done.  Got to bust out some new stamps too; I got the hostess set You're Delightful and the holiday catalog set Pick a Pumpkin on my last SU! order and this is the maiden voyage for both.  I watercolored "You're the Best" with Bermuda Bay ink and intentionally made it darker in some areas and lighter in others, just to add a bit of interest so the giant sentiment.

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  I think this might be one of those days where I just wanna take a nap...but I also have some books to read...and other stuff to do :p  So probably no nap for me but that's okay.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  You're Delightful, Pick a Pumpkin, Work of Art
Ink:  Basic Black, Bermuda Bay, Tangerine Tango
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Bermuda Bay, Whole Lot of Lovely DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, Dimensionals

Guest Designer: Back to School!

I'm tickled pink to be a guest designer for Retro Rubber once again!  And they have the perfect challenge for this time of year:

Now, my kiddo is only six months old so I've got some time before I have to worry about doing teacher gifts and such,  but I did make a school-themed card for today:

I figure it could go in a kiddo's lunchbox on the first day of school, or it could be for a teacher gift at the beginning or end of the school year or whatever.  The sentiment is generic enough to work for lots of people.  Since this is for Retro Rubber, I had to use older stamps...Hardwood and Work of Art are both still in the current catalog but they're three years old; Tart & Tangy is nine years old.  Honestly I thought it was older, I thought I got it when I first started stamping!  But still, nine years is pretty old for a stamp set :)

Want to know how I made my chalkboard?

1.  Cut a rectangle of black cardstock as big as you want the chalkboard to be.  Punch the corners with a corner rounder.

2.  Stamp the Hardwood background stamp on brown cardstock (I used Crumb Cake and the coordinating ink).  Trim the planks along the lines of the stamp, then trim individual planks, two for the shorter side pieces and two longer ones for the top and bottom (same lengths as the black rectangle you cut out).

3.  Glue the shorter side pieces on, then punch the corners with a corner rounder.

4.  Glue the longer top & bottom pieces on, then punch the corners with a corner rounder.

5.  Voila!  You have your chalkboard.  My corner punch left a little indent on the corners, since I had three thicknesses of cardstock in there (even though I only punched through one layer at a time, my punch would cry and break if I tried to do all three at once which is why I punched each layer individually), so I just used the fine point of a black marker to turn those divots into nail heads on my chalkboard.  One fussy cut apple up on Dimensionals and there you have it!

When I was a kid, like in elementary school, my mom used to make pillows for my teachers at the end of the school year.  They had an appliqued chalkboard that looked like this card, complete with the apple, so I was definitely channeling that when I made this card.  The main fabric on her pillows was white with letters on it though.  I should dig up a picture...or more likely, ask my mom to dig up a picture because I don't think I have one :)  Anyway, I hope you play along in this fun challenge at Retro Rubber!  And thanks again to their Design Team for inviting me to be a guest designer!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hardwood, Work of Art, Tart & Tangy
Ink:  Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals

ETA:  Mom found the picture!  Ready to see little kid Christy? Hee!

Orange Blossom Smile

Happy rainy Thursday, y'all!  It's been raining almost nonstop since sometime in the middle of the night, and it has to be coming down pretty hard for me to hear it in my bedroom on the third floor so yep, water water everywhere.  Good thing all our out-of-town guests left yesterday before the deluge really got going!

I got some time in my craft room this morning to make this:

Oh look, I used the Orange Blossom stamp set to make an ORANGE!  Haha.  The colors are slightly wonky because, as I said, rainrainrain but the orange is stamped with Tangerine Tango and is definitely orange and not red.  And the chevrons are stamped-off Lemon Lime Twist so they actually are the same color as the little leaf sprig behind the orange; it looks like two different colors but it's not.  The bigger leaves ARE a different color (Old Olive) and I think I might not be making sense anymore and the cloudy skies just made the colors look weird so let's juts go with that.  But anyway!  Here's the Global Design Project sketch:

The card above was actually my second hack at this sketch; first I tried doing the chevrons a little offset and I didn't like it as much:

Buuut we need some thank you cards and not every card can be your favorite. 

So the last week and a half has been ridiculously busy with family in town, the hubs' promotion ceremony, party here at the house afterward...so here's one pic from the promotion:

That bow tie!  I DIE OF THE CUTE.  And also my hubs is a dang good-lookin' dude, I'm a lucky lady.  So after all that celebratin', we also had to deal with one girl dog who isn't feeling so hot, and then Saturday night my gallbladder attacked me so we spent the night in the ER.  Fun times.  I'm okay, but I'm not eating ice cream for the foreseeable future, which is a shame because we have a freezer full of it and I'm a sucker for cookies 'n' cream.  I'll have to figure out if the gallbladder and I can reach some kind of truce or if I need to declare war and have it annihilated.

Well, I'm going to take advantage of sleeping babe and see if I can get anything else done in my craft room.  I've missed it!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! (first card)
Stamps:  Orange Blossom, Work of Art, Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Lemon Lime Twist, Daffodil Delight, Basic Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Paper snips?  Do those count as an accessory?

Supplies, all SU! (second card)
Stamps:  Orange Blossom, Work of Art, Dragonfly Dreams
Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Basic Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Paper snips

Dijon Baby Shower?

Hey kids, I had some arguments with the computer this morning but I'm finally getting this post up.  My card for today:

The two background panels are silver DSP, which kinda reflected the camera flash a bit so that looks better IRL.  However I think the Delightful Dijon card base is just too dark and that I should have done white...but I didn't want to attempt to peel everything up.

The sketch is from Create with Connie and Mary:

I think I'd like this better with some lighter, brighter colors (like So Saffron instead of Delightful Dijon), but I was having a hack at the Global Design Project color challenge:

I used Dapper Denim as my free choice color.  Still, I think I picked the right stamps for the sketch but the wrong stamps for the color challenge...I have a feeling that color combination could be a lot more fabulous than I made it look.

Oh well, not every card can be your favorite, right?  I'm going to blame this one on lack of sleep.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Weather Together, Work of Art
Ink:  Delightful Dijon, Dapper Denim, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Delightful Dijon, Dapper Denim, Thick Whisper White, Silver DSP
Accessories:  Umbrella Weather Framelits, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Spring Garden

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ready for a Friday Flashback?  Today's retired stamp set is Spring Garden.  And today's Flashback is a short one.

Also features Sage Advice, Print Pattern

Uh, that's it?  Sometimes I wonder if maybe my archives are incomplete and I'm missing projects from somewhere, but I couldn't find anything else I'd made with Spring Garden in my Splitcoast gallery either so maybe this was really it.  So here is today's fresh new Spring Garden card:

I am LOVING Emerald Envy, y'all.  I used this week's Pals Paper Arts sketch:

And the inspiration pic from Retro Rubber:

Not only did I used the colors from the photo, I picked some tulip-y looking flower stamps too.  The colors I used are Emerald Envy, Daffodil Delight, Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie, and Elegant Eggplant.  I started out with the background strip being Daffodil Delight stamped with butterflies, but it was just too much so I switched it out for some Whisper White sponged with Daffodil ink.

So for Retro Rubber we have to say how old the stamps are...I've had Spring Garden for 9 years, Absolutely Fabulous for 8, and Work of Art for a year and a half or two years (Work of Art is the long skinny scribble that I used for the "ground" on my main image).  Retro all around!  Plus the new In Color because like I said, I love Emerald Envy.

Hope you have a great weekend, y'all!  It's wet outside, but I think it's not raining right this minute so I'm going to make Sadie happy and take her out.  And then we'll probably all have to wash mud off our feet when we get back.  Cheers!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Spring Garden, Absolutely Fabulous, Work of Art
Ink:  Emerald Envy, Elegant Eggplant, Daffodil Delight, Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie
Paper:  Emerald Envy, Elegant Eggplant, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Brights Candy Dots, hexagon punch, Dimensionals

Well, That Was Unexpected

Ya know, art is unpredictable.  Today's card is the poster child for "well, I didn't expect that but let's just roll with it".  But first, I show you the two challenges that I used, starting with the Global Design Project sketch:

And then adding the Just Add Ink inspiration photo:

Add a heaping helping of things not working out as expected, and this is what happens:

Okay, so, I started out with my favorite technique of scribbling on an acrylic block with a marker, misting, and stamping it (I really need to come up with a short name for that) and that's when it started:  I haven't cleaned my acrylic blocks in a while (you really should wash them once a month or so), so I got some light Pool Party ink on the interior of the block, but the outside of it was kind of pinkish from Stampin' Scrub residue.  But I thought ehh, I'm already using Blushing Bride, so that kind of works.

Then I stamped the chevrons from Work of Art, and after I did that I thought really, I should have stamped them off first.  Oh well, let's keep going.

I had been planning on stamping a different sentiment on there, but the chevrons turned into such attention-stealing brats that I switched gears and went with the Larger Than Life Alphabet.  Which was fine, up until...the gold embossing powder.

So I wanted just a little bit of speckly accents in gold in the lower left and upper right corners, and I just barely tapped the Gorgeous Grunge splats on the card front.  So far so good.  Only after I dumped on all the embossing powder did I realize that my super-ridiculously-juicy Calypso Coral ink pad meant that the ink on the letters wasn't really dry yet, so all the EP stuck.  But it looked kind of interesting, so I heat embossed it and decided to roll with it anyway.

So there is my "how'd that happen?" card.  I'm hoping my next project is a little more predictable :p

Cheers, yo.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Larger Than Life Alphabet, Gorgeous Grunge, Work of Art
Ink:  Pool Party, Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Versamark
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Gold EP

Spring Trio

Happy Wednesday, y'all.  Does it look like spring in your neighborhood?  The trees behind my house are all blooming, though when we went out last Saturday the cherry blossoms in DC weren't in full bloom yet.  But anyway, that brings me to the Paper Players challenge:

One of the things I loved most about living in England was the flowers.  I think gardening is England's national pastime, so in January I would see some snowdrops, February brought crocuses (croci), March was all about the daffodils, April was for tulips, May was purple with lilacs, and June brought out all the roses for June weddings.  And those are just the flowers I saw in my daily walks around our tiny village.  So I decided to make a trio of CAS spring cards for today:

I really liked how my shamrock card turned out for the Nacho blog hop, so I did the same kind of thing on these three.  I don't have current SU! stamps that look like the specific flowers I was going for, so I just used the colors of each to inspire my Flower Patch flowers.

This one is inspired by a crocus, all beautiful deep purple with a bright yellow or orange center.  I love that Bonjour, Beautiful stamp from Happy Happenings...originally I was going to do different sentiments on each card but I liked that one so much I just stuck with it :)

This one is my daffodil card, bright yellow with an orange center.  In March, daffs would spring up all over the village, even a few in my yard--and I can't keep plants alive for anything so you know they're pretty hardy if they survived being in my yard.

And last up is my tulip.  We went to Amsterdam one year to see the tulips, and let me tell you they come in an absolute rainbow of colors and they're all gorgeous.  But I decided to go with a pink and rosy red tulip for this card.

There you have it, my spring flower cards.  Hope you enjoyed them :)  I'm off once again to walk my doglets.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flower Patch, Happy Happenings, Work of Art
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Blackberry Bliss, Tangelo Twist, Pool Party, Daffodil Delight, Mint Macaron, Rose Red, Pink Pirouette, So Saffron
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Flower Fair Framelits, Dimensionals

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: Season of Friendship

Ya know, sometimes when I do Friday Flashback posts I'm surprised that I don't have more in the archives for a particular stamp set that I like.  Maybe the archives are incomplete, or maybe I just don't use some things as much as I think I do...whatever the case, today's Friday Flashback is all about Season of Friendship.

The tree is one stamp, and then there's the triple leaf stamp, a snowflake, a bird, a flower, and a sentiment to round out the stamp set.  It takes a while to Stamp-a-ma-jig all the leaves on the tree, but I like the effect.

Another baby book layout, different month and different colors but otherwise pretty similar.

Also features Holidays & Wishes

And here's a Thanksgiving card.  To my surprise, that was the extent of the archives, so here is today's new project:

Rather than leaves, I went for something wintry this time.  I saw that sentiment in Ray of Sunshine and I thought it was just the thing for my little cardinal in the snow.  And I loved that when I cut up the Real Red patterned paper, you can see "love your face" and "love this life" on the bit I used.  They have some good words and phrases on that paper, I love it.

I had to have another hack at this week's Freshly Made Sketch since I wasn't a fan of yesterday's dud.

And my wintry card also fits in with this week's Retro Rubber Challenge:

And for this challenge I have to say how long I've had the stamps...well, Season of Friendship has been in my collection since at least 2008, considering that's the date on the card in my Splitcoast gallery.  Work of Art and Ray of Sunshine are both over a year old too, so all three stamp sets qualify by their rules :) 

I think this is a cute little pick-me-up card, and I know just who to send it to, so I'm going to go do that right now.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Season of Friendship, Work of Art (ground), Ray of Sunshine (sentiment)
Ink:  Soft Suede, Real Red, Bashful Blue, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Bashful Blue, Thick Whisper White, Real Red DSP
Accessories:  None, it's a totally flat card!

Friday Flashback: Carved & Candlelit

Happy Friday, y'all!  I have an appropriately October-ish stamp set for today's Friday Flashback:  Carved & Candlelit.  Love it!  So let's get to the fun part :)

Also features Rough Edges Alphabet

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the jack o' lanterns' faces are embossed with Iridescent Ice so they're all sparkly.

Also features Cool Cat, Background Basics, All-Year Cheer III

What's more Halloweeny than a cool black cat?

Also features Background Basics, Petite Patterns, All-Year Cheer II

I happen to know a couple of people whose birthdays are ON Halloween, and quite a few more with October birthdays who also love pumpkins.

Ok, so this one is really old:  it's a layout from the first set of baby books I did way, way back.

Also features Bright Blessings (unmounted wheel)

So Carved & Candlelit is a simple little set with a couple of pumpkins and a few faces, but clearly I love it.

Also features Grateful Greetings

Again with the Iridescent Ice EP faces.

Also features Priceless, Falling Leaves

You've seen this layout on here quite recently but I couldn't leave it out.  And that's the Flashback part of today's post, so here's the new creations:

Yep, I made two!  My brother-in-law and his son have birthdays one week apart so I figured I'd make cards for both of them.  And between the two cards, I used every stamp in the set one time.

First up is the grown-up card; I had quite a time trying to get this card to work.  This is actually the FOURTH background panel!  I don't know why but I was just having trouble getting things to gel yesterday when I worked on it.

I used the color combination from The Color Throwdown:

And the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

And I think this one counts for the Male Room challenge to make an autumn card for a guy:

So next up, the card for the 6-year-old.

This one didn't quite want to gel either, I don't know what is up with my craft cave lately.  But anyway I used the color combo from ColourQ:

And the sketch from Retro Sketches:

I think this might have worked better for me if I'd made my card more like 5 inches square instead of 4.25".  But I don't have envelopes that size, so what can ya do.

Well, I know what I'm going to do:  I'm going to go back down to my craft room and work on another project, and hope that this time my mojo cooperates a little better.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, next-to-last card:
Stamps:  Carved & Candlelit, Fall Fest, Birthday Wish, Work of Art
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie, Garden Green, Cherry Cobbler, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Supplies, last card:
Stamps:  Carved & Candlelit, All-Year Cheer II
Ink:  Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss
Paper:  Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Tangerine Tango DSP
Accessories:  circle punch, Dimensionals