Get Well, Pumpkin

Hey y'all!  Happy Friday...even happier because it's a long weekend :)  And I always think of Labor Day as the last hurrah of summer/first hint of fall, so today I've got a fall-inspired card to share.

Of course it doesn't show up in the picture, but I painted the pumpkins on the main image panel with Wink of Stella so they sparkle.  Also, since I wanted to pop up the sentiment strip on Dimensionals, I layered the DSP on some white cardstock so it would be a bit more sturdy.  The sentiment and the teal pumpkin are both popped up.

Let's have a big hooray for Freshly Made Sketches' 400th sketch:

I really liked this sketch, it was really more of a question of narrowing down all the ideas in my head to just one card.  In the end, I couldn't resist using that beautiful Come to Gather DSP.  I'm going to be mixing up the names of the DSP and the stamp set and the dies because they all have "gather" in the name.  I think I'll have to get at least one extra pack of the paper before it retires, too.  It's SO pretty!

That's it for this week, folks.  Have a great weekend!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Gather Together
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Pretty Peacock, Early Espresso
Paper:  Pretty Peacock, Early Espresso, Thick Whisper White, Come to Gather DSP
Accessories:  Gathered Leaves dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Bouquet on Black

Hey, y'all!  I had a zillion things to do yesterday, so naturally, I spent an hour and a half while kiddo was asleep in my craft room making some cards :D

I liked the sketch from the Paper Players so I couldn't let the week end without playing along:

Didn't realize until I was starting to write this blog post that I didn't follow where the sentiment was on the sketch, but I think they'll forgive me.  I paired that with the colors from Color Throwdown:

I used Mango Melody, Flirty Flamingo, Pineapple Punch, and Granny Apple Green for my colors.  I thought the black card base really made the bright colors pop :)

Cheers y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Flirty Flamingo, Pineapple Punch, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Rectangle Stitched dies, Bouquet Bunch dies, Dimensionals

Halloween Birthday Cat

Hey, y'all.  Well, it's official:  I have succumbed to whatever virus my kiddo and my husband have had.  I'm kinda miserable.  But I gotta keep moving forward!

My friend Sarah's daughter was born on Halloween, and Sarah *loves* Halloween. Sometimes they ask me to make birthday party invites for Leora (I'd be invited, but ever since we all left Japan, it seems like we've been living on different continents!).  So Sarah messaged me yesterday and said Leora wants something with spooky cats.  Here's my first try:

You can't tell from the picture, but the cat is embossed with Shimmer Black embossing powder (it looks really cool IRL).  I used this sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

And Sarah sent me a picture of what Leora's cake is going to look like:

I may do some tweaks or go in a different direction depending on what the birthday girl wants (she was already asleep by the time I made my first mock-up for her).  Hopefully I can kick this virus quickly so my creative mojo comes back!

Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wonderfully Wicked, Itty Bitty Birthdays, Birthday Backgrounds
Ink:  Versamark, Granny Apple Green, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Pumpkin Pie, Granny Apple Green, Highland Heather, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Shimmer Black EP, Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, black crocheted trim (retired), Word Window punch (also retired)

Fall Leaves

Scrappy Monday, folks!  Okay wow, I need to take some pictures of more layouts I've completed.  I have *lots* of layouts to share, but I'm holding off on showing Ryan's baby book for a while yet (trying to get it finished) and I have a lot of winter and Christmas pages.

Well, we got our first taste of cooler weather this weekend--like, I was ready to throw a party because the high temperature was under 80.  Bring on the fall weather!  I even made pumpkin apple muffins for breakfast yesterday.  So with that in mind, how about a nice autumnal layout...

That's our little Sadie girl playing in a big ol' pile of leaves the first time we lived in North Carolina, I think these pics were from 2006.  She's now 13 years old, has lots of gray hair, and spends most of her time sleeping and I still love her to itty bitty hairy pieces.

Today's color palette is straight from the Autumn Traditions DSP, which may have been the *only* DSP to feature Elegant Eggplant (other than the ones where it was every color in the family).  So it's Soft Suede, Ruby Red, More Mustard, Elegant Eggplant, Always Artichoke, and Whisper White.  All of those colors are now retired except for Soft Suede and Whisper White.

I'm hoping the weather stays cool for a while.  We went out for a walk last night and I didn't feel like I was melting into a puddle the whole time!  The mosquitoes were still out, but I guess you can't have everything.  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Notable Alphabet, Falling Leaves
Ink:  Soft Suede, Elegant Eggplant, More Mustard, Always Artichoke, Ruby Red, Early Espresso Marker
Paper:  Soft Suede textured, Elegant Eggplant, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Whisper White, Autumn Traditions DSP
Accessories:  lettering template

Stardust

Hey kids, who else is glad it's Friday today?  I'm going to finish out the week strong by sharing a card that fits in four different challenges.  So here it is:

I, uh, more or less permanently "borrowed" the long-retired stamp set Stardust from my mom some years ago, but I think this is the first time I've inked it up.  (She can have it back along with the other two stamp sets I liberated from her collection if she wants them, but she hasn't done any paper-crafting in several years so I don't think I need to worry about sending these back any time soon.)  I was inspired to dust off this set (seriously, the stamps--still on wood blocks--say 2004 on them!) due to the Global Design Project theme challenge:

In related news, my happy fox card was one of the winners for last week's challenge, wahoo!   Anyway, I do have some current SU! stamps that feature the celestial objects making up this week's theme, but I was just feelin' retro so I went with it.  The Color Throwdown this week seemed like an appropriate match:

I used Highland Heather, Pacific Point, Coastal Cabana, and Daffodil Delight for my colors.  And I used the sketch from Inspire. Create.:

Classic sketch, I love it.  And finally, the Retro Rubber Challenge is anything goes:

I honestly don't know how long I've had Stardust in my collection, so let's say it's more than five years (I'm pretty sure that is the case), and Background Basics (the background stars) is over 10 years old in my collection, so lots of senior rubber on this card.

Well, y'all have a great weekend.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stardust, Background Basics
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Daffodil Delight, Highland Heather, Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Highland Heather, watercolor paper
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Hawaiian Thanks

Hey y'all!  Do you ever have days when you sit down to stamp and you just don't know what to do?  I had that stamper's paralysis for a while yesterday.  Then I started one card, but after smearing some ink on the main image, I decided it needs to sit overnight before I watercolor, so that card will be on here tomorrow.  Then I had to start on another card, and eventually this is what I came up with:

Tropical Chic to the rescue!  I love that stamp set :)  I used two sets of dies, but not the one that's actually made to coordinate with this stamp set, go figure.  I was inspired to go tropical by the color challenge from Fab Friday:

The blue on my card looks much darker than it really is; I promise it's Blueberry Bushel rather than Night of Navy.  I was going to just do the white oval for the sentiment, but I decided I needed a little more of the blue on the card because it looked unbalanced to me, so I picked out one of the Ornate Frames dies to set off the oval.  I use the Stitched Shapes dies so often that they just live on the desktop next to my Big Shot.

Here's the retro 300th sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

I actually did pretty well about following the sketch exactly this time ;)  I looked back through the archives and I did a mermaid card with this sketch the first time around. 

Have a great day, y'all.  I'm off to stitch at the Y today...Thursdays I don't work out, I either read for two hours or bring a stitching project while someone else watches Ryan.  Gotta get some "me time" on the regular!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tropical Chic
Ink:  Petal Pink, Grapefruit Grove, Call Me Clover, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Petal Pink, Grapefruit Grove, Call Me Clover, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Ornate Frames dies, Dimensionals

SUO Challenges Goes CAS

Hey y'all!  It's time for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time around, the challenge is to make a Clean and Simple (CAS) card, which means limiting layers and embellishments and leaving white space.  A lot of times, CAS cards start with a white card base, but since I like to be different, I wanted to make a card with a different color for the base that's still CAS.  So here is my CAS mermaid:

I sponged Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, and Night of Navy ink on the card base, stamped some of the splatter dots in Night of Navy, then heat embossed the mermaid with Shimmer White embossing powder (that stuff is SO COOL!).  After I embossed, I decided the background needed to be a little darker, so I sponged on more Night of Navy ink...yeah, I'd recommend you do that *before* you emboss with the shimmer powder because now I've got a bunch of glitter stuck to my ink pad.  Learn from my mistakes, y'all!

Anyway, I stamped the sentiment on a scrap piece of Coastal Cabana, die cut it and added some rhinestones before adhering it to the card with some Dimensionals.  Voila!  A CAS card with a Coastal Cabana base and just two layers.  Three stamps, three colors of ink, and some embossing powder.

Your turn now!  Share your CAS creation on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Magical Mermaid
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Night of Navy, Versamark
Paper:  Coastal Cabana
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Shimmer White embossing powder, rhinestones, Dimensionals