Undersea Double Feature

Howdy, peeps!  Today is Thursday, a.k.a. the day before Friday, and that's why we like it.  And this week we like it so much that I made two cards :D

I was inspired to bust out By the Tide for the first time in a while because of this ridiculously cute set of cupcakes featured on Cupcake Inspirations:

I mean for reals, have you ever seen crabs so cute?  I used Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral, and Island Indigo for the colors, and I also used the newest Freshly Made Sketch:

*cue cheesy TV announcer voice* But wait, there's more!  I couldn't resist the color combination at The Color Throwdown:

So pretty, am I right?  And I had to dig up my much-loved starfish stamp from By the Seashore to make this:

It's totally a starfish conga line.  I used Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, and Tip Top Taupe as my colors and of course the same sketch as the first card.  And both of these cards are flat, which means they're easy to mail.  Which I should do.  Who doesn't like getting pretty mail?

Ok, that's it for me today.  I've got to go dream up what to do for tomorrow's Friday Flashback and maybe even work on baby books.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, By the Tide card:
Stamps:  By the Tide, Gorgeous Grunge, A Dozen Thoughts
Ink:  Versamark, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Island Indigo, Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Accessories:  Calypso Coral EP (seriously, why did they discontinue all the fun colored embossing powder?!)

Supplies, starfish conga line card:
Stamps:  By the Seashore, Gorgeous Grunge, A Dozen Thoughts
Ink:  Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Tip Top Taupe, Whisper White
Paper:  Whisper White, Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise DSP
Accessories:  None, believe it or not

Dem Bones (Again)

Ok, so far this week I'm still doing pretty terrible about getting in my craft room as my cross stitch obsession continues to rule my waking hours.  But I did manage to tear myself away from stitching long enough to make a card today!

Yep, loving the dinosaurs in No Bones About It.  Every single stamp I used on here is from that set.  And do you see?  I finally got some current DSP other than Cherry on Top!  I got the DSP stacks in the latest In Colors and also the Brights.  Love these new patterns.

My colors are from this week's Colour Me...! challenge:

Orange and green were my parents' high school colors, I like the bright and fun color combination.  Let's be honest though, I love Cucumber Crush pretty much all the time.  Real life cucumbers, not so much.

I also gave the latest Fab Friday sketch a twirl:

And that's all she wrote today.  I have to actually get some non-stitching things done and it would be good if I could make more progress on the baby books, so wish me luck!

P.S. Ma, I'll send you this card so you can mail it to your lil penpal.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  No Bones About It
Ink:  Early Espresso, Cucumber Crush, Tangerine Tango
Paper:  Early Espresso, Cucumber Crush, Whisper White, Brights DSP Stack
Accessories:  1 1/8" circle punch

Nachos: Summer Hello

Hey hey hey Nacho fans!  Are you ready for another Nacho Average Color Challenge?  Because it has arrived!

I had to put on my thinking cap for this one, because although Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron are natural together, I never ever ever in a zillion years would have put Melon Mambo with either of those colors.  Which is why it's fun to try challenges that other people come up with, and I was okay with what I made in the end.

Whenever a new catalog comes out, it's easy to forget about my older stamps so I thought I'd dust off Summer Silhouettes for today.  Also, I usually don't pair my Nacho cards with other challenges, but I just had to play along with this week's CAS(E) This Sketch:

So now it's your turn!  Give the Nacho color combo a try and link it up on the Nacho blog.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Summer Silhouettes, A Dozen Thoughts
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Mint Macaron, Melon Mambo
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Whisper White
Accessories:  Circles Framelits

Ephesus

Good mornin' folks, how are you this fine Monday morning?  Looks like it's going to be a rainy Monday where I am, so let's start the week off with some nice scrapbook pages.

You'd never guess it, but these pictures are from Ephesus in Turkey (see the original pics here). I mean, I know my page titles are all mysterious and stuff, right?  Teehee, I kid.  Anywha, I managed to squeeze in eleven photos on this layout and a good bit of journaling.  No real embellishments though except for a bit of patterned paper near the title, but there's only so much you can squeeze into a 12x24-inch space.

And here's my color palette:  Old Olive for the page base, Dusty Durango, Chocolate Chip, and Very Vanilla as accents.  I really liked these colors with the photos I used, if I can pat myself on the back a little bit here.

So I took about two weeks off from working on baby books and now it's time to get back in the game on those or else the babies will be here before the books are done.  And my fingers hurt from cross stitching yesterday for so long so it's probably a good idea not to overdo it on the stitching and focus on the paper crafts instead :)

Cheers, peeps!  Have a great week!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letterpress Alphabet
Ink:  Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Old Olive, Dusty Durango, Very Vanilla, Dusty Durango DSP
Accessories:  None

Friday Flashback: Upsy Daisy

Happy Friday, peeps!  Are you ready for a Friday Flashback?  This time it's a short one; the stamp set today is Upsy Daisy and while it's super cute, somehow I only have one card in the archives.  Not sure how that happened.

Also features Heard from the Heart

The flower silhouette image is the only image in the set; it also has three sentiments.  So yep, that's the Flashback card, and here's today's brand new creation:

I stamped the image with Mint Macaron ink, then sponged the panel, and then stamped the image again with Versamark and heat embossed to give it a little extra interest.  I didn't get the second image lined up perfectly though, you can see it if you look especially on the right side, but I kinda like the effect so I'm okay with that.  I kept thinking I should add some pearls or some paper piecing, but I couldn't figure out where or how to do that so I left it as-is.

I flipped this week's Freshly Made Sketch 90 degrees for my card:

I also extended the strip in the background so it went to the edges of the card front, that was just to hide the edge of the background stamp since I didn't get it completely straight.

I also used this week's Pals Paper Arts color challenge:

This challenge was interesting to me, but I'm not sure how much I like Mint Macaron and Pool Party together.  Seems to me they're a little bit too close in color for my tastes but hey, I gave it a shot.

Hope you enjoy your Friday afternoon!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Upsy Daisy, Filigree
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Pool Party, Tip Top Taupe, Versamark
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Pool Party, Whisper White, Cherry on Top DSP Stack
Accessories:  Clear EP

Dem Bones

Ever have days where it just feels like your mojo has gone on a vacation without you?  That's kinda how I feel with stamping today.  I think probably partly because I'm kinda sorta a little bit obsessed with my current cross stitch project so that's all I want to work on, even though I have baby books to do and only 11 weeks until my friend's due date.

But I did get a few new stamps earlier this week.

Like everybody else, I'm totally in love with the dinosaurs in the new catalog and I had to get them even though I have an older dinosaur stamp set.  I used a sketch and color challenge for this, and although I love the sketch and the color challenge, this card feels a little out of balance to me.  I think it's too heavily weighted to the left; if the T-Rex was facing the other direction I think it would work better for me.  Dangit.

Anyway, here's the fabby colors from The Color Throwdown:

I mixed two old In Colors with two new ones:  Baja Breeze (still so sad it's retired!), Crisp Cantaloupe, Tip Top Taupe, and Cucumber Crush.

And here's the Mojo Monday sketch:

So I'm thinking about sending this card to my dad because he could use some encouragement right now, but I also don't want him to think I'm comparing him to a dinosaur.  Hmm.

Ok, I'm off to work on some other to-dos on my list.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  No Bones About It
Ink:  Crisp Cantaloupe, Cucumber Crush, Tip Top Taupe, Versamark
Paper:  Cucumber Crush, Crisp Cantaloupe, Baja Breeze, Tip Top Taupe, Whisper White, Cucumber Crush DSP
Accessories:  Star punch (retired), 1 3/4" circle punch, Dimensionals, white EP

Plum Birthday

Howdy, peeps!  How's your Wednesday going?  I actually got up early (for once) and got some things done on the computer this morning, which means I can spend the afternoon either playing in my craft room or working on some stitching :)

I just loved the latest color challenge from Create with Connie and Mary, but I missed the cutoff for it by ten lousy minutes.  Dangit!  Here it is anyway:

I think Perfect Plum and Sahara Sand are both under-utilized in color challenges, and I do love them paired with Mint Macaron.  Yay.  I can still enter this card at SUO Challenges since I used a butterfly...yeah, the only hard part of that challenge was choosing *which* butterfly image to use!

I also used a sketch from Clean & Simple Stamping:

Fantastic sketch.  Between that and the color challenge, my card took like ten minutes to make.

Anyway, before I start my hectic afternoon schedule (ha), I'd better grab some lunch.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Perfect Plum
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Perfect Plum, Whisper White, new Mint Macaron DSP
Accessories:  Butterflies Thinlits, Circles Framelits, Dimensionals, pearls