Church of the Spilled Blood

Scrappy Monday, folks!  And since it's Memorial Day, I thought I'd share a scrapbook layout about a different kind of memorial.

This was one of the churches we visited in St. Petersburg during our 2014 Baltic cruise; after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, the Romanov family had the church built on the site of the assassination.  The interior is covered with amazing and beautiful mosaics.

Today's color palette:  Crushed Curry, Cherry Cobbler, Tranquil Tide, Midnight Muse, and Whisper White.  This is when I discovered that all my Midnight Muse markers are dried out.  I haven't invested in the new SU! markers yet, but that is in the plans.

Have a great day, folks.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letterpress Alphabet, Rough Edges Alphabet, Positive Thoughts
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Midnight Muse, Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Crushed Curry textured, Tranquil Tide, Thick Basic White, Dashing Along DSP
Accessories:  None

Night at the Lagoon

This week has been even more chaotic than I thought it would be when I scheduled posts for this week--on Tuesday morning Ryan came down with PINKEYE.  I had to take him to the ER on Tuesday morning (didn't have time to wait to get an appointment at the pediatrician) and we got back to the house ten minutes before the hubs had to leave to sell his car.  Ryan is doing better now but it seemed to be a worse case than what he had back in February.  Man, this move has been stressful!

Anyway, I got four new stamp sets last week right before I packed up my craft room, and I managed to squeeze in just enough craft time to make a card or two with each of the stamp sets.  Today's card features two of my new acquisitions, Night of Flight and Next Destination:

And the Inked Botanicals DSP for that matter, which I used for a lot of the cards I made.  I'll be sharing those over the next few weeks so it's not just crickets chirping here on my blog while all the stuff is in transit to Texas.

Lucky for me, this card fits in the current Paper Players challenge:

I used the second-largest moth stamp from the hostess set Night of Flight, for some reason this stamp set is really appealing to me.  I used Blends to color it in, though when I get my next craft room set up I'll have to try embossing the moths on colored cardstock and see what other looks I can come up with.

Hope your week is less chaotic than ours is.  And to think, we're going to be moving again a year from now!  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  Oh well, needs must.  Cheers!

P.S. Joanne, if you happen to read this, my craft room is all packed up and on its way to America, but I still managed to make a cup of tea this morning because I still have my electric kettle : ) Priorities!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Night of Flight, Next Destination
Ink:  Night of Navy, Lost Lagoon, Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon & Pool Party
Paper:  Pool Party (card base, which you can't see), Thick Basic White, Inked Botanicals DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies

Cherry Lemonade

Mornin' y'all!  We are in the thick of the pack-out process, but I absolutely made the most of my limited crafting time last week and made several cards on Thursday and Friday before everything went bananas starting this Monday.  So here's one of the cards I made:

I was inspired by the mood board at Hand-Stamped Sentiments:

All those lemons made me reach for Lemon Lolly as the card base, but I decided to go with a cherry rather than a strawberry or blueberry.  Hey, it's all berries, right?  And I just like the Sweetest Cherries stamp set.  Plus, how great do Lemon Lolly and Sweet Sorbet look together!

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sweetest Cherries, Share a Milkshake
Ink:  Versamark, Sweet Sorbet, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Lemon Lolly, Starry Sky, Sweet Sorbet, Thick Basic White, Bright & Beautiful DSP
Accessories:  Cherry builder punch, Nested Essentials dies, white EP, Border Basics dies, LLT sequins, Dimensionals

Under the Sea with SUO Challenges

Mornin' y'all!  It's day two of our pack out and I'm already ready to be done with the moving process already.  Every time we move I think we have too much stuff and yet we always seem to accumulate more!

Anyway, it is time for another challenge from SUO Challenges!

Our theme this time around is Under the Sea...use shades of blue and/or sea creatures.  I didn't get the current oceanic stamp set (well, I do have On the Ocean, but today's challenge is about under the waves) so I went with blues for my card:

I figure that this plant might very well be an undersea type of thing so why not?  Also I continue my love affair with Azure Afternoon paired with Blueberry Bushel.  The background pattern is from the Bright & Beautiful DSP stack, true to its name it has lots of bright colors in it and I've been having some fun playing with the different patterns.  This watercolor wash was perfect for the challenge theme.

Hope you'll take a dive into this challenge and upload your card at the SUO Challenges blog.  As Sebastian says, it's better down where it's wetter, take it from meeeeee!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nature's Prints
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel, Azure Afternoon, Versamark
Paper:  Azure Afternoon, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Basic White, Bright & Beautiful DSP Stack
Accessories:  Natural Prints dies, white EP, Dimensionals, white sequins

Sweet Home Alabama

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  This is it, everything really kicks in to high gear today:  the packers arrive.  It's going to be a crazy week of having the house packed up and all that chaos that goes along with moving (especially moving overseas, from Germany back to the States).  So anyway, I thought I'd share a layout from a different move, when we arrived in Alabama after three and a half years in England.

Okay that pic of the hubs playing with the undergarments to my wedding dress makes me giggle, and really there could be no other title for these pictures than Sweet Home Alabama.  And I miss my sweet little Vader.  In the lower left corner, I included one of the address labels that I used for the 10 months that we lived there; I always get address labels every time we move and I have an entire stack of labels from all our previous addresses.  When we stop being nomadic, maybe I'll make a layout of nothing but the different address labels and pics of each house...I hope I *took* pics of all the houses!  Hmm.

Today's color palette:  Azure Afternoon, Crumb Cake, Poppy Parade, and Blueberry Bushel.  I'm going to need A LOT of Azure Afternoon 12x12 cardstock, I love it!  Missy was asking me what my favorite new SU! color is, and Azure Afternoon was the first to pop in my head.  Though I have really enjoyed playing with all the new core colors (and I've kind of ignored the new In Colors because they are comparatively dull and boring).

Anyway, time for me to supervise the pack-out of my craft room.  Send chocolate.  No, wait, don't--I mailed two large boxes of chocolate to Texas last week so that it wouldn't spend months in a shipping crate and leave me with a sad chocolate puddle on the other side.  Who has TWENTY-SEVEN POUNDS of chocolate in their house as a matter of course?  Me, apparently.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sweet Shoppe Alphabet Upper & Lower, Metro Type, Be the Star, Paris in the Spring
Ink:  Azure Afternoon, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Azure Afternoon, Poppy Parade, Blueberry Bushel, Crumb Cake, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stars dies

Cards for Peking

On Thursday I actually did manage to get several things done, and I rewarded myself with a bit of time in my craft room.  On Thursday morning, Ryan informed me that it was Peking's birthday--Peking is his favorite duck stuffie, and previously he had the same birthday as Ryan only he was a year younger.  Apparently ducks' birthdays are more changeable than people's birthdays.  So Ryan told me that Peking liked the color yellow, ducks, Batman, and Spiderman, and charged me with making a birthday card for him.

Yeah, I made a card for a stuffed animal.

I pulled out Barnyard Babies for this because it has a duckling stamp, and it fit in well with the Retro Rubber tic-tac-toe challenge.  And because I cannot resist a good pun, the inside says "Hope your day is just ducky!"  Here's the challenge graphic:

I went down the left side, with birthday, circle punches, and watercolor pencils to color the ducklings.  Thought it would be fun to break out the Butterfly Kisses DSP Stack again.  Barnyard Babies joined my collection in 2016, so it's a year older than Ryan ; )

The little duckling stamp also fit with the latest Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch:

So this was a fun card to put together as a diversion from the moving chaos, which is getting more chaotic by the day.  When Ryan got home, he was excited to see Peking's card, and he also wanted to make one himself, so he did.

Gotta love the fake smile.  You can see part of Peking on the craft table, too.  He's looking a bit shabby since he's been Ryan's daily companion for nearly all of Ryan's life.

And here is Ryan's creation:

He decided to stamp the chicks for his other stuffie, Chickie-Boo, and the ducklings for Peking.  I told him I didn't have Ryan stamps or Mama and Daddy stamps, so he drew the people on there, and lots and lots of hearts because he loves his duck.  Here's the inside:

Okay I am ded of teh cute.  At first he wanted to dictate to me what to write, but I encouraged him to do the writing and I just told him how to spell.  That word with the backwards Z is "amazing".  And the card is currently standing up on the windowsill in Ryan's room where Peking can see it.

For real now, I need to start packing things up in the craft room.  Ryan did help start on the ink pads on Thursday afternoon...I always rubber band them shut and then put each one in a plastic baggie just in case the ink pad leaks.  I've done this for every move for the last 15+ years and since we move so often I just keep the plastic baggies and rubber bands in a storage tote and reuse them.  And only once have I had an ink pad leak, but it was all contained in the baggie.

Maybe I'll make one last card before I pack 'em up stack 'em up...

Supplies, my card:
Stamps:  Barnyard Babies
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Starry Sky, Calypso Coral, Parakeet Party, Thick Basic White, Butterfly Kisses DSP Stack
Accessories:  Circle punches, watercolor pencils, Dimensionals

Guest Designer: Countryside Thoughts

Bonus blog post!  I am honored to be the guest designer at As You See It Challenges today!  This time around it's a recipe challenge, take a look:

As soon as I saw "flowers" and "shades of blue", I thought of the Countryside Inn DSP which I haven't played with a lot yet, so of course that was my first pick for my card.  Here's what I made:

I started by cutting out the white frame with the Deckled Rectangles dies, and then used different sizes of the same dies for other elements on the card front.  Luckily I have some Night of Navy ribbon that looks great with the patterned paper, and I tied that around my frame.  So I had all of the background elements picked out, and then had to think for a bit about what to use for the main image and sentiment.  I landed on Nature's Prints, because it's always fun to play with that one and I thought it went well with the DSP.

I hope you'll join in the fun at As You See It Challenges, and thanks again to the AYSI team for inviting me to play along as a guest designer.  I'll be back in a couple of months once my new craft room is set up after the move.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nature's Prints
Ink:  Versamark, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Misty Moonlight, Boho Blue, Thick Basic White, Countryside Inn DSP
Accessories:  Night of Navy bordered ribbon, white EP, Deckled Rectangles dies, Milky Dots, Dimensionals