Lilacs Abound

Mornin' y'all!  I had the house all to myself last night other than Daphne, and she's kind enough to let me choose what we watch on TV, so I *finally* finished season 3 of The Mandalorian!  I loved it, I had to put down my stitching project to pay more attention to the show.  We didn't finish that until 9:30 last night and then I once again stayed up too late reading...I am flying through the Penny Parker mysteries which were written in the 1930s and 1940s by Mildred Wirt Benson, the first of probably many ghostwriters using the name Carolyn Keene to write Nancy Drew books.  These ones were written and released under her own name and I have been having a ball with them; I think I started on Friday and I've finished the first three.  Suffice it to say I was up past my bedtime.  Also they're free on Kindle and I like free stuff.

Anyway!  I have made quite a few cards of late so I do have not one, but two to share today.  Here's the first one:

I am fully aware that lilacs grow the other direction (pointing up) but let's just call this artistic license, shall we?  There was a house in our neighborhood in England that had lilacs in their front yard, and another one with lavender.  Lots of flowers in that neighborhood which made daily walks with the doggos more interesting as the seasons progressed.  Anyway, the colors from CAS Colours & Sketches had me thinking floral:

I must admit that I don't think Blackberry Bliss and Gorgeous Grape go together at all, so I solved that problem by stamping the lilacs in various strengths of Gorgeous Grape and then stamping the greeting in Blackberry Bliss, which came out so dark it looks almost black anyway.  I paired that with the sketch from AAA Cards Challenge:

I liked the lilacs bursting forth from the left side of the card and for some reason I'm not really feeling the urge to make 4th of July cards this year, so flowers instead of fireworks are the order of the day.  This card did take two tries though; the first time I started by stamping the stems first rather than starting with the flowers and this happened:

They ended up taking over more of the card front than I really wanted them to for the sketch, so I stopped working on this one and made the first card instead.  But then I decided that there was no reason not to finish out this card, and I frequently send similar but not identical cards to my friends Lori and Toby so here's my second card.  All the supplies are the same except I used Gorgeous Grape for the greeting instead of Blackberry Bliss.

I am going to do a nice restorative yoga session this morning before I take Daphne out for her walk, and then I need to do some straightening up around the house before I start crafting today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Blossoms Abound, Happy Greetings
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Garden Green, Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Garden Green, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Nothin' but a Stamp-a-ma-jig, these are CAS cards y'all

The Bluebird of Happiness

Mornin' y'all!  Hope your Monday is off to a good start.  It's a gorgeous day out side so as soon as I finish this blog post, I'll be taking Miss Daphne for her daily walk.  It's lovely to be out in the sunshine for 30 minutes every day.

But let's start with a card, shall we?  Once again I have pulled a couple of stamp sets out of retirement, here's my creation for today:

I could not resist making a card with Bird's Eye View after seeing this Inspired By... Challenge:

I did use Pumpkin Pie for my bluebird's belly, but I used the lighter Blend so it's not reading as orange as the inspo pic.  Still I think you can tell where I started.  Next up is last week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And I will admit, you kinda have to squint your eyes and tilt your head to one side to see the sketch, but it IS where I started.  The bluebird is the circle element and the tree branch is the long strip, which would have been closer to the sketch if I hadn't stamped the leaves on the branch but I just had to.  I added some clear gems for the foliage behind the circle element and added my greeting underneath.  So it's not as strict of a sketch interpretation as I usually do, but I promise that's where it started and I do really love how this simple little card turned out.  I loved playing with Bird's Eye View again.  I need to remember to ink up my Azure Afternoon ink pad though.

The great outdoors is calling, so Daph and I must go.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Bird's Eye View, Perennial Postage
Ink:  Early Espresso, Azure Afternoon, Stampin' Blends in Lemon Lime Twist, Crumb Cake, Azure Afternoon, Pumpkin Pie
Paper:  Azure Afternoon, Basic White
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, Clear Sparkle Gems

The Berry Best Sketch for The Paper Players

Hey hey hey, how's your weekend going?  Sunday means it's time for a new challenge from The Paper Players!  This week, the fabulous Joanne has an equally fabulous sketch for us:

My first thought was this is perfect to showcase some pretty patterned paper, and that's exactly what I did:

I had berries on the brain thanks to the Retro Rubber Challenge:

I had recently used the Berry Delightful DSP for another card, and since I bought a spare pack of it I was able to convince my dragon brain that it would be better to USE the paper than just stare at it in my hoard (the first, pack, at least, that second pack is still sealed in plastic).  I stamped a blackberry, leaves, and the greeting with Berry Blessings, which is five years old.  Retro in stamp years.

As it happened, I had pulled out the DSP and picked out what I wanted to play with before I got out the stamps, and I found some leftover stamped images from when I made this scrapbook layout so I made two more cards for a triple berry card pie:

I did have to argue with myself a bit about the card on the right, it was hard to cut into that sheet of paper with the blue plaid pattern...it's so pretty I want to hoard it!  These two cards came together super quickly since I already knew the measurements I had used for the first card.  All the berry and leaf images were already stamped and sitting in the stamp case, so these two cards count for the Inkspiratinoal challenge:

Check out the other design team creations on the Paper Players blog, and you can hop through their individual blogs to leave some comments too:

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier

Stef Perry

you are here --> Christy Stanford

And then upload your card at the Paper Players blog!  Keep in mind a few simple rules:
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL
4.  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU! (all 3 cards together)
Stamps:  Berry Blessings, Sweet Strawberry
Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Granny Apple Green, Garden Green, Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Rich Razzleberry, Poppy Parade, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Basic White, Berry Delightful DSP
Accessories:  Chalk Talk Framelits, Dimensionals, Artistry Blooms Sequins, Dear Dots

Mystery of Crocodile Island

Happy Saturday and welcome back to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  I hated to miss last week on account of painting the craft room (and entire master suite), but we're back today for Nancy's 55th adventure, Mystery of Crocodile Island: 

Hooray, it's a green cover instead of brown!  I do like the black trees framing the scene in the middle, nice and creepy, and who knew we needed a book cover featuring Nancy holding a piece of raw meat.  It looks like Nancy is guest starring on an episode of Crocodile Hunter (rest in peace, Steve Irwin) and really that's not far off from the story.

Case file:  Carson sends Nancy, Bess, and George to Florida at the behest of a friend (client?) to investigate a possibly shady business that the friend/client invested in before he realized that it was not on the up and up.  The business raises and sells crocodiles from the obviously named Crocodile Island, so the girls spend a lot of time snooping around on boats and discover that the firm is a front for smuggling something that I can't remember because it only comes out in the very last two pages or something.

Here's my card:

I knew pretty much from when I started this challenge that I was going to use Oh Snap for this book because it's perfect.  I stamped the croc and his bird friend in Early Espresso + Versamark on watercolor paper and embossed with clear EP, then painted them and fussy cut.  I found a suitably tropical looking pattern for my background.

You can see here I acquired a matte cover of this book sometime in between when I took pics of my collection and when we got to this challenge, because the top picture is the flashlight edition but same artwork.  The colors on the flashlight edition are a bit more saturated but I still think my card matches both of them pretty well.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh Snap
Ink:  Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Bumblebee, Versamark
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz, watercolor paper, Botanical Gardens DSP
Accessories:  clear EP, Radiating Stitches dies, Spotlight on Nature dies, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

I had the croc card done and could have posted it last week, but I really wanted to make a second card and here it is:

Like in the revised Lilac Inn (way back at #4), the bad guys in this one have their own submarine and I will never turn down an opportunity to break out Submarine Life for a card.  I found a nice Old Olive ombre pattern in the Color Theory DSP Stack, and stamped a bit of seaweed and some fishes along with my greeting.  I made the submarine Calypso Coral to kinda match Nancy's hair but my Calypso Coral ink pad is extra juicy at the moment so it's a bit darker than I intended.  I think I should have added some darker seaweed on the bottom but what can you do.

A simple card with a torn edge for the top of the water and you know my brain was singing "sky of blue, sea of green...in my coral submarine!" while I was making it.  And this is the first card I made after I got the craft room put back together after painting it.  Have I mentioned how much I love the refreshed look?  No more greige!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Submarine Life
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive, Basic Gray
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Basic White, Color Theory DSP Stack
Accessories:  submarine punch, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

This book does have some pretty wacky shenanigans; George buys what she thinks is a toy baby crocodile which turns out to be a real one and Togo tries to attack it, and then while visiting a private zoo, Nancy hops into an enclosure to feed a crocodile (told you she guest starred on Crocodile Hunter), and Carson's friend gets hit in the head by a high-speed golf ball.  This is Nancy's third visit to Florida (after the revised Moss-Covered Mansion and both versions of Black Keys), and this time she did some sightseeing at the real-life Cape Florida Light; an exhaustive minute and a half of Googling seems to indicate that the stories of the lighthouse in the book are actually historically accurate, which was interesting to me.  The girls also had time to rescue a child from drowning, find a message in a bottle, and dig up a few buried doubloons, so they were very busy even before the boys showed up near the end.  Anyway, I give this book four stars, I think it was pretty entertaining and you know I love bonkers things like crocodiles and crooks with submarines.  I didn't even mention the tree snakes yet, I told you there's a lot happening here.  If you're inspired to make something based on this book, leave me a comment!  And come back next Saturday (no delays this time) when Nancy searches for The Thirteenth Pearl.

A Perfect Beach Day

Mornin' y'all, and happy Friday!  After getting some severe thunderstorms earlier this week, it looks gorgeous out today so I'm looking forward to my daily perambulation with Daphne.  Mostly it has rained in the afternoons or evenings, so I've still gotten to take her for her walks this week, but yesterday I did think we might get rained on before we made it home (we did not).

Anyway, today's card is all about water of a different sort:

Joanne has used that new water mask and made it look so great that it's in my SU! shopping cart right now, but since I haven't bought it yet, I made a mask out of one of the Rolling Waves dies to give a watery feel to my backdrop (still looking forward to getting that other mask in the not-so-distant future).  I started with some juicy colors from As You See It:

I started out with one swimsuit stamped in Berry Burst and the other in Melon Mambo, but then I switched to both in Melon Mambo and stamped the greeting in Berry Burst, added a thin mat in that color around my pool, and some Berry Burst sequins.  I used this week's sketch from Atlantic Hearts:

I have the main elements there, and though I did change where a few things are I think you can see the original sketch in my design.  I'm also entering at Festive Friday:

I think I have purple, pink, and blue though you might debate me on that (I think Berry Burst is a shade of purple, Melon Mambo is hot pink, and Coastal Cabana is a blue), and I definitely have sequins and polka dots.  And earlier this morning I thought of another stamp that I could have used for this challenge so we'll see if I get a second card made : )

I'd better take Miss Daphne out for her walk before the insurance agent gets here...the hubs was out in his truck in the hail earlier this week and got hit pretty bad, so someone is coming to take a look at the truck today.  Which means I'm not driving anywhere since I'm not comfortable driving that big ol' truck, which means I will be doing crafty time after walking Daph.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sunny Splash, Rolling Waves
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Melon Mambo, Berry Burst
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Berry Burst, Coastal Cabana, Basic White, Lemon Lime Twist DSP
Accessories:  Perennial Postage dies, Rolling Waves dies, Tutti Frutti sequins, Dimensionals

Big Honkin' Thanks

Mornin' y'all!  Daphne says she is READY to go for her walk this morning so I'd better type fast.  How about a Silly Goose card for today?

I love this week's Creative Colour Challenge, I hadn't gotten to play along there in a bit:

I loved these happy colors together but I wasn't sure what stamps to pair them with until I saw Jaydee's Paper Players card for this week.  Yes, a goose is just what I need!  Then I had to tackle this sketch from Hand-Stamped Sentiments:

I did change the shapes of the two smaller horizontal layers just because my Stylish Shapes were right there and it made things easier.  I searched through my embellishments box and we need more stuff in Azure Afternoon, the only thing I have in that color is the recently retired Rainbow Dots and I only have two left in this color.  Also we need Crushed Curry Blends.  Get on that, SU!

Okay, Daphne has activated Puppy Dog Eyes Mode and I am helpless to resist, so we're going to head out on our walk.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Silly Goose
Ink:  Basic Gray, Stampin' Blends in Gray Granite, Daffodil Delight, Azure Afternoon
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Thick Basic White, Delightfully Eclectic DSP, Gray Granite & Azure Afternoon DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Textured Notes dies, Dimensionals, Rainbow Dots

Majestic Wolf

Mornin', y'all.  We had a big storm roll through last night around midnight, LOTS of lightning and I think it hailed too, so that definitely woke me up.  Then I woke up at five this morning but managed to go back to sleep for a little while, until Daphne made me get up.

Anyway, I did some rearranging of things in my craft room (again) yesterday and finally sat down to actually make some stuff late in the afternoon.  So here's one of the cards I made:

When my brother and his fam were here last week, we went to the Colorado Wolf & Wildlife Center, so I thought I'd make a wolf card to send them to say hey thanks for visiting.  The beginning of the tour was quite depressing (spoiler alert:  invading Europeans killed the vast majority of the wolf populations on this continent, and some people are still intent on eradicating them despite decades of scientific proof regarding how wolf populations improve the ecosystem of Yellowstone), but then we walked around with a guide and saw about a dozen wolves in different enclosures.  And also some coyotes.  At the end of the tour, the guide had us all do a big howl, and then the wolves howled back at us, which was pretty cool.

Anyway, my wolf card is for three challenges, starting with Just Add Ink:

I used Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, and Hydrangea Hue for my colors, and I kept the animal theme though I upsized from the kitten.  Next up is the sketch from Sunday Stamps:

Love this one and I'm glad I could squeak in my card before the deadline.  Last up is the Inspire. Create. theme:

I had this card planned out in my head for daaayyyyssss while we painted so I'm glad I finally got it out on paper.  And now I can mail it off, too.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wolf, Sanded
Ink:  Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, Hydrangea Hue
Paper:  Basic Gray, Hydrangea Hue, Basic White, Simply Marbleous DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, Dimensionals

And here's Daphne insisting that I get up this morning:

"Mahm, gets up NOWWW!"  She is not shy about shoving her cold wet nose at whatever bare skin she can find because she knows that's hard to ignore.  She's lucky she's cute!  I kid, even with her making me get out of bed when I'd rather be lazy I love my darling girl.  It was a very long 4 1/2 dogless years.  That's it for me today,  y'all, cheers!