The Scenic Route

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan had a GREAT morning at farm camp yesterday, he got to hold a baby duckling and chicks and a bunny and also they made pickles.  It's overcast and misty today but I'm sure they'll still do fun stuff.

I got some crafty time yesterday and I just really really really like today's card:

I will admit, I was inspired by our trip to Yellowstone as much as I was the Inspired By... Challenge (more Yellowstone pics at the bottom of this post if you're interested), but here's what I started with:

I used Very Vanilla, Soft Succulent, and Cinnamon Cider for my colors, with some Early Espresso for the greeting.  I flipped through all my newish stamp sets in the packaging that I haaaaaate and I came across Outdoor Adventure and Weekend Adventures and I quickly put this card together, I love it.  We did not see any foxes in Yellowstone, but I bet they were pretty close to us, they're just better at hide 'n seek.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Outdoor Adventure, Weekend Adventures
Ink:  Soft Succulent, Cinnamon Cider, Early Espresso
Paper:  Cinnamon Cider, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, Outdoor Adventure dies, Dimensionals

Okay, so here's some pics from day 2 at Yellowstone!

We started out the day in the Norris Geyser Basin where we saw lots of (you guessed it) geysers, as well as steam vents, fumaroles, steam vents, and mud pots.  Pretty much looked like an alien landscape, and here we are in front of Steamboat Geyser.

What a difference a wooden boardwalk makes?

Then we drove up to the north to the Mammoth Hot Springs area.  Ryan got a good education last week in what sulfur smells like.

See, it looks like you're on another planet.

Daveeey, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!

We drove west through Lamar Valley and isn't it beautiful?  Also Peking got to come and Ryan got a cardboard bus with his lunch, which he named...Bus.

More sulfur!

This buffalo was just chilling like 10 feet away from the boardwalk which made stupid tourists think they could go right up to the end of the boardwalk, as if a rickety little fence is going to even slow him down if he takes offense to the tourists right near him.  I felt like *I* was too close and I was at least 25 yards away.  Luckily he seemed disinclined to bestir himself to teach any lessons in respecting wildlife.

Ryan and I joked that this pic would go on this year's Christmas cards.

And the Yellowstone gift shops have a book to help you identify what creature left its mark in the park : )

Huckleberry Tea

Mornin' y'all!  Guess what?  We spent last week up at Yellowstone National Park!  I set up all my blog posts before we left : )  Our trip was AMAZING and I'll share a few pics at the bottom of this post if you're interested, but our Yellowstone trip also factored into my card for today:

Time Out Challenges wants a card featuring a favorite (or favourite, if you're fancy) beverage, so I had to make one to coordinate with the tin of huckleberry tea I bought while we were at Yellowstone.  I'm actually sipping my first cup of this as I type; it reminds me a lot of Republic of Tea's blackberry sage flavor.  Anyway, here's the challenge graphic:

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tea Shoppe
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Garden Green
Paper:  Gorgeous Grape, Thick Basic White, Hydrangea Hill DSP, Garden Green DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Perennial Postage dies, Dimensionals, Pearls of Beauty

Keep on scrolling if you want to see a few pictures from our trip.  Not a lot, just some from the first couple of days.

I had to get this tea towel (I like to hang a towel on my oven door) to match the huckleberry tea, and I also got huckleberry honey and jam which I haven't tried yet.

We left out super early last Sunday morning and drove to a little town in Wyoming whose name I don't remember, but on the way in the middle of nowhere (like 40 miles from the nearest gas station middle of nowhere) I found a used book store!  And they had lots of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, plus a stack of Hank the Cowdog books for Ryan!

We had dinner at a place called Nana's Bowling and Bakery, and we did indeed go bowling and buy some cookies the size of Ryan's face.  Plus Ryan got to ride a mechanical bull.

On Memorial Day, we drove in to Grand Teton National Park and isn't this GORGEOUS.  I did nothing to edit this picture other than shrink it down a bit to post on the blog.

We took a boat across Jenny Lake, then hiked about a bazillion miles back to where we started.  Late in the afternoon, we drove further north into Yellowstone.

And we saw elk!  With teefers!

And here's a shaggy buffalo for you, which Ryan insists is a bison but I will say buffalo because that was my high school mascot.  We were less than 15 minutes away from our hotel when we had the coolest thing happen:

This grizzly bear just popped out of the woods next to the road, less than twenty yards from us!  It's the only grizzly we saw during our time in Yellowstone but I never imagined we'd be this close (we were safely in the car).  I will be going through more of our pics today so I'll share just a few highlights this week, but for now, I need to get Ryan sunscreened up so he can go to his first day of farm camp.  Cheers!

Happy Tic-Tac-Toe for The Paper Players

Hey y'all, happy Sunday!  That means it's time for a new Paper Players challenge : )  Hope you enjoyed LeAnne's sketch last week, and now we're on to a tic-tac-toe board brought to us by the lovely Joanne!

What caught my eye first and set the direction for my card was yellow, and then I ended up making a C for the tic-tac-toe with everything but stenciling and the free space because I couldn't really think of anything on my card that wasn't covered by the other options.  Well, maybe the dot embellishments?  Here's what I made:

I have die cuts (four dies from three different sets), flowers, multiple circles between dies and embellishments, yellow, a happy sentiment, patterned paper, and layers.  I initially started out with the smaller circle cut out of the Old Olive pattern, then decided I needed a bigger circle, and then I turned the first circle over to see what the pattern was on the other side and then I ended up using both circles which gave me an extra layer.  And it all started with seeing yellow on the TTT board and deciding that I needed to use the Floral Delight DSP.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Happy Watercolor
Ink:  Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Old Olive, Thick Basic White, Floral Delight DSP
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Thoughtful Expressions dies, Dimensionals, Ombre Matte Dots

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!

The Secret of the Forgotten City

Hey y'all and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we're taking a look at Nancy's 52nd adventure, The Secret of the Forgotten City:

Oh hey look, *another* mostly brown cover (see Double Jinx, Crossword Cipher, and 99 Steps) but I suppose this one is different because it's a lighter, warmer brown than the others.  I do like the composition though, with the cool rock formation and silhouetted figures in the background.

Case file:  The Drew Crew surprises Nancy with an archaeological trip to Nevada at the same time as a First Nations woman approaches Nancy to see if she can solve the mystery of a bunch of stone tablets with carved petroglyphs on them.  Why don't my friends ever surprise me with archaeological expeditions?  On second thought, it's just as well they don't because outside is where the bugs live.  Anyway, Nancy desecrates yet another First Nations grave and finds yet another buried treasure.

Here's my card:

One of the bad guys (because there's always bad guys) puts a sidewinder snake in Nancy's car at one point of the book, and George grabs it with her bare hands and then calmly tells the others to drive her out of town so she can release it back into the wild.  Okay, George.  As it happens, I have a snake stamp in the Ancient Art stamp set, which I thought might be a nod to the petroglyph plot in the book, and I paired it with a weathered pattern from the Earthen Textures DSP.

I pondered what greeting to put on here before I decided to leave it without one and just do the snake in three shades of brown.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ancient Art
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Copper Clay, Early Espresso
Paper:  Copper Clay, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Earthen Textures DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Earthen Matte Dots

And I do have a second card for this book:

Before they leave on the expedition to Nevada, the entire Drew Crew comes over for dinner at Nancy's house and Hannah makes apple snow pudding with raspberry sauce for dessert, which is something I had never heard of before but now I want to try making it since I found recipes online.  For now I decided to make a sort of sepia-toned card with Apple Harvest.

I chose a patterned paper with metallic accents since Nancy is once again after a golden treasure.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Copper Clay, Ivory, various neutrals, Chalk pen
Paper:  Early Espresso, Creamy Caramel, Very Vanilla, All About Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Apple Harvest dies, Dimensionals, Brushed Metallic Dots

Okay y'all, I finally have a contender for Worst Nancy Drew Book Ever to compete with Ivory Charm.  This is the THIRD time that Nancy has dug up a First Nations grave (see the revised text of Hollow Oak and then Pine Hill) and somehow the treatment of First Nations culture gets progressively worse in each book.  Nancy and her friends unearth a skeleton in this book with no supervision from an actual accredited archaeologist, wire it together, then take it back to base camp that night and MAKE IT DANCE AROUND THE CAMPFIRE.  Zero respect.  Ned and his friends must change their college majors every other week to facilitate Nancy's cases, they were something biology-related for Spider Sapphire and then Ned was working with lasers in Glowing Eye, not to mention his interest in international business in Fire Dragon, and now they're pretend archaeologists.  And now Nancy can speak a more obscure Spanish dialect to talk to some gold prospectors who are looking in the wrong place, and she's able to figure out the story of the petroglyphs on the tablet despite having no knowledge of First Nations cultures that we've ever heard about.  Can you tell my favorite part of this book is the mention of apple snow pudding?  One half star for the pudding.  If you're inspired to make a card, please leave me a comment below!  And check back next week, when we take to the skies to investigate The Sky Phantom.

A Sweet Donkey

Hey y'all, and happy Friday!  I had to have another go at the Paper Players sketch for this week, take a look:

I know lots of stampers are super excited about all the Winnie the Pooh stuff that's out now (both SU! and otherwise) since that work entered public domain in the States recently.  I'll admit that Winnie the Pooh isn't really my fandom (see Star Wars and She-Ra), but if I had to pick a favorite it would be Eeyore, so I did get an Eeyore stamp set from Ink Road...like several years ago...and seeing all the Winnie the Pooh stuff out now finally inspired me to ink it up.  Here's the Paper Players sketch to refresh your memory:

I did look up pictures of Eeyore online to get colors and there's some variation, but the more colorful version pretty much perfectly matches the Hydrangea Hill DSP that came out a few years ago.  I colored Eeyore in with Seaside Spray, Rococo Rose, and Highland Heather Blends.  I am really having some fun revisiting some older DSP lately.

That's it for me today, peeps.  Have a great day!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Donkey with an E by Ink Road Stamps
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Seaside Spray, Thick Basic White, Hydrangea Hill DSP
Accessories:  Rectangles Stitched dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Pastel Pearls

Mid-Mod Inspo

Mornin' y'all!  Hope you've got your sunglasses ready because I went All In on the bright colors today!

Check out the really fun inspo pic from the Just Us Girls challenge:

I saw where my Paper Players teamie Elizabeth posted her card for this challenge and I just *had* to play along, pretty sure this is the first time I've participated in the JUGS challenges.  Actually I was looking for stamps for a different challenge when I ran across Flores Misticas in my hoard and thought it would be fun to pair with the colors in the inspo pic.  I found a large and in charge sunny greeting in the aptly named Sunny Sentiments.  I really had fun with this challenge, I do love me some bright colors.  And it was really fun to play with Flores Misticas since I've only used it once before this card and it's got such a fun style.

That's it for me today, peeps.  Go forth and conquer!  Or, maybe just spread sunshine.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Flores Misticas, Sunny Sentiments
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Pumpkin Pie, Lovely Lipstick, Versamark
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Pumpkin Pie, Lovely Lipstick, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  White EP, Dimensionals, Opaque Dots

Pink Strawberry

Mornin' y'all!  How's your week going?  Today I have yet another card that I made in my marathon session last Friday, take a look:

I was all set to make a cupcake card for the TGIF inspiration challenge:

And then I came across that Berry Delightful DSP in my stash and I just *had* to use it instead.  I liked how the watercolor style of the patterned paper coordinates with the artwork style on the inspo pic and I had never cut into that strawberry pattern before, so I had to use it.  One stamped pink strawberry and a greeting and I have a berry cute card!  I really do like this DSP pack, it's got some really pretty berry-based patterns in it.

Anyway, that's it for me today.  Have a berry good day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Berry Blessings, Sweet Strawberry
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Granny Apple Green, Garden Green
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Garden Green, Thick Basic White, Berry Delightful DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Circles Collection Framelits, Strawberry Builder Punch, Dimensionals, Rainbow Dots