Tropical Hello

Mornin' y'all!  We had a much quieter morning here today and Ryan got ready for school in time to ride his bike, so he's happy.  I've already taken Daphne for her walk and I've got a load of dishes in the dishwasher, so after I eat breakfast I can go out and run some errands and hopefully by the time I get back my new fall SU! goodies will be here : )

In the meantime, I have a tropical card: 

For reals, y'all, I am posting lots of FALL stuff starting tomorrow, bring on the warm colors and the fall leaves and the pumpkins and apples and Halloween everything, I am READY.  Anyway, I had to go tropical for the new challenge from Retro Rubber:

As soon as I saw it, Artfully Layered and the coordinating Artfully Composed DSP (both four years old) popped in my head and I had to use them for a card.  The dark strip on the right and the Pale Papaya script pattern were both scraps, but this is the first time I cut into the leafy pattern on the left and I am working on my goal to Just Use The Paper.  I like this week's sketch from Atlantic Hearts:

Once I had chosen that leafy pattern, I had to decide how to use the three green shades.  I chose Just Jade for my card base and main image just because I love that color, Pear Pizzazz is the only one that I had ribbon for so that choice was easy, and then I used Evening Evergreen for the greeting, background die cut, and gems.  All of the greetings in Artfully Layered are pretty large, so I found a teeny-tiny hello in All Year Cheer I and used that.  I think I got all three All Year Cheer stamp sets in the first year I was stamping so they're about 20 years old, how's that for retro!

That's it for now, peeps.  After I finish my tea it's time to start running errands and hopefully that won't wipe me out so bad that I can't work in my craft room afterwards.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered, All Year Cheer I
Ink:  Just Jade, Evening Evergreen, VersaMark
Paper:  Just Jade, Evening Evergreen, Basic White, Artfully Composed DSP
Accessories:  Artfully Layered dies, Pear Pizzazz taffeta ribbon, clear EP, Dimensionals, In Color Gems

Pastel Beach

Mornin' y'all!  Man, Ryan was in a snit this morning.  He was running a little too late to take his bike to school and he was extremely grumpy while I was driving him.  Hopefully he's in a better mood when I pick him up this afternoon.

In the meantime, how about a beach card?

I know, I said no more summer cards so in my mind this is winter at the beach mmmkay?  Also I get my new box o' fall goodies tomorrow and I am looking forward to that, lemme tell ya.

Anyway, back to my card for today, I thought I'd try to do a smaller scene with Rolling Waves for the Addicted to CAS challenge:

And I added on the Color Dare Challenge:

I used Barely Blush, Hydrangea Hue, Soft Succulent, and added some Basic Beige and Whisper White for neutrals.  Last up is the Time Out Challenge:

I was already planning a CAS card, so I decided on birthday for my other option.  I don't make a ton of birthday cards because 95% of what I send out is some form of hi - how ya doin' - thinking of you card, but it's still good to have a stash of other types of cards available.

Ya know, I think I might have to go make me a new cuppa...I'm trying to drink up some of my tea stash and the one I chose this morning is just tasting a bit weird to me today and it could be that it's just too old.  At least it was almost gone so I don't feel bad about tossing the last bit of it out.  So I'm going to go brew a new cuppa and take a look at some other blogs before I get to my chores for the day.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rolling Waves
Ink:  Hydrangea Hue, Soft Succulent
Paper:  Barely Blush, Basic Beige, Basic White
Accessories:  Rolling Waves dies, Nested Essentials dies, Mini Dimensionals, Classic Matte Dot

Perseverence

Mornin' y'all!  I have a cup of chestnut tea in front of me and a slice of yesterday's apple coffee cake for breakfast, eating a bit late because I had to drive Ryan to school (he lost his bike helmet somehow yesterday) and then go to the store (the hubs ran out of toothpaste).  So maybe I'm a bit slow getting started on the blog today but we're moving now.

And here's my card for today:

I quite like the inspo pic at Inspired By... this time around:

I zeroed in on the turtle on the upper left, but that frog on the bottom right is super cute too.  And the new sketch from Sunday Stamps is a classic for sure:

For my main image, I inked up the turtle in Soft Succulent and then inked the outside edges with Early Espresso and stamped it.  Then I used blending brushes to apply Soft Succulent and Crumb Cake ink for a distressed look, cut it out, and put it on a scrap of Crumb Cake cardstock cut with the Deckled Rectangles dies.  A perusal of my greeting stamps led me to Stepping Stones and I liked that message so that's what I went with.  The card base is Soft Succulent though it's coming across a bit more blue in the photo.  Still can't find a place to take my card photos that works 100% of the time.

Anyway, that's it for now.  I have a list of things to do today so I'd better get started.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nature Prints, Stepping Stones
Ink:  Soft Succulent, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Paper:  Soft Succulent, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Beauty of the Earth DSP
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, Dimensionals

Proud Colors for The Paper Players

Mornin' y'all and happy Sunday!  We had a small but mighty gallery for last week's Paper Players challenge from Jan, and I hope to see lots of players in this week's color challenge from Stef:

I went with Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Crumb Cake, and Real Red for my colors, which immediately made me think of the old retired favorite Fresh Prints (...of Bel Air, I can't help it) DSP stack which has the latter three colors in it so that put me three quarters of the way to the color combination.  And you know what I've had on the brain lately?

Yep, I did it, another peacock!  I went through the DSP stack first and I really liked that floral print with three of the colors in it, and the peacock from World Treasures seemed to match the style of artwork so I stamped him in Bermuda Bay to round out the challenge colors.  I did accent some of his feathers with some Coastal Cabana ink, but I kept the card very simple since the pattern is busy and the peacock's tail of course is also a lot visually.  I used a simple strip of Crumb Cake cardstock to ground the peacock and that gave me a place for a simple stamped greeting.  Almost everything I used on this card is retired, but that doesn't mean I can't still use those supplies to play with : )

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

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!
Stamps:  World Treasures, Express Yourself
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Fresh Prints DSP Stack
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Peacock Feather

Mornin' y'all.  Daphne made me get up earlier than I wanted to today so she's lucky she's cute.  Well, I'm up now so I might as well get to doing...as I mentioned yesterday, the Nancy Drew Challenge has been postponed until next week.  Miraculously I DID find the missing stamp yesterday, of course a few hours after I got a shipping notification from the eBay seller who sold me the replacement stamp set, but I only have one card out of the three ready to go so here we are.  At least I found the stamp and I'll just resell the replacement set when it gets here.

I did make an unrelated card to share today though:

The color on the peacock feather isn't showing up so well in this picture, let's try at an angle:

Oh yeaaahhhh.  I used some foil paper (I think it's Bermuda Bay but apparently I don't have the original label) for the die cut peacock feather.  I know I made another peacock card last week but I can't help it when Color Hues has these perfect peacock colors:

I used Night of Navy and Bermuda Bay for my colors, and my CAS layout is courtesy of CAS Colours & Sketches:

I found a pretty monochrome floral pattern in the Regal Winter DSP (one of my favorites) and used that as a backdrop for my feather.  One simple sentiment from the Royal Peacock stamp set and it's done.

Daphne is now giving me side-eye because she wants to go for a walk and it's already starting to get warm outside so we'd better hit the road.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Royal Peacock
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Whisper White, Regal Winter DSP, Bermuda Bay foil paper
Accessories:  Royal Peacock dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, Mini Dimensionals

Flip-Floppin'

Mornin' y'all, and thank goodness it's Friday, I am ready for this week to be over.  I have spent a lot of time this week making phone calls (I hate making phone calls) and trying to get some appointments set up and the whole process has been a long drawn-out frustration and so I decided that today I am taking the day off from all of that and I am going to make some art in my craft room.  First I will need more tea (I always need more tea) so I'd better put the kettle on.

Anyway, I have two cards to share today, so here's the first one:

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Creative Colour Challenge:

I made a fall card because I am 100% manifesting fall and summer can go kick rocks, gimme fall colors and pumpkins and apples and baking and Halloween and Thanksgiving and all the good stuff.  But I just wasn't loving that card and I thought you know what, those colors just really want to be a summer card.  So I grumbled and made this:

Same colors and sketch as before, though I changed the sketch to a landscape card because that "Summer Adventures" stamp is so wide.  And this card insisted that it had to be CAS, who am I to argue.  I had thought about entering my Dog Days card in the As You See It challenge:

But I worried that the Dog Days card wasn't quite on theme enough so I didn't, and now here I am with some flip flops which I hadn't used before from the Summer Happiness bundle.  However, I fully intend for this to be my last summer card this year because I am so ready for this summer to be over already, it's been tough with me dealing with bad fatigue issues and just not feeling well in general.  I am ready to turn over a new (fall) leaf, and on Tuesday I placed a nice fat Stampin' Up! order with some fall goodies to make my little goblin heart happy.  There's a bunch of cute Christmas stuff on preorder now too, but I didn't order any of it yet because I want to enjoy fall first.

Yesterday something happened that has never happened before...Calamity has befallen the warcraft room.  I LOST A STAMP.  I was working on a card for the Nancy Drew Challenge and I know I had that stamp, I clearly remember having it out when I was playing with some parts and pieces, but it has disappeared.  Poof.  I spent over an hour looking everywhere I could think of and nothing.  The hubs came home in the middle of me looking through everything on my craft table for the fifth time and bless 'im he said "Just order another one, then you'll find the one you're looking for."  By the end of the evening I was frustrated enough to do just that, but so far my original stamp is still in hiding.  Unless it magically turns up today, the Nancy Drew Challenge will be delayed by one week, which doesn't make me happy, but I think it's worth having the specific stamp I'm looking for and it's my challenge and my blog so I can do that.  Maybe if I stop looking for that lost stamp, it will appear?  One hopes.  Anyway, I am going to do my best today to not worry about the doctor's appointments or the missing stamp and just have fun making some art.  Maybe I'll put out all my fall and Halloween decorations too, that would make me happy.  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, leaf card:
Stamps:  Simply Leaves
Ink:  Real Red, Lemon Lolly, Azure Afternoon
Paper:  Real Red, Basic White, Lighter Than Air DSP Stack, Azure Afternoon DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Supplies, flip-flop card:
Stamps:  Summer Happiness
Ink:  Lemon Lolly, Azure Afternoon, Versamark
Paper:  Lemon Lolly, Real Red, Azure Afternoon, Basic White
Accessories:  White EP, Mini Dimensionals 

SSSmile

Mornin' y'all.  I'm feeling a little slow this morning but I'm hoping that I'll perk up now that I have my first cuppa in front of me.  I do love a good strong Irish Breakfast tea in the morning...or maybe two : )

Anyway, when I made my snake card for last Saturday's Nancy Drew Challenge, I had at first colored in the snake with Granny Apple Green and Golden Glow before I switched to Bubble Bath instead.  But I still had that green and gold snake image all cut out and ready to go, so here he is on a card:

My picture looks a bit dark but that's what I get for taking it when it was all misty outside and right now I'm trying to get this post written before my wireless mouse runs out of batteries so I'm not going to replace it.  Anyway, the AAA Cards Challenge was the perfect impetus to get Mr. Snakey here on a finished card:

And I paired that with the Festive Friday Challenge:

I already had white on my die-cut snake image, so I chose a frame to go around him and then the "SSSmile" sentiment because it made me laugh.  I almost put some embellishments on there, but with the little dots around the snake on top of the polka dot paper I decided I had better leave it alone.

Amusing anecdote time:  This summer, I spent a lot of time in the car driving Ryan to various summer camps which all seemed to be 30 minutes away, so we started playing a game in the car where Ryan would name a letter and then we'd trade off saying words that start with that letter.  Sometimes we'd do fake acronyms just to try to make each other laugh (there was one about a problematic turnip vs. a pretty tiger).  Anyway, whenever Ryan ran out of words, he'd just yell "SNAKE!" and choose a different letter.  Why snake?  I have no idea.  He also said "Why did I play this game with YOU when you know every word in the English language?!" but we had fun with it.

Okay, I'd better finish up before my poor mouse goes into a coma.  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Animal Notes from C.C. Designs, Nature's Symphony
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Granny Apple Green & Golden Glow
Paper:  Golden Glow, Early Espresso, Whisper White, Granny Apple Green DSP
Accessories:  Everyday Detail dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals