2015 Season's Greetings Colorblock

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  These layouts have been languishing in my draft posts folder for a very long time, so I'm finally posting them today!  Every year, I do a collage layout (or multiple layouts) with the photo Christmas cards we receive.  I say "every year", but I haven't done the last two years yet (oops).  So I'm reminding myself to get with it and catch up!

I just pick a pack of DSP and cut down pieces to fit around the Christmas card photos until it looks like a patchwork quilt.  They really don't take too long to do and it's a great way to use up scraps of patterned paper.

Most of the time there's minimal stamping on these layouts, but I do some kind of title.

So for this particular year I had quite a few cards to fit in!  It took two full layouts and one extra single page.

And that's it!  Easy peasy.  So as soon as I finish the baby book, I'm going to knock out a few of these.

Today's color palette is straight out of the Season of Cheer DSP (which I totally love):  Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz, Soft Sky, and Whisper White.  It's not possible to coordinate with every single photo card, so I just pick whatever patterned paper I like that year and go with it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Larger Than Life Alphabet & Numbers, Many Merry Messages
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Real Red, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Season of Cheer DSP
Accessories:  Curly Label Punch

Punny Deer

Hey y'all!  I am officially more than half done with my nephew's baby book--9 layouts out of 17, so whoop!  Still bustin' a move to get the other ones done before Christmas but I'm feeling pretty good.

So I took some time out and made a card yesterday and it made me giggle because I love puns.

Do you see it?  "Hold most dear" with a DEER?!  I crack myself up, and that's what matters ;) I had started out with a different sentiment there, but I needed something narrower to accommodate the sketch I was using, and then the deer thing made me snort-giggle so I had to do it.  Also, the colors are off in the picture because it was dark when I took the photo and my Ott Lite is dying after many years of service.  So I'll retake this in daylight and edit.  (ETA:  Slightly better picture uploaded.)

Anyway!  The sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

The deer is standing in (literally and figuratively, haha) for the teal strip on the sketch.

I also used this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Coastal Cabana (sponged sky behind the trees), Shaded Spruce (a bit darker than the photo here, but I think still acceptable), gold, and white.  Plus some Early Espresso for my deer.

Have a great weekend, peeps.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nature's Beauty, Rooted in Nature, Greatest Part of Christmas
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Coastal Cabana, Early Espresso, Versamark
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Thick Whisper White, Wrapped in Plaid DSP
Accessories:  Gold EP, Dimensionals, corner rounder punch

Cozy Snowmen

Mornin', y'all!  I am still working hard on my nephew's baby book, so that's taking time away from making cards.  I have six layouts (out of 17) completely finished, and four more in various stages of completion; all the others have been planned out in my sketchbook.  Really this book is coming together really, really fast, but I'm kinda hoping to send it back to Texas with my parents when they come out here for Christmas, so I've gotta keep bustin' a move here.

Buuuut I had to take time out yesterday to make a card.

It doesn't quite show up in the photo, but the sentiment is embossed with the Shimmery White embossing powder, so it's got a bit of glitter to go with the trees in the right square.  This is for three challenges.  First up is the sketch from Global Design Project:

And the theme challenge from the Paper Players:

I don't have the Snowman Season stamp set that coordinates with this paper (Who *does* that?!  I just ordered it yesterday, along with some fun stuff from the upcoming mini and Sale-a-Bration catalogs) so I just used my trusty Stitched Shapes dies to cut out a couple of squares from the Let It Snow Specialty DSP.  Speaking of which, the Sunday Stamps color challenge was made for that paper!

The colors are Flirty Flamingo, Real Red, Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel, and Shaded Spruce; if you look closely at the snowman print all of those colors are in there somewhere.  Since I don't have the snowman stamp set, I used a sentiment from Merry Moose instead.  Uh, I need to use the moose soon too!

Okay, back to work.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Merry Moose
Ink:  Craft Whisper White
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Shaded Spruce, Real Red, Let It Snow Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes & Stitched Nested Labels Dies, Shimmery White EP, Mini Dimensionals

Santa's Elves

Wow, I can't believe it's December already!  And that means it's time to bust out the Christmas scrapbook pages :D  I have quite a few draft posts all ready to go.

I put headbands on Sadie and Vader and hubs says this is why dogs bite people.  Ah, I miss my little Vader man so much.  I miss Sadie right now too, but that's because she's been in a kennel since last Tuesday when we left for a Thanksgiving trip to Alabama, and I'll be picking her up today (we got home on Saturday night, but this kennel doesn't do pickups/dropoffs on Sundays so we had to wait).  Anywha, I used last year's supercute Signs of Santa stamp set and the coordinating Santa's Workshop DSP for this.  Poppy Parade is the page base but you can only see it along the top border and around the journaling.

Today's color palette includes the aforementioned Poppy Parade along with Garden Green, Pool Party, Pistachio Pudding that I forgot to put in the palette, and Whisper White.  The photo mats are alternating Pool Party and Pistachio Pudding.

Hope your December is off to a great start!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Notable Alphabet, Signs of Santa
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Basic Black marker,  Crushed Curry marker Stampin' Blends in Poppy Parade, Pool Party, Petal Pink
Paper:  Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Pistachio Pudding, Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, Santa's Workshop DSP
Accessories:  Santa's Signpost Framelits

SUO Challenges: Dealing With Dies

Hey y'all!  It is time once more for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This time around, we want you to use your dies!  I use dies all the time so my first challenge was narrowing down which ones I wanted to use :)  I thumbed through all my current dies and chose Wild Rose.  At first I was going to do something all sweet and pastel, and then...this happened instead:

How about a Christmas rose instead?  I used the colors from the Wrapped in Plaid DSP and I used five different dies from the set.  I'd never used two of them, the gold border one and the navy blue sprigs behind the rose.  So yeah, I think this card counts as die-riffic.

Now it's your turn!  Make a card using dies and share it on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  To A Wild Rose, Greatest Part of Christmas
Ink:  Versamark, Night of Navy
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy, Shaded Spruce, Thick Whisper White, gold foil, Wrapped in Plaid DSP
Accessories:  Wild Rose dies, gold EP, Dimensionals

Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  How was your weekend?  I've made more progress on my future nephew's baby book, so that makes me happy.  I haven't heard Ryan make any noise yet this morning, so maybe I can sneak in my craft room for a few minutes and work on the next layout!

But for now, how about a couple of Thanksgiving layouts?

These pictures are from Thanksgiving in 2017, Ryan's first.  We were living in Virginia at the time; Bennet and Missy lived about 1 1/2 miles away, and Scott and Tiana drove down from New York to spend the holiday with us.  I think this was the first year we instituted the pajamas rule for Thanksgiving.  I don't know if we get to do that this time since we're going elsewhere for Turkey Day, but anytime Thanksgiving is at my house, pajama pants are the dress code.

That apple pie was hands down the PRETTIEST pie I've ever made.  I used a little cookie cutter thing (actually I think it was specifically made for pie crust but works the same as a cookie cutter) to cut out leaf shapes and then piled them on top of the pie.  It was a cranberry apple almond pie and sooooo delicious.

So here is today's color palette:  Peekaboo Peach, Cherry Cobbler, Granny Apple Green, Bermuda Bay, Gray Granite, Basic Black, and Whisper White.

Dangit, Ryan is awake now so no stamping time until he goes down for a nap this afternoon.  Oh well, time to get with it!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Well Said, Wonderfall, My Paper Pumpkin (the pie sentiment, love it!)
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Cherry Cobbler, Peach Parfait, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Peach Parfait, Cherry Cobbler, Bermuda Bay, Granny Apple Green, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Festive Farmhouse DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits

Mount Fuji New Year

Hey y'all!  I didn't mean to disappear this week, it just happened that way.  After I finished putting together Ryan's baby book on Sunday, I immediately started work on one for my future nephew.  I need to get through it pretty quickly (he's expected early to mid February) so I may be a little sparse with posting here for a bit.

In the meantime, how about a card with a limited edition stamp set?

The set is called New Year Celebrations and it's in the Japanese catalog, available here just until the end of the year.  Since I avidly collect Oriental stamp sets I had to get it :)  I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone else use it.  Or if I do, I don't remember...I've been pretty tired lately so it's possible.

My card was inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I turned the sketch on its side, and added the Poppy Parade banner under my circular sentiment (it says Happy New Year in kanji) to mimic having a sentiment that would be vertical on my card.

I also used this week's Color Throwdown colors:

I used Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, and Smoky Slate.  Tempting Turquoise would have been a better match for the blue color, but I was just using current stuff so there you go.

Well, I've got three layouts done for nephew's baby book, and 14 more to go!  I'd better get crackin'.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  New Year Celebrations
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, Smoky Slate, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Poppy Parade, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  circle punch, Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals