Eiffel Tower Encore

Mornin' y'all!  I did not let Ryan ride his bike or rollerblades to school this morning as it's supposed to be rainy and SNOWY this afternoon.  Like my dad says, does Colorado know it's May?  Ryan only has two more weeks of school after this one and we have snow in the forecast.  Wild.

Anyway, I have another Eiffel Tower card to share today:

Do I have at least four SU! stamp sets featuring the Eiffel Tower?  Yes.  Did I buy this Eiffel Grunge stamp set from Unity last week anyway?  Also yes.  Do I have impulse control issues?  Probably.  But come on, that's a cool Eiffel Tower!  I stamped it in my newly inked up Basic Gray ink pad, die cut it, and added some color to the flowers with a blender pen as well as Wink of Stella on the tower, which doesn't show up in the picture because it's shy like that.

I've hit all the ingredients for the As You See It recipe challenge:

One word sentiment:  Bonjour!  Die cut:  four dies from three different sets.  Flowers:  on the stamped image and the patterned paper.  Frame:  patterned paper around the main image panel.  Shades of pink:  Pink Pirouette (I love this pink, I have been playing with it again recently) and Pretty in Pink.  I tried a Regal Rose card base but I didn't like it, so I stuck with two shades of pink.

For the filigree pattern behind the tower image, I tried stamping it with Pink Pirouette ink but it came out blotchy, so I flipped the cardstock over and stamped it in VersaMark and embossed with clear powder.  That means my card counts for the Inspire. Create. Challenge:

You can't tell from the picture, but the filigree looks shiny if you look at it from an angle, the tower is subtly sparkly, and I added Pretty in Pink sparkle gems.  So yeah, this card also fits in perfectly with this week's Paper Players challenge:

And to go along with my Eiffel Tower cards of late, I recently started reading a book about an early medieval French and English queen.  I listened to several episodes of You're Dead to Me over the weekend, which is a history podcast produced by the BBC and it's really entertaining and informative, and one of the episodes was about Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Listening to that reminded me that I was pretty sure I'd bought a book about her at some point, and as I had just finished a book, I did a search on my Kindle.  I was wrong, I have SIX books about Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Ha!  Okay, one is about her daughters, but still.  I picked one of the biographies and got started on Sunday night, it's really interesting.  Eleanor is the only woman to have been queen of both France and England, she went on crusade with her first husband, she's the mother of Richard the Lion-Heart and the dastardly Prince John of Robin Hood fame, and her second husband locked her up for over a decade because she wouldn't do what she was told.  She still outlived him I think.  Fascinating lady.

I've just finished my tea so I should take Daphne for a misty and cold walk around the neighborhood; the rain and snow is supposed to start after noon so this is the time to go.  Cheers...or should I say, ciao!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Eiffel Grunge by Unity Stamps, Filigree, Carte Postale
Ink:  Basic Gray, Pink Pirouette, Soft Sea Foam, VersaMark
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Basic Gray, Thick Basic White, Pretty in Pink DSP
Accessories:  Eiffel Grunge die by Unity Stamps, Rectangles Stitched dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, clear EP, Dimensionals, Pretty in Pink Gems

E is for Eventually

Mornin' y'all!  I'm tired today...I woke up at 1am thinking that Ryan had yelled or something, but he hadn't, and then I had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep and more or less woke up on the hour until I finally got up at six this morning.  That's always fun.  So I'm going to drink two XL cups of tea before I get out with Daphne this morning.

So!  As I have said, I've been feeling a bit blocked creatively this week and it was driving me nuts yesterday as I was looking for a stamp set to go with the AAA Cards Challenge:

This image popped into my head of a stamp featuring flowers spilling out of an envelope, so I went searching through my hoard and...I don't have it?!  My brain was conflating that image with an old Sale-a-Bration stamp set which I do have (back when it was Sell-a-Bration) and while I do have a few stamp sets featuring envelopes, none of them was what I wanted.

Then my brain FINALLY decided to join the chat (hello brain, I have missed you) and I thought of something starting with E that was not an envelope or an elephant or the Easter bunny.  Those are all totally valid options, but I wanted to do something different.  So here's what I eventually made:

The Eiffel Tower!  And another excuse to use Artistic Etchings, YASSS.  I also embossed the tower with clear EP so I have two Es.  I wanted to add some embellishments (which would have been another E), but since this is for a CAS challenge I resisted the lure of all things shiny.  I thought the new Color Hues Challenge was perfect for this:

That looks like Berry Burst and Night of Navy to me.  I started with the card on the left, using Crumb Cake as a neutral for the script background (I inked up part of the background stamp using a sponge to keep it light, stamped it, and sponged more ink over that one corner) and then my Artistic Etchings stamps kept falling off the blocks so I had to get my Aleene's Tack It Over and Over glue and paint it on the backs of the stamps and let it dry for a while.  In the meantime I wondered what it would look like if I switched the neutral to Smoky Slate, so that's the card on the right and the answer is I need to ink up my Smoky Slate ink pad because it's a bit TOO light.  I let the glue on the stamps dry while I went to pick Ryan up from school and was able to finish both cards in short order when I returned home.

Yesterday I also did my preorder for new In Colors and stuff from SU!, and the new Peaceful Pine ink pad wasn't available and that was the color I'm most excited about (green is my favorite color) but I wanted to get some of the outgoing In Color 12x12 cardstock before it sold out so I submitted the order.  Wow, that was a run-on sentence.  A few hours later I got a notification that the Peaceful Pine ink pad was back in stock so naturally I had to do a second order...I might have gotten another stamp set and another color of cardstock while I was at it.  And some embellishments I missed the first time around.  Aside from new colors (I always love new colors), I splurged and got most of the Midnight Flora suite, I can't wait to see that DSP in person.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artistic Etchings, Carte Postale, French Script
Ink:  Night of Navy, Berry Burst, Crumb Cake, Smoky Slate, VersaMark
Paper:  Night of Navy, Basic White
Accessories:  Clear EP

So yesterday, Jan commented on my post (HI JAN!) and she wanted to see a picture of Daphne, and of course I am always happy to share pictures of my darling girl so here she is:

The oversize chair has turned into Daphne's throne and I just got her a new fluffy blanket to put on it.  She particularly loves that chair because she can see out the window into the backyard and the green space behind us to make sure all the neighbors are behaving and staying out of her territory.

This is what she looks like when she wants something:

And there's my current stitching project in the background, it's fun with the bright orange fabric.  Daphne does this impression of a baby seal when she has her ears slicked back, I'm sure she's trying to look more pathetic so I'll give in to what she wants.

Here's what Daphne looks like when she's being a pushy brat but tries to act like she's not a pushy brat when I take her picture:

Not buying the innocent act, Daph.  (She was shoving my arm with her nose until she saw me trying to take her picture.)  We got her DNA tested (that was a Christmas present to me from Daph last year) and she really is a supermutt.  She was listed as a German shepherd/Labrador mix at the shelter, which is 10% right; she's American bully/pibble/German shepherd/golden retriever/border collie with a bit of Australian cattle dog, Shar-Pei (!!), and Australian shepherd thrown in.  She's about the same size as our previous Lab mixes and weighs about 65 pounds.  She is my darling girl even when she's being a punk nugget, I adore her.

Okay, I'm nearly finished with my second cuppa, so I'm going to take the Daphinator out for her tour of the neighborhood, start some laundry, and hopefully get some work done in my craft room today.  Cheers, y'all!

The Mystery of the 99 Steps

Happy Saturday and welcome to the latest Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we are investigating The Mystery of the 99 Steps, Nancy's 43rd adventure.

We have a pretty cool Rudy Nappi cover here with a whole lot of steps and I really want Nancy's dress.  George's dress is good too, but she's still rocking Danny Zuko's hairstyle from Grease, like she was on the cover for Old Stagecoach.  That mysterious figure at the top of the stairs looks scary but it's Bess, who I'm sure is also wearing a lovely frock.

Case file:  We have another travel mystery as this time the Drew Crew is heading to France on two different cases.  While Carson has been hired to try to figure out why a French financier is suddenly behaving oddly, Nancy has been asked by a French lady to find out why she has recurring nightmares about falling while someone says "99 steps".  We get tourist time in Paris and the Loire Valley as well as lessons on medieval alchemy and Joan of Arc.

Here's my first card:

Actually I can't remember offhand if they talk much about the Eiffel Tower, but they go to Paris and I just had to make a Paris card.  Plus Artistic Etchings is an old favorite stamp set and I will accept any excuse to use it.  I have several stamp sets in French, with today's greeting coming from Carte Postale.

I used Terracotta Tile to match Nancy's dress and Pool Party for George's.  

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artistic Etchings, Carte Postale, French Script
Ink:  Terracotta Tile, Pool Party, Pecan Pie, Early Espresso, Cajun Craze Blend to color the rhinestones
Paper:  Terracotta Tile, Thick Basic White, Early Espresso DSP
Accessories:  some kind of label punch, I forget what, Dimensionals, Rhinestones

I couldn't stop with just one card though, so here's the second:

Since we have the alchemy angle in this mystery, I had to break out the It's a Science stamp set for some chemistry beakers.  And you know what, this is the very first time I've used that stamp set!  I knew it would come in handy sometime.

This time I used my favorite Fresh Prints (of Bel-Air) DSP, so the colors are Coastal Cabana, Real Red, and Crumb Cake.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  It's a Science
Ink:  Early Espresso, Coastal Cabana, Real Red, Versamark
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Thick Basic White, Fresh Prints DSP Stack
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, clear EP, Dimensionals, Delightful Dots, Wink of Stella

I was going to stop there, but then I decided I had to make a card to commemorate the Drew Crew's visit to Notre Dame, so here is my third card:

I had to get out the stained glass stamps from Painted Glass for Notre Dame's rose window.  Once again I tried to choose colors that coordinate with the book cover:

This time I did Coastal Cabana for George, but used Timid Tiger for Nancy, and incorporated Daffodil Delight for the book title.  Still kept quite a bit of Pecan Pie for all the brown on the cover of the book too.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Glass, Stacked Stone
Ink:  Early Espresso, Pecan Pie, Stampin' Blends in Daffodil Delight, Timid Tiger, Coastal Cabana, Pecan Pie
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Pecan Pie, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Textured Notes dies, Best Year Ever ribbon, In Color Flat Pearls, Earthy Matte Dots

This is another example of the mystery being secondary to the setting, but kid Christy loved the French tourist bit (I started taking French classes in middle school and would have gotten a minor in French if I had taken two more classes in college).  Adult Christy thinks the financier was just about the stupidest person ever--the fake alchemist has him convinced that he can turn coal into gold, which is a trick alchemists have been trying to pull since the Middle Ages so why is the financier so easy to fool?  All in all I give it three and a half stars.  If you're inspired to play along, leave me a comment on this post so I can see!  And come back next Saturday when Nancy investigates The Clue in the Crossword Cipher.

Bonjour

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan has a tooth that's trying to come out and there's DRAMA.  It wiggles enough that it hurts when he tries to talk or eat, but he won't just yank it out and of course he has a field trip today.  I kept hoping it would come out last night but nope.  So he had oatmeal for breakfast and was all mopey and even asked me to try to get the tooth out after I promised him ice cream once it's out, but it is still stuck in there surprisingly well for how much it's moving around.  In the end I had to send him to school with a pocket pack of Kleenex and a bitty plastic bag in case the tooth comes out while he's on his field trip.  Poor kiddo.

Anyway, I had meant to post my other Paper Players travel card yesterday afternoon, but I got distracted working on scrapbook pages (so excited to be scrapping again) so here it is now:

I took French classes starting in middle school and all the way through college; I was the only fourth year French student in my high school and I would have gotten a minor in French had I taken two more classes in college, but I balked at doing advanced French grammar.  Unfortunately my French language skills are now extremely rusty but you can bet I was super excited when we actually got to visit France.  Several times : ) This card will likely also go to Krissy because we took a trip to Paris together shortly after we first met.

Here's the Paper Players challenge graphic:

And this time I paired it with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I chose a piece of the Parisian Blooms DSP that has suitcases and postmarks on it, then a piece with fleur de lis for the banner on the sketch, and floated my stamped Eiffel Tower on the left.  I think what might have taken the longest was finding a sentiment small enough to go where I wanted it on my card, but eventually I found the perfect Bonjour in Carte Postale, which has been in retirement for a very long time.  But we have an active retirement community here at Snapdragon Stamps.

Anyway, that's it for now.  It is a gorgeous day today so Daphne and I will go enjoy our daily sojourn and then I'm back to scrapbook pages and trying not to fret too much about Ryan and his tooth.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Parisian Beauty, Carte Postale
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Cherry Cobbler
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Petal Pink, Thick Basic White, Parisian Blossoms DSP
Accessories:  Nested Labels dies, Parisian dies, Dimensionals, Champagne Rhinestones

Burg Thurant

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Birthday celebrations are done, for me at least--the hubs, Ryan, and Daphne all have their birthdays in February.  We had a busy weekend doing All The Things like the Pikes Peak cog train on Saturday and the ice castles near Cripple Creek yesterday.  I need to take a look at all the photos from the weekend and they'll be future scrapbook pages : )

For today's scrapbook layouts, I have another German castle.  We went to Burg Thurant on the same day we visited Burg Eltz, so these pages will be next to each other in my scrapbooks.

I actually liked Burg Thurant better than Burg Eltz; it's much smaller and cozier, and while Burg Eltz is still intact and inhabited, Burg Thurant is neither.  But I got a good vibe off it and we enjoyed our very short visit since we arrived like 30 minutes before they closed.

I was having fun taking some detail shots around the castle and Ryan got to hold a sword.

Today's color palette was inspired by the flowers all around the castle grounds:  Fresh Freesia, Daffodil Delight, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Pebbled Path, and Whisper White.  It felt a bit out of the ordinary for me, but I thought they worked well with the photos.

Time to get Ryan to school and for once there's no delay or anything, hurrah!  I was halfway expecting a delay or cancellation today because we got several inches of snow over the weekend, so I'm glad that I was wrong because that means after I go to the grocery store and walk Daphne, I get some crafty time.  Woohoo!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Letters for You, Carte Postale, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Thick Basic White, Watercolor Wonder DSP
Accessories:  1" and 1 1/4" square punches

Burg Eltz

Scrappy Monday, y'all, with an emphasis on MONDAY.  I was about to get Ryan out the door for his first day of soccer camp and we discovered a giant roach in the house.  So I took care of that, dropped Ryan off, and went to Walmart to buy Sphaghetti-Os because Ryan thinks they're a food group and we were almost out.  I was walking towards the store, minding my own business, when a big black bird whacked into my head!  (I don't know if he's a raven or a crow, but something like that.). I yelled "REALLY?!  WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" while the bird strutted off, supremely unconcerned by my indignation.  So I bought Star Wars Oreos to soothe my ruffled feathers (pun intended) and on the way back to my car THE SAME DANG BIRD DID IT AGAIN.  And that is why I am eating Oreos for breakfast.

Anyway, I did finally take pictures of a giant stack of scrapbook layouts last week so for today I have two layouts from that batch.  Here's the first one:

Unlike most of the castles we visited in Europe, Burg Eltz is privately owned by the Eltz family to this day and they still live there.  It was about a two-hour drive from our house to the castle, which is situated in a forested valley so you pretty much can't see it until you're super close to it.

Ryan paid attention to the tour guide's spiel and asked a question or two about the castle that showed he really was listening, which surprised the tour guide (and to be honest, the hubs and I were wondering what was going to come out of his mouth when his hand shot up to ask a question).  We got some snacks in the castle's cafe before we left, and we decided to hike back to the parking lot so we got more pictures of the castle from the surrounding forest.  It was pretty cool and obviously I had a lot of pictures I liked and I couldn't narrow it down more than this, so two layouts it is.

Today's color palette:  Pale Papaya, Balmy Blue, Pear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, and Whisper White.

Okay, I have just over an hour and a half left before I have to go pick Ryan up, so I'm going to work on my last batch of scrapbook layouts before I get things ready to move--packers will be here next Monday!  Eek!  But maybe I'll eat one more Oreo first.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Back to Basics Alphabet, Letters for You, Carte Postale, Hello Lovely
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Pale Papaya, Grapefruit Grove, Gumball Green, Thick Basic White, You're a Peach DSP
Accessories:  1" and 1 1/4" square punches

Les Fleurs En Francais

Mornin', y'all!  My card today is a bit of a blast from the past.

For some reason, Field Flowers has been on my mind this week so I decided to ink it up for today's triple challenge creation.  I used the colors from CAS Colours & Sketches:

I managed to get some nice depth of color by stamping off some, stamping some things twice, and using sponges, all with just those three ink pad colors.  And the flower has been Wink of Stella'd, though you can't tell from the picture; I added the rhinestones for a bit more sparkle.

Add in the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

I had already decided to use Field Flowers when I saw the Just Add Ink challenge, so obviously it was meant to be:

Lots of Fs on this card:  it's Field Flowers on a French background for a Friday Flashback! :)

Have a great Friday, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Field Flowers, En Francais, Carte Postale
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Nested Labels Dies, Stitched Shapes Dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, Rhinestones

Kirkcudbright

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  And I have been scrappin'.  I even took pictures of my latest pages yesterday so today's is hot off the presses!  Here it is:

The pictures are from a trip to Scotland in May 2014; the three pics on the left are from MacLellan's Castle in Kirkcudbright, and the other two are from somewhere in the Scottish countryside (we drove around a lot on this particular trip).  I made another layout from this trip but I need to have a 5x7 printed to finish it off.  You can see two other layouts from this trip if you click here and here.  I'm using the same alphabet stamps for the page titles on all of the layouts, which helps make them feel like they go together without using the same colors on each layout.

Speaking of colors, here is today's palette:  Dusty Durango, Old Olive, So Saffron, Early Espresso, and Very Vanilla.  I loooooooooove these colors together.  I tend to skip around a lot when I scrap, so sometimes I'll use a color or stamp set on multiple layouts in a row but they won't be near each other when I eventually put all the books together.  I've got another layout on my table right now using Dusty Durango and a different pattern from this same DSP pack, I just liked them so much here I had to use them on something else ;)

I still have lots and lots of older pictures to scrap, but I want to get pages done from after Ryan was born too, so I alternate back and forth between them.  I still skip all over with the older photos, but I've been working chronologically on the post-Ryan layouts, so all of 2017 is DONE and I'm up to October 2018.  Woohoo!

Have a great Monday, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely Letters Alphabet, Carte Postale
Ink:  Early Espresso, So Saffron
Paper:  Dusty Durango, Early Espresso, So Saffron, Thick Very Vanilla, Paisley Petals DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Dies

Holyrood Palace & Abbey

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Wow, did we have a humdinger of a storm come through in the wee hours of this morning.  I was afraid that Ryan would start crying with all the thunder and wind, but he either slept through it or didn't get scared, so yay!  I was still up early this morning and got in a workout and a bit of cross stitching before anyone else got up.  Oh!  I also did some work on photo organization yesterday so woo on that!

For today's scrapbook offering, I have two more layouts from Edinburgh.  I think these are the last two layouts for that 2012 trip.

See the original pictures here.  I broke out some textured Pale Plum for my page bases, I love it.  I don't have a lot of that Enchante' DSP so I'm trying to make the most of it.  When I do pages from castles or abbeys or whatnot, it's usually a lot of gray in the pictures, so I can play around with all kinds of colors because gray is a neutral and goes with everything.  Except brown.  I don't like gray and brown together.

For example, see the floral pattern on the right page?  It looks like it would be one solid block under the pictures, right?  Nope.  I only had a little bit of it left so I cut creatively so it would show where I want it, but it's scraps under the pictures.  I also used a full sheet of that striped pattern between the two layouts.  Not like I don't have an enormous patterned paper collection.

Today's color palette is straight out of the DSP:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Sage Shadow, and Very Vanilla.  All of the colors are retired except the Vanilla.  I wouldn't put the two greens together on my own, but they do seem to work here in combination with the purples.

Hope you have a great week, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Spencerian Alphabet Upper & Lower, Rough Edges Alphabet, Carte Postale, Angelic
Ink:  Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Pale Plum, Basic Gray Marker
Paper:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Thick Very Vanilla, Enchante' DSP
Accessories:  None

Ikebana and 2020 Goals

Happy New Year, y'all.  I didn't get as much time in my craft room as I wanted to yesterday because the hubs asked me to help him wax my car, and I couldn't say no since it's my car ;)  I did work on finishing up a scrapbook layout yesterday (well, it will be done when the hubs does the journaling on it) and I will be ready to start a new one during naptime today provided *I* don't have to take a nap.  Ryan was afraid of the noise from the fireworks last night so I ended up sleeping on the floor in his room, which means I didn't get enough sleep : /  Ryan, of course, is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this New Year morn.  (I started writing this post at 7:30 this morning, but didn't finish it until after 3:30 in the afternoon.)

Anyway, let's start out with a scrapbook layout from Okinawa.  I don't have a whole lot of layouts left to do from our time in Okinawa...on the one hand, that means I can finish up those scrapbooks; on the other hand, that means no more Japan pictures.

You can see more pics here.  Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, but you know how I like macro shots of flowers so most of my pictures are closeups instead of the whole arrangement.

Today's color palette includes Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant (it's dark purple, not black, I promise), Lemon Lime Twist (I put Granny Apple Green in the palette but it's actually Lemon Lime Twist), Highland Heather, and Whisper White.  I've done Pink Pirouette as the page base for floral pages several times, something about that soft pink just appeals to me with flower pictures.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Morning Post Alphabet, Strength & Hope, Carte Postale
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Whisper White, Botanical Butterfly DSP
Accessories:  None




Okay, so now it's goals time.  First, let's check in on my 2019 goals.

Scrapbooking:
1.  Make 200 pages.  Well, if I count my future nephew's baby book, I ended 2019 at 188 pages, which is nothing to sneeze at.  Not quite up to the goal, but pretty darn close.
2.  Finish Ryan's baby book.  DONE, BABY!  I'll start sharing those pages soon.  The album is all put together (it's huge, I'm sure it weighs more than Ryan did when he was born) and it is now at my parents' house because I didn't want to chance something happening to it when we move overseas this spring.
3.  Organize pictures.  Uh, this one didn't happen.

Reading:
1.  Have fewer unread books on my Kindle than I started with on this day a year ago.  Yeah, 2020 me is laughing at 2019 me.  I started 2019 with 125 unread books; I ended with 134.  Oops.

Cross stitching:
1.  Finish The Accolade.  DONE, BABY!  I finished this in late July and immediately went on a pattern-buying binge and have a zillion more projects I want to tackle.  I need to clone myself.

So, out of those five goals, two were unequivocal successes, one was pretty close, and two were failures ;)  Still, I did a lot of scrapbooking, reading, and stitching in 2019, and that's good.

And now it's time for 2020 goals.

Scrapbooking:
1.  Make 200 pages (100 two-page layouts).  I was SO close last year, I'm going to keep that as my goal this year.  Might be more difficult since we're moving overseas and I might not have access to my stuff for a couple of months, but I'm really going to have a go at this.  I don't have a specific scrapbook project I'm working on, just plugging away at years and years of pictures.

ETA:  Oh, I have to change this goal.  Plan is for me to find a job once we get to Germany, which obviously will take away a lot of my scrapbook time.  So let's shoot for 100 pages.

2.  Speaking of pictures, I really DO need to get those organized and pared down a bit.  This goal fell by the wayside, and I need to tackle it.

Reading:
I don't think I'll make a reading goal this year because I have a feeling my TBR (To Be Read) pile will only ever increase.  I'll just read as much as I can and give myself permission to not finish books if I'm not enjoying them.  I did read two nonfiction books near the end of last year that I found fascinating, if rather depressing:  The Five and The Radium Girls.  Maybe this year I'll just track how many books I read.

Cross Stitching:
3.  The Accolade is finished (and I finished a couple of other projects last year too), but I have one last Scarlet Quince that I've started and not finished yet:  The Quarry, by Julian Onderdonk.

I pulled this one out after a 5-year timeout and I remember vividly why it was in timeout.  It's 99% blended threads and 99% confetti, which means it is SLOW and it's hard to feel like I'm making any progress on it.  There's a lot of electric blue and purple in the bluebonnets, which I like, but this might just kill me :p  I'm at 31% done, so my goal for this year is to get to 40%.  Might not sound like a lot...might not look like a lot...but it's going to take a lot of work to get there.  This is my odd days project (so I work on it on odd-number days), and I've got another project for even days, because if I worked on this one and nothing else I'd probably set it on fire.  Here's what it will look like probably when I'm 80:

I've completed six Scarlet Quince designs (all large, full-coverage pieces) so this ain't my first rodeo, but this is still on another level even from The Accolade, which may be slightly larger (150,000 stitches vs. 130,968 on this one) but didn't have nearly as much confetti as this one.  This goal is going to be hard to achieve.

Fitness:
So I think I've joked on here that I joined Missy's fitness cult (Missy:  "Stop calling it a cult!") at the beginning of November.  I've worked hard on improving my diet and still working out, and I'm down around 18 to 19 pounds from when I started, so yay me!  I can actually wear my wedding and engagement rings after several years of them being too tight to wear.  I'm wearing pants I haven't worn in years and they're loose so I have to wear a belt (which is now two notches tighter than it used to be, too).  I don't necessarily have a specific weight goal in mind, but I do have a fitness goal:

4.  Be able to do a full chatturanga (which I don't know how to spell).  It's a yoga move, basically a slow tricep pushup.  Since I started this program, I've been working on trying to strengthen my wrists as I've had longstanding issues with both of them (especially the right one) which has kept me from doing pushups and necessitated the modification of lots of exercises.  My flexibility has improved A LOT over the last two years thanks to regular yoga and pilates classes, but this is one thing I haven't been able to do yet.  I'm gonna have to figure out those dang tricep pushups.

So there are my four goals for this year.  I'd better get off the computer and start working!

Versailles, Part 2

Mornin', y'all!  Today starts the last week of the hubs' convalescent leave for his back surgery, so baby Ryan and I are going to enjoy it :)

So let's start off our bloggy week with more Versailles pictures!

These two layouts are all pics taken out in the gardens.  Some great statues to take pictures of out there, and we got some really cool-looking sky in the pictures.  Even with the look of impending doom, we never got rained on!

I don't know why, but those pictures of the hubs arguing directions with our friends makes me giggle every time I see it.

Same color combination as the first Versailles layout:  Crushed Curry, Emerald Envy, Brilliant Blue, Basic Gray and Whisper White.  When I do multiple layouts for one thing, sometimes I do all the layouts with the same background color, and sometimes I do like this where I keep the same color combination but change up how I use the colors (background, patterned paper, accent color).  Just depends what I feel like when I do those pages.

Okay, I'm off to try to take some pictures of the little squirt.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Carte Postale
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Brilliant Blue, Crushed Curry, Emerald Envy, Whisper White, Moroccan DSP, Brilliant Blue DSP
Accessories:  circle punches

Versailles, Part 1

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I have no fewer than FIFTY draft posts and I think they're all scrapbook layouts.  Or the vast majority are, at any rate.  And today I'm sharing a layout I just finished last week instead of one that I probably finished last year :D  I've been working hard on the scrapbooks this year to have that many draft posts.  Yay me!

Anyway, on to today's layout!

See the pics here and here.  There's a bit of a glare on the left page...I think it matters if it's sunny or overcast when I take the photos, and I try to take them in the morning due to the direction of the light coming in the windows...well, I try to take good pics of the layouts anyway, even if I don't always succeed.

I think I know why I don't typically cut out the letters in the Morning Post Alphabet...this took FOR.EV.ER!!  No kidding it took well over an hour just to cut the letters out, but this is where my scrappy muse took me for today so cut them out I did.

This is the first of three Versailles layouts (we took a lot of pictures); they all three have this color palette:  Crushed Curry, Emerald Envy, Brilliant Blue, and a bit of Basic Gray for the journaling and some Whisper White.  I'm getting very close to running out of 8.5x11" Brilliant Blue cardstock...I may have to cave and buy some on eBay.  I do love that color for my scrapbooks.

I'm going to finish my cuppa and my piece of pumpkin coffee cake...I made the first pumpkin coffee cake of the fall season yesterday and YUM we've pretty much eaten all of it already.  So. Good.  Anyway, after breakfast I probably need to go to the gym to work off the pumpkin coffee cake ;)  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Morning Post Alphabet, Carte Postale
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Crushed Curry, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Emerald Envy, Brilliant Blue, Whisper White, Crushed Curry DSP
Accessories:  circle punches

2015 Scrapbook Showcase, Part 2

Welcome back to the second half of the 2015 scrapbook showcase.  Know what I just noticed?  All of the layouts from the first half of the showcase had warm, bright colors for the page bases.  And all of the layouts for today are on the cooler end of the spectrum.  Just how it happened to turn out, so let's take a look!

July's pick is this layout from a Scottish castle which supposedly belonged to my ancestors a zillion years ago.  I'm glad I have a large stockpile of Baja Breeze cardstock to use in my scrapbooks, it is one of my favorite colors ever.

My pick for August is the first of my terracotta warriors layouts; this was my very favorite thing that we got to see in China.

In September, I was hard at work on baby books so September's pick is the first layout I did for my friend Jen's twin boy books.  I like how bold the orange and green are on the black page base.  Well, it's hard not to love everything with Cucumber Crush on it.

October's pick is this Parisian layout, for which I made my own fleur de lis patterned paper.  I probably have patterned paper somewhere in my stash that's already printed with fleur de lis, but I like how my homemade version turned out.  And also those stair pictures.

November's pick is this layout from our somewhat abortive Mount Fuji climb; that picture of the four of us in that cubby under the stairs is one of my very favorites and I need to put a framed one up in our house somewhere.

And to finish off the 2015 scrapbook showcase, December's pick is this layout from the church near the house where we lived in England.  I think that's my favorite place that we've lived, and that house is my favorite one that we've lived in too.

Okay, kids.  That was a very Scrappy Monday :)  Tune in tomorrow for...something.  I don't know what yet but I hope it's fabulous!