Puppy Love

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan has an early release day (WHY?) so I need to get moving if I want to get some things done before I go pick him up in about three hours.  I already dropped off a package at UPS and picked up a few things at the store, and as soon as I finish my tea I'll be taking Daphne out for our walk.

Speaking of puppers, I have a paper puppy today!

One of my (ahem, several) Spellbinders purchases recently included this super adorable doggo and I can't wait to send this card to my puppy-loving pal Krissy.  I would NOT want to mass-produce this, it took quite a while to die cut all the different pieces and assemble them, but I do love how he turned out.  I adapted this week's Freshly Made Sketch for an A2 card:

I wanted to do a heart behind the pupper, but I didn't have a die cut that was big enough to be obviously a heart but small enough to fit on an A2 card, so I went with the circle.

I thought of the old Candy Lane DSP as soon as I saw this color palette from Sunday Stamps:

The paper has Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Close to Cocoa, and Very Vanilla in it, but the stripey pattern I used behind the doggo seems to have a shade between the red and pink that I thought worked very nicely for this color challenge.

Okay, my real-life doggo is demanding attention with her rubber duck toy that makes this funny wheezy sound, so I'm going to play with her and then take her for a walk.  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  I {Love} Love (unmounted wheel)
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Close to Cocoa, Riding Hood Red
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Close to Cocoa, Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red, Basic White, Basic Black, Pink Pirouette DSP, Candy Lane DSP
Accessories:  Darling Dog dies from Spellbinders, Circles Collection Framelits, Dimensionals

Ryan: Four Months

Lemme tell ya, I enjoyed my day yesterday with Ryan at the babysitter.  I did do a lot of heavy lifting (literally--I was sorting through books), but I took a break and bought floss for several more stitching projects and went out to lunch with the hubs :)  Okay, we had to eat lunch sitting in hubs' truck because the dining areas are still closed here, but whatever.

Anyway, it's time for another layout from Ryan's baby book, so here's his 4 month photo shoot:

He did NOT want to cooperate with getting his picture taken this time, but I'm glad I got one good one featuring his "Mommy's Little Muggle" onesie.  That got passed down to the next baby in the family and I'm hoping it was in turn passed along to my nephew, who should be just about the right size to fit in it now.  I think that top right picture is pretty hilarious, Ryan gets his side-eye abilities from me.

Today's color palette includes Night of Navy, Lemon Lime Twist, Coastal Cabana, Granny Apple Green, and Whisper White.  I miss Lemon Lime Twist, I'd trade Soft Sea Foam for LLT in a Peloponnesian minute.  Not that I think Soft Sea Foam is a bad color, I just love LLT a lot more ;)

Have a good holiday weekend, peeps.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  I {Love} Love, Happy Hearts
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Coastal Cabana, Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Animal Expedition DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits

A-Team Baby Book: February

Well, with all the distractions of my little man Vader being injured again, I forgot to get this posted this morning.  Behold, the February layout for my niece's baby book:

Her mama is a TCU horned frog, so I used purple for the page base and a cute little frog for the main image:

I think this was the very first layout I started for this book.  And can I say I'm pretty proud of my shading on Ms. Frog here.  My Prismacolor pencils have gotten a workout this year.

Can't leave off a cute little something on the journaling block.

And some hearts, in case you missed that this is a Valentine's layout.

And here's the color palette for today:  Orchid Opulence, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Kiwi Kiss, and Whisper White.  I should pull out cardstock swatches of Orchid Opulence and see how it compares to Sweet Sugarplum

I'm off to the basement to go spend some more time with my little doglet.  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies:
Stamps:  I {Love} Love, I {Heart} Hearts, Whipper Snapper frog
Ink:  Basic Black, Regal Rose, Kiwi Kiss
Paper:  Orchid Opulence, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Kiwi Kiss, PTI White, Raspberry Tart DSP
Accessories:  Sizzix alphabet, Prismacolor Pencils

Friday Flashback: Take it to Heart

Happy Friday, y'all!  Today's Friday Flashback stamp set is Take it to Heart, and this flashback is going to be quite short.  I got this stamp set for free through some promotion, and it's not really my style.

Also features I {Love} Love unmounted wheel

Yep, that's the entire flashback right there.  But the whole idea behind the Friday Flashback is to go back to some older retired stamp sets and dust them off to create something new.

Umm, that heart stamp is the only one that I kinda like out of the set.  There's a much larger heart with a bird but he's got crazy eyeballs like he's going to come after you and peck you to death.  And the silhouette one is kinda cute, but not really my thing either.  So anyway, I paired my little floral heart here with the colors from Color Throwdown:

I used Lucky Limeade, Baja Breeze (bring it back, SU!) and Regal Rose, all three of which are retired.  I also used some Elegant Eggplant because black and gray just seemed to stark, and who wants to see a black or gray heart anyway?  And I tend to treat most of the Rich Regals family as neutral colors when it suits me anyway.

I used the sketch from Global Design Project:

I've played along with every challenge so far from GDP so I'm trying to keep my streak alive ;)

Have a great weekend, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Take it to Heart, It's Your Birthday, Fresh Fillers
Ink:  Regal Rose, Baja Breeze, Elegant Eggplant
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Lucky Limeade, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White, Cheerful Treat DSP
Accessories:  Hearts Framelits, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: En Francais

Happy Friday, friends, and welcome to this week's Friday Flashback!  This week's randomly chosen retired stamp set is En Francais, and it just might be one of my most-used background stamps.  Even with picking and choosing just some favorite projects from the archives to share today, this is gonna be a long flashback...let's go!

Also features Artistic Etchings, Circle Circus, I {Love} Love Wheel

It's only natural to pair En Francais with the Eiffel Tower from Artistic Etchings...I did that quite a few times actually, but I picked these to share today because I like the collage effect.

Also features Carte Postale

Here's another French-inspired creation with a fleur de lis.

Also features Baroque Motifs, All Holidays

En Francais also makes some pretty Christmas cards.  I like how this one has the traditional red and green but also Elegant Eggplant for something different.  And I made this card before I learned how to tie pretty knots :)

Also features Illuminations, Bella's Border wheel

I *love* the stamp set Illuminations, love love love it.  This was for one of those annoying all-neutral color challenges.

Also features Stippled Blossoms, Christmas Messages

 Another Christmas card, this one of a more recent vintage.

Also features Joyful Christmas

And this is one of my favorite cards ever.  I love the white watercolored poinsettias.

Also features Stem Silhouettes, Print Pattern, Sincere Salutations

One more less-traditional Christmas card.

Also features Pretty Peony, Lovely Letters Alphabet

And a pretty monogram.

Also features Simply Sketched

This one is a little bit different with the script stamped in such a dark color, so it's a bolder element than most of the cards on this post but I still thought it worked well for a sympathy card.

Also features Perfectly Penned, Flower Shop

You can just see the script stamped in white on the background squares.  And that's all I'm sharing from the archives, which is maybe half the cards o.0  Ready for a new creation?

It's Friday Flashback day and I still got to play with my brand-new Watercolor Wings :D  For the white squares, I pressed an acrylic block into my Whisper White ink pad and used it like a stamp--it came out with more ink around the edges and less in the middle without me even trying, which was great since that's what I wanted it to do.  I used three different stamps to make the butterfly (actually four, counting the antennae), but I ended up having to cut it out by hand because where I stamped the butterfly body didn't jive with the matching Framelit.  Note for next time:  cut out the butterfly and stamp the body on afterward.  That baker's twine bow was a pain too, it took four tries to get something that looked halfway decent.

But anyway!  I used this week's ColourQ colors:

I kinda thought that they shouldn't work together, but I did really like them when I had all five laid out on my stamp table.  I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And that's it for me this week.  Hope you have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  En Francais, Watercolor Wings, Vintage Verses
Ink:  Summer Starfruit, Concord Crush, Pale Plum, Coastal Cabana, Whisper White
Paper:  Summer Starfruit, Whisper White
Accessories:  white baker's twine, Dimensionals