SUO Challenges: CASEing Jolanda

ACK!  Apologies to my SUO Challenges teamies, for some reason I thought I had already written and scheduled this post and so here I am merrily organizing all my new books and the blog is postless!  So let's fix that now, and this is a fun new challenge where we CASE Jolanda!

So here's what I came up with:

I was looking for a DSP that had yellow and pink in it and then for this card I ended up with part of the wash that's mostly orangey.  I *finally* used the Flowers Fair stamp that Joanne and Jan convinced me to get--hooray!  And I found the exact thanks greeting that Jolanda used in Notes of Spring.  I turned her card layout on its side for something different and added some Strawberry Slush gems below the greeting.

This was actually my second card for this; here's the first one:

This one just didn't feel balanced quite right and I'm not sure why, so I made the Flowers Fair card and I felt like that one was more successful.

We hope you'll play along and post your card on the SUO Challenges blog.  Don't forget to keep it to Stampin' Up! products only for this challenge, and have fun!

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  Flowers Fair, Notes of Spring
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Strawberry Slush, Pumpkin Pie, Shaded Spruce
Paper:  Thick Basic White, Garden Poetry DSP
Accessories:  Eyelet Blooms die, Strawberry Slush Gems, Dimensionals

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  Fern & Flora
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Flirty Flamingo, Daffodil Delight, Crumb Cake, Shaded Spruce
Paper:  Thick Basic White, Shy Shamrock, Crushed Curry, Garden Poetry DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Leaves die, Fern & Flora dies, Dimensionals, Array of Dots

And if you scrolled down this far, here's what I was working on this morning:

Innit BEAUTIFUL!  Really I could space out the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books to completely take over both shelves (especially since I have quite a few paperback Hardy Boys books still to add to my collection), but the two shelves upstairs are overstuffed even after I sold three boxes of books last week when we were in Texas.  So for now at least, I have my Patricia Briggs and Kristen Britain hardcovers on the top shelves here, then Nancy Drews , then Hardy Boys, and the bottom right shelf has the ND/HB super mysteries.  I'd love to get another bookshelf but I really don't know where I would put it...I wonder if it would fit in the entryway?  I can just imagine the side-eye my hubs would give me if I floated that idea, ha!

Bunny Wishes

Hey y'all.  I did not get much sleep last night--I was up too late reading a book (which happens frequently, let's be honest) despite knowing that the hubs was going to get up in the wee smalls and that would wake me up and I have a hard time getting back to sleep, and I also know that when I don't get much sleep I am much more prone to headaches which is exactly what happened so that's how my day is starting.  But I finished my book last night and it was really good and also I'm pretty sure I have bought over fifty books on my Kindle this month.  I need to clone myself so I can read more and do all the other things I want to do too.  Also, speaking of clones, Ryan and I have watched all of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and we are now watching the Clone Wars cartoon series.  Love it.

Anyway, for the second day in a row, I have inked up a brand new stamp set.  Take a look:

Mixing old and new here; the bunny is from the March product of the month stamp set Notes of Spring, and the patterned paper is February's product of the month, the Painted Illusions DSP, while the Easter greeting is from 2011's Something to Celebrate.  I am entering this at CAS on Friday's challenge to make a spring card, and I had to have a go at the Festive Friday challenge:

I have pastel colors, two punches, a rabbit, and an Easter greeting.  I also used the latest sketch from CAS Colours & Sketches:

I cut a strip of Soft Sea Foam cardstock to go across the patterned paper as in the sketch, and I colored it with the light Blend marker to differentiate it a bit from the card base instead of using another pattern there since this is meant to be CAS.  The bunny was quick to snip out and happily the large oval punch was a good size for the bunny to fit into.

This is the second card I made for these two challenges; I won't show you the first one because I absolutely despise it because every once in a while, things just don't work out the way you want them to and a card has to go in the bin.  I've decided that for the first time in my 20+ years of crafting with SU! products, I am going to take an entire pack of DSP and chuck it.  I got the Easter Joy specialty paper and it's got this coating on it that makes the colors dull and smells weird and just feels ick in my hands.  I tried to use it and the longer I looked at it the more I hated it.  I have also discovered that I don't much like creating with the mix & match ephemera packs either, but at least now I know not to buy those in the future.

Anyway, I'm almost done with my morning cuppa and perhaps a walk in the sunshine with Daphne will make my head feel better.  Have a good one, peeps.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Notes of Spring, Something to Celebrate 2011
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Soft Sea Foam, Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Flirty Flamingo, Soft Sea Foam
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Thick Basic White, Painted Illusions DSP
Accessories:  large oval punch, modern label? punch, Dimensionals