Circling Back Around

Mornin' y'all!  How's your day going?  I was very productive yesterday:  I made a list of things to do, and I got all of them done.  Woohoo!  After dinner last night, we went outside with our neighbors and picked cherries off the tree in our yard, so today's task will be to pit, chop, and freeze a giant bowl full of cherries.

But first, today's card.

How's that for a blast from the past?  I got Simply Circles in the first year or two after I started stamping, and I've had it for SIXTEEN years!  I knew it was the perfect stamp set for the Retro Rubber challenge:

Simply Circles is a set of six stamps, and I used all six of them on my card.  I also used the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I kept the basic layout and the gray/aqua/pink color combination, though my aqua is the more saturated Tahitian Tide; I thought the stronger colors worked with my funky retro circles.

Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Simply Circles (retired)
Ink:  Smoky Slate, Tahitian Tide, Polished Pink, Versamark
Paper:  Smoky Slate, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, Dimensionals, In Color Matte Dots

Water Baby

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Actually I haven't been doing much scrapping lately; I've been more focused on playing with my retired stamps, but that's okay.  As long as I'm spending time in my craft room and getting inky, and ENJOYING it, I'll call that a win.  But I do still have lots of layouts to share and when I start to run low I'm sure my scrappy mojo will return.

Yep, this kid loves the water!  Still does, in fact.  Wish we hadn't missed doing swim lessons last year and this year (thank you 'Rona) but hopefully we'll figure out something.  I want Ryan to be much more proficient at swimming than I am; I didn't learn how until I was 12 and while I can keep myself afloat, I am not very comfortable in the water and you can forget about me swimming in the ocean.  Anyway, we got Ryan this super cheap plastic pool and he loooooooooooved playing in it!  I found some long-retired DSP with bright colors that I thought paired well with the pictures.  Dang, Ryan was so little!

And here is my mostly retired color palette:  Only Orange, Green Galore, Pixie Pink, Tempting Turquoise, and Whisper White.  All of those colors are retired now!  Okay Whisper White got replaced by Basic White which is pretty much the same ;) But all the other colors retired a long, long time ago.  But I still use them.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Simply Circles
Ink:  Tempting Turquoise, Blueberry Bushel, Green Galore
Paper:  Only Orange, Pixie Pink, Green Galore, Thick Whisper White, Kaleidoscope DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

How Ya Bee?

Hey y'all!  Normally I don't post on Sundays but in the midst of my card-making frenzy last Thursday I made a card for two challenges and I want to get it entered before they both end :)  Once again I reached for some long-retired stamps to make something new.  I am having fun dusting off these old sets!

The bee and leaf images are from the set Good Times, which I still think is super fun and I got it way back in the first year or two of my stamping career.  The circle and the sentiment are both from Simply Circles, another oldie but goodie.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

As soon as I saw all those little circles, these two retired stamp sets popped into my head, especially in combination with this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Pineapple Punch, Granny Apple Green, and Pacific Point for my colors, though the sentiment in Pacific Point came out darker than I intended it to.  The first impression the color was a bit patchy (I have a few ink pads that I need to freshen up), and then when I stamped over it again it ended up darker than I really wanted it.  I love this color combo though.

Have a great Sunday, y'all!

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  Good Times, Simply Circles
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Granny Apple Green, Pacific Point, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Dinos Know How To Party

Mornin' y'all and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  I'm excited to dress up with Ryan this evening to pass out candy.  He's still too little to contemplate giving him a gigundor pile of sugar, so we won't be trick-or-treating; I do have a really, REALLY gigundor pile of sugar for the kids who come to our house (I've heard there are lots of trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood).

Anyway, my honorary niece Leora has her birthday today, isn't that fun?  Back in September Leora and her mama called me and asked if I could make invitations for Leora's birthday party.  Leora wanted something with DINOSAURS and BATS and THE MOOOOOOON!!!  I asked what her favorite colors are and she said RAINBOOOOWWWWWW!!!

So what would you do with those guidelines?  I can show you what I did...

Dinosaurs?  Check.  Bats?  Check.  The MOOOOOON?  Check.  And even dinosaur bones because Halloween.  And also lots of colors and even some glitter because what 7-year-old girl doesn't love glitter.  It took a while to heat emboss the dinosaurs and the moon after I stamped the dino bones and the bats, but then the backgrounds were done super-quick by inking up a baby wipe with drops of ink refill and swiping across the glossy white cardstock.  Navy blue and teal for the sky, dark green for the ground.  I made 20 of these during naptime over the course of a few days.  Hope Leora liked them!

Ryan and I will shortly be heading to the gym as a way to keep my paws off the Halloween candy.  Ryan is too young to read the bags so he doesn't know what he's missing yet, hahahahahaaaa!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  No Bones About It, Tiny Talk, Simply Circles, Wicked Cool
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Granny Apple Green, Mango Melody, Bermuda Bay, Night of Navy, Garden Green, Basic Black, Versamark
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, retired glimmer paper
Accessories:  circle punch, Decorative Label punch, clear EP, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Merry

Welcome to this week's Friday Flashback!  Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, I'm now ready to do more Christmas cards, so expect some Christmas-riffic Flashback posts for the next month.  Today's featured retired stamp set is Merry.  Let's get started!

This was our 2006 Christmas card; if I remember right, the word was stamped with Real Red craft ink and embossed with Iridescent Ice for some sparkle.

When we lived in North Carolina, I worked at the central office for the local school district, and the man who ran my department loved to wear Christmas ties all through December--he had enough different ones to just about do a different Christmas tie every week day from December first through till Christmas Eve.  So I made this one for him!  (You can tell it's a tie, right?  Right?!)

This was for a sketch challenge...the background is Wild Hearts, which always makes me think of going fabric shopping with my mom when I was a kid.

I did a one-sheet wonder with Simply Circles in red and green and made a slew of different Christmas cards.

I kinda miss Gable Green and Green Galore.  Well, Gumball Green is pretty fantastic, but it's not the same.

Another sketch challenge, and I like purple for Christmas cards.  Ready for the new projects?  I made two scrapbook layouts to complete this week of scrappiness!

The top left picture is not sideways; hubs is laying on the ground while my dad's dog Ginger "attacks" him.

The pictures are from Christmas Eve 2003, just a few months after I married my sweet hubs.  Yay for scrapping 10-year-old pictures!  (I told you I was behind on my scrapping.)

Thanks for stopping by today!  And if you're out taking advantage of Black Friday sales, be careful out there.  People be crazy!

Supplies, scrapbook pages only:
Stamps:  Merry
Ink:  Certainly Celery, Real Red, Night of Navy
Paper:  Certainly Celery, Real Red, Night of Navy, Very Vanilla, Dashing DSP
Accessories:  None