BOOP.

Mornin' y'all!  I feel like I'm trying to do too many things at once this morning, I've got a couple of packages that I need to mail off and I've got that all over the computer desk, I'm editing photos of cards, and I'm trying to choose what to make for breakfast on Sunday (or, if I get lucky, what the hubs is going to make for breakfast on Sunday, ha!).  Right now I'm stuck between a lemon coffee cake or a French toast casserole.  Both of the recipes I'm looking at have cream cheese so Ryan will be unhappy regardless.  Weirdo who doesn't like cream cheese, though that does mean more cheesecake for me.

Anyway, y'all know I have bought some stuff from Unity Stamps in the not-so-distant past (um, I may have put in another order yesterday but that's a secret don't tell anyone), but how can I resist when they're THIS CUTE:

This stamp set is called Boop the Snoot and I love it.  I put some Wink of Stella on her nosey so it looks wet : )  I used the Hand-Stamped Sentiments color challenge:

I used Pecan Pie Stampin' Blends on the pupper, with ivory for the chest marking because my darling Daphne has a white chest marking (and the cutest white toesies) so I gave this pupper one too.  CAS on Friday wants to see animal cards (say no more), so I kept this design CAS for that challenge.  Shopping Our Stash wants cards with man's best friend but let's be honest, doggos are MY best friend.  If I happen to meet someone and their dog for the first time, there is a 100% chance I will remember the doggo's name and not the human's.  Priorities.  I will be sending this to my pal Krissy who loves dogs at least as much as I do and that's saying something.

Aright, kids, it's time for me to wrap this up and get back to getting packages ready to mail, walking the Daphinator, and choosing what to have for Sunday breakfast.  But first, Imma finish my cuppa tea.  Cheers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Boop the Snoot from Unity Stamps
Ink:  Early Espresso, Misty Moonlight, Stampin' Blends in Pecan Pie & Ivory
Paper:  Old Olive, Misty Moonlight, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Hearts Collection Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

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

Just One More with The Paper Players

Gooooood morning stampy friends!  Thanks to everyone who played along with my baby animals challenge last week at The Paper Players, I had so much fun looking at all the little babies!  It's Sunday again already, which means it's time for a new Paper Players challenge, and this week the stylin' Stef has a wonderful sketch for us!

This was one of those sketches where my brain was trying to go in several directions at once and I had to make myself pause and concentrate on one idea because focus is important.  This is where I ended up:

Really if you replace the stack of books she's using to rest her head for an actual pillow, this is me every single evening.  NEW STAMPS ALERT!  Tracy recently posted a card she made with bookish stamps from Unity, and wouldn't you know I just *had* to mosey on over to their website to check them out and I ended up with three bookish stamp sets of my very own...and don't tell the hubs, I have a couple more stamp sets on the way from them.  I was a naughty girl last week with the online shopping! 

I was inspired to use one of my new bookish stamp sets as soon as I saw the TGIF Challenges inspo pic on Friday morning:

I happened to have a piece of Barely Blush cardstock on my stamping table when I sat down to make my card, so I thought I'd stamp the image on that to make it warmer than if I used Whisper White or even Very Vanilla.  I was going to go along with the colors in the inspo pic, but that Barely Blush base layer took me in a different direction and I had some fun hunting through my pack of 100 Crayola colored pencils for my colors.  Been a minute since I used colored pencils, so that was fun!  This is my first time using Barely Blush, and while I have not been fond of our past colors with "blush" in the name, I think I'm going to like this one.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Just One More Chapter from Unity Stamps
Ink:  Early Espresso
Paper:  Early Espresso, Barely Blush, Soft Suede DSP
Accessories:  Crayola colored pencils, corner rounder punch, In Color Flat Pearls

I still have two other bookish stamp sets that need to be inked up, but I thought I'd show you the card I had made for this challenge before I went for books:

Oh hey, it's the Lovely Blossoms DSP that Joanne convinced me to buy!  I snipped the larger flower image out of one sheet of the patterned paper, stamped a greeting on it, and then layered it with some other patterns in the pack and this whole thing took like ten minutes.  This sketch is versatile, y'all!  I used the exact same measurements on this card as I did for my bookish card, the strip on the left is one inch wide and the larger section is three inches wide, and I dusted off my corner rounder punch just for a little fun detail.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Fern & Flora
Ink:  Secret Sea
Paper:  Cloud Cover, Lovely Blossoms DSP
Accessories:  Neutral Matte Dots, corner rounder punch

Check out the other design team creations on the Paper Players blog, and you can hop through their individual blogs to leave some comments too:

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier

Stef Perry

you are here --> Christy Stanford

And then upload your card at the Paper Players blog!  Keep in mind a few simple rules:
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL
4.  Have fun!

Deal Castle

Scrappy Monday, y'all! I got home from Paris last night, it was a fun trip.  My friend Krissy and I visited the Musée d'Orsay, took the metro everywhere and saw Sacré Cœur, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower, plus did some shopping, eating, and met some Parisian pooches.  Fun!

Now for today's scrapbook layout.

You can see the original pics here.  Deal Castle was the last one we visited in Kent, and that pic on the bottom right is from Lullingstone Roman Villa--the only pic we took there, but it inspired me to use that tile patterned DSP on here and I love it.

Today's color palette includes Coastal Cabana, Terracotta Tile, Pretty Peacock, Garden Green, Basic Gray, and Whisper White.  I was surprised how well those colors went together for this!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Schoolbook Serif Alphabet, Just My Type Alphabet (Unity Stamps)
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Basic Gray
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Garden Green, Pretty Peacock, Terracotta Tile, Thick Basic White, Mosaic Mood Specialty DSP, Woven Threads DSP
Accessories:  None

December 2005

Scrappy Monday, y'all.  Ughhh, I'm so tired!  We're taking care of our neighbor's dog and cat while they're traveling, and doggo has kept us awake the last two nights.  I know part of it is just getting used to being in our house overnight rather than her own house (she goes back to her house during the day when we leave to go to work or run errands or whatever, and the cat stays there all the time) but yeah, I could use some more sleep.  Here's hoping that the third night is the charm!

In the meantime, I have a seasonal layout to share.

Looking at this picture right now it looks like my letters kinda slightly trend upwards towards the end of "December".  Oh well, that's part of the charm of handmade stuff, right?  We only had a couple of pictures from different events in December, not enough for each one to get their own layout, so I combined them here.  I used the same DSP pack as I did for the Christmas Treats layout I posted a while back.

Today's color palette is straight from the DSP:  Baja Breeze (still my favorite), Blushing Bride, Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, and Whisper White.

I'm off to get ready for work, yawning all the way....cheeeeeeers!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Endless Wishes, numbers from Unity
Ink:  Garden Green, Baja Breeze, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Baja Breeze textured, Real Red, Garden Green, Blushing Bride, Wild Wasabi, Whisper White, Candy Cane Christmas DSP
Accessories:  None

Sadie's Surgeries

Hey kids, scrappy Monday.  I spent about 85% of the weekend in the basement with Vader, though the hubs says he thinks that's more for myself than it is for Vader because he's sleeping most of the day anyway.  So long as he's not trying to get up and move around, that's good...and we've got a vet appointment for him tonight (finally).

So anyway, given that we once more have an injured dog in the house, it seemed appropriate to share this layout today:

So Sadie has gone through this injury twice too, but she had surgery for it both times and Vader can't have surgery because of some weird blood work.  To be honest though, Vader's recovery with a leg brace was easier than Sadie's after surgery--no incision, no Cone of Shame, and it seemed easier on him but too, I think he wasn't injured as seriously as Sadie was.  Except this time we reckon he really did a number on his knee.  :(

Sorry I'm a bummer today.

The color palette today includes Basic Gray, Basic Black, Smoky Slate which I forgot to put in the palette, Whisper White, Regal Rose, and Wild Wasabi.  I chose the pink to match Sadie's compression bandage, and the green to match her "sorry you had to have surgery again" toy.

Cheers, y'all.  I'm gonna go spend more time with Vader :)

Supplies:
Stamps:  alphabet from Unity, apostrophe from past Paper Pumpkin kit
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Basic Gray, Basic Black, Whisper White, Regal Rose, Wild Wasabi, Basic Gray DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

Castle Rising Castle

Scrappy Monday, y'all.  I hope that YOUR air conditioner is working, 'cause ours has been out since last Thursday!  It was, no kidding, 84 degrees in the house yesterday.  But we're getting a brand new one installed tomorrow and I'm gonna crank that baby down to like FIFTY and dress like an Eskimo.  Or maybe not.  I'd settle for being reasonably comfortable.  Thank goodness the hubs got a fan for us, even if it is really loud.

Anyway, enough whining, let's get to the scrapbook layout today.

I made this last week while I had the Moroccan DSP out for my hummingbird card :)  I love the patterns in that DSP pack, and now that I've cut into into it twice you'll probably be seeing it a lot more often.  Anyway, this is I think the second castle we ever went to see in England...see my original blog post here.

The "Rising" part is stamped with the old SU! alphabet Letterpress, and the smaller letters are non-SU.  That's the only stamping on the layout; just a bit of pretty patterned paper and a bunch of photos and it's done.

Today's color combo:  Delightful Dijon, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, and Very Vanilla, straight from the Moroccan DSP and surprisingly perfect with my castle pics.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Letterpress Alphabet, smaller alphabet from Unity
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Early Espresso
Paper:  Delightful Dijon,Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Moroccan DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles & Deco Labels Framelits