Friday Flashback: Natural Beauty

Time for another Friday Flashback!  This week's featured stamp set is Natural Beauty, and it is a beauty.  It was fun for me to play with this set again : )  So let's take a look back in the archives:

My first two Flashback cards were inspired by some yellow freckled orchids I had when we lived in Okinawa.  The above card also features Floral (background), Full of Life (sentiment), and Itty Bitty Backgrounds (freckles on the flower).

This one is mostly the same as above, but trade out the Full of Life sentiment for one from All Holidays.

Here's something a little different; only the sentiment on this one is from Natural Beauty.  The stamp is kind of a word cloud thing so I just inked up the "Imagine" bit that I wanted.  The dragons are from Ancient Asia, and I also used Bamboo II and Itty Bitty Backgrounds (again).

This one is more CAS; the sentiment is from that perennial favorite, Sincere Salutations.  So that's it for the Flashback part, let's check out the brand new creation:

I used this week's SCS sketch and an old color challenge (I have about 20 sketches and 15 color combos to go to complete my challenge to myself to complete them all).  The flower image was stamped with Chocolate Chip craft ink (sadly retired) and embossed with clear EP before I colored the image using both a blender pen (need some new ones) and an Aquapainter.  The card is pretty straightforward, the only thing that took some time was coloring the image.

Thanks for joining me for this week's Friday Flashback, and have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Natural Beauty, Warmest Regards
Ink:  Chocolate Chip (craft and classic), Crumb Cake, Barely Banana, Real Red, Mellow Moss
Paper:  Barely Banana, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, retired Real Red & Mellow Moss DSP
Accessories:  clear EP, Dimensionals

Thankful for You

Ya know, if I spent as much time actually stamping as I do *thinking* about stamping, I'd need a whole 'nother room to store my cards and scrapbook pages.  As it is, I haven't stamped a whole lot the last couple days--I've been having trouble focusing, and I've kinda had a low-grade headache since Tuesday.  But after staring at my stamp shelves and a variety of challenges, I finally got a card made today.

Perhaps my focus problems are partially due to just how MANY fun challenges there are out there.  You can see by my sidebar that I follow quite a few of them and I play when I can or when one particularly strikes my fancy, and then there's my ongoing quest to finish ALL the SCS sketch and color challenges.  Today's card is an SCS combo--this week's color challenge and an old, old sketch from January of 2010 that I've been dreading.  This actually turned out much better than I thought it would; I was just aiming for getting that dreaded sketch in my "done" pile : )

My next problem is going to be deciding who to send this to...there are so many people in my life that I'm thankful for : )  And that includes you, reading this blog!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Gently Falling, Banner Greetings
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Tangerine Tango, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Sweater Weather DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Vintage Vehicle

As I mentioned yesterday, I'd made a card for this week's Nacho sketch that just kinda didn't do anything for me, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

For some reason, I think this looked much better in my head than it did on paper, hence me making the Stippled Blossoms card.  Here's the sketch:

So hey, not every card can be your favorite, but if you don't like what you make at first then try, try again!  I was much happier with my rose card than this one.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Postage Collection (hostess set)
Ink:  Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana, Pistachio Pudding
Paper:  Pistachio Pudding, Very Vanilla, Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana, In Color DSP Stack, Venetian Romance DSP
Accessories:  Labels Collection Framelits, Postage Stamp punch, Dimensionals

A Purple Rose for the Nachos

It's Tuesday and that means another great challenge from the Nachos!  This week it's a sketch:

I admit, this sketch kinda stumped me at first.  I made one card and wasn't really happy with it, so here's my second take on the sketch:

When in doubt, use Stippled Blossoms :)  I hadn't done any deep purple roses yet so I figured why not (I have, however, done a Wisteria Wonder rose).  That's one of the fun things about stamping; whether or not roses really come in dark purple, I can make dark purple roses anytime I want.  Or hot pink, or deep orange, or any other color.

Go check out what the other Nachos have dreamt up for this sketch, and then join in the fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Blossoms
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive
Paper:  Old Olive, Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, retired DSP in Old Olive & Elegant Eggplant
Accessories:  Labels Collection Framelits, Very Vanilla seam binding, Dimensionals, Fancy Fan EF

Ready for Fall

I know a lot of people in the States are still pretty firmly in summertime, at least according to the thermometer, but it's a brisk 55 degrees where I am, and I'm kinda totally loving it.  Fall is my favorite season so I'm thrilled to live someplace that actually *has* a fall...where I grew up in Texas, there's summer and winter, with a very brief transition between the two.

Trying to decide if I like the extra large photos for cards, or if I should just keep it a size smaller.  Hmm.  It's not Friday, but I used all retired stamps for today's creation.  French Script is finger-walked in Sage Shadow over the entire panel, though I wished I'd gotten a bit more of an impression with it as I somehow didn't fill up the spaces I meant to fill up with it and most of it ended up behind the sentiment.  So I added some of the script from French Foliage to help fill in the blanks a little more, and it needed more Chocolate Chip in the mix.

I also used the latest from CAS(E) This Sketch:

And I used the beautiful autumnal palette from Color Throwdown:

The leaves aren't changing colors here quite yet, but it won't be long.  And when that happens, I'll be ready to bake apple bread and pumpkin cookies.  Or pumpkin bread and apple cookies.  Or all four : )

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a lovely day.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  All-Year Cheer I, French Foliage, French Script (all retired)
Ink:  Sage Shadow, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  None, except sponges : )

Friday Flashback: Tag Time

Welcome to another edition of the Friday Flashback!  Today's randomly-chosen retired stamp set is Tag Time, which has lots of images in a variety of styles.  Ready to flash back?

Let's be honest:  I totally got this stamp set for that tiny 4-leaf clover.  I mean, really.  It said "good luck" under it in teeny-tiny letters, but I cut them apart so I could use the clover by itself.  And this card is one I made pre-SAMJ!  I can tell because I'm too OCD to have crooked clovers post-SAMJ.  The cute pupster is from Ruff Day, harlequin background is Print Pattern, and the sentiment is from Tiny Talk.

I've used that tiny clover over and over (teehee, that sounds funny) on baby book layouts, but I'll just share this one 'cause they're all pretty similar to this.  The larger clovers are from Pinch Proof.

And that's pretty much it for past projects, so here's the new card, hot off the stampin' table:

It's September, so I think we can officially start with the Halloween projects.  This card still seems a bit on the plain side to me but what can ya do.  I thought about adding some Midnight Muse ribbon, but I wanted to keep this easily mailable.  The Old Olive pattern is from a retired Halloween DSP pack (don't ask me which, I don't know), and then I stamped the pumpkin from Tag Time all over More Mustard CS in More Mustard and Whisper White ink.  I lined the inside with Whisper White CS and stamped a pumpkin on that too for good measure.  Think I'll send this to my friend Sarah because Halloween is her favorite holiday.  She even had her daughter on Halloween :)

Thanks for joining me for today's Friday Flashback, and have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Tag Time
Ink:  Midnight Muse, Old Olive, More Mustard, Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride
Paper:  Midnight Muse, Old Olive, More Mustard, Whisper White, retired Halloween DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Wisteria Thoughts

Howdy, folks!  I'm still getting my stampin' groove back, but I'm taking it kinda slow for now.  I hope to get to work on some scrapping this weekend, but for today I have a clean-lines card to share:

I almost said CAS, but I think it's not quite *that* clean and simple.  I used the inspiration photo at Inkspirational:

Thought about putting a butterfly on my card, but I decided to let the Crushed Curry pattern from the Sweater Weather DSP suffice for my bit of yellow/orange.  I also used this week's challenge from Freshly Made Sketches:

I put the Wild Wasabi Candy Dots at the top rather than the bottom because I thought it balanced better that way with the sentiment already in the lower right of the image panel.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Too Kind
Ink:  Wisteria Wonder, Wild Wasabi, Concord Crush (for some reason I like this better than Elegant Eggplant to layer with Wisteria Wonder)
Paper:  Wisteria Wonder, Concord Crush, Whisper White, Sweater Weather DSP
Accessories:  Corner rounder punch, Lacy Brocade embossing folder, Subtles Candy Dots