China: Dragon's Backbone Summit

Hey, y'all, and welcome to this week's China scrapbook post.  To my consternation, I discovered this morning that I had three layouts that I apparently never took pictures of, so I had to go fix that!  First up I have two layouts that I've shared before:

Original blog post here.  I used Coastal Cabana, Crisp Cantaloupe, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Garden Green (mostly in the photos), and Whisper White on this layout, I thought that color combination worked out well.

Original blog post here.  This is one of my favorite layouts from China, I love the bright colors thanks to that giant polka dot paper:  Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, Island Indigo, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  And that was one of the best meals we had on the whole trip.

Now for some new pages!  These are some of the ones I had to take pictures of.

You may notice the color combination I used here is quite similar to a layout at the beginning of the book; I made these pages pretty close together and at that moment I was a bit obsessed with Barely Banana and Poppy Parade together (this was even before it was announced that Poppy Parade was making a comeback!).

You can see the original pictures here; after I did that blog post, I edited a lot of these pictures to lighten them up a bit.

Today's color palette:  Barely Banana, Poppy Parade, my favorite Baja Breeze, Basic Black, and I forgot Whisper White.  We're off to eat breakfast, so cheers y'all!

Supplies, Dragon's Backbone Layouts:
Stamps:  Rough Type Alphabet, Ancient Asia
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Poppy Parade, Baja Breeze, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Barely Banana, Baja Breeze, Basic Black, Whisper White, Pocketful of Posies DSP
Accessories:  punches I can't remember the names of

Bonus Buzz

I don't usually post on Saturdays, but I had an idea yesterday that I just *had* to commit to paper so...bonus card this week!

Even my pun-hating husband thought this was at least mildly amusing.  Try as I might, I could not color-correct the photo; my pictures are pretty bad if I take them later in the afternoon like I did this one, but kid would NOT go down for a nap yesterday until 5 p.m.  And that's after he got up an hour earlier than usual yesterday morning!  So anyway, the card is just a white card base with Crushed Curry bees.

I'm revisiting the Cupcake Inspiration color challenge because it's perfect for this card:

This idea started buzzing around in my brain when I saw the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch:

Once I got the kid to go down for a nap this card took almost no time to make.  And I think it's still fun.  Right?

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Labeler Alphabet, A Little Wild
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Tropical Birthday

Happy Friday, y'all!  And it is a happy day for me as I got my new catalog order (finally!!!) yesterday afternoon.  Part of that order was the stamp set and coordinating paper that I wanted the most...

Tropical Chic and the Tropical Escape DSP.  Oh man I fell in love with these as soon as I saw them, so I'm delighted to have them in my hot little hands to play with.  The leaves and flower are from Tropical Chic; the sentiment is from Varied Vases which I will also have lots of fun playing with.

Unfortunately the colors are a bit off in the photo because I took it so late yesterday afternoon.  The patterned paper is a very light shade of Granny Apple Green, the card base is Pool Party, the leaves are Shaded Spruce (love this color!), and the flower is So Saffron and also highlighted with Wink of Stella.  The sequins match the flower, they're not really as orange as they look in the photo.

I used this week's Fall-To Layout:

Such a classic.  And here's the Fusion challenge:

I loved the soft blues and greens in the inspiration picture, and the hint of yellow on the top of the cactus, so that's what I went with.  My card also features vegetation, but I don't have any cactus stamps :)

I'm also entering this one at the Paper Players, just one more card for their 400th challenge celebration:

I'm celebrating new stamps!  And also I now have another birthday card in my stash for next time I need one, which is always a good thing.

Have a great Friday, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tropical Chic, Varied Vases
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, So Saffron
Paper:  Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Thinlits, mini Dimensionals, Iridescent Sequins, Wink of Stella

Hi Sweetie

Hey y'all!  How's your Thursday going?  I've got a sweet card for today.

I love this stamp set (A Little Wild) but haven't used it too often so I was happy to bust it out for today's card.  At first I wanted to make the sentiment say "Hello Sweetie" like River Song on Doctor Who, but I thought the "Hi" fit better with my other card elements.  And none of my friends are Doctor Who fans so they wouldn't get it anyway.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And I paired it with the Color Throwdown:

I used Smoky Slate, So Saffron, and Soft Suede for my colors.  I'll let you in on a little secret:  I don't like gray and brown together.  My mom hates navy blue and black together, so I guess color combo aversions run in the family?  Whatever the case, I just don't like them together at all, so I wanted to try this challenge because it WAS a challenge for me to combine gray and brown in a way that didn't make my eye twitch.  My solution?  A little gray shadow for "ground" under the bear.  Heh.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, So Saffron, Soft Suede, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, So Saffron
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Dimensionals

Lemon Sunshine

Hey y'all!  How's your day going?  I'm looking forward to Ryan's second swim lesson this afternoon.  His first lesson went well I thought, he smiled the whole time and didn't even mind getting dunked.  That kid loves the water.

Anywha, I've got a very sunny card to share today!

This reminds me of Ron's spell to turn his rat yellow in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid fat rat yellow!"
*excessive wand waving*

It didn't work, but maybe this card will work to put some sunshine in someone's day when I mail it out.  I sent out cards to my friend Tiana's daughters last week and they were both so excited to get mail.  Heck, I get excited to get mail (which might explain my Amazon addiction...).

My lemon sunshine card is a triple challenge effort.  First up is the color combination from Cupcake Inspiration:

Heyyy I only used the three colors called for!  Yay me.  I used Pineapple Punch for the yellow, I am enjoying all the new colors.  I need to work on building up my cardstock stash for the new shades though, I only have like three sheets of Pineapple Punch at the moment.

Next up (alphabetically) is Global Design Project's sketch:

And finally, this is my first time playing along at Just Us Girls:

I figured the color combination and this word prompt were made to go together and that's how I got my lemon wedges.  I put Wink of Stella on them too, which you can actually see in the picture if you click to embiggen.  It's a miracle!  That never shows up in pictures ;)

Hope you have a sunshiney day, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lemon Zest, Sunshine Sayings, Magical Mermaid (splatter, why is that my favorite stamp from this set?!)
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Whisper White
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Thick Whisper White, Basic Black
Accessories:  White EP, white baker's twine, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, circle punch

Kyoto Station

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I ended up just skipping a scrap day on the blog last week, but that's okay.  I mean, we still had a China layout yesterday and I've got another scrapbook layout up today.

See the original pictures here. I think this was the last layout I did for our Kyoto pictures, and this one is all about a train station.  Yep, a train station.  The architecture of it was so cool.  These photos are dark though, I wish I'd edited them more before I printed them.

My title today is courtesy of the Empire Alphabet, and the circular motifs are from Circle Circus.  I hardly ever used that stamp set for cards, but it has come in quite handy for scrapbook pages because it's all circular motifs that don't have any particular theme.  I think of it as an architectural type stamp set.  Stampin' Up! hasn't come out with one like that for a while so I keep using this one.

Today's color palette is mainly two-toned yellow with Crushed Curry and So Saffron, and accents of Pacific Point with some Basic Black and Whisper White thrown in for good measure.

Hope you have a great Monday, folks.  We've got Ryan's first-ever swimming lesson this afternoon, so wish us luck!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet, Circle Circus
Ink:  Basic Black
Paper:  Crushed Curry, So Saffron, Basic Black, Whisper White, Pacific Point DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

China: Road Trip Rockslide

Happy Sunday, y'all!  And let's here it for another China layout :)

See the pics here.  The first thing we did in Guilin was hop in a van and take a 2-hour trip into the mountains, which got derailed slightly by a bit of a rockslide.  And also we saw water buffalo on the streets (and then later we ate one of their cousins at lunch).

I wanted to call attention to all the dirt of the rockslide, and that's why I chose the long-retired Close to Cocoa for my page base.  I picked Regal Rose for the title to go with my Sanrio friend who lived in the van we rode in, and then green and yellow because it's Missy's fault that now I think Baylor colors belong everywhere.  On an unrelated note, my kid is wearing a Baylor shirt today.  He looks good in green.

Today's color palette:  Close to Cocoa, Garden Green, Crushed Curry, Regal Rose, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  Seems a little odd when you look at the palette but I think it works on the layout when it's all together with the pictures.

Okay!  Sunday muffins are about to come out of the oven.  Peace out, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  A Beautiful Thing
Ink:  Close to Cocoa, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, Night of Navy, Whisper White, Flowerpot DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template