Welcome to Okinawa & 2019 Goals

Howdy, y'all!  I've been enjoying a bit of a break with the holidays but I should be starting back up with the ol' blog next week.  In the meantime, here's a layout that I finally got photographed yesterday:

This was from January 2008, so 11 years ago now and we still have these two crazies.  I used the Wintergreen DSP again and I'm seriously thinking about looking for more on eBay or something because I has a sad when I think how close I am to being out of it.  And there's my favorite paw print stamp, I don't even know who makes it but I use it a lot on my doggy scrapbook pages.  (Yes I am making a scrapbook for my dogs...well really it's for me but it's all dog pictures.  I don't care if you think I'm crazy, I love my fur babies.)

Color palette is almost straight out of the patterned paper:  Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Always Artichoke, and Night of Navy (navy is not in the paper but I like it with all those greens and blues).  I would never have put Certainly Celery and Always Artichoke together on my own, but I do really like how it looks.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Labeler Alphabet, Whimsical Alphabet Upper, non-SU paw print
Ink:  Always Artichoke, Night of Navy
Paper:  Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, Wintergreen DSP
Accessories:  Circle Punches





Okay, so instead of resolutions, I have GOALS for 2019 and a lot of them are paper craft-related, so I'm sharing them here so I have them written down somewhere and I can keep myself accountable.

Goals for scrapbooking!
1.  Make 200 scrapbook pages (so 100 double-page layouts).  I got fairly close to that in 2018 (178 finished, 8 more just need journaling but I'm bugging the hubs to do that this weekend), so I think I can do this as long as I keep at it regularly.
2.  Finish Ryan's baby book.  I pretty much finished June so I've got 8 months left to do.  And then I'll start sharing those here when I finish up the China posts on Sundays.
3.  Work on getting my pictures organized.  I've done a lot of organization on them, but I know we have a LOT of extra pictures...like, we don't need 75 nearly identical shots of Neuschwanstein, and I can cull out blurry pictures and stuff too so when I'm looking for something in particular it won't take me forever to find it.  I also need to organize recent photos of Ryan and order them so I have even MORE photos to scrapbook ;)  I'm hoping to make the organization progress a weekly thing, like on Sunday mornings we have muffins or pancakes or waffles or whatever for breakfast, so I can work on the photos for a bit while I eat breakfast on Sundays.  That's my plan.

Goal for reading!
1.  End the year with fewer unread books on my Kindle than I started, so the number to beat is 125.  Basically I want to read faster than I buy books, haha.  Ummm so is now the time to mention that I just got two more books for free with Kindle First and yesterday my friend alerted me to another free book so I'm already +3?  Yeah this goal is going well.  At least those three books were all free?

Goal for cross stitching!
1.  Finish The Accolade.  I started working on this in 2011, and I've put in 18 months of work on it over the past 7+ years, and this year I'm going to FINISH IT.  I've got several projects in mind when that one is done, but here's my progress pic on it:

I'm about 78% done, hope to finish it by this summer.

So.  Five goals.  I think they're all reasonable as long as I keep them in mind as I go along this year.  With that in mind, I have the supplies for my next layout on my craft table right now, so I'm going to go get started.  Cheers, y'all!

Merry Texas Christmas Y'all! (2004)

Merry Christmas, y'all!

As promised last week, here are the layouts from Christmas in Texas in 2004.  I had *lots* of pictures from that year so I made two layouts.  Also, check out my title--the "Merry Christmas Y'all!" is one stamp, so I stamped the words and cut them apart and inserted the TEXAS right in the middle.  I felt so smart when I did that ;) I cut out some of the flower motifs in the patterned paper to use as page accents too.

This rose pattern is in the same pack of DSP, and I chose it especially because my mom was wearing that shirt with giant red roses on it.  I've been hoarding that paper for YEARS and I'm glad I finally found the perfect place to use it! (And I still have more of it left.)  I also used the Cozy Christmas stamp set which I love.

What's funny to me is I'm working on more Christmas layouts, and I almost used the same sketch I used on this one.  But then I found a different sketch to use.  Not that anyone but me would know anyway!

Today's color palette:  Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Baja Breeze (still my favorite), Chocolate Chip, and Very Vanilla.

Supplies, first layout:
Stamps:  Deadbeat Designs
Ink:  Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Baja Breeze, Thick Very Vanilla, Holly Jolly Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  Circles Collection Framelits

Supplies, second layout:
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze
Paper:  Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Baja Breeze, Thick Very Vanilla, Holly Jolly Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  None

I Think I Need a Tropical Vacation

Hey kids, how's your day going?  This week is just crazy here, which is a big part of why I haven't been posting this week, but I finally got a card made to share today!

It's been a while since I inked up Tropical Chic, so this was fun.  I only used one stamp set on this card, but I made up for it by using three different sets of dies.  Oh, it looks like the embossed texture on the leaves doesn't show up as well as it could, but at least you can see the Wink of Stella glitter on the flowers!

I started with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And added the Global Design Project color challenge:

I can't help it, every time I see Granny Apple Green in a color challenge, I immediately think of the Tropical Escape DSP.  I like that the DSP has different values of the color, too, so I have light, medium, and dark green but it's all one color.  My flowers are different values too; I stamped one with full-strength ink and the other one I inked up with a sponge dauber so it's a slightly lighter color.

I'm also entering this at SUO Challenges for their Designer's Choice challenge.  It was fun to do something more summery for today's card.

That's it for me, kids.  We've got a busy day ahead so Imma get to it!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tropical Chic
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Poppy Parade
Paper:  Pool Party, Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP Stack
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Nature's Roots Framelits, Tropical Thinlits, mini Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Christmas At Our House 2004

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  How was your weekend?  I managed to finish a few scrapbook layouts and I have two that are only waiting on some new markers I need to order, and yesterday I made two batches of cookies to give to the ladies who run the nursery at the Y.  I wanted to give them a little gift because I am so grateful they're there to watch my kiddo so I can work out!  (And I neeeeed to work out, I taste-tested the cookies!)

But let's get to today's layout, shall we?  Here's another very retro layout from the first time we lived in North Carolina.

Okay I'm in love with the Wintergreen DSP.  I've had it for YEARS and I still bust it out on occasion.  Honestly, I'm getting pretty low on it, I wonder if they have any for sale on Ebay?  Anyway, it's come in useful on quite a few scrapbook layouts.  My page base is Blue Bayou, a long ago In Color, which wasn't in the DSP pack but I think it coordinates really well.

Click to embiggen if you want to see the title close up.  Hubs and I did our own Christmas thang at home before we went to Texas that year, and wonder of wonders, I did actually do the Texas layouts too (check back next week for those).

Today's color palette is comprised of Blue Bayou, Cranberry Crisp (another long ago In Color), Always Artichoke, Certainly Celery, Sage Shadow, Soft Sky, and Very Vanilla.  Quite the list there, but they're all in the DSP except the first two colors.

Looks like a lot of challenges are going on a mini-break for Christmas, so I may be a bit more sporadic with posting.  I'm hoping to squeeze in some more scrapbook pages before the end of the year, though I know I won't get up to 200 (I'm currently at 164 I think?).  Lately I've set aside the baby Ryan and baby Sadie photos (the ones I was alternating working on) and I've been doing layouts of Christmases past.  I still have pictures pulled for at least five more Christmas layouts, I figure I might as well do them all now while Christmas is on the brain!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Whimsical Alphabet Upper & Lower, Calendar Alphabet & Numbers, Warmth & Wonder
Ink:  Cranberry Crisp, Always Artichoke, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Blue Bayou, Cranberry Crisp, Always Artichoke, Thick Very Vanilla, Wintergreen DSP
Accessories:  None

China: Dong Fang Hotel

Happy China Sunday, y'all!  I'm just truckin' through the Beijing layouts and pretty soon we're going to be all done with the China albums.  Guess I'd better get cracking on Ryan's baby book so I can start sharing that?

We switched tour guide companies in Beijing to go with the ones who were doing the Great Wall marathon, and they were nowhere near as good as the China Odyssey Tours people we had for Shanghai, Guilin, and Xi'an.  The hotel was a giant step down too, I think the beds were comprised of rocks rejected for use in the Great Wall.  But I made this layout for the hotel anyway!  I love that Primrose Petals pattern on the right, it was from a Valentine pack of patterned paper a few years ago.  I started out with it going across the layout, where the Perfect Plum layer is now, but then I scrapped that and switched the colors around and I like it better now.

The colors are Tip Top Taupe (I liked this one, I should use it more), Primrose Petals, Marina Mist, and Perfect Plum, every single last one of which is now retired.  But they will live forever in my scrapbooks!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Baroque Motifs
Ink:  Marina Mist, Early Espresso marker
Paper:  Tip Top Taupe, Marina Mist, Primrose Petals, More Amore DSP, Marina Mist & Perfect Plum DSP
Accessories:  Lettering template

Hanging Stockings

Happy Friday y'all!  I'm finishing the week with a very CAS Christmas card.  All. The. White. Space!

These three stockings and the sentiment are from the cute hostess set Hung With Care in the back of the holiday catalog.  Aren't they cute?

I took inspiration from the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

I kept all the white space and my sentiment is pretty central to the main image, though I had to change the card orientation to horizontal to accommodate it.  I might have been tempted to make the stockings in our family's favorite colors, but blue, yellow, and green doesn't necessarily scream Christmas to me.  And also I wanted to enter the Cupcake Inspiration color challenge:

Since I didn't get to use Real Red and Call Me Clover on yesterday's card, I did it for today's.  I really need to use Call Me Clover more often, isn't it a gorgeous green!  Plus I thought I was super clever for using both of the colors from the bigger stockings to make the baby stocking.

That's it for this week, peeps.  Have a great one!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hung With Care
Ink:  Real Red, Call Me Clover, Early Espresso
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Sweet Mrs. Claus Bakes Cookies

Mornin' kids!  I tell you what, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in my craft room...this is my fourth Christmas card in a row and I've pulled out a bunch of pictures from Christmas past to work on scrapbooking.  But for now, card!

I decided Mrs. Claus needed some inky love and it just seemed natural to pair her with the candy and cookies from the retired Candy Cane Christmas, which was on my mind after last week's card.  I'm planning to make cookies to give to the three ladies who run the nursery at the Y and watch my kiddo while I work out every day (along with a mug for each of them and some hot cocoa mix and probably some of the hot cocoa flavor Hershey's Kisses because I wasn't a big fan of those so I need to get rid of them and hey, they go with the theme here).  So maybe I'll use this card for one of the ladies in the nursery.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I almost went with snowflakes from Snow is Glistening, but in the end the Color Throwdown persuaded me to go with Mrs. Claus and her cookies instead:

I had planned to use Real Red and Call Me Clover for the first two colors, but I couldn't resist that Poppy Parade striped paper with the white flocking and it turns out I don't have the Call Me Clover Stampin' Blends yet so I went with Shaded Spruce instead.  Still need to work on my blending skills on her dress, though I thought her hair turned out okay.  I decided to go with Crumb Cake for her hair instead of gray because it fit better with the color challenge.

That's it for me today, folks.  Hope you have a sweet day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Signs of Santa, Candy Cane Christmas
Ink:  Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce, Crumb Cake, Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce, Crumb Cake, and Petal Pink
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White, Santa's Workshop DSP
Accessories:  Santa's Signpost Framelits, Dimensionals, Tailored Tag punch