Bouquet on Black

Hey, y'all!  I had a zillion things to do yesterday, so naturally, I spent an hour and a half while kiddo was asleep in my craft room making some cards :D

I liked the sketch from the Paper Players so I couldn't let the week end without playing along:

Didn't realize until I was starting to write this blog post that I didn't follow where the sentiment was on the sketch, but I think they'll forgive me.  I paired that with the colors from Color Throwdown:

I used Mango Melody, Flirty Flamingo, Pineapple Punch, and Granny Apple Green for my colors.  I thought the black card base really made the bright colors pop :)

Cheers y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Flirty Flamingo, Pineapple Punch, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Rectangle Stitched dies, Bouquet Bunch dies, Dimensionals

Garden Birthday Wishes

Mornin', y'all!  My first new catty Stampin' Up! order got here yesterday...I checked the tracking online and it said delivered, but I didn't see it anywhere around my house.  Well, Mr. Brown delivered it to my next-door neighbor!  I just went and grabbed it off their porch, hoping no one in the house was like "Why is she STEALING from us?!"  But I promise, the box was addressed to me :D

Buuuuuuut I had an idea in my head for the card I'm sharing now before I knew that my SU! order would get here, so no new stamps.

However, I did just get the Happiness Blooms enamel dots yesterday, so I went ahead and used some on here!  They're Night of Navy, which matches the sentiment and the thin border--it's not black, I promise.  I chose Grapefruit Grove for the flowers because it seemed cheerful and I hadn't played with that color in a while.

I used the Global Design Project sketch:

I did move the greeting down, but I made that choice because I was working with a scrap of the Garden Lane DSP and it was already two inches wide, so I had room underneath the flowers and I just went for it :)

I'm also entering this at the theme challenge at Inkspirational:

Good thing this is a stampy garden, and not a reflection of what my real-life garden would look like if I had one--full of weeds!  I am not much for gardening.  Or yard work.  But I can have pretty paper flowers in my stamp room so it's all good.

Hope you have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet, Itty Bitty Birthdays
Ink:  Grapefruit Grove, Night of Navy
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Soft Sea Foam, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  Bouquet Bunch Dies, Happiness Blooms enamel dots

Bouquet Bunch

Happy Friday, y'all!  I almost didn't get a card done for today...I was working more on scrapbook pages but I hit a good stopping point on my layout and I just had enough time to get a card made before Ryan woke up from his nap.  So here 'tis!

I'm loving the bright colors right now.  I used Call Me Clover for the card base and I haven't played with that nearly enough yet.  Such a pretty green!

I used the sketch from Fusion:

My colors are a pretty good match for the van, too, but I used the Color Throwdown challenge to choose my shades:

I used Pineapple Punch, Mango Melody, Lovely Lipstick, and the aforementioned Call Me Clover.  Looooove those bright colors!

Hope y'all have a great weekend, y'all.  This afternoon I'm back to work on more scrapbook pages...I've got a ways to go if I want to make my annual goal!

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Call Me Clover, Mango Melody, Pineapple Punch, Lovely Lipstick
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Mango Melody, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Dies, Stitched Shapes Dies, Dimensionals

Inspiration is Messy

Hey, y'all!  Have you ever started making something and it just WOULD NOT cooperate with you?  That was my first try at this card.  I chucked it in the trash and that's when the kid started making noise like he was done with naptime, so it took me two days to get this card made.  But, in the end, I'm fairly pleased with it.  And my fingers are multicolored.

All hail watercolor paper for the background!  I tried doing a rainbow effect with sponges and that part was kinda sorta okay, but then I tried embossing some flowers on it and that part was NOT okay, hence my trashing it.  So here's how I made the background on this card:

1.  Tried something different, hated it, wished I could tell it that it was a disgrace to the Empire in Klingon but my Klingon is rudimentary at best.*
2.  Start over with watercolor paper.
3.  Smoosh an acrylic ink block onto an ink pad (I started with the Melon Mambo I think), spritz it with water, and then smoosh it on the watercolor paper.
4.  Speed up drying time with a heat tool.
5.  Repeat ink-spritz-smoosh with the remaining colors, drying the paper in between.  The colors blend a little bit where they overlap, but don't get too muddy.  I did do the Pineapple Punch twice though, it got overwhelmed by the darker colors at first so I smooshed it a second time and that worked nicely.

*I'm not sure this step is necessary, but just in case it really is integral to the process...there you go.  Note to self:  take classes in Klingon.

Okay!  So then I had my rainbow-y background done, and of course the paper was a little wrinkly from being wet so many times, so I sat on it for a while.  Sounds weird, but I do this a lot.  I have an old pillow on top of my chair in my craft room, so sometimes I put a piece of cardstock under my leg and sit on it.  Helps flatten out slightly wrinkled paper, helps remind a card base that it's actually supposed to fold, and in this case it also helped make sure the adhesive was really good and strong holding the watercolor paper on the card base.  I put a LOT of Tombow on it because I didn't want it to go anywhere ;)

All that to say, yay rainbow inspiration!  And my inspiration came from the Global Design Project challenge this week:

Obviously I was inspired by the rainbow-type background, and my sentiment is also white on black.

I paired that with the Sunday Stamps sketch challenge:

Typically I scribble down challenges that I want to do in a little notebook and take that into my craft room with me; I craft sans computer.  So sometimes the finer details of a sketch get a little forgotten while I'm working--like my strip goes all the way to the right edge, and I put my flowers in different places, but I think the spirit of the sketch is still there.

And finally, don't forget the SUO Challenges floral challenge is still open:

If I made a card every day using a different current SU! flower stamp set, it would take me probably a month.  If I included all my retired stamps too...well, we'd be seeing flowers forever!

That's it for me today. y'all.  Cheers!  And don't worry about the ink on your fingers, it will wash off.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet, Part of My Story
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Coastal Cabana, Melon Mambo, Gorgeous Grape, Whisper White
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, watercolor paper, How Sweet It Is DSP
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, Bouquet Thinlits, Dimensionals, white baker's twine, glitter enamel dots, white EP

Bright Bouquet

Hey y'all!  It is time once again for a new challenge at SUO Challenges! 

This time it's all about flowers, and Stampin' Up! has a LOT to choose from for that!  I pulled out Beautiful Bouquet for this card.

I wanted some super bright and cheery colors, so I went with Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, and Shaded Spruce.  I actually did a different card first for this challenge, but I'll share that one tomorrow.  For today I wanted something happy :)  I believe that Daffodil Delight self-adhesive sequin was from last year's Occasions catalog, but everything else is current.

Hope you'll hop on over to the SUO Challenges blog to look at the other pretties from the design team, and then give the challenge a whirl yourself.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet, A Big Thank You
Ink:  Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, Shaded Spruce
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Bouquet Thinlits, mini Dimensionals, retired sequin

Happy Anniversary to My One and Only

Mornin' y'all!  On this day 15 years ago I married my sweet husband, so of course today I'm sharing an anniversary card.

I did my best to edit the photo but the colors look terrible, sorry.  I used Blueberry Bushel and Call Me Clover for the hearts and sentiment; the card base is Whisper White and the background is done with Balmy Blue and a baby wipe and I might be doing this same technique for a while because it's fun and I just got a huuuuuuge box of wipes for Ryan so at least some of them will go toward something fun.

Anywha, I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch and my card came together lickety-split:

We only have a very few of our wedding pictures in digital format on our computer, but I found this one so here's me and the hubs 15 years ago:

#suchbabies #stillgoingstrong #lovemyhubs

D'awwwwwwwww.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Takeout Treats, Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Call Me Clover, Blueberry Bushel, Balmy Blue
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Takeout Thinlits, retired epoxy shapes

Anniversary Bouquet

Hey kids!  Well, we're hunkered down in our house and waiting for Florence to arrive, though as of yesterday afternoon it looks like she's going to visit South Carolina more than us.  Which is fine by me!  (Though I do feel sorry for South Carolina.)  But I did make a couple of cards yesterday during Ryan's nap time.

The colors in the photo are wonky, sorry about that, it was late afternoon when I took the photo and in this house morning is a better photo time (but that usually doesn't work with Ryan's schedule).  The flower colors are Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, and a little bitty bit of Poppy Parade.  Anyway, I like how this card turned out but I would NOT want to try to mass-produce it.  It was a LOT of cutting on the Big Shot, and then a lot of fiddly gluing.  The larger flowers have rhinestone centers, and each of the three smaller flowers has a teeny Calypso Coral sequin in the center.

Let's check out some challenges!  First up is the Inkspire Me challenge:

I wish I'd made my panels a bit smaller to match the sketch a bit better, but I didn't think about it until I had half the card glued together.  The bouquet on my card is taking the place of the bow on the sketch.

Next up is the Just Add Ink challenge:

This one has already closed out, unfortunately.  Curses Australia time!!

And finally the SUO Challenge this week is to make a card for a celebration, and I think an anniversary fits that description.

Stay safe, friends.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, Shaded Spruce, Whisper White
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Shaded Spruce, Granny Apple Green, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  Bouquet Bunch Framelits, Dimensionals, rhinestones, Iridescent Sequins

Bouquet Thanks

Mornin' y'all!  How's your week going?  I've got a sunny card for your Wednesday.

And this is a triple challenge card!  First up is Inkspirational:

I think each of the four stamps I used is smaller than a quarter.  The flowers are punched out with a 1" square punch, so pretty small :)

Next up is the Cupcake Inspiration color challenge:

I used Melon Mambo, Pineapple Punch, and Granny Apple Green for my colors (though the ribbon is Lemon Lime Twist).

And last up is the Fall-To Layout:

This sketch was made to go with the small stamp challenge, am I right?

Blogger has been doing something weird lately where it won't email me when I have pending comments.  I have to go to the "awaiting moderation" page and then refresh it to see comments, which is weird and slightly annoying.  I figured it out last week when it occurred to me that I hadn't had any comments here in a while, and lo and behold I had like 30 that were waiting for me to figure out they were there!  And one of them was to let me know my card was picked as a fave for a past Inkspirational challenge.  Whee!  That was fun to see!

Anyway, I hope y'all have a great day today.  Ryan and I will be off to the Y later this morning...

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Melon Mambo, Pineapple Punch, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  1" square punch, Dimensionals, LLT ombre ribbon, retired rhinestones

A Bouquet of Tulips

Hey y'all!  I got a little bitty Stampin' Up order yesterday, just cardstock and two stamp pads (a replacement Poppy Parade and a Petal Pink one; the only two colors I haven't bought the ink pads for yet are Gray Granite and Merry Merlot).  I got the Subtles 12x12 and I've already started working on a scrapbook layout with the Balmy Blue sheets...yeah I'm gonna need SU! to release a pack of just that so I can stock up :)

But before Mr. Brown showed up at my house, I made a card to share today!

Today's Beautiful Bouquet card is all about tulips.  I had originally planned to combine the two flower stamps to make a tulip, but I changed my mind halfway through...if I had it to do over again, I'd make the "open" tulips the darker shade of Calypso Coral and let the buds be lighter.  But the kid woke up, as he likes to do when I'm mid-project ;)

I used this week's Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping:

And the color combination from the Paper Players:

I may take another hack at this one, maybe with Lemon Lime Twist as the star of the show.  I swear I am going to be SO sad when that color retires next summer!

That's it for me today.  Y'all have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Lemon Lime Twist, Crumb Cake
Accessories:  Bouquet Bunch Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Spring Bouquet

Happy Friday, y'all!  I've got to type fast because I can hear Ryan talking to himself in his crib, so he's ready to get up :)

Because I'm seasonally challenged, let's have a spring card today!

Playing around with the new-to-me Beautiful Bouquet stamp set and a couple of the new colors:  Soft Sea Foam is the green, and Highland Heather is the purple.  I paired those with Powder Pink and So Saffron for a spring bouquet.

And I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Originally I was going to do a summer bouquet with lots of bright, saturated colors, but then I saw this Fusion challenge:

And that's why I decided to go with pastels instead of brights for my card today.  Oh, I forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card, but the sentiment continues with "It's in the staying there" and then "Happy Anniversary".  And my pearls are retired, but I thought this card needed pearls and I don't have any of the new ones yet.

Okay, off to grab the kiddo and do breakfast.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Soft Sea Foam, Powder Pink, Highland Heather, So Saffron
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Soft Sea Foam, Powder Pink
Accessories:  Bouquet Bunch Framelits, Dimensionals, retired pearls

*Waving Madly*

Hellooooooooo!

Something about an octopus waving hello at you makes me giggle.  So Sea of Textures is the only brand new never-seen-before stamp set I have from the new catalog, but before the last one ended I did buy Lemon Zest, Beautiful Day, and at the last minute Beautiful Bouquet (which is where I got the "hello" from).  I won't be doing another new catty order until July so Sea of Textures is this year's featured set for me.  (Last year it was Orange Blossom, which I still can't believe it retired after one year!)  Anyway, I've inked up this octopus three times and two of those times he was purple.  Today he's black, and you can't tell but he's covered in Wink of Stella for some sparkle.

Octopi are animals, right?  Because the Paper Players challenge is all about the animals:

I used the sketch from Sunday Stamps:

To be honest I wish I'd used the Marbled background on my card front or something else and then left the oval behind the octopus plain, but my kiddo was waking up from his nap so I had to finish fast and I couldn't change it around.

Check out the Color Throwdown for this week:

I used Coastal Cabana for the aqua color; I've been mildly obsessed with it since it was announced that Coastal Cabana was returning to the SU! color lineup.  (I've done a couple of scrapbook layouts that haven't been shared here yet, plus a few cards that have been shared here.)

Hope you have a great day, y'all.  I've been fighting a cold all week and it is no fun, though Ryan thinks the noise I make when I blow my nose is super funny.  At least he's amused?

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sea of Textures, Beautiful Bouquet
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Memento Tuxedo Black, Whisper White
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Under the Sea Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, linen twine, Tailored Tag punch (to flag the end of the black banner), metallic sequins, Dimensionals