Guest Designer: Retro Rubber!

Surprise double post today!  I'm delighted to say that I am a guest designer for today's new Retro Rubber Challenge!

My stamp collection is....quite extensive, as you can imagine given that I've been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator for over 15 years and I almost never get rid of any stamps.  I have literally hundreds of flower stamps to choose from, but my mind immediately jumped to one image in particular that I haven't played with in ages, check it out:

I could have gone with tulips like the inspo pic, but I couldn't say no to these sweet flowers!  The bouquet is from the stamp set Bloomin' Beautiful, which I've had since at least 2014, so quite retro.  The sentiment is retro too, Well Scripted has been in my collection for about as long as Bloomin' Beautiful, but for some reason I've only used it like twice before now.  I even dug out some retro tools--the Finishing Touches Edgelits and the Decorative Label punch (I think that one was called the Decorative Label punch...I have more than a few label punches).  I paired all this retro schtuff with some brand new colors!  This was actually the first card I made with this year's new In Colors, and I used Orchid Oasis, Starry Sky, and Parakeet Party.  Love them all, and they look fantastic together too!

Hope you'll join in the fun at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog.  I had a great time with this challenge and I know you will too!

Supplies, all SU! (many retired)
Stamps:  Bloomin' Beautiful, Well Scripted
Ink:  Versamark, Basic Gray, Orchid Oasis, Starry Sky, Parakeet Party
Paper:  Orchid Oasis, Starry Sky, Thick Basic White, Parakeet Party DSP
Accessories:  Finishing Touches Edgelits, Decorative Label punch, clear EP, white EP, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: For All You Do

Happy Friday, ya'll!  How are you this rainy afternoon?  Yeah, I'm late getting my Friday Flashback post up, but today we're celebrating the retired stamp set For All You Do, which is really cute even if the name isn't very descriptive.  So let's get started!

Also features Essence of Love, Strength & Hope, Elements of Style

Japan pages!  The butterfly next to "Park" is the one from today's stamp set.  This layout is a little busier than my usual style, what with three different patterned papers and the more complicated placement of all the elements, but I do really love it.

Also features Bloomin' Beautiful

That wee flower on the journaling block is from For All You Do...

Also features Fresh Fillers

And there's the butterfly again.  And I'm sad that that was all I had in the archives for this set, and so I set out to remedy that today.

I continue to be enamored of CAS cards this week (I thought to myself, I can't stop CAS-ing and then I laughed because I amuse myself) and this one started with the color challenge from Cupcake Inspirations:

I wrote down pink, yellow and purple so I accidentally got a real hot pink instead of a baby pink.  Oops.  I also used this week's CAS(E) This Sketch:

And I kinda want to make like five more cards with it.  Anyway, when I made the first card I kept thinking the colors were yellow, pink, and teal like a certain My Little Pony:

Hi Fluttershy!  So when I re-read the challenge colors I thought I should make a Fluttershy card anyway, so bonus Friday Flashback card!

To be honest though, I'm not sure how much I like this one.  I do like the colors together (So Saffron, Pretty in Pink and Bermuda Bay) but I'm not sure about my composition here.  I did some Wink of Stella on the butterfly for a wee bit of sparkle.

Since I wasn't 100% thrilled with that card, I made another one, but not another Fluttershy one.

Okay, what is the deal.  I edit my photos on the computer and then somehow when I go to upload them on the blog they look so much darker!  Grr.  Anyway, the idea for this card popped into my head and I figured that I really hadn't done justice to the stamp set so I made a third card.  The sentiment on this one is from Great Friend, another set with a pretty butterfly and a nondescript name, and they share a stamp case in my house.

Anyway, for this last card I used the color combo from Pals Paper Arts:

So there you have it, this Flashback was equal parts old and new projects.  Hope you have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, Happy Everything card:
Stamps:  For All You Do, Happy Everything
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Strawberry Slush, Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Supplies, For All You Do card:
Stamps:  For All You Do
Ink:  So Saffron, Pretty in Pink, Bermuda Bay
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Wink of Stella

Supplies, Great Friend card:
Stamps:  For All You Do, Great Friend
Ink:  Sahara Sand, Mint Macaron, Night of Navy
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Neutrals Candy Dots

Nottingham

Let's just get one thing out of the way already.

I would seriously think about voting for a presidential candidate that promised to do away with Daylight Savings Time.  Srsly.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, we can get on to today's Scrappy Monday layout.

You can see the original pictures here and here.  Nice and springy layout for today, right?

So you don't have to crane your head to read the title.

So originally I wanted to put the bee on the left page, over near the title where the three blue flowers are now but the bee is FACING THE WRONG WAY.  Geez, bee.  So this was Plan B (or Plan Bee, if you prefer).  And now you can read the journaling too.

Today's color palette was inspired by the ginormous hydrangea bushes in the pictures:  Orchid Opulence, Ballet Blue, Strawberry Slush, Basic Gray, and Whisper White.  I think I did another scrapbook layout right after this one that I also used Strawberry Slush for.  I think I kinda go in spurts with some colors, and right this minute I'm doing a lot of yellow.  But since I am at 43 pages completed for this year, and I'm usually only sharing two pages every Monday, there's quite a backlog of draft posts so who knows when you'll see all the yellow scrapbook pages :D

Happy stampin' and scrappin', y'all.  I'm going to keep on keepin' on...after I go to the gym.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely Letters Alphabet, Bloomin' Beautiful, Greenhouse Garden
Ink:  Ballet Blue, Basic Gray
Paper:  Orchid Opulence, Ballet Blue, Whisper White, Strawberry Slush DSP
Accessories:  None, unless you count a Stamp-a-ma-jig

Friday Flashback: It's Your Birthday

Happy Friday, y'all!  We are currently prepping for Snowmageddon, which is slated to start this afternoon.  But in the meantime, I have a Friday Flashback for you!  Today's stamp set is It's Your Birthday, and who doesn't need a great set of birthday greetings?  In fact, I'd used this set so much that I only picked about half of what I had in my archives to share otherwise we'd still be doing this flashback *next* Friday.  So let's giddyup!

Also features Bronc Buster, Paisley

First is a birthday card I made for my brother a few years ago.

Also features Floral, Roses in Winter

And here's one for my mother's great aunt...

Also features Baroque Motifs, Embrace Life

Honestly I don't know who I sent this to, it's a rare square card.

Also features Bloomin' Beautiful

This "someone like you should be celebrated every day" stamp is done in the same font as the "happy birthday" above so you could use them together.  Or just use this one for a card and it doesn't have to be birthday-specific.

Also features Dream Gardens

 I do love my Oriental stamps :)

Also features Pun Fun

Here's a cute little one I did for my mom, who loves hippos.

Also features Mixed Bouquet

I made this one for one of my favorite people in the world, who has sadly passed away.  Miss you, Neelu!

Also features Petal Prints

Let's be honest, this is one of my favorite cards.

Also features Wing It, Flannel Plaid

And one more kinda masculine card to round out the group.  Are you ready for today's new creation?  Here it is:

My friend Tiana (who doesn't read this blog, so I'm not giving away any birthday secrets) came out to visit at the beginning of the month and mentioned when we were out shopping that she wanted some super-soft comfy pajama pants.  And since her birthday is next week, I found her some ridiculously cute ones at Kohl's, they're black and have foxes on them and look kinda like this card :D  The jammies are more of a raspberry color than coral, but I only have Calypso Coral embossing powder so I went with that.  I loved these so much I ordered some for myself, and I also got her a set of Star Wars jammies because awesome.  The Star Wars ones have purple in them so this card kinda matches both.

Anyway, I used a sketch from the Retro Rubber challenge site, my very first time to play along over there!

If I got both It's Your Birthday and Fox & Friends when they first came out, then I've had It's Your Birthday for TEN years and Fox & Friends for 6.  And I still love them both :)

Ok, I'd better get moving before Snowmageddon starts.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  It's Your Birthday, Fox & Friends
Ink:  Basic Black, Versamark
Paper:  Basic Black, Lavender Lace, Lucky Limeade & Calypso Coral DSP
Accessories:  Circles Framelits, retired heart punch, Calypso Coral EP, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Well Scripted

Happy Friday, peeps!  It's time for this week's Friday Flashback, and the randomly selected retired stamp set du jour is Well Scripted, a collection of sentiment stamps from back in 2010.  I'm a wee bit embarrassed this Flashback isn't longer than it is, but let's get to it anyway.

Also features Bloomin' Beautiful

Believe it or not, I made this card when I did a Friday Flashback on my other blog, before I started this stamps/scrapbook blog.  I do love that flower from Bloomin' Beautiful, but the Well Scripted sentiment is a mite hard to see.

Also features My Matryoshka & French Filigree

Coincidentally I used the same birthday stamp on this card, and it's the end of the Flashback part of today's proceedings.  I made a bunch of these for a swap back in the day.  Don't know why I didn't use this set more often, I do like the fonts and it's got a nice collection of sentiments.

Lucky for me, I decided (without checking the archives first) to use a NON-birthday stamp for today's new creation:

Yay Mother's Day card!  I owe the color combination to the Color Throwdown:

It's funny that I used Pale Plum and Perfect Plum on today's card, like I did on the first card on this post.  I almost went with Almost Amethyst and Lovely Lilac instead, but chose the plums specifically because I don't use them very often and then they show up twice in the Friday Flashback.  Anyway, I added Wild Wasabi, Whisper White, and it needed just a teensy bit of So Saffron to make the card work.

The layout is courtesy of Freshly Made Sketches:

I stamped my sentiment banner first and placed it on the card front so I could kind of see where I would want my roses to go.  And I didn't try to fill up the entire Whisper White panel, but somehow I covered up most of the white bits with the other layers.

Anyway, that's it for me this week.  Have a great weekend and cheers, peeps!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Well Scripted, Roses in Winter (an old fave!)
Ink:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Wild Wasabi, So Saffron
Paper:  Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Whisper White, Wild Wasabi DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches, hexagon punch, Subtles Candy Dot

Friday Flashback: Floral

Time for the Friday Flashback again already!  This week's randomly chosen retired stamp set is just one stamp, the background Floral.  Back in the day before I had tons of patterned paper and embossing folders and such to play with, I used background stamps a LOT so today's Flashback is longer than like the last three put together (no wait, four flashbacks, I looked), and I didn't even post all my previous cards with Floral : )  So let's flash back with a visit to the archives, shall we?

This one features an old favorite, Roses in Winter, plus It's Your Birthday for the sentiment.

One of my favorite color combinations ever!  Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, and neutrals.  Main images on this one are from Eastern Influences (another favorite of mine).

 Flower and definition stamp on this one are from Bloomin' Beautiful.

A nice springy card with the morning glories from Morning Soft and sentiment from Warm Words.

Main image from Perfect Petals, "wish" from Small Script.

Here's a more autumnal take with a hummingbird from Spring Song and a second background stamp, Sanded.  I like this card but I wish I could move that sentiment up onto the main image panel--it would have fit just fine underneath the bird!

And here's something a bit different, I stamped the floral pattern with a contrasting color on light cardstock instead of doing tone-on-tone like I did with everything else.  So that's it for the flashback part, here's my new card:

This time I wanted the Floral stamp to take center stage, so I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with Early Espresso powder, then colored with an Aquapainter.  You can't tell from the picture, but the white bit with the sentiment is popped up from the card base, and then the butterfly is popped up again from there so it's multidimensional.

I used the colors from Dynamic Duos' Triple Threat Week:

So there you have it!  I've done nothing but flowery cards (and even a floral scrapbook layout) for over a week now, so I promise that next week I'll have at least two non-floral projects to share.  In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Floral, Best of Butterflies, Fancy Flexible Phrases
Ink:  Versamark, Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango, Wild Wasabi, Elegant Eggplant (because pansies have to be purple!)
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Whisper White, retired Wild Wasabi DSP
Accessories:  Early Espresso EP, Circles Framelits, Artisan Label punch, Dimensionals, random ribbon from my stash that's probably not SU