Baby Luke: September

Hey y'all, how's it going.  I had my second Covid shot on Thursday and spent most of the day yesterday laying on the couch or in bed and I *still* feel like the floor of a taxicab.  And then we had some excitement yesterday afternoon--I went to pick Ryan up from daycare and the lovely lady who watches him for us hustled outside and told me that Ryan had hit his head and would probably need stitches.  So I called the hubs and then went inside to get Ryan, who all things considered was very calm about the whole thing.  He'd tripped and hit his head on a corner of the wall (an outie corner, not an innie corner, if that makes sense) and has about a 1" gash on one side of his forehead.  So we met up with the hubs and took him to the ER and eventually they put some strips on it and some glue to hold it closed, so no stitches, which was a major relief for Ryan (he was terrified of the idea of stitches).  To be honest, I'm surprised we made it four years before Ryan's first ER visit!  Given my klutziness and his dad's propensity for injuring himself doing random things, that kid was doomed from the start.  But he's doing just fine.

Anyway, it's time to post another layout from Baby Luke's book, so behold September:

I don't remember ever liking foxes particularly much before I had Ryan, but after he was born, I could not resist buying him clothes with foxes every time I saw them.  Heck, just a couple months ago I got Ryan a bright orange hoodie and the hoodie part is a fox face.  So of course I had to sneak some foxiness into this baby book.  And also some long-time favorite DSP, I love those weathered stripes.

Hope you have a restful weekend, friends.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Foxy Friends
Ink:  More Mustard, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal, Very Vanilla, Autumn Meadows DSP
Accessories:  Sizzix letters, Labels Framelits, Nestabilities oval die

Ryan: Last Page

Here we are, y'all.  It's the VERY LAST PAGE for Ryan's baby book!  Woohoo!  I started sharing layouts from this on Ryan's third birthday in February (first page is here) and now we're finally at the end.  It was a lot of pages :)

For this one, I picked some of my favorite pictures.  The top one is our first family photo, the bottom two are ones that I loved but for one reason or another couldn't fit in on other pages in the book, so I'm glad I managed to find a place for them.  As I'm sure you can imagine, we took ZILLIONS of photos of Ryan's first year, so deciding which ones to use in his baby book was sometimes difficult because he's so stinkin' cute.

The last color palette for Ryan's baby book is a bit different than the first page, although I used the same cardstock base and DSP:  Lost Lagoon, Wild Wasabi, Hello Honey, Gray Granite, Midnight Muse, and Whisper White.

That's a wrap!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends
Ink:  Gray Granite, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Lost Lagoon, Midnight Muse, Thick Whisper White, Lullaby & Woodland Walk DSP
Accessories:  2 1/2" circle punch, Starburst dies

Ryan: First Page

Ryan is THREE today!  I can't believe how big he's gotten.  I finished his baby book late last year (woohoo!) so now I'm ready to share all the layouts I made for it.  It's going to be a series of Saturday posts here on the blog and it's going to take a while.  This book is GIGUNDOR.

For reals, I'm fairly sure this book weighs more than Ryan did when he was born.

I should have put in a banana for scale ;) Here's the first page:

Hubs' sister visited when Ryan was a few weeks old, and she helped me take footprints (Ryan was not really a fan of that whole process).  And then I FORGOT to put them in the book itself (I almost always do the first and last pages for baby books the very last) so I put the footprints on the first page.  I chose the fox image just because I loved all the foxy baby clothes I got for Ryan.  And bear clothes, of course, but I had this cute fox stamp set.

The color palette was taken from the front of the album itself:  Lost Lagoon, Wild Wasabi, Hello Honey, Peach Parfait, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.

We're off to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Foxy Friends, Ryan's feet :)
Ink:  Midnight Muse, Wild Wasabi, Peach Parfait, Early Espresso
Paper:  Lost Lagoon, Midnight Muse, Thick Whisper White, Lullaby & Woodland Walk DSP
Accessories:  2 1/2" circle punch, Starburst dies, Large Letters dies

Rocket Raccoon

Hey y'all, happy Friday!  I think I finally started succumbing to allergies yesterday...hardly a surprise as everything has a coat of yellow pollen.  When it rained on Tuesday all of the puddles were yellow!  But anyway, I persevered and made a card for today.

Soooooooooo I have a bunch of new stamp sets to play with and of course today I chose to use some stamps I've had for over a year at least!  Ah well, sometimes that's what happens.

Love this sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch:

And here's the theme challenge from Global Design Project:

Which dovetails nicely with the theme challenge from Cupcake Inspiration:

I, for one, would be delighted to come across a woodland creature on a walk through the park.  Generally I see squirrels and bunnies though, as opposed to foxes and raccoons, but I think the raccoon I made is pretty cute.  I hand-drew his little quirky smile to give him some character.

Okay kids, we've gotta get up and moving today.  Have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Gray Granite, Grapefruit Grove, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Gray Granite, Share What You Love Specialty DSP, Natures' Poem DSP
Accessories:  Fox Builder Punch, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Foxy Hello

Hey, kids.  Man, this week has been tough!  The hubs' work schedule has been kinda all over the place so I've been pretty much single parenting the kidbot.  I think most of the time I'm ready for bedtime a lot earlier than the kiddo is!

But enough about that, how about a card:

I chose Foxy Friends because I was thinking of entering this over at Retro Rubber, but I'm not sure this fits the theme exactly.  I think of animals being out and about in the summertime, and they did say a summer theme card, but they also have a lot of beachy stuff on there and I don't think foxes are beach babes.  They're more forest-y.  But anyway, I can enter this in the Paper Players sketch challenge!

I kind of made up my color combination on the spot.  I started with the Cajun Craze fox, and I wanted to use Call Me Clover, so I looked on the Stampin' Up! color combos list and Crushed Curry was in a combo with Call Me Clover so I thought hey, that works.  And a healthy dose of Crumb Cake.  We're all about the C's with this color combination.  Except for the black and white anyway.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Have a great Thursday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Tree Rings, A Little Wild
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Everyday Label punch, Dimensionals

Hey, Kit

Happy Friday, y'all!  The hubs and I were both saying yesterday that we were confused what day of the week it was; both of us thought yesterday was Wednesday for a while.  Don't know why but heyyyy Friday!

Ryan took a THREE-HOUR nap yesterday so I managed to make a couple of cards and work on a scrapbook layout.  So here's one of the cards I made:

A baby fox is a kit, right?  I think so.  Meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I loved Rita's foxy card so I was inspired to dust off Foxy Friends, which I haven't played with nearly enough.  Lucky for me, this week's Color Throwdown was foxy as well:

I used Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, Tangerine Tango, and Pool Party for my colors.  I admit I didn't think "baby" when I first saw these colors...in fact, I hadn't decided on a sentiment when I put the rest of the card together.  So I just went through my stamps to find a sentiment that would fit right and that "hello, baby" from Baby Bear jumped out at me.  (The inside of the card says "welcome to the world!")  I thought hey, why not make this a baby card?  Honestly, these colors are pretty similar to Ryan's bedding in his nursery and I looooooove all the baby clothes with foxes on them.  So baby card!

Ryan and I are heading out in about 10 minutes to do our daily gym time.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Baby Bear
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Tangerine Tango, Pool Party, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Thick Whisper White, Always Artichoke, Pool Party
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits (to make a mask), Dimensionals

A Little Foxy Thanks

Allow me to toot my own horn just a bit...y'all, today's card is a quadruple challenge.  I mean like, whoa.  Four challenges in one!

And pretty stinkin' cute, if I do say so myself.  This will be going out in the mail today or tomorrow, I know exactly who's getting it.  As always you can't tell in the picture, but the hearts have Wink of Stella on them so they sparkle a bit.

So, challenge #1 is Cupcake Inspirations:

As always, that cupcake is adorable and I really want to eat it.  Especially if that's cream cheese frosting.  It's very unfortunate that Wegmans sells red velvet cake by the slice in their bakery, because I have zero willpower and also red velvet cake is pretty awesome.

Challenge #2 is ColourQ:

I switched out the Glorious Green for Emerald Envy since Emerald Envy is pretty much Glorious Green 2.0 anyway, and it's easier for me to get to than the Glorious Green cardstock.  Which I still have.

Challenge #3 is today's Freshly Made Sketch:

And finally, Challenge #4 is What Will You Stamp?

I had much better luck getting good ink coverage on my fox today, so here's what I did:  I inked it up with my regular Calypso Coral ink pad, which is still way too juicy and doesn't give me a great impression with photopolymer stamps.  Before stamping it, I got out a Calypso Coral ink spot that I got in some past Paper Pumpkin kit and pressed it all over the stamp too, not to add more ink but to make sure that the stamp was inked evenly (I suppose a brayer would work too, but then I'd have to clean it).  Then I put my cardstock on top of my piercing mat and stamped it that way--the extra cushion helps a bit with photopolymer stamps.  And whaddya know, it turned out pretty great!

This card took me sufficient time to make that I have missed my 11:00 gym class, so I suppose I'll just have to go to lunch at Panera instead.  Oops.  Haha.  No, I mean oops.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, One Big Meaning
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Blushing Bride, Night of Navy, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Calypso Coral, Emerald Envy, Whisper White
Accessories:  Wink of Stella clear pen

Foxy Smiles

When I saw today's sketch on CAS(E) This Sketch, I knew I had to make something with it:

I love a solid, simple sketch.  And I hadn't used my new Foxy Friends stamp set since I made the Cheshire Cat, so here's what I came up with:

I had some trouble inking up the fox...my Calypso Coral ink pad is way, way juicy, so I tried an ink spot I got in a past Paper Pumpkin kit, but that looked pretty terrible.  So I got out my super-juicy ink pad and a sponge, and sponged the color onto the stamp, and that worked out fairly well for me.  Not perfect coverage, even stamping on top of a piercing mat, but much better than the first two I tried.  I paired my fox with a sentiment from Love & Affection because I love that font and the sentiments are sweet, and I also used the foxy paper stack (A Little Foxy!) because I bought it and hadn't used it before.  I'm not thrilled that the thick Whisper White card base makes the patterned paper look a little dingy but what can you do.

Anyway, I need to run out to the store and pick up dog food.  It's a glamorous life, but one of my dogs just has to eat every single day twice a day (more if he can manage it...the other one doesn't care much at all if she eats every other day!).  So off I go.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Love & Affection
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Basic Black, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pool Party, A Little Foxy DSP Stack
Accessories:  None

Cheshire Cat

Greetings from Wonderland!  I've finally started bustin' out my new stamps and I'm pretty chuffed about today's creation.

I doubt I'm the first person to think of this, but I haven't seen anyone else do it--it's the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.  I lovelovelove the new Foxy Friends bundle!  Make all kinds of lil animals with the stamp set and matching punch.  It was a little fiddly to get all the purple accents on my cat; I stamped the main parts with Flirty Flamingo and then just stamped over it with Sweet Sugarplum, which came out pretty close to the colors on the Cheshire Cat in the Disney cartoon.  I thought about putting his head on upside-down or having it floating above his body but decided not to do that.  The circular stamp is from the latest Paper Pumpkin kit.

Anyway, I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I think the sketch is kind of unusual, but I think my Cheshire Cat scene works with it.  And I got to scrap yesterday, too!  You'll see a brand-new layout on Monday :)  For the last two months or so I've mainly been sharing things I made earlier this year on Scrappy Mondays because I was working on another baby book.  But I'm back to scrappin' now, y'all.  Very exciting.

In fact, I think I'm going to go bust out my next set of pictures and have some fun.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Teeny Tiny Wishes, My Paper Pumpkin June 2016 kit
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Sweet Sugarplum, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party, Basic Black
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Pear Pizzazz, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Fox Builder Punch, Dimensionals