Grrr, Arrgh

Ya know, sometimes I just have an off day in the craft room when nothing seems to turn out quite like I want it, and that's happened to me two days in a row this week.  Maybe because I've been working at night instead of in the afternoon during kiddo's naptime?  I don't know, but I hope it sorts itself out soon because I'm just not happy with today's card.

I liked the color and sketch challenges I used (I'll get to those in a minute), but my card just isn't wowing me.  Well, not every card can be my favorite, right?  The floral image is from the hostess set Pressed Flowers, which reminds me of the very old Art of Life (I was sure I had used that stamp set at least once, but I couldn't find it in my archives) and this card is its maiden voyage.  Perhaps its second journey will be a bit better.

Here's the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge:

And the Inkspire Me color challenge:

I think those would be great Christmas colors.

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

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pressed Flowers, Lots of Happy
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Rich Razzleberry, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Thick Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Metallic Sequins, Wink of Stella

Lots of Happy Card Kit, Part 3

Hey y'all.  I was working on scrapbook pages yesterday and never made a card, so here at last is the third part of the Lots of Happy card kit!

This was the fifth design that I made multiples of from the parts and pieces of the cards in the kit.

And this is the card I made for the gal I gave the whole card set to, so just one of this.  I still have a few of those lavender stalks left to play with too.

Ryan is getting into the apothecary cabinet so I'm gonna run.  Byeee!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lots of Happy, Work of Art
Ink:  Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Old Olive, pieces in the Lots of Happy card kit
Accessories:  Dimensionals, pieces from the card kit

Lots of Happy Card Kit, Part 2

Hey, y'all.  Wow, it's almost afternoon where I am already...this morning was a little out of whack because I had to go get blood drawn and then the lab's computer system went down so Ryan and I spent about 20 minutes pacing back and forth in the hall outside the lab waiting for things to come back up and then I finally got blood drawn and then we were at Ryan's naptime so here I am driving home and hollering at him to stay awake until we get in the house because if he falls asleep in the car even if it's just for 2.31 seconds then he won't sleep when we get home and he's not one of those kids you can move from car to crib without waking him up.  And I couldn't eat anything until after the blood draw.  But anyway, that's done, Ryan is asleep, and I need to go clean up the house a bit.

But first, two more cards from the Lots of Happy card kit.

These two are both ones that I used pieces from smaller sized cards to make regular A2 cards.  I probably could/shout have used Sahara Sand as the card base for all of them so they'd be more matchy-matchy, but what can I say, I like variety.  Oh, since the Rich Razzleberry watercolor pencil was turning out more pink than purple, for this bunch of lavender I used ink instead.  Yay purple!

The original card kit shows that parallelogram (I assume it's a parallelogram?) on top of the piece with the roses where it covers up like 90% of them.  Hey, if I'm going to take the time to color in the roses and stems and stuff, then by golly I'm not going to cover it up!  So I flipped the rose part 90 degrees and now you can see 90% of it instead of 10%.  Which makes me happy.

Okay, off to clean up a few things and then maybe I'll have time to get in my craft room before Ryan wakes back up.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lots of Happy
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  what came in the kit + Basic Black & Lemon Lime Twist
Accessories:  what came in the kit

Lots of Happy Card Kit, Part 1

Howdy, folks!  Ryan only took one nap yesterday and I don't like that schedule.  He wasn't unusually cranky or anything from missing his afternoon nap, I just like that time to do stuff without toddler "help", ya know?  I can't even load the dishwasher without him climbing all over it.

But anyway.  Over the weekend I put together the Lots of Happy card kit and then gave it to someone as a gift.  I made 20 cards total, 4 each of 5 designs, plus a card for the recipient; today I'm sharing the first two cards that were made pretty much like the sample pictures.

At first I wasn't really planning to use the vellum leaves because...I don't know, I guess I just don't "get" them?  But I did use them and I think the cards turned out pretty cute.  The kit comes with four watercolor pencils, but the Rich Razzleberry one turns out looking like a slightly purplish pink rather than actually being purple.  Oh well.

Those were the two A2 size card designs that came with the kit; it came with three smaller ones but those you couldn't send through the mail so I took the pieces and made them into regular size cards (which I'll share later).  This kit has some very pretty pieces but it was rather labor-intensive with all the coloring.  Still, the recipient liked it and that's what matters!

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lots of Happy
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  what came in the card kit
Accessories:  what came in the card kit

Retiring: Swan Lake

Mornin', folks!  Yesterday, Stampin' Up! dropped their retirement lists in preparation for the new catalog, so I'll most likely be revisiting some of the soon-to-retire stamp sets between now and June 1.  And first on the list is Swan Lake.

Honestly, a big part of why I got Swan Lake is to do scrapbook pages for Neuschwanstein (the castle in Bavaria that was the basis for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland; there are swan motifs everywhere in the castle).  I haven't gotten to those pictures yet, but I did use the swan on another layout already.  I do like this stamp set.  So anyway, I paired the soon-to-retire with a couple of brand new (and continuing in the next catalog) stamp sets:  Waterfront and Lots of Happy.  I can't wait to play with Waterfront a bit more, and Lots of Happy is part of a card kit in the Occasions Catalog...I can now report that 4 out of 5 of the Lots of Happy sentiments fit perfectly in that Tailored Tag Punch.  Yay!

Enough chatter, let's take a look at this week's color challenge from Global Design Project:

I love Tranquil Tide so I was happy to see this combination.  I inked up both the swan and the sentiment with Versamark and then Night of Navy ink, and embossed both with clear embossing powder.  That allowed me to watercolor some Crumb Cake shading on the swan without making the colors run.  For the lake and shore, I stamped off once on scratch paper before stamping on the cardstock here to make the colors a little lighter, and just added more stamping until I liked how it looked.

Here's the sketch from Sunday Stamps that I used:

I like this sketch, it was fun!  I left off the two little flagged pieces on the "any shape" element in the interests of keeping my card on the simpler side.  I just hand-cut the mat for the Tailored Tag punch, easy enough since it's all straight lines.  A few pearls and that was it!

Time to feed Ryan his second breakfast...he gets a bottle first thing and then a bowl of cereal a little later, and it's time for that.  Plus I'm hungry too!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Waterfront, Lots of Happy
Ink;  Versamark, Night of Navy, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Thick Very Vanilla, True Gentleman DSP
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, pearls, Dimensionals, clear EP