Painted Sunflower

Mornin' y'all!  Did you have a good Halloween?  Ryan had fun trick-or-treating with his cousins, though he thought it didn't last long enough.  Meanwhile, his 3-year-old cousin Luke was ready to be done like halfway through, and Ryan was still sprinting from house to house and trying to race anyone who would run with him.  We had lovely cool, clear weather and my llama mama onesie was super comfy and toasty, I had two other adults say they were jealous :)

Anywha!  Happy November, my lovelies.  And I have a fall card for you today.

Here is the CAS Colours & Sketches double challenge:

Those colors (with a small addition of Pecan Pie) made me think of sunflowers and so I dusted off Painted Harvest, which is a retired stamp set that I still love.  I must confess that I subbed in Bumblebee for the Hello Honey ink--I tried the Hello Honey but it stamped out really dark and barfy-looking, so I tossed that scrap and used Bumblebee instead with the Really Rust on top of it.  And heyyyy I finally used the Stitched Triangles dies that I got when they went on clearance!  Since this is a CAS challenge, I usually would have foregone the enamel dots, but sadly I got an ink smudge on my card front after everything was stuck down, and I didn't have time to redo it, so one of those dots is covering up the smudge.

At last I have started to get in the scrappy groove, so I've got a layout sitting on my craft table waiting for me to start sticking things down.  I do love to scrapbook, so I just need to work up the courage to start working on my wedding album!  Ya know, now that we had our twentieth anniversary last month.  Anyway, I will be doing some crafting today and then it's time for my monthly ice cream date with Ryan.  We go for ice cream on the first of the month to celebrate being one month closer to reuniting with my hubs after his deployment.  Four months down, eight to go!  But we should get to see him for two days for Thanksgiving, which I'm very excited about.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest
Ink:  Bumblebee, Really Rust, Gumball Green
Paper:  Thick Very Vanilla, Gumball Green DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Triangles dies, Wonderful Gems, Dimensionals

Tidal Basin

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  I got my giant picture order in the mail so I spent a lot of time on Saturday going through all the prints and getting them organized for future scrapbook pages :) It's doubtful I'll ever catch up, but I'll never be bored, either.

So here is today's layout:

We took these pictures in November of 2016 at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. and used that focal point photo as our Christmas cards that year.  I think I used up my last two pieces of Handsome Hunter 12x12 cardstock on this layout but I think it was worth it.  The new Evening Evergreen is similar though...I should do a side-by-side comparison of the two greens.  Anywha, Handsome Hunter ended up jiving quite nicely with the other colors in that Painted Autumn DSP.  I used my favorite piece of it on this layout.

Today's color palette:  Handsome Hunter, Garden Green, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Cinnamon Cider, Soft Sky, and Very Vanilla.  My only day off this week is Friday so I guess I'll be plotting out future scrapbook layouts in my head until then.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Make a Difference, Painted Harvest
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Cinnamon Cider, Pear Pizzazz, Garden Green, Handsome Hunter marker
Paper:  Handsome Hunter textured, Garden Green, Cajun Craze, Thick Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, leaf punch

Germany, Part 1: Garmisch

Scrappy Monday, y'all!

See the pics up close here and here.  I recently made five layouts from our first trip to Germany, all of them using the same alphabet stamps for page titles and the fabulous Garden Lane DSP, so stay tuned for more Germany pages in the next few weeks.

Today's color palette includes Balmy Blue, Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.  And today's layout also comes with a special announcement...if all goes according to plan,

WE'RE MOVING TO GERMANY NEXT YEAR!!!!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Tim Holtz Christmas Alphabet
Ink:  Night of Navy, Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  Leaf punch, circle punch

Spring Sunflower Mosaic

Confession:  I have no idea what time of year sunflowers bloom.  And I know that generally they don't have pinkish centers, but two of the fabulous things about stamping are that a.) you can have flowers anytime you want and b.) they can be any COLOR you want too :)  So here's my spring sunflowers!

I started with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

The first thought that popped in my head was to do a larger image and then cut it up to form the nine squares on the sketch, so that's what I did.  Then it took me a ridiculously long time to figure out how the squares fit together again because I'm silly like that.

I used the springy color palette from Global Design Project:

And that was it.  Pretty simple, really--stamps and ink, a couple sponges, and a paper trimmer.  And a bit of adhesive, but that's it.  I know who needs this card too, so I hope to get it in the mail before the end of the week.

Gotta run--cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Part of My Story
Ink:  Grapefruit Grove, Lemon Lime Twist, Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  none

Friendly Watercolor Sunflower

Hey y'all!  Despite having The Headache That Would Not Die (I swear, I've had this headache on and off since last Tuesday), I managed to make a card yesterday afternoon.  Here 'tis:

I sponged Soft Suede ink on the Post Script background stamp to give it a softer feel so it wouldn't compete with my sunflower from Painted Harvest.  I love Post Script so this was me reminding myself to use it more often :)  My card was inspired by the CASE the Designer challenge at Global Design Project:

And I paired that with the color challenge from the Paper Players:

Assuming that neutrals aren't counted as the extra color, I used Pear Pizzazz for the color of my choice because the sunflower needed some leaves.

That's it for me today, kids.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Post Script, Painted Harvest, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories:  Leaf Punch, Dimensionals, retired epoxy shapes, Wink of Stella pen

Kind Sunflowers

Mornin', y'all!  Okay, I said it was cold yesterday morning, but it turned out to be a GORGEOUS day, I loved it.  I love being able to wear long sleeves and drink a morning cuppa tea without sweating.

And I have a very fall card for today!

This card is NOT easy to photograph, however.  I did a vellum overlay on the main image panel, and the sentiment is stamped on the vellum and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  That means IRL you can read the sentiment easily and still have super rich, saturated colors lurking under the vellum...

Just like that.  This is probably my favorite way to use vellum, and thus I'm entering this at Inkspirational:

I got my color combination from Global Design Project:

I added copious amounts of Early Espresso but otherwise stuck strictly to the challenge colors.

Last up is the Sketch Saturday sketch:

I hope the challenge gods will forgive me for changing the twine from going across the bottom of the main panel to anchoring the vellum in place.

Hope you have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Old Olive, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Old Olive, Thick Very Vanilla, Country Lane DSP
Accessories:  clear EP, linen thread, Dimensionals

Gather Together

Mornin', kids!  This week is going by pretty fast but I'm glad because my husband will be home this weekend and I miss him.  In the meantime I've been getting my fingers inky!

Also I think I'm just going to steal a pack of Ryan's wipes to stay in my craft room.  I bunched up a wipe and dabbed it on my Crushed Curry ink pad for part of the background on here, and even before I stamped the leaves and the green splats it looked pretty cool.  I never did baby wipe techniques back in the day because I didn't have baby wipes...well, I do now!  Everything old is new again, right?

Anyway, just three challenges today.  First up is the Global Design Project challenge:

I used different images from the same stamp set (Rooted in Nature) and I used linen thread on mine, similar to the baker's twine the Krista used on her card.  My colors are courtesy of the Paper Players:

I love me a good fall palette.  And also I love the new Thick Very Vanilla cardstock, and the Thick Whisper White that's been around for a bit longer.  Other than occasionally using the thinner stuff to line the inside of a dark card, I use the thick stuff for like errythang.  It's great.

Last up is the Fall-To Layout from Palmtrees and Pogo Sticks:

That one's a classic.  I used the twine instead of buttons because a.) I had twine and not buttons, and b.) the card will go through the mail just fine with twine while buttons are problematic.  Cute, but post office problematic.

Okay kids, today we're off to the gym so I can take pilates and hope that my hamstrings will stretch out and quit yelling at me.  I did dead lifts on Monday and now my legs wish they were dead.  Ta-ta for now, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Rooted in Nature, Painted Harvest, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Mossy Meadow, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Mossy Meadow, Thick Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Linen thread, Dimensionals

Country Lane Daisies

Hey y'all!  Happy Wednesday!  Are you thrown off this week after having a Monday holiday?  My hubs was off for four days in a row so it's like we had two weekends here.  Not that I'm complaining.

I'm so ready for some fall weather here, yo.  It was in the 90s and 8 billion percent humidity yesterday.  My husband loves the summertime and I'm just like UGH it's trying to kill me.  Fall is obviously the best season.

The inspiration for today's card was courtesy of the photo at Fusion:

Which I paired with the Global Design Project sketch:

I made my main image panel a bit too wide, so I had to slightly edit the rest of the sketch to accommodate because I didn't want to start over :D. I wish I had some buttons or something to put on that little tabby bit on the upper left of the main image panel...I needed some Espresso up there so I ended up using a retired Candy Dot (I miss those!!) because it just HAD to have some Early Espresso up near the top or it looked unbalanced.

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Tropical Chic
Ink:  Whisper White, Granny Apple Green, Crushed Curry, Early Espresso
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Crushed Curry, Country Lane DSP
Accessories:  retired Candy Dot, white EP, Dimensionals, linen thread

Pink Posy

Mornin', y'all.  I was SO tired yesterday, I really can't stay up late like I used to.  I even took a nap when I put the kiddo down for his nap yesterday, so that helped.  And I got myself up in time to squeeze in a card before we had to leave for swim lessons, and as an added bonus, I like how it turned out.

This is another card that I planned out while I was running (I did two miles yesterday, woo!).  I haven't used Painted Harvest in a while, or the Post Script background stamp, so it was nice to dust off both of those.  I used the color combo from Fab Friday:

Even some of the Fab Friday design team was saying that they had trouble figuring out how to incorporate the Mossy Meadow with the other colors.  I think the problem is that it's on the yellower side of the green spectrum, whereas Mint Macaron and Tranquil Tide are on the blue end.  The only Mossy Meadow on my card is stamped off twice to make it much much lighter, and it's on the flower center.  That flower center has some residual purple on it too--there's some Blackberry Bliss or Rich Razzleberry ink on that stamp that I just can't seem to get cleaned off, and it transferred when I stamped it with Mint Macaron here.  Maybe I need one of those cloth shammies...

Anyway, I also used the sketch from Fusion:

I think the color combination kinda jives with the Fusion inspiration photo too.  My circular element isn't in the center like in the sketch, but I think the challenge gods will allow me a bit of leeway with that ;) I liked that this sketch is different from most of the ones I've seen--I like that layer below the circular element.  To make mine, I cut a rectangle of cardstock slightly narrower than a circle die, then ran it through the Big Shot on one end only so it cut only the bottom off the rectangle.

Hope you have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Post Script
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Tranquil Tide, Powder Pink, Mossy Meadow, Whisper White
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Tranquil Tide, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, leaf punch, Dimensionals

An Experiment in Navy

Hey y'all!  Do you ever sit down to make something and then you just can't think what to do?  I had that happen yesterday.  I'd put Ryan down for a nap after we got back from Target, but he was refusing to go back to sleep (curse you car naps!) and there I was, trying to steal like 15 minutes to make a card and my mind was a blank.

Then I thought about this card that I saw yesterday morning (someone had posted a question about it on the demo-only forums on Splitcoast) and finally (finally!) an idea struck me.  So here's what I made.

So on her card linked above, Elizabeth stamped on colored cardstock with Whisper White ink, then stamped over it with a color (same stamp).  So I thought I'd try it.  I stamped the base of the flowers in white, then over-stamped with Flirty Flamingo; the flower petal detail was done in white and then Berry Burst so it's got a bit of colorful dimension to it (this card was hard to photograph).  The centers are done with white and then Blackberry Bliss.  The ferns are Night of Navy, stamped off once, and a few little white dots just for interest.

The color combination came from Sunday Stamps: 

The closest I could get that palette to SU! colors was Blackberry Bliss, Berry Burst, Flirty Flamingo, Island Indigo (didn't use that one), and Night of Navy.  The colors on my card came across a lot more muted but I don't know, I kind of like it?  I used the sympathy stamp from Rose Wonder just because you can never have too many sympathy cards in your stash, and it fit well in the space I'd left next to the flowers.  I lined the inside of the card with Whisper White so if/when this gets sent out, the recipient will be able to read the message inside.

I'm also entering this in the Paper Players challenge again:

For some reason the card doesn't look really CAS to me, maybe because the flowers take up the majority of the space on the card front, but really it's a one-layer card except for the sentiment.  Maybe it would look more CAS to me if I'd done it on a white card base, but I wanted to experiment!

That's it for me today.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Whisper White, Blackberry Bliss, Berry Burst, Flirty Flamingo, Night of Navy
Paper:  Whisper White, Night of Navy
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Fall Friday

Happy Friday, y'all!  I think I took a wrong turn in my craft room yesterday and ended up in October instead of April.  Or at least, my card did...

I know quite a few people with fall birthdays, so that's okay, just not really what I was expecting when I started to make it!  Painted Harvest is coming back in the new catalog (yay!) and the greeting is from Butterfly Basics, which is retiring.

Meet this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I made a one-layer card, but I think you can see the three elements on there pretty easily.  I also used this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Rose Red and Always Artichoke for the red and green, which is probably where the card veered off into fall territory, but I wanted to use some retiring colors (Chocolate Chip is retiring too).  I think the new colors Lovely Lipstick and Granny Apple Green would be good matches for this challenge, but alas, I don't have them yet.  I always love getting new colors to play with!

Kiddo and I are off to the store to see if we can get some eggs that aren't part of the salmonella recall.  Cheers, y'all!  And have a great weekend!

P.S.  I just discovered that Ryan (14 months old) likes English Breakfast tea.  Did I have a British child somehow?  ;)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Whisper White, Rose Red, Always Artichoke, Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Crumb Cake
Accessories:  None

Guest Designer: Painted Harvest

Happy Monday, y'all!  And it IS a happy Monday for me because guess what?  My Pick a Pumpkin card from a while back was picked as the challenge winner at What Will You Stamp!

*does a little happy dance*

Even better, I have the stamp set for this week's challenge so I get to be a guest designer!  Woot!

I do love this stamp set, too.  So here's what I made for the challenge:

I used a simple layout to let the stamped images shine.  And they do shine a little bit because I used Shimmery White cardstock.  I thought I'd go a little outside the sunflower box on this card with my color combination, so what do you think of Blushing Bride, Tranquil Tide and Fresh Fig together?  I hardly ever reach for Blushing Bride unless it's a color challenge but I liked it with the other two colors.  I used a sponge to ink up the stamps for the Tranquil Tide and Fresh Fig bits to keep them from overwhelming the soft pink, and that meant I could stamp the sentiment at full strength and have it be easy to read even on top of the flower.

Thanks again to the What Will You Stamp? DT for letting me play along this week!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Tranquil Tide, Fresh Fig
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Tranquil Tide, Shimmery White
Accessories:  Tranquil Tide ribbon

Sunflower Thoughts

Mornin', y'all!  As I type this, I'm about an hour and a half away from my appointment time to get LASIK this morning.  I feel the same way I did when I went in for my induction--scared, excited, not at all ready but we're doing this anyway!

But anyway, I made a card yesterday afternoon to share today.

I started out with this beautiful inspiration picture from Just Add Ink:

I decided to use So Saffron, Crushed Curry, and Soft Suede for the flowers, and a mix of Dapper Denim and Tempting Turquoise for the background.

Once again I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch, this time in its original orientation:

I've been having lots of fun lately with watercolor backgrounds.  They're fun but my fingers are always turning different colors, haha.  The one on this card was the second one I made with these colors; the first one was a lot darker and more vibrant but I kinda wanted a softer feel.  And then I used sponges to ink up the flower stamps to match the softness of the background.  Maybe I'll make another card with that other darker background so you can see the difference.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot--I stamped the background with the dragonfly from Touches of Texture, but it's so light you can hardly see it even IRL.  I think it kinda adds to the dreamy effect of the card though.

Kiddo is up and eating his breakfast, and we're heading out the door in about a half an hour for my appointment to get my eyeballs lasered.  Wish me luck!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Hug in a Mug, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Dapper Denim, Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Crushed Curry, Soft Suede
Paper:  Dapper Denim, Thick Whisper White, Watercolor paper
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Glitter Enamel Shapes

Grateful Pumpkins

Mornin', y'all!  How's your Wednesday?  Still doesn't really feel like fall here even though some of the leaves are turning...yeah I could still be running around in capris and be comfortable, which is just Not Acceptable for October in my opinion.  But at least it's perfectly fall-ish in my craft room!

I love these pumpkins.  And the Painted Autumn DSP.  I have fun in my craft room :)  Anyway, for today's card, I started out with the photo inspiration at Inkspirational:

And then I paired that with the sketch from Global Design Project:

This is actually card #2 I made for this sketch; the first one was....okay, but it just didn't feel balanced right, so I made this one and I like it much better.  And I finally got a pack of thick Very Vanilla cardstock and I'm loving that too.  I may never buy the thinner versions of it and Whisper White again...

Last up (alphabetically, anyway), is the What Will You Stamp? challenge:

I think I have enough Halloween cards for this year...now I just need to mail them all out!  So that's why I picked a Thanksgiving pumpkin this time instead of a jack-o-lantern.

Well, Ryan is sharing his cereal puffs with the dogs...at least he shares?  But we've got to get ready for the gym.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pick a Pumpkin, Painted Harvest
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Early Espresso, Thick Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Patterned Pumpkin Framelits, Mini Dimensionals, linen thread

Pistyll Waterfall

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  How was your weekend?  We've been pretty busy...little munchkin man has started pulling himself up to standing with whatever piece of furniture happens to be handy...he's grabbed my pants leg a time or two but I think that's got too much give for him to pull himself up.  But yep, now we have to move everything up out of his newly-extended reach and keep a sharp eye on him.  He already likes climbing all over the coffee table and end tables.  Busy busy busy little baby.  Wish we didn't have so many stairs in this house.

Anyway, it's Scrappy Monday and that means a scrapbook layout!

This is another layout from Wales (pictures here).  And do you see that??? I used Flirty Flamingo for my page base!  I probably wouldn't have thought to do that but the shirt I'm wearing in the pictures is a pink paisley print, and pink + green is always a color combination winner.  And there's a lot of green in the photos.

At first I wanted to try stamping my own paisley pattern for an accent but then I went with the stripey paper from the Painted Autumn DSP instead.  And then I wanted a leafy accent and I started to get out my giant binder stamp catalog but then I thought why make this harder than it has to be? And I used the leaf and matching punch from Painted Harvest, so I was done in a flash.  Don't ask me why I decided to stamp "waterfall" in two colors, I just thought it would be fun.

Today's colors:  Flirty Flamingo, Gumball Green, Lemon Lime Twist, Dapper Denim, and Very Vanilla.  The DSP is actually a watercolor wash between Garden Green and Lemon Lime Twist, but I discovered that pattern goes really well with Gumball Green, which is kinda like the midpoint between the other two colors.

Ooh, I finished this post just in time--kiddo just woke up!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Jayne's Type Alphabet, Rough Type, Painted Harvest
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Cucumber Crush, Lemon Lime Twist, Dapper Denim
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Dapper Denim, Very Vanilla, Painted Autumn DSP
Accessories:  leaf punch

Mum's the Word

Mornin', y'all!  How's it going?  I am enjoying the slightly cooler mornings here (although we're supposed to warm back up to the 80s this week).  First thing in the morning at least it feels like fall is finally here!  Love it.

Initially my brain resisted doing anything but sunflowers with those floral stamps in Painted Harvest, but today they're mums.  This card looks pretty similar to the leafy birthday one I shared on Saturday, but I doubt my mother-in-law and childhood friend are going to compare birthday cards....and neither of them reads this blog ;) I used the color combination from Fab Friday:

Those colors seemed like a natural fit with the Paper Players theme challenge:

And just like that, my card was finished :)  I did add a teeny bit of Crumb Cake to the color combination for the little dots around the flowers.

Better get myself and the kiddo fed so we can hit the gym.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Rose Wonder
Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Cajun Craze, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Shimmery White, Rich Razzleberry
Accessories:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Dimensionals, Tranquil Tide ribbon

On Wednesdays, We Wear Pink

Tee hee :)

My card today is definitely wearing pink.

I really haven't done a whole lot with Flirty Flamingo...it's not that I dislike the color, I just can't quite figure out what to pair it with.  However, I do rather like it here with Pool Party and Wild Wasabi.  I didn't have DSP in colors and patterns that I wanted to use with my fussy-cut flower (because I stamped that before I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of the card), so I just cut some panels out of Thick Whisper White and then I dragged an inked up sponge across until I liked the effect.  I did a bit of extra sponging at the edges, and then I stamped a repeating design on each one--a fleur de lis from Timeless Textures on the Pool Party panel, and the fern stamp from Painted Harvest on the Wild Wasabi panel.  I do like how those turned out.  Also, no sentiment on this card...when I want to send it, I can always stamp whatever I need on the inside.  So this card could be for a birthday or thank you or thinking of you or anything really.  Except a masculine card.  It's not at all dude-like.

So anyway, I started my card with a pink flower because of the challenge at Fusion:

I used the sketch and the inspiration pic gave me my pink starting point for the flower, though I do love tea and teacups :)

But the flowers also worked well with the challenge at Cupcake Inspirations:

Also pink :)  I did stamp another flower with Flirty Flamingo and Sweet Sugarplum together, which I liked, but for this card I just wanted to go with the pink by itself.  So we'll see if I bust out that other flower somewhere else.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Harvest, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Pool Party, Wild Wasabi, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Dimensionals & Mini Dimensionals