Purple Mountains' Majesty

Happy Friday, y'all! I'm happy that I was able to get a good picture of this card yesterday so I could share it today :D

I don't use Waterfront very often but I ended up really liking this card when I finished with it.  I need to work with Shaded Spruce more, I love that rich green.  I started with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And chose my stamp set based on the theme challenge from Global Design Project:

And then I picked some colors I thought would look good together and just went to town making my mountain landscape.  I love mountains, hubs loves the beach, so I guess...we should live in Hawaii?  The sentiment is from Happiness Surrounds, which was a limited time only stamp set from last November I think, and for the Shaded Spruce piece on the bottom, I inked up the Marbled background stamp with a sponge before stamping tone-on-tone with Shaded Spruce ink.  It gave me juuuust enough texture without distracting from the main scene.  I love my background stamps.  I think the epoxy drops are retired but I've got them so I might as well use them.

Hope you have a great weekend, friends.  I'm hoping to get some more scrappin' done in the next couple of days...I finished a layout that I really liked yesterday, and got started on another one.  Having some fun in the ol' craft cave!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Waterfront, Marbled, Happiness Surrounds
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, Mint Macaron, Balmy Blue
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Shaded Spruce
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Bye-Bye Baby Bear

Mornin' y'all!  I really need to figure out something better to do for my card photos.  I made two cards yesterday afternoon (you'll see the other one tomorrow) and that second card's photos came out ALL WONKY.  Like, very very blue.  I'll have to try to get a better picture of it today so I can post it tomorrow, I'm actually pretty happy with that card so I want it to look good.

But let's talk about today's card, shall we?

I admit, I have not used Baby Bear very much because I find it a little difficult to work with.  It only took me two tries to get the bear to look okay this time at least (the bow took three).  I mean, the bear IS super cute when all the stamps are lined up juuuuust right, but even though I'm a pro Stamp-a-ma-jigger, this stamp set is still hit or miss for me.  But I do like how the bear looks on here today.

The Inspire. Create. challenge inspired me (teehee) to make a baby card today:

Oh yeah, the inside of the card says "Welcome to the world!" but I didn't photograph it.

Just had to use the Paper Players sketch:

And my colors are from the Color Throwdown:

I used Petal Pink, Soft Suede, Basic Black, and Whisper White.  Well, I did use a wee bit of Blushing Bride to do the two-step stamping on the bear's bow because two layers of Petal Pink just didn't work.  I did use ONLY Soft Suede for the bear.  For the lightest layer, I inked up the stamp with a sponge; for the middle layer, I inked it up with the ink pad like normal, but then I used the sponge to remove a bit of the ink to make it a little lighter than full strength; and for the darkest layer, I just inked up the stamp like normal (and worked very hard to get it to line up right with the first two layers).  Then I cut it out and stuck it on my card :)

Have a great day, peeps.  I'll be taking a stitching project to the Y to work on today since we don't have barre class until the find a new teacher...the last one is 8.5 months pregnant and moving in June anyway :p  I loved her, she was so much fun to take classes from.  Hope we get a good new instructor!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Baby Bear
Ink:  Petal Pink, Blushing Bride, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Petal Pink, Twinkle Twinkle DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals

Eiffel Tower

Scrappy Monday on a Wednesday, y'all!  And today's first layout features one of our favorite pictures we've ever taken, have a look:

The hubs and I sat on the banks of the Seine for an HOUR freezing our butts off and waiting for the Eiffel Tower to light up so we could get that shot.  #worthit  Believe it or not, the only editing that hubs did on the picture was to clean up some noise from a bit of junk on the lens and maybe a little shadow protection, but really very minimal editing.

And here's my page title, a mix of upper and lower Empire Alphabet and a stamped Eiffel Tower just in case you didn't get the message clearly enough.  And you know I use Stampin' Up! patterned paper 99.9% of the time, but I had this pattern and it just seemed to go so well with my pictures that I had to use it on here.

Second Tower layout, this one including some pics we took of the city from up inside the tower.  We elected to take the stairs instead of waiting for three hours to get on the elevator :)

Today's color palette includes Basic Gray, Brilliant Blue, Garden Green, and Whisper White.  I'm down to my very last full sheet of Brilliant Blue, y'all.  Blueberry Bushel is a fairly good substitute for Brilliant Blue, but I do so love me some Brilliant.  I've used it a LOT in my scrapbooks.

Peace out, yo!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet, Artistic Etchings
Ink:  Garden Green, Brilliant Blue, Basic Gray
Paper:  Basic Gray, Garden Green, Brilliant Blue, Whisper White, patterned paper by Far and Away
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits

Celebratory Balloons

Happy Tuesday, y'all!  And this Tuesday it's time for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

This time it's a theme challenge--celebrations!  I'm still working on getting some newer stamp sets inked up for the first time so I had to use this cute little lady from the hostess set Hand Delivered:

I picked some fun patterned paper (from the All My Love DSP) and then just picked some Blends colors that I thought might look good with it.  Of course I don't have the Lovely Lipstick Blends yet, so that's why I kept that color to just some pops on her belt, flower centers, and shoes.  Everything else is Blends, including Ivory, Pool Party, Mango Melody, Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, and Flirty Flamingo.  I used the Color Lifter to do some highlights on the balloons.

Halfway through coloring my image I decided this was a congratulations card and I'm sending it to my sister-in-law.  She passed her realtor licensing exam a few months ago and recently made her very first sale--to my parents!  They're moving out of my childhood home to a house that's closer to my brother and sister-in-law and (most importantly) the granddaughter.  So yeah, anyway, I think my SIL deserves a congratulations card to celebrate her first sale.  I used Highland Heather for the card base, not that you can see it, because purple is her favorite color.

So what do you have to celebrate?  Make a card and share with us on the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers, yo!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand Delivered
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Ivory, Pool Party, Mango Melody, Shaded Spruce, Highland Heather, and Flirty Flamingo
Paper:  Highland Heather, Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, All My Love DSP
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Paw Print on Your Heart

Mornin' folks!  Once again, Scrappy Monday will be delayed...because today I'm a guest designer at What Will You Stamp?!  And I'm particularly excited to be doing it this week because of the featured stamp set:

Being a long-time dog mama, I loved this as soon as I saw it in the Occasions catalog, but I didn't actually buy it until just after Vader died.  I did make a sympathy card with it, because I need one, but this will also be great for yay new puppy cards or just hi friend cards.  And it's carrying over to the new catalog!  So here's what I made:

I puffy heart love the coordinating dog punch, so rather than using the stamp I just punched out the doggo on some lovely patterned paper (All My Love from the Occasions catalog).  I even managed to get it so one of the darker pink hearts looks like the doggo's nose :)  I love how the sentiments in this are justified to follow the contours of the dog.  I think the dog would look great punched out on some pretty floral paper too.  And one of these days I'll have to stamp him too.

Hope you can play along at What Will You Stamp?.  Thanks to the WWYS crew for letting me be a guest designer this week, I really enjoyed making this card!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Happy Tails
Ink:  Powder Pink, Call Me Clover, Soft Suede
Paper:  Powder Pink, Call Me Clover, Soft Suede, Thick Whisper White, All My Love DSP
Accessories:  Dog punch, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Fixed It!

Anyone else ever make a card and something's just not right with it and it BUGS YOU until you fix it?  Well, my Lovely As a Tree card from earlier this week was like that.

I fixed it.

I carefully peeled everything up and just switched the card orientation to landscape instead of portrait.  The sentiment fits SO MUCH BETTER this way and now it's not making my brain itch.

*sigh of relief*

Back to your regularly scheduled Saturday!  Cheers, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lovely As a Tree, Tree Rings, Wishing You Well
Ink:  Soft Suede, Garden Green, Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Rectangle Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Garden Green ribbon

Bye-Bye Free Cake

Mornin' y'all and happy Friday!  I've got a bright and cheery birthday card to start the weekend off with a smile.

I bought the Free Cake stamp set on a whim when it was on sale last October I think, and I haven't used it enough.  It's cute!  Plus this is just a teensy bit snarky so I like it :D The inside of the card has another die-cut circle with "I mean...happy birthday!" on it, I just forgot to take a picture of it.

Check out the fun and bright color combo from Just Add Ink:

Perfect for a birthday card, am I right?  Pineapple Punch just makes me smile.  And I had so much fun with this week's Freshly Made Sketch that I had to give it a second go:

That's it for me today.  We've got a fun weekend planned:  got the babysitter booked for tomorrow afternoon and the hubs and I are going to see Avengers: Endgame and go out to dinner without the kiddo!  Should be fun.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Free Cake
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Coastal Cabana, Blueberry Bushel
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Whisper White, How Sweet It Is DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes Framelits, Layering Circles Framelits, Dimensionals