Golden Anniversary

Mornin' y'all!  I had to roust Ryan out of bed at nine o'clock this morning, he is really settling into Summer Mode quickly.  But that will be a problem for his grandparents for the next few days ;)

It's been very overcast here of late so I couldn't get a better picture of today's card:

My parents' 5oth wedding anniversary is on June 15, and tomorrow they're leaving on an Alaska cruise with some friends of theirs who got married like four days before my parents did, so it's a double anniversary cruise.  I used a scrap of glimmer paper for the numbers and I'm not 100% sure if it was gold or champagne, but I figured sparkles were in order for this card.  I have seen pictures from my parents' wedding and I know their wedding color was light blue and my mom had a bouquet of daisies, so that's why I had to use a piece of the Fresh as a Daisy DSP that just retired.  I let the DSP  and sparkly numbers do the work and kept the rest of my card very simple.

The Inspire. Create. theme challenge is what reminded me that I really ought to make a card for this ;)

So thanks to the Inspire. Create. team for the gentle push to get this card made, otherwise I probably would have forgotten.

That's it for me today, y'all.  I've got to chivvy Ryan along so he'll be ready to go when his grandparents get here (so far he is lollygagging).  Then I have to run a few errands and after that I will hopefully be spending some time in my craft room.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Number of Years
Ink:  Copper Clay
Paper:  Thick Basic White, vellum, Fresh as a Daisy DSP, glimmer paper
Accessories:  Large Numbers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Polished Gems

June 2020

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Ryan and I went out to the neighborhood pool yesterday but we were only there for about 30 minutes when the weather kicked up and we had to leave.  Then Ryan tried to argue with me that it's *not* dangerous to be in a pool when there's thunder and lightning happening.  Yeah he lost that argument, but he tried.

Anywha, my lazy kiddo is still abed at 8:30 in the morning but I've been awake for a couple of hours (I slept in, usually I'm awake between 5 and 5:30) and I've done a workout and maybe bought a few books *innocent whistling* At least 90% of the books I buy are on sale for like $2, so that makes it better, right?  And now I'm writing this blog post and giving myself time to cool down from my workout before I get cleaned up.  So here is today's layout from June of 2020:

Lots of adorable pictures of my lil stinker when he was three years old.  I love that Artoo Detoo shirt that says "That's how I roll"--we passed it along to our neighbors in Germany and I've seen pictures of their little girl Eisley wearing it.  Eisley's parents are big Star Wars fans so I knew that shirt was going to a good home.  I broke out some old Bubbles & Fizz DSP for this layout; I never got the coordinating stamp set, but it works to punch out the bottle caps from another sheet of DSP for my page accents.  And I adore it since we called Ryan "Baby Sodapop" before he was born as we didn't tell anyone what we planned to name him.

Today's color palette:  Pacific Point, Lemon Lime Twist, Calypso Coral, Basic Gray, and white.  It just so happens that I worked on another layout a couple of days ago with a very similar color combo to this one, but I'm working on summer of 2021 so there's lots of other pages in between.  I have been in the scrappin' GROOVE lately, yesterday I put together another layout and that left me at THIRTEEN that I had made but not done journaling for, so I started writing and got about halfway done with that.  Usually I finish a layout entirely before I move on to the next one; occasionally, if I'm doing more than one layout for a single event, I'll work on multiple layouts at once, but that's it.  Don't know why this is suddenly my MO to do everything but the journaling.  I've been having fun with my color combinations too and even managed to sneak in some purples, which doesn't happen too often.

Okay, I'm off to get cleaned up and kick Ryan out of bed, maybe see if he wants to go to the movies today before his TKD class since the pool is closed today.  The martial arts studio just moved to a different schedule but after next Monday's belt test Ryan will be moving to a completely different class, so this week is just going to be a one-off for a weird schedule.  His class tonight starts at 6:55 when we've been used to 4:45 classes for the past ten months.  Oh well, Semper Gumby!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Full Calendar
Ink:  Pacific Point, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Pacific Point, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Basic White, Bubbles & Fizz DSP
Accessories:  1 1/8" circle punch, Stylish Shapes dies

Thoughtful Sea Turtle

Happy Friday, folks!  It's the last day of Ryan's karate camp and this afternoon they'll have a little showcase and hand out some awards, so I'm looking forward to seeing what Ryan has learned this week.  But for the next few hours I will be trying my best to be productive in my craft room while I still can ; )

I was cruising through my current stamp sets with a particular color challenge in mind and this is what I came up with:

At first I had picked up Thoughtful Expressions with its beautiful hummingbird image, but I couldn't resist the sea turtle (and I still used Thoughtful Expressions for the sentiment).  Here's the color challenge from Hand-Stamped Sentiments:

Just realized that the last time I used the Sea Turtle stamp set, it was for a different color challenge on this same site :)  Anyway, this time I used Lost Lagoon for the bubbly background stamped off once, and then full strength for the sentiment.  My Petal Pink ink pad is extra super juicy for some reason, so I had to experiment a bit to find a way to make the sand dollars dark enough to see but light enough that they didn't look weird.  For the sea turtle, I inked up the back side (solid side) of the stamp and then used a sponge to remove some of the ink so it wouldn't be quite as dark.  I also didn't worry about getting absolute even coverage when I stamped, as I figured it would just give the sea turtle some extra texture.  Then I stamped the detail side twice to make it stand out, and then covered it in Wink of Stella which you can actually see in the photo, it's a miracle!  A few retired Polished Dots and there's my card for today.

I've been very focused on scrapbook pages lately and I have a stack of like eight layouts (soon to be nine) that I need to write journaling for, and then add those to the other seven or so that I haven't taken pictures of yet.  The movers are coming to start packing out the house on June 24 so I'm trying to squeeze in as much crafting time as possible.  At least this isn't an overseas move so it won't be months before I get my craft room set up on the other side.

That's it for me today, peeps.  I'm going to do my morning blog surfing while I finish my tea, then it's up to my craft room to make more things.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sea Turtle, Thoughtful Expressions
Ink:  Lost Lagoon, Soft Sea Foam, Petal Pink
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Polished Dots

Flying By

Well, I got all the paperwork signed on the new house yesterday...still doesn't feel real though, probably because we've not yet seen the house in person.  We've got about six or seven more weeks until that happens, and lots to do before that.

Anyway, I have another MAN card to share today!

The hubs is a pilot, so the Adventurous Sky suite was an instabuy for me.  I've had it sitting in my craft room for a few weeks and finally got it inked up.  Seemed like a good fit with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

That decision was clinched when I saw the Color Throwdown colors:

A red biplane on a bright blue sky, DONE.  I used Real Red, Blueberry Bushel, and white for my colors, plus a bit of Smoky Slate for parts of the plane.  I thought about adding some kind of embellishment on my card, but decided it was good to go as-is.  My hubs isn't much for glittery dots or sequins ; )

Anyway, I've got about fifteen minutes to finish eating breakfast and then I need to leave for an appointment and an errand or two.  Then I have yet another scrapbook layout on the table waiting to be finished.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Adventurous Sky
Ink:  Night of Navy, Stampin' Blends in Real Red, Blueberry Bushel, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Blueberry Bushel, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Adventurous Sky dies, Perennial Postage dies, Mini Dimensionals

It's a Bird...It's a Plane!

Hey y'all!  Big day here in Snapdragon Land--in less than an hour, I'll be signing the paperwork for us to buy our new house in Colorado.  This is the first time the hubs and I have ever bought a house, so it's a really big deal for us!

So while I wait for the notary to get here (we're doing a remote close since I'm in Texas and the hubs is not even in this hemisphere), I have a card to share that will be going to my hubs soon:

It's...SUPERMAN!  Yes, I have Superman stamps.  This one happened to be out on my craft table (Ryan was going to make a Superman card for his dad and then got distracted and never did it) and it was perfect for a couple of challenges.  Love the sketch from Sunday Stamps:

I did tweak it a little bit with my Superman image for the main image panel and the placement of the sentiment, but I think you can see that I definitely started with the sketch.

Next up is the Festive Friday challenge:

I used twine, alcohol markers, Superman, and a thanks sentiment.  I don't really count this as masculine colors because I like to tease the hubs about the Man Rainbow--it seems like 99% of his wardrobe is black, navy blue, gray, and khaki, so that's what I think of as "masculine" colors.  Anyway, my hubs always does a lot to take care of me and the kid, and he's put in a lot of work on this house acquisition thing so basically I'm just signing the papers.  So he deserves a Superman thank you card.

Happily for me, Superman dovetails nicely with the Cupcake Inspirations color combo:

I always think of the triadic red-yellow-blue color combo as the basic Superman.  I used Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, and Azure Afternoon for my colors.  Took  me a while to get Supes colored in, some of those spaces are teeny tiny!

That's it for me today, peeps.  Have a great day!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Superman from Inkadinkado, Latte Love
Ink:  Night of Navy, Azure Afternoon, Stampin' Blends in Azure Afternoon, Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, SU800
Paper:  Poppy Parade, Night of Navy, Thick Basic White, Best Dressed DSP Stack, Bright & Beautiful DSP Stack
Accessories:  Rainbow Adhesive Dots, Mini Dimensionals, Night of Navy baker's twine, Stylish Shapes dies

Purple Floral Fusion

Hey y'all!  My Tuesday is starting off with a literal bang--we've had severe weather rolling through off and on since last night and it's really been going since about 5:30 this morning.  (Thunder and lightning, very very frightening ME! Not really, I'm not scared of thunderstorms, but I do love me some Queen.)  It seems like it's slacking off a bit now, but it was raining pretty good when I dropped Ryan off at karate camp, I thought I was going to have to blow-dry my hair a second time when I got back to the house.

Anyway, on to today's card.  I still have a handful of brand-new stamp sets that I haven't played with yet, so what did I do yesterday?  I pulled out a set that's been retired for a while and made this:

Wisteria Wishes was a natural choice for the Retro Rubber Challenge:

Isn't that a pretty picture!  When I used to take my doggos for walks in England, we walked past a house that had a big patch of lavender out front and my boy dog would always pee on it, blithely ignoring the bees buzzing all around there.  I kept warning him that he was going to get stung in a very uncomfortable place, but it never happened.  Anyway, our England house also had wisteria growing on the front of the garage and I loved it.  Wisteria Wishes only retired last year (seems like it was longer ago??) but it's been in my stash for about a year and a half so it counts as retro.

I couldn't pass up the Paper Players sketch:

I decided on the Perennial Lavender DSP for my background elements and used Berry Burst as an accent color on the butterflies and the gem embellishments.

I've been scrapping away on pictures from 2021, but after this challenge I wish I had pics printed out from when we visited the lavender fields in Provence in 2022 so I could scrap those.  I'll get around to it one day : )  I am making lots of progress on scrapbook pages so that makes me happy.

It looked like the rain was slacking off but I just saw some more lightning, so I think I might turn off the computer for a while and unplug it just in case there's a lightning strike nearby.  A few weeks ago there was one close to us and while it didn't do anything to my house, my neighbor said it zapped their refrigerator and dryer, and fried the modem of the guy next door to him.  Gotta love spring weather in Texas.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wisteria Wishes, Painted Lavender
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Fresh Freesia, Gorgeous Grape, Berry Burst
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Thick Basic White, Perennial Lavender DSP
Accessories:  Wisteria dies, Painted Lavender dies, Mini Dimensionals, Purple Gems, Wink of Stella

St. Peter's

Scrappy Monday, y'all.  I think I'm going to need extra caffeine today--Ryan insisted on sleeping in my bed last night and he tends to hit or push me throughout the night, so my sleep was definitely interrupted.  I had weird, disjointed dreams about trying to hide from Darth Vader in a car (like that would work), buying a copy of a long-lost Beatles album called Blue that was the soundtrack to a TV show that never got produced, and on my way from that I found my mom and helped her rent a car and so she gave me a frosted brownie to say thanks, and I was still holding that brownie when I got off a plane in Brazil with my friend Missy.  Probably the weirdest dream progression I can ever remember having!

Anyway, we had a good trip to Waco on Friday/Saturday and then I was down with a headache the rest of the weekend, so I'm glad to be feeling human again this morning.  Ryan is at his first day of karate camp, and I have a scrapbook layout to share from a 2012 trip to Italy!

We didn't actually go into St. Peter's, just took pictures in the piazza out front.  This layout was a great excuse for me to use Heavenly Heralds, which is a long-retired stamp set that I bought on eBay for cheap a few years ago.  That picture of the hubs in the upper right corner always makes me giggle.

Today's color palette:  Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Ballet Blue, Concord Crush, and Whisper White.  Technically all of those colors are retired but they can live forever in my scrapbooks ; )

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Letters for You, Heavenly Heralds, Angelic
Ink:  Ballet Blue, Concord Crush marker
Paper:  Certainly Celery, Concord Crush, Ballet Blue, Thick Basic White, Maine Blueberry DSP
Accessories:  Large Letters dies