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

It Worked for Cinderella

So after we got back from our trip to Niagara Falls, I had to get caught up on everyone's blogs and stampy goodness and all that, and I kept seeing cards with the Patterned Pumpkins Thinlits and I hadn't played with mine too much yet so that idea stuck in my brain.  And the SUO Challenge this week is to use dies and/or punches, so that seemed like a really good idea.

And then....I saw this week's Retro Rubber Challenge.

And I had an idea.

A really silly idea.

And it made me giggle.

Like, a lot.

So may I present to you....

CINDERELLA'S PUMPKIN CARRIAGE.  I hope it looks like a carriage to you?  I was thinking of the white pumpkins they have out front of my grocery store, plus in the movie Cindy's pumpkin carriage is white/light blue.  The jewel paper seemed to just go with the theme.  The pumpkin and the little viney sproings are from the Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, and the "wheels" are a little floral stamp from Butterfly Basics which is 2 1/2 years old for the Retro challenge.  They're popped up on Dimensionals, and the whole white square panel is also on Dimensionals...and the white is Shimmery White, so it looks nice and magical in person too.

I used the Sunday Stamps sketch:

I wanted to add some kind of sentiment to the inside of the card, but I wasn't sure what to use until I happened to catch sight of the Designer Tee stamp set.

"Don't quit your day dream."  PERFECT.  And I know who's going to get my Cinderella card too; she's my SIL's favorite Disney princess.  And I have a postage stamp with Cinderella's wicked stepmother on it too!  Ha!

ACK!  I need to get moving to the gym this morning.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Designer Tee
Ink:  Soft Sky, Emerald Envy, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper:  Soft Sky, Lemon Lime Twist, Shimmery White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Patterned Pumpkin Thinlits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, 1/2" circle punch, Dimensionals

Triple Challenge Butterfly Birthday

Hey kids, how's it going?  I got up early today and took my doggos for a walk before it got too hot to move, Sadie loved that.  :)  And now I can be lazy for the rest of the day!  Or work in my craft room, that's a good option too.

Anyway, here is my card for today:

I liked the sketch from Fab Friday so much that I had to have a second go at it:

I combined that with the CASE the Designer challenge from Global Design Project:

I kept the large butterfly, texture-stamped background, and a few scattered rhinestones, but I switched out the colors for the palette provided by the Paper Players:

Et voila!  Triple challenge.  I'm still struggling a bit with Sweet Sugarplum, so it's nice to have someone else come up with a color combination to try.  I like the color okay, I'm just not sure how to best use it yet.

Okay kids, I've got some more scrapbook pages to finish up today.  Have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Island Indigo, Sweet Sugarplum
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Sweet Sugarplum, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Butterflies Thinlits, Rhinestones, Dimensionals

Nacho Blog Hop: A Nice Cuppa

Morning!  How was your Valentine's Day?  That's also my hubs' birthday but all he wanted to do was stay home and play video games, so we did.  And I got some scrapping and card making done and I watched Stardust which is like the perfect Valentine's Day movie, I love it so.  But anyway, you're here for the Nacho Average Challenges blog hop! This month we're sharing projects using fun new schtuff from the Occasions catalog, and my stamp set is A Nice Cuppa.  Because tea.  Of course!

I stamped the main image in Island Indigo ink just because I hadn't worked with it in a long time and then I couldn't figure out what to use with it.  I mean NOTHING.  I think my cold was interfering with my brain's crafty skillz, but finally I ended up with some paper from the Love Blooms stack and the cool stain stamp from Timeless Textures.  I wish I'd used some colored ribbon or twine but I have almost nothing current in that department.

I find this card a little bit...lacking.  I'm blaming last week's cold and moving on.

This one I think is a little bit cuter.  All the stamps are from A Nice Cuppa.

For the next card, a little background before you peek:  I wondered how it would look if I stamped the teacup stack from the first card on patterned paper and then clear embossed it, so I gave it a try.

This actually turned out cooler than I thought it would.  I used some Perfectly Artistic DSP (today is the last day to get that!) and the embossing powder didn't stick on everything in the center of the image, so it gave it a bit of a grungy look.  I decided to go with the grunge and stamped the card base with a variety of stamps from Timeless Textures and this is my favorite card from the whole set.  The ribbon is retired, but I think it's the only Marina Mist ribbon I have...I have almost nothing current, but an entire laundry basket full of retired ribbon :p

So there's my set of cards with A Nice Cuppa, I hope you love this stamp set as much as I do.  You'll be seeing it around here several more times at least :)  And now it's time for you to continue the hop!  Your next destination is Heather's blog for some fun projects with Balloon Celebration.  Here are all the links in the hop if you need them:

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  A Nice Cuppa, Timeless Textures, Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Island Indigo, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Love Blossoms Stack
Accessories:  White baker's twine, Dimensionals

Supplies, second card:
Stamps:  A Nice Cuppa
Ink:  Rose Red
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Rose Red, Smoky Slate, Pool Party DSP
Accessories:  Cups & Kettle Framelits, Circles Framelits, Sweetheart Punch, Dimensionals

Supplies, third card:
Stamps:  A Nice Cuppa
Ink:  Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz, Night of Navy
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz, Night of Navy DSP, Blushing Bride Glimmer Paper
Accessories:  Cups & Kettle Framelits, Hexagon punch, Dimensionals

Supplies, fourth card:
Stamps:  A Nice Cuppa, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Mint Macaron, Marina Mist, Early Espresso, Versamark
Paper:  Mint Macaron, Early Espresso, Perfectly Artistic DSP
Accessories:  Clear EP, Lots of Labels Framelits, Subtles Candy Dots, Marina Mist taffeta (retired), Dimensionals

Blushing Gold Butterfly

So I said yesterday that Blushing Bride isn't my favorite color, and then the stamping gods laughed at me and I made this:

What the WHAT, y'all.  Why is Blushing Bride taking over my crafty life?  Although color issues aside, I'm fairly pleased with how this turned out.  It all started with the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

So, obviously I kept the gold and the stripes, but I was thinking of the diagonal striped patterns that SU! has now and the diagonal stuck in my head.  Of course, that paper is all white plus color, and the Cupcake Inspirations color challenge calls for vanilla:

Now I want frosting, y'all.  Anyway, in my crafty brain white and vanilla do not go together, so I had to make my own patterned paper.  I kinda flipped through the SU! catalog a little bit, because that helps get me un-stuck when I have muse problems, and that's when I found the really long skinny stamp in Butterfly Basics that I used to make my stripes.  I stuck my card front down on grid paper with some repositionable adhesive and kinda eyeballed the stripes.  It's a photopolymer stamp set, so that very long skinny stamp kinda curves a little bit when you stick it on the block, but I decided that the imperfections were what made this a fun background so I went with it.  Actually what took the longest was deciding what color to use for the sentiment; eventually I settled on Soft Suede, and I sponged a bit of it around the Very Vanilla card front for good measure.  I thought about adding some more stamping to the card front, and really grunge it up, but I decided less is more.

Wow, y'all, I chatted a lot about this card.  Anyway, it's time to get my rear in gear and get ready to leave tomorrow for baby shower weekend in Texas!  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Greatest Greetings
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Soft Suede
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Very Vanilla, Gold Foil
Accessories:  Bold Butterfly Framelits, Butterflies Thinlits, Dimensionals

Nachos: Emerging Colors

Happy Nacho day, peeps!  It is time for a fabulous Nacho Average Color Challenge, check this out:

Perfect for fall!  And since I seem to have a lot of friends and family with birthdays in October and November, this worked out well for a birthday card:

It's even already been mailed out.  I used the Emerging Colors technique on this; I sponged the three challenge colors on Very Vanilla cardstock, then stamped the leaves from Vintage Leaves with Versamark and heat embossed.  I brayered Chocolate Chip ink over it all, then wiped the ink off the leaves and voila!  Colorful fall leaves.  One simple sentiment banner and it was pretty much done.

So let's see what you do with this great color combo!  Head on over to the Nacho blog for more eye candy and to upload your own creation.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Daffodil Delight, Tangelo Twist, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Daffodil Delight, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Clear EP, hexagon punch

Thoughtful Flowers

Don't you hate it when you wake up with a giant headache?  That's me today.  Lucky for me I'd made this card yesterday afternoon so I still have something to post right now.

The colors are courtesy of the Global Design Project challenge:

And I got the layout from the latest Retro Sketch:

And voila, it was done.  I did discover in the making of this card that if you ink up a stamp with Soft Sky ink, stamp it off once, and then stamp it on something you're working on, the color comes out looking like old dirty dishwater.  Yet another reason why we should ditch Soft Sky and bring back Baja Breeze.

As an extra special bonus today, here's something I stole off Facebook that I've been meaning to email to my mom but I keep forgetting.

I don't know who made up this chart, nor do I remember who I stole it from on Facebook, but I thought Mom would like to see it since she's got a crush on Snape.  Teehee.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Best Thoughts, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Basic Gray, Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight, Soft Sky
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight, Soft Sky, Whisper White
Accessories:  Subtles Candy Dots

Plum Birthday

Howdy, peeps!  How's your Wednesday going?  I actually got up early (for once) and got some things done on the computer this morning, which means I can spend the afternoon either playing in my craft room or working on some stitching :)

I just loved the latest color challenge from Create with Connie and Mary, but I missed the cutoff for it by ten lousy minutes.  Dangit!  Here it is anyway:

I think Perfect Plum and Sahara Sand are both under-utilized in color challenges, and I do love them paired with Mint Macaron.  Yay.  I can still enter this card at SUO Challenges since I used a butterfly...yeah, the only hard part of that challenge was choosing *which* butterfly image to use!

I also used a sketch from Clean & Simple Stamping:

Fantastic sketch.  Between that and the color challenge, my card took like ten minutes to make.

Anyway, before I start my hectic afternoon schedule (ha), I'd better grab some lunch.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Perfect Plum
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Perfect Plum, Whisper White, new Mint Macaron DSP
Accessories:  Butterflies Thinlits, Circles Framelits, Dimensionals, pearls

Sunny Butterfly

I think I'm on a butterfly kick...this is two days in a row.  It's only going to get worse, too--one of the top three stamp sets I can't wait to get my hot little hands on in the new catty is all about the butterflies.  And new butterfly Framelits.  But for now let's have a sunny day:

I inked up the sentiment stamp in Pear Pizzazz and used a Q-Tip to remove the color from a couple of key words, which I then colored with a Bermuda Bay marker.  I don't think I quite got all the Pear Pizzazz ink off though, because parts of the Bermuda words have a distinct greenish cast.  But I'm all like hey, it's an extra color freebie!

Speaking of colors (or should I say colours?), I got this awesome colour palette from Colour Me...!

They're having a design team call right now and I was thinking that I'd love to put my hat in the ring to try out for it, but we're moving in a couple of weeks.  But then I just saw that the DT commitment doesn't start until July, and that might be doable.  Hmm...

Anywha, I also used the sketch from Fab Friday:

I love how there are different challenges every day of the week; my only problem is that a lot of times I need an extra six or seven days in the week to play in all of them, even with combining two or three at a time.  Life is so tough ;)

Hope you have a sunny day, peeps!  We're off to my hubs' cousin's high school graduation tonight.  I'll be wearing a fun springy floral dress.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Feel Goods, Hello Love
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron, Bermuda Bay
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron, Bermuda Bay, Whisper White
Accessories:  Butterflies Thinlits, Subtles Candy Dot, Dimensionals

P.S.  I now have the theme song to Sesame Street stuck in my head.  "Sunny days...."

Distressed Butterfly Basics

Once again I have not gotten enough sleep...and this time it is totally my girl Sadie's fault (she's one of our black Labs, if you don't remember).  She was making noise in the middle of the night and woke up both me and the hubs, and then she went back to sleep and was merrily snoring away while I was staring at the ceiling *wishing* I was asleep.  Grr, Sadie.  Grr.

Luckily I made this card yesterday.

Let's all rejoice that Butterfly Basics will be sticking around for a while since it's in the new catalog, shall we?  (And let's also rejoice that I will finally get the new In Colors in my hot little hands today...now if only Mr. Brown delivered here *before* 6 p.m.  Sigh.)

Anyway, I made this card for no fewer than three challenges, starting with the Inkspirational recipe challenge.

The recipe is to use at least three of these four elements:  distressing, flowers, embossing, and pearls.  The one I didn't use is embossing; for the distressing I stamped the three small flowers on the Sahara Sand cardstock, then crumpled it up good.  I smoothed it back out and hit it with some Sahara Sand ink, and if you try this at home I recommend a good strong adhesive for any crumply layers because SNAIL just won't cut it.  I'm thinking liquid adhesive or Sticky Strip.  Or Dimensionals.  But anyway, that crumpled layer does add dimension and texture IRL even if you can't really tell in the pic.

I also used the color combo from The Paper Players:

Sometimes it seems like everyone else in the stamping world is in love with Crumb Cake as a neutral, but Sahara Sand has always been my personal favorite so I'm glad to see it pop up in color challenges on occasion.  And of course Lost Lagoon and Pistachio Pudding are my colors.

Finally, I used this week's Retro Sketch:

And that's all she wrote today.  Can't go back to sleep now so I might as well lace up my shoes and go running...

Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Pistachio Pudding, Lost Lagoon, Sahara Sand
Paper:  Pistachio Pudding, Lost Lagoon, Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Bitty Butterfly punch, 1" circle punch, scalloped border punch (soon to retire!), pearls, Dimensionals

Nachos: Butterfly Basics

Happy Nacho Day once again, peeps!  And happy St. Patrick's Day too, hope you're wearing green and getting lots of kisses for being Irish :)

The Nacho Average Challenges crew has a pinch-free sketch for you this week, take a looksie:

I think a lot of us have spring fever lately, and my card for this challenge is definitely springy.  And I actually used one of the other two Butterfly Thinlits!

And and AND my card has green on it so no pinchies.  :)  I kinda made up the card as I went, randomly choosing colors that sounded like a good idea and just stamping whatever felt "right" as I went along.  It was almost like free association stamping?  Well, I like how it turned out, anyway.

So now it's your turn to make something pretty!  Share it over on the Nacho blog so we can all say ooooh when we see it.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Butterfly Basics, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Wisteria Wonder, Night of Navy, Pistachio Pudding, So Saffron
Paper:  Whisper White, Wisteria Wonder, Night of Navy, Pistachio Pudding, So Saffron
Accessories:  Word Window, Modern Label, 2 3/8" scalloped circle punches; Butterfly Thinlits, Banners Framelits, Subtles Candy Dots, Dimensionals

In the Style of Brian King

If you check out the sidebar to the right, you can see I've got quite a list of blogs that I like to visit for some stampy inspiration, and today's card is inspired by Brian King.  I'm not necessarily thinking of any particular card of his, but when I was making this it just seemed to jive with all the goodies I've seen on his blog :)

There's a springy birthday card for ya.  The flower is from the new-this-month get-it-while-you-can Nature's Perfection, which I embossed in Calypso Coral EP on Blushing Bride cardstock.  The sentiment is from Butterfly Basics, which I got in the bundle with the Butterfly Thinlits but hadn't used before now because I'm distracted by the Butterfly Thinlits.

Anywha, I got my springariffic color combination from Fab Friday:

I continue to be in love with the Spring Flowers embossing folder.  Add the hexagon punch to flag the end of my sentiment banner, and that's the whole card right there.

And that's all the news that's fit to print.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Nature's Perfection, Butterfly Basics
Ink:  Versamark, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Hello Honey, Whisper White
Accessories:  Hexagon punch, Calypso Coral EP, Spring Flowers EF, Dimensionals