Cute as a Bug

I got the inspiration for today's card from a splitcoast stamper (SmartStamper), but changed the colors because I didn't have enough Bashful Blue on hand when I made them. I used Brocade Blue and Kraft instead of Bashful Blue and Whisper White, so you can just mentally make the changes. I like the slightly more muted colors of this version, plus I think it tones down the glorious green layers in a nice way.

We had our monthly Philly Inker's meeting on Monday evening in New Jersey (my last one until the baby comes, sniff, sniff) and so I made use of a Big Shot that night to cut out the lattice dies and dry emboss the main Brocade blue panel with the delicate dots folder. Maybe someday I will be able to get a Big Shot! I love all the extra things you can add to a card with those babies. But luckily, I am in a great group of stampers and there is always someone who is willing to let me use a Big Shot for those occasions when I *really* need one. :)

I technically have all the baby thank you cards made that I had originally intended, but I just saw another one that I love that I think I might have to CASE. Besides, it is always a good idea to have a few extra on hand, right? Depending on how my day goes today (and it's not looking stellar so far...it's a two-year-old battle of wills kind of day), I may have that card to share tomorrow.

Supplies:
Kraft, Brocade Blue, Glorious Green, Whisper White cs
Love Bugs, Short and Sweet stamp sets
Brocade Blue, Glorious green inks/markers
Lattice die and Delicate Dots dry emboss folder
Kraft grosgrain ribbon (retired)
Small and large oval punches, 1 1/4" & 1 3/8" square punches

It's 4:00 a.m. and I'm feeling alone now...

My day started with a bang at 4:00 a.m. this morning when my son woke up screaming because his diaper had leaked copiously (due to fatherly user error at bedtime...) and everything (including him) was soaked. Of course, my husband sleeps through these things, so it was my 9 months pregnant self who got up to deal with the mess. And then I couldn't get back to sleep. Neither did my son, by the way. I went back to bed and laid there for a while, but just decided to get up and do some stuff since I was awake anyway. I had some cards to finish, so I went into my stamping room and got to work. I didn't dare do any of the punch work because of the noise, but card assembly and stamping is quiet enough. I went back to bed around 5:30, but I really didn't sleep again. Got up for the last time around 7:30 and worked on my cleaning chores for the day, plus getting laundry going for the sheets and soiled items. I figured as long as I was doing a small load with my son's stuff, might as well wash our sheets as well since I didn't get to it last week on laundry day. Needless to say, my son and I are both tired today!

But the good news is that a big box arrived yesterday from Stampin' Up! with all kinds of lovely goodies, so I quickly assembled all the new stamp sets late yesterday afternoon and did the stamping on the two Fox and Friends cards I had designed and assembled on Sunday evening.
I really like this set--I used the Decor Elements to decorate my son's new room, if you remember. That little lion is just so cute! I think I'm going to get a lot of good use out of this set--there are 7 different animal images and the scale of them is really nice.


Believe it or not, the base of this next card is Glorious Green! I can't say I use this color all that often, but I'm finding it useful lately for baby cards, of all things. I took the layout for the green card below from a card that Julie Davison made in February, but that was about it. I like the simplicity of these cards.

Supplies:
Lion card~
Apricot Appeal, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Pumpkin pie dsp
Fox and Friends, Thanks Kindly stamp sets
Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip inks/markers
Scallop edge punch, scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" and 1 1/4" circle punches

Owl card~
Glorious Green, Chocolate chip, Whisper White cs, Rose Red dsp
Fox and Friends, Thanks Kindly stamp sets
Chocolate Chip and So Saffron inks
sponge wedge
kiss die cut (Occ. mini)

Thanks and congrats with Animal Stories

Hello, 36 weeks! My sister- and brother-in-law came to visit us and have brunch on Saturday with their baby girl, and I had asked my SIL to take a few "belly" photos of me. She is a very good photographer and I wanted something decent for the baby book. My husband is extremely photographically challenged (both in front of and behind a camera) and the photos we snapped with my son are, well, shall we say, very candid. My sister-in-law took some wonderful shots and I'm so pleased with the results! Incidentally, the dress is the one I wore for the photo that my husband snapped of me when pregnant with my son, so I like the symmetry of it for the baby books. Here's one of my favorites:

Two cards to share today--another of my baby thank you cards, plus a baby card I made for a friend who just had her second. Her older son and my son are about 6 weeks apart in age and were playmates when they were babies; I'm excited that both our children are so close in age! She had a girl late last week named Cora, so I pulled out my Animal Stories stamp set last night to make a little card for her.

With the happy return of Pink Pirouette this summer, I could use some of my dwindling scrap supply on this card and not feel guilty about it!! I used an old Weekend Sketch Challenge from Gretchen Barron for the layout.

The second card is actually a note card--remember the thank you notes that I changed the base on? After I did that, I had 5 Barely Banana card bases and nothing to use them on (plus it is one of those colors that is retiring this summer, so I wanted to use it up!) so I made these sweet note cards with the Animal Stories giraffe. I was going to make them as full cards, but then decided that the giraffe needed a barely banana matting on it, and so cut them into note cards instead.


Supplies:
Elephant Card~
Basic Gray, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette cs, Candy Lane dsp (retired)
Animal Stories, Sweetness Unlimited stamps
Basic Gray ink
Basic Gray 5/8" satin ribbon
1 3/4" circle punch, modern label punch

Giraffe Card~
Barely Banana, Old Olive, Perfect Plum, Whisper White cs
Great Friend, Animal Stories, Happy Moments stamp sets
Old Olive, Perfect Plum, Pumpkin pie ink
Pumpkin pie grosgrain ribbon
small and large oval punches

When at first you don't succeed...

try, try again. Remember yesterday's baby thank you notes? I kept looking at the first one and thinking, it just doesn't look right. The colors seemed off balance, somehow. As I was going through the stamper blogs on my google reader this morning, it occurred to me that the problem was the barely banana base. It was throwing everything off! I realized suddenly that the rest of the card basically used the colors of the Noveau Chic dsp (adding in the Red Riding Hood, that is) and that Basic Gray would make for a much better card. So I took all the fronts off and reattached to a basic gray base. Much better! What do you think??


I think the gray complements the sage shadow much better and I'm much happier with the result now. And for those of you with especially sharp eyes who just noticed that the dsp is dotted instead of striped, I didn't change it, I just didn't have enough of either one to make 5 cards, so I made three with the dotted one (Rockabilly, retired) above and 2 with the striped one you saw yesterday (Washington Apple, retired). The good news is that with the return of Red Riding Hood in the new catalog July 1st, we can expect to see more great designer series paper featuring this great color!!

Just a reminder, there are still a few grab bags available, so be sure to snap one up before they're gone!

On a baby-related note, one of the little projects that I started on last night was to think about a labor playlist. I had a great natural birth with my toddler, and am hoping to do so again with this one (due one month from today!) and one of the things that can be useful is a variety of music. I had a bunch of playlists that I made with my son, but when push came to shove (literally!), I really couldn't stand to have any music on, and ended up listening to the selections postpartum instead. This time, I'm thinking early classical music, and a friend who recently gave birth introduced me to this gorgeous piece by Vivaldi. Yep, you know, the guy who wrote The Four Seasons. I'd never really explored any of his other work either, but this piece inspired me to download a two-disc album of similar works. Have a listen--it is well worth the time!

Baby Thank You Notes

Amongst the things that I'm trying to finish before the new baby arrives in less than a month (t-30 days tomorrow!) is putting together some thank you notes for the new baby. Not that I'm expecting gifts (we don't really need anything), but people always seem to send something when a new baby is born and it is nice to have some thank yous on hand for such occasions. I'm trying to get a supply of about 25 on hand, so I'm doing them in batches of 5, which seems manageable to me. Plus I wanted each batch of 5 to be a little different so the notes aren't so hard on my cardstock supplies. The rest of the cards will feature Fox and Friends, which is coming in my order on Monday (yippie!).

So here are the first two styles. I hope you'll forgive the lower quality of the photos--I was feeling lazy and didn't want to set up the photo tent. It is getting harder for me to do a lot a bending and photographing with the tent requires a bit. :)


The first one I just made up out of my head and the second one is CASEd almost directly from Julie Davison. Her original was a congrats card, and was 6x3, but I like standard sizes, so I resized it and changed the sentiment.


Supplies:
Rattle Card:
Barely Banana, Sage Shadow, Whisper White cs, Washington Apple dsp (retired)
Versamark, Jet Black Staz-On ink, Sage Shadow, Barely Banana, Ruby Red markers
Sanded, Thank You Kindly, Sock Monkey Accessories stamp sets
1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches
Apricot Appeal grosgrain ribbon

Sailboat and Star Card:
So Saffron, Real Red, Whisper White cs, Delicate dots dsp (retired SAB 2009 paper)
Real Red, So Saffron, Bashful Blue markers/ink pads
Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Nursery Necessities, Thank You Kindly stamp sets
Whisper White grosgrain ribbon
dimensionals
paper snips
1 3/4" circle punch

Toddler naps

It's sunny and 85 degrees today--is it really only April 6? This doesn't bode well for summer, I am thinking. And us with three floors and no AC. Oy. I guess it is supposed to be hot tomorrow, but then get back to normal temps for this time of year.

My son is still a bit messed up sleep-wise from our Pascha adventures, which is to be expected (we're all getting caught up around here!) and so nap time has been a bit of an adventure these last days. I went in to wake him up and found him like this and thought it was so cute. Forgive the blurry photo--he opened his eyes when I took it so I couldn't redo it.

And for my quick card share, this is a card I made at a shoebox swap in March (or was it February? The time is running together for me). I like the blues and muted tones of it.

Christ is Risen!

Click HERE for a lovely Russian rendition of one of the great hymns of Pascha: The Angel Cried.

In truth, He is Risen! We celebrated Pascha (Easter) this morning in the wee hours (our services start at midnight and run until about 3:00, with much feasting and celebration afterward). We got to bed around 4:30, then woke up at 11:00 and went to brunch with a friend. It's been a wild and crazy Holy Week, but a lovely one. My two-year-old did great with all the extra services and even stayed up for the whole Pascha service last night and stayed cheerful!

I've been frantically trying to get some etsy customer orders completed, as well as a set of swaps that I won a contest to make, so that I can clear my decks as my due date grows closer. I'm 35 weeks today, and am feeling the need to have things DONE. So my posting might be a bit sporadic for a while now. I'm taking a bit of a break from sketch/color challenges to give the creative space in my brain some breathing room. I am hoping to get the layers for the birth announcements cut later this week, but obviously the top layer with the birth details will have to wait until after D-day! There are still grab bags available, so go ahead and pick one up before they are gone!

So, with that, just a quick share today. I CASEd this card several months ago from my fellow Philly Inker, Illina Crouse. Hop on over to her blog and have a look at her lovely creations!