Germany, Part 5: Neuschwanstein

Heyyy, we made it to Germany Part 5!

See the pictures here.  Is it weird that I bought the Swan Lake stamp set specifically for this layout?  The swan motif is very strong in this castle and Hohenschwangau.  I also used the stamp set for my Bruges layout.

Today's color palette includes Gray Granite, Mossy Meadow, Soft Sea Foam, Night of Navy, and Whisper White.

We're running late this morning so I'm not going to make it to my gym class, but I can still go running on the track.  Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Tim Holtz Christmas Alphabet
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Balmy Blue, Gray Granite, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede, Whisper White, Memento Tuxedo Black, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Gray Granite, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Garden Lane DSP
Accessories:  None

Retiring: Swan Lake

Mornin', folks!  Yesterday, Stampin' Up! dropped their retirement lists in preparation for the new catalog, so I'll most likely be revisiting some of the soon-to-retire stamp sets between now and June 1.  And first on the list is Swan Lake.

Honestly, a big part of why I got Swan Lake is to do scrapbook pages for Neuschwanstein (the castle in Bavaria that was the basis for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland; there are swan motifs everywhere in the castle).  I haven't gotten to those pictures yet, but I did use the swan on another layout already.  I do like this stamp set.  So anyway, I paired the soon-to-retire with a couple of brand new (and continuing in the next catalog) stamp sets:  Waterfront and Lots of Happy.  I can't wait to play with Waterfront a bit more, and Lots of Happy is part of a card kit in the Occasions Catalog...I can now report that 4 out of 5 of the Lots of Happy sentiments fit perfectly in that Tailored Tag Punch.  Yay!

Enough chatter, let's take a look at this week's color challenge from Global Design Project:

I love Tranquil Tide so I was happy to see this combination.  I inked up both the swan and the sentiment with Versamark and then Night of Navy ink, and embossed both with clear embossing powder.  That allowed me to watercolor some Crumb Cake shading on the swan without making the colors run.  For the lake and shore, I stamped off once on scratch paper before stamping on the cardstock here to make the colors a little lighter, and just added more stamping until I liked how it looked.

Here's the sketch from Sunday Stamps that I used:

I like this sketch, it was fun!  I left off the two little flagged pieces on the "any shape" element in the interests of keeping my card on the simpler side.  I just hand-cut the mat for the Tailored Tag punch, easy enough since it's all straight lines.  A few pearls and that was it!

Time to feed Ryan his second breakfast...he gets a bottle first thing and then a bowl of cereal a little later, and it's time for that.  Plus I'm hungry too!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Waterfront, Lots of Happy
Ink;  Versamark, Night of Navy, Tranquil Tide, Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Thick Very Vanilla, True Gentleman DSP
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, pearls, Dimensionals, clear EP

Bruges

Y'all, I'm very proud of myself this morning.  I used ALL CURRENT STUFF on my layout for today!!

And and AND I finally used the swan from Swan Lake!!!  These pics are from our trip to Belgium in 2011; see them here.  I printed out twice this many pictures, but in the end I decided these were the only ones I needed to tell my scrappy story.

It's hard to tell in this picture but the swan is stamped in Night of Navy ink and the letters are in Tranquil Tide.  And have I talked about how much I love that patterned paper?  LOVE. IT.  I did Daffodil Delight mats on the title block, journaling block, and the one photo of myself with actual daffodils to form a visual triangle and help move the eye through the layout.

Today's color palette:  Tranquil Tide, which continues to be my favorite new In Color; Blushing Bride, which isn't in the Delightful Daisy DSP but plays nicely with the other colors; Daffodil Delight, which really is the color of daffodils; Night of Navy, which is my favorite non-brown or black "neutral"; Old Olive, which is only in the patterned paper; and Whisper White, because isn't that on like 75% of my scrapbook layouts?  Sometimes Very Vanilla works better, but Whisper White is definitely my not-color of choice most of the time.

I just took a minute to sing a song to Ryan, and based on his big ol' grin I think he wants to live in a yellow submarine when he grows up.  Beatles fan already! :)  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Brushwork Alphabet
Ink:  Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, Soft Sky, Calypso Coral
Paper:  Tranquil Tide, Blushing Bride, Daffodil Delight, Thick Whisper White, Delightful Daisy DSP
Accessories:  None

Swanless Lake

Mornin', kids!  How's it going today?  Looks like we might actually have a sunny day here, seems like it's been raining for a week.

Alas, even with all the rain I don't have a pond with water lilies in it, but I do have a water lily stamp!  This card features three stamps from Swan Lake, and somehow I haven't used the swans on anything yet.  Hee.  I did a light watercolor wash on watercolor paper for the background, I am loving that look lately.  Then the main image is stamped on Very Vanilla and I doubled up the cardstock on that layer to make it a little sturdier.

The colors are courtesy of this week's Global Design Project color challenge:

I hope they'll forgive me for adding in some Pool Party, but my water lilies needed...water.  They also needed sparkle so I brushed on some Wink of Stella.

I also used this week's Paper Players sketch:

And that's all she wrote for today.  Have a great one, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake
Ink:  Basic Black, Calypso Coral, Old Olive, Pool Party
Paper:  Basic Black, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Watercolor paper
Accessories:  Tags & Labels Framelits, Dimensionals, corner rounder punch

Return of the Baylor Bear

Mornin', y'all!  It's not yet five in the morning here but I suppose I keep odd hours with the wee babe in the house.  At any rate, I got to sneak down to my craft room yesterday to make a card!  (I kinda started on a scrapbook layout too but who knows how long it will take me to finish that!)

I found myself in need of a bear-themed thank you card so of course my bear from Thankful Forest Friends was the first stamp to come to mind.  (I'm still in love with this bear, even if he's retired.)  I used last week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Just because of the direction the bear is facing, I basically did a mirror image of the sketch because that looked better to me (if I'd done the sketch exactly as drawn, with the bear {smaller butterfly element} on the right and the sentiment on the left, it would have looked like he was pooping words!).  I had originally *planned* to do just a simple one-layer card (well, with the bear popped up) but I messed up the yellow splats the first time I stamped it, so I ended up cutting that card front up and flipping the paper over to salvage it.  I do like the extra layers though, those striped make me happy :)  Plus that got a bit more green on my card, and I love green.

In other bear news, here's our little polar bear and his first snow from earlier this month:

Those polar bear jammies are one of the few clothing items that I've bought for Ryan :)  We didn't have him outside for very long; he seemed pretty unimpressed with the snow but since it's his first one we had to take a few pictures.  See how the tree is blooming here?  After the cold snap and the snow, all those blossoms went DED.  Like, they all turned brown and are hanging off the trees like little bats.  The trees are still getting a few leaves on them, though.

Well, baby polar bear has had a bottle and is going back to sleep, so maybe I can do the same!  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Forest Friends (retired), Touches of Texture, Swan Lake (sentiment)
Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Garden Green, Early Espresso
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Thick Whisper White, Garden Green DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Brights Candy Dots (retired)

Lovely Dragonfly

Okay y'all, I think I'm starting to get tired of this whole pregnancy thing.  It's getting more than just uncomfortable.  About all I'm good for right now is sitting...so today I sat in my craft room :)

So here's a CAS card for today.  I think it might need a Sahara Sand dragonfly next to the sentiment, whaddya reckon?  I came up with this for the Global Design Project CASE the Designer challenge:

I kept Sahara Sand as the main color, but used Emerald Envy as my accent color.  I figured the tiny dragonfly from Swan Lake worked well as something similar to (but different than) the large polka dots, and instead of lace I used some linen thread.

I also used this week's As You See It sketch:

Instead of the doilies pictured on the sketch, I did a bit of paper piercing on the sides but honestly I wish I'd left that off altogether.  Hmm.

Anyway, that's it for me today; I'm now working on another scrapbook layout.  So far I've done 22 pages this year, which is quite the surprise to me...I know that's going to change very soon here.  But I'll enjoy the scrappin' while I can.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Swan Lake, Love & Affection
Ink:  Whisper White, Emerald Envy
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Emerald Envy, Whisper White
Accessories:  paper piercer, linen thread