Welcome Baby Mojo Style/ Mojo Monday 237

It's that time of year again... Stampin' Up has announced its Retired List. Each year, we find out what stamps won't make it into the next catalog. This year, the list is especially long because they are starting a new catalog system in June. So, there are many old friends to say goodbye to. I always remind myself that there will be lots of great new stuff to check out in the new catalog as I march out all my soon to be retired sets for a last hurrah.

Fox & Friends is one of the sets that will no longer be available after May 31st. It's such a cute little group of critters. I love using it for baby and kid cards. For today's example, I used the Mojo Monday sketch of the week. I was glad to find that it worked well with another goal I had--- to use my new Simply Scored Diagonal Plate. That's how I created all those great background scores. I'll be demonstrating how to get this effect & how to make your own envelopes with this tool at my Lakewood Stampin' Social next week & my Second Monday open studio in May. You're going to love how easy this tool is to use! Isn't it fun how the background scores match up so well with the baker's twine? I love it when things work out well!

Springtime Lilacs/ Color throwdown #187

Can you tell what I was cutting out in my garden yesterday? My lilac bushes are in full bloom and there was a chance of snow last night so I wanted to rescue as many blooms as possible while I still could. They inspired me to create paper versions that will last even longer. When I saw how well this plan matched with the color choices from the folks over at the Color Throwdown, I knew this was a great chance to get back into stamping and back into blogging too. The colors for this week's challenge were So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, and Lavender Lace. I replaced the Lavender Lace with Wisteria Wonder to make my little lilac sprigs. Please don't ask how many little flowers are in each cluster... I didn't let myself count! All I know, is that I punched a BUNCH of them with my little Punch Pack flower and then punched quite a few more just to make sure. I used all but four! Once I got the clusters together for a trial run, I knew I needed to do something with their centers. A tiny circle of So Saffron was too much. So, I glued them all in place and decided to solve that problem at the end. As I glued them, I liked how the little dot of glue started to give them each a center. Then it hit me, Dazzling Details would be just the ticket! So, I added a little dot to each of the exposed centers. Trust me, there are a lot more that ended up covered up. I may have gone just a bit overboard with layers. That's the fun part though, right? Now I have just a bit a spring to last for months & months.