A site for my handmade cards, accompanied by my photos and written meanderings which are occasionally witty, often tongue-in-cheek, and rarely profound. Beginning in June 2013, you'll also see lots of NBUS, which is an acronym I coined for Never-Before-Used-Schtuff. Note: my Privacy Policy can be found at a tab below and you can find my NBUS Challenge online. I hope you'll join in the fun there! Thanks for coming by! Have a beverage and enjoy!

May 6, 2014

Stamp/Stencils Are Everywhere. OCC Day Two.

Hello Crafty Friend!

I'm back with my third card from yesterday's Online Card Class on watercoloring. Today ended up being a busy day, so all I have accomplished on Day Two of the class is watch the excellent videos.

Without giving secrets away, I can tell you that the third card from yesterday was about emboss resist, which most of us have done using inks. For this lesson we were to start by using a background stamp that was "open" in design so that a lot of the background could show through. 

Well. I'll be a blue baboon if I could find such a stamp amid and among my {cough}llion stamps! I thought and thought and thought while all the while Hammy was on Skype with Ms. Thing. This love affair will be the death of my creativity! 

Finally I reached over and slapped the device into tomorrow, glaring at him the way mothers glare at their children in church. (I always thought those "if-looks-could-kill-glares in church were ironical.) Hammy wanted badly to go off in a Sulk, but seeing that none were available, he came and sat on my head and looked around the room. Suddenly, right in front of us was the answer.

I'll cut to my card and you see if you can figure it out. I'll bet you can. Here's my card:
Having used foam dots on my last card, an empty dot receptacle became my stamp! Well, it was sort of a stencil stamp, but whatever. I took my rarely used and 13-year-old Versamark pen and swirled it around inside the holes
Now there's a trick for you, for free!

I ended up watercoloring a large area over and around the "image" with my watercolors, not thinking that I would be cutting it way back for a card, so that's why the watercolors themselves are a bit underwhelming. 

~~~

That's a wrap. I'm gonna get some dinner going and then try to make a card(s) from Day Two tonight. Otherwise, I'll just move on to Day Three on Day Three and skip Day Two. Unless Day Four becomes my Day Two. Sorry. I didn't mean to make you ziddy. The cool thing about these courses (link above) is that they are available for LIFE! Thank goodness.
~~~

Blogland Boogers

Oh, wait, talking about the feed bag reminded me that there are still problems with Feedburner transmitting posts in your readers and with following again! I am not getting a lot of your posts, and I am thinking a lot of you are not getting mine. Some of you have told me that there is no follower gadget or follow button showing up on my blog side bar. I can see it and I've been able to follow new blogs, but I guess that's not true for everyone.

Carp.

Does anyone have any suggestions/intelligence/alternatives that they can share to help others with these problems? I would appreciate your advice. I don't even know who runs Feedburner. When I Goggle it, I'm not getting any information regarding a problem.

That's a bit like asking the fox if he's seen any good chicks lately.

Edited to add:

Reader Jean commented:  
As for the whole feedburner thing, as best I understand it, feedburner (which is a google tool) delivers to google email addresses but not to hotmail, msn, aol, yahoo, etc. It's because they are blocking some protocol that the feedburner sends out. There's no current fix. Bloggers that have experienced this problem appear to be switching over to FeedBlitz to send email updates from their blogs. Hope that helps! 
Thanks, Jean! That makes sense because I subscribe to my own blog to know when there are problems and my blog posts are coming in via Gmail (Google) just fine, but NOT via Comcast. So it is our servers who are restricting the delivery then by blocking the protocol from Feedburner, correct? I should be contacting Comcast then and complaining to them and the same goes for the rest of you who are using other delivery services besides Gmail.

I do hope there is a workable solution with Feedburner because the blogs that I subscribe to which come to me via Feedblitz are in "preview" format and they always have a bunch of ads in them and they often don't even show the card. I find that very irritating and off-putting and I often skip those blogs if I'm really busy. Still, I suspect ads are coming whether we like it or not.

I appreciate your comments and observations.

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor! 
  
 
*Life Is Too Short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling:
Click CTL + Home.
Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post.
Click Page Down to reach the end of the post.
Click Comments and the pop-up box opens.
Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!

59 comments:

Aileen said...

Love your card and the colours. Very clever use of the scraps.

Happy Dance said...

Hey gf. Can your hammie come and slap some sense into my Mr. Mojo? He must be off with hammies little Miss Thang! Love your stencil! Dang that's just brilliant. Love those orange and yellows too. And you've topped it off with a perfect bow. Rock on sister! Great card, and I'd give you an A+! Bev

Harriet Skelly said...

I LOVE your big dots Darnell - great idea for a stencil!! The colors are so happy - awesome card!

Loll said...

Way to recycle!!! So ingenious to use your dots background for your emboss resist!! I don't have a lot of background stamps either and used my only one that had open space (script). I thought about using my stencils ... so we were on the same wavelength although you stepped it up a notch by recycling! LOVE your card, great watercoloring ... and love the sweet tag and sentiment. Great job Dolly! Lolly xx

Andrea said...

what a great idea to use the empty foam dots as a stencil your a genius i would never come up with that idea !..I love what you've created and great colours ...everyone's take is so different ...I'm loving it myself although didn't manage to complete all the lessons for day 2 either but did manage some none of which quite made it to a card as yet but progressing well and really enjoying the experience ... hope you had a great evening and enjoy what tomorrow brings crafty hugs andrea x

Jean said...

Great job on this technique! As for the whole feedburner thing, as best I understand it, feedburner (which is a google tool) delivers to google email addresses but not to hotmail, msn, aol, yahoo, etc. It's because they are blocking some protocol that the feedburner sends out. There's no current fix. Bloggers that have experienced this problem appear to be switching over to FeedBlitz to send email updates from their blogs. Hope that helps!

Patti J said...

You rock! What a great way to use those dots! Love your card, hope you're enjoying the class, and I had to giggle out loud when I was reading about the days...lol! Thanks for your kind words on my FB page! Hugs...

Susanne Vargas said...

Thanks so much for the free tip! It's always worth checking out your blog posts... ;)
Well, that was a brilliant idea of Hammy to use what you have lying around! I think he deserves long skype sessions with his love interest if that makes him come up with something as clever!

stampwithsandy said...

Another great creation, and I love that sentiment!!! I want it!!!

Lisa Elton said...

You my friend, are one CLEVER lady!! Great way to repurpose a craft item and your card ROCKS!! I've had emails from bloggers letting me know they aren't getting the email updates for my blog. This is SO frustrating. If you get any further info please pass it along!

scrappymo! said...

Brilliant idea to use the pop dot frame! Great card. Looking forward to more of your "tips"!!!

Irish Cherokee said...

Way to go Darnell. The card looks good.

Colleen said...

Well, aren't you the Miss Crafty, thrifty superlicious person!! Great idea to use your empty dots...great card, Darnell!

Greta said...

You win the prize for the most creative stamping! I would never have thought to use that! Your card is fabulous--making me wish I'd signed up. However, until I finish the stencil class from eons ago I can't allow it. I'm so not techy, but my current problem is that I don't always get an e-mail when someone leaves a comment on my blog. I always used to & it's driving me crazy now that I might miss some & not reciprocate. ERRRR!!!

My Paper Epiphany said...

I love your method and the finished result! Great colours!

jimlynn said...

Totally confused about all the feedburner and subscription stuff.....but no confusion about this card!!! Awesome and very creative.
Lynn

Di said...

Oh you and Hammy came up with a fabulous result Darnell! So clever to use the waste as a stencil and what glorious colours too.

Hugs, Di xx

Redanne said...

I love Hammy's tip too, your card looks fantastic, what a clever idea! I think the colours look beautiful.

I can see your Followers quite clearly and fingers crossed have not had trouble looking at blogs, so apologies I cannot help much. Hope it all gets resolved soon though, it is a real pain when things like this go wrong. Hugs, Annie xxx

Kate said...

Love your thinking ::) That card worked out great! I signed up for the class too aren't the videos great? I hope to have something made soon using the techniques.
Kate xx

Jessi Fogan said...

Hammy is a genius! Love that idea for a found stencil. I have no clue what's going on with Feedburner but have had a few people mention that my blog is not showing up. So far I think Bloglovin is still getting most posts (well, based on the number of unread posts I've amassed, sigh)

Kate said...

Gorgeous card!! And so very clever to use the empty Pop Dot receptacle. I wouldn't have guessed!

Thanks for your kind words during your visit to my blog. I'm following you now too!

Gerrina said...

It;s clearly not so easy to follow the class, even if you think you've got all the stuff that you could possibly need...
It is a great and so sunny card!
Hugs, Gerrina

Vanessa said...

I love your beautiful card, Darnell!! Wonderful colors and that bow is perfect!

Brenda said...

Wow Darnell, this is a very cool looking card! Loving the polka dots and love that "stencil" you used to get them! How clever of you and Hammy!! Love this card! The feedburner thing is what I've been hearing about all over blogland, and yes what Jean told you is how most people are taking care of the problem. I don't even begin to understand it all, but I know now that I'm getting most of the posts that I subscribe to once again. Hugs

Benzi said...

Cool dots.....oh, how I LOVE dots! Stencils are one of my favorite things now. You did big and got a super card made.

Sheila H said...

Very clever! I'll remember that. Your card is great :)

Jean said...

Hi Darnell, It's not Comcast, it would be Hotmail, AOL, etc. It's likely that nothing will change. They needed to put some things in place to block what they thought was spam. I read a good article about this but have since been unable to find it, even with "google" ha, ha! At any rate, what I did was resubscribe to blogs that use Feedburner with my gmail address so I can still get the emails.

Diane said...

What a fun background Darnell, the color combination works great with the ribbon and tag.

Hugs diane

Jean said...

I gotcha now - I forget about Comcast being an internet provider and an email address provider!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful card! I'm taking the class too, its fun!!

Sue said...

Love the card and your creativity of using what's left of your pop dots. I never have one of those left, because I even use the foam around the pop dots. Enjoy your class.

MRS DUCK said...

Hi Darnell
Genius idea to use the foam pad waste, resulting in a super card.
Have no idea who Hammy is but hats off to him for assisting.
The Goolgly, feeding and burner thing went over my head I'm afraid so hope you manage to sort it.
Best wishes.
Ang x

shirley-bee said...

You and Hammy are so resourceful, Darnell! Great way to make your own background.

Shannon J said...

Um, brilliant idea!! Like totally brilliant! And I love how the card turned out!! Oh and do I KNOW how you feel about Hammy and Miz Thing's intolerable behaviour and how it's desperately affecting my creativity (well, that and my dumb work schedule!). Note: one post in about two months! Someone cool those two off!! Haha!!

Verna Angerhofer said...

What a cool idea! And, love the end result. Your card is gorgeous and filled with cheer!

Verna Angerhofer said...

What a cool idea! And, love the end result. Your card is gorgeous and filled with cheer!

JD/ Jill said...

Great card...and as always,,,very creative!

~Tammy~ said...

How fun and I love the bright colors too! Another creative talent from you!!! Have a GREAT rest of your week!

Vicki Dutcher said...

Way to use a recycle! You go~ Lovely colors you used

Following with Feedblitz is fine -- using it at a charge PER subscriber - I don't think so~

Bonnie said...

Love, love, love these polka dots and the bright watercoloring around them! You're making it really hard for me to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not enjoy that class!

dnisme@blogspot.com said...

I love this vibrant card and what a GENIUS idea!!!! Now I gotta try it!

Anita in France said...

Hammy's a handy soul, Darnell (distracted by love or not), finding this 'stencil' was genius! Your card's another stunner, ... I adore the warm and sunny colours and the little splat on the tag is a fabulous fun touch!

To get over the feedburner issue, have you thought of setting up Feedly (or Bloglovin') ... it doesn't address the problem, but it means you get everything you need in one place. Just a thought!

Hugs, Anita :)

Shona Chambers said...

What a clever young lady you are!! Its amazing what you can find to use when you don't have the exact, same product. Well done! Love the colours and how they blend up the card. Beautiful!!

sandie said...

looks like you are rocking this class Darnell. The colours in this are full of happiness and wow to the bow!

Jenny said...

Love how you used foam dot waste as your stencil...recycling at its best and a fab card too :0)
Jenny x

Cat Craig said...

Oh my this is just beautiful, I love your colors, your design and well everything about this card.

cm said...

Love your stencil; those big colourful dots are too clever, and the sunshiney colours have me smiling! Brilliant! You are rockin' your on-line course! A+++ on this card for sure!! Hugs~c

cotnob said...

This is gorgeous Darnell, such beautiful colours and fabulous technique.
Pauline
x

Karen Petitt said...

Interesting! I don't think I have a lot of open stamps but will hunt. I do know I have other stencils and sequin waste and that may work - love it! Karen x

Marybeth said...

Gorgeous card and neat technique Darnell! I knew I should have taken this class….. love your perfect bow too.

Petra Swart said...

Whichever day's card this actually is (LOL!!!), it is still stunning and super clever, Darnell!!! Love the great colours you have used and the great bow!!

Lee-Anne said...

Creative and gorgeous! Love it!

Carole said...

Wow, you are a total superstar, look at all the lovely comments - well deserved, I'd say! Your card is beautiful. C x

Chrissie said...

A little late, but I have just enrolled I this class Darnell. I love watercolour effects and would love to know more.
Your card is amazing and how original to use your foam what's it thingy as a stencil.
I have a little catching up to do!
Chrissie xx

Chrissie said...

A little late, but I have just enrolled I this class Darnell. I love watercolour effects and would love to know more.
Your card is amazing and how original to use your foam what's it thingy as a stencil.
I have a little catching up to do!
Chrissie xx

Shirley said...

Can't wait to take this class! Love what you did with the resist and what you used as your template! Beautiful watercoloring and gorgeous card!

Kim Heggins said...

Darnell...you are so sweet to post the info on feedburner...such a pain in my back end if you ask me. You are the best! Your card is the best and did I see you use a stencil???? I do recall a day or two when you said no stencils...hmmmm

Princess Judy Palmer said...

What a brilliant giant open save! It's that wonderful creativity at work. I think this is a very fun card. I would have never guessed what the dots were if you hadn't of told us.

Geri said...

Brilliant idea!!! Brilliant colors!!! Brilliant design - love the 'tag look'!