Poppies and Peanut

Hello Stamplings!

My last post of this month. We are in for another heat wave starting tomorrow so we're flying up to Alaska for a few days. Just kidding. But wouldn't that be awesome? When people are asked what material thing they would wish for if they only got one wish, I never hear anybody say private jet. That would be my choice. Of course, it would go without saying that the hangar rental and costs of operation and pilot would be included. Of course.

Now that we've snapped out of my daydream, here are my cards. I know you weren't expecting another Fourfer after my last post, but it snot really. I consider these first three one-layer cards to be all together as a Onefer.

Poppy: Concord & 9th. Stencil: Funky Fossil Designs

Poppy: Penny Black 40-320. Stencil: Balzer Designs Mini Tiny Circles

Poppy: Penny Black 40-375. Stencil: Dylusions

Do you think maybe I love poppies? I have several more poppy stamps, but I ran out of time to make cards with all of them. I've painted them all with my Ziggies and now that Hammy is back home, he loved liberally winking them all. I used fossilized amber and antique linen Oxies through various background stencils to add a certain Jenny Say Quah to each one.

Challenges

• Card No. 1 "Lots of Hugs" is playing in the "One-Layer Card Using Stencils" challenge over at Less is More.
• Card No. 2 "Happy Birthday" is playing in the August Penny Black Saturday Challenge where the brief is "Anything goes with the option of water and/or watercoloring."
• Card No. 3 "Enjoy" is playing in the "Use Your Favorite Flower" challenge over at The Flower Challenge, just as the doors are closing.

Twofer

For this Chrissie card, I used two different Penny Black sets. The tree is from "Jolly Friends 30-058" and the NBUS doggie (nicknamed "Peanut" by Hammy) is from "Merry Delight 30-448." The sediment is from PTI. The wonky dies are from MFT. Peanut comes with a die, so naturally I had to levitate him to show how becited he is that the glittery foam star on the top of the tree matches his collar! This design was pretty quick and fits any age or gender, so I think I'll be making a few more of these.

Challenges

• Christmas Kickstart, where my friend Cat is the GD Elf, has a brief this time of "Dachshund (any doggie) Through the Snow."
• August Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.
• Penny Black and More: Boys and Men.

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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 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 a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

How's your week going? I know I've been posting a lot this past week, but because of a busy first half of the month, everything card-related got pushed and now I'm up against some challenges closing so I've got a Fourfer for you. Ah, that was sweet of you not to groan.

I promise I'll be quick, but I'll wait a sec if you want to get a drink and put that lumbar pillow behind your back. Doe a deer, a female deer, re, a drop of golden sun, mi, a name ... oh, hi. I was just humming while I waited for you.

Here we go!

Onefer

I've used NBUS butterflies from Memory Box cut from a watercolor background for this design. The dies are called "Drifting Side Butterfly" and "Flitter Side Butterfly." 

Challenges

• CAS Watercolour August Challenge: Colorful butterflies.
• Country View Challenge: Texture.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Clean and simple.

Twofer

I liked it so much, I made a few more of these colorful butterfly designs. For this one, I added gems and a birthday sediment.

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Galz: Wings.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippity bits and pieces.
• Seize the Birthday: With toppings option of butterflies.

Threefer

I made this simple design using a plaid stencil and a bottle of NBUS Wendy Vecchi Pearl Mica Spray. I am intrigued that the Pearl spray appears silver when sprayed on the black. The stencil is "Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Plaid THS097."

Challenges

• CAS on Friday: Use a stencil.
• CAS Stencil: Sprays.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Marsha's masculine anything goes.

By the way, the shimmer is amazing in reality:

After spraying the stencil inside a big box, I quickly flipped it over onto another piece of black card and was able to get another shimmery panel. It's lighter, of course, but still visible enough to grow up to be a card some day.

I have to say that was fun. I've had this spray for ages and never used it. I have occasionally tried other sprays in the past without much success. I really appreciate the CAS stable of challenges for inspiring me to step outside - literally - and try new things! 

Here's a tip I saw on a blog (I'm sorry I didn't note which one): When you spray, don't point the spray at the paper. Lay a big box on its side and place the paper flat on the side that is now the floor of the box. Then, instead of pointing your nozzle at the paper, point it at the back of the box and you'll get lovely coverage just from the falling mist and there won't be much piddling. It worked for me. (I hope it wasn't just a spray manufacturer telling us to do it this way! 😏)

Fourfer

This is another card panel I made at the 2019 ESCR. The card is glossy black and the embossed snowflakes were made by pushing a glittery paste through a snowflake stencil. Again, very schparkly in real life between the glossy card and the glitter in the paste. I used Nancy's technique where you cut strips out of the image panel for a little extra interest. I think the sediment is from PTI?

Challenges

• CAS Christmas Card August Challenge: Glitter.
• Cupcake Inspirations: Glitter.
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge: Anything Christmas goes.
• Merry Little Christmas Challenge: Anything Christmas goes.

 

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Thank you for making it to the end! I try to only do two cards per post because I know it's hard to remember them by the time you get to the end. Oh, and before you ask why I didn't mention Hammy's help with these, he is away at the annual hamster convention in Bellingham WA in honor of Mr. Saddlebags.

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 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 a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

Paper Towel Oceans

Hello Stamplings!

I'm not sure about that title. Have you seen the reports lately about the crap they are recovering from our oceans? I guess a lot of the debris is from ocean liners just dumping their trash in the sea for decades. That can't be right, can it? I'm glad humanity is learning little by little how critical our natural resources are to future generations, so we don't end up with paper towel oceans and no peoples.

Here in our card-making corner of the universe, we make pretty things with our paper towels!

Onefer

As long as I had all my nautical stamps and dies out, I made a coupla other cards for other challenges. I used Lolly's paper towel technique for this card. (Lolly taught this technique at the 2019 ESCR.)  I mopped up Brusho ink with a paper towel and pressed it onto a mixed media panel. If you look closely, you can see the little dot design of the paper towel. The happy popped-up whale from PTI was given a second offset black layer for a shadow and Hammy added a googly eye to bring him to life. The wave die is from Simon Says Stamp.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Paper Towels. I used a paper towel, plus stamping, plus Brushos. There are videos about this technique on the site.
• Paper Players: CAS PP455. Any cards for kids.
• Sweet Stampers: Dies and/or punches.

Twofer

Using the piece that remained after I die-cut the panel for my first card, a sediment sticker Hammy picked out, and a Crop-a-dile, I made this super QACAS birthday card for any age and any gender. Shazambam!

Challenges

• CAS(E) This Sketch.
• Just Add Ink: No stamping.
• Krafty Chicks: Masculine.
• TCP Tuesday: Clean and simple.
• The Male Room: Happy 6th Birthday!

~~~

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 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 a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

As Deep as the Ocean

Hello Stamplings,

I've got the vapors here. Our temps have been 105F, 106F, 103F, but we are getting a break today down to 100F! When I feel very whiny about it, I think of the generations of females who lived in the time before air conditioning with layers upon layers upon layers of clothing. And it wasn't ladylike to sweat! And ice cubes hadn't been invented so they couldn't even tuck a coupla cubes in their bahzooms! Now those ladies had the vapors!

To help, my cards today are cool and refreshing:

Showing twofers together signifies these are reminders of our current Twofer Card Challenge where the code word is 🌊NAUTICAL🌊. The swordfish is the stamp my cards have in common this time. It's from Gerda Steiner's Catch a Wave set.

Onefer

A very QACAS card for my first design. I had Hammy stand on the snout of my swordfish to bend it a little bit so he could look right into the periscope. The swordfish, not Hammy. I didn't color my images because I didn't want to detract from that gorgeous fishy pp on the bottom panel under the perfect match of SU ribbon I found to separate the panels per the sketch. Uff. I think there should've been a comma somewhere in that last sentence. 

Challenges

• Freshly Made Sketches: Congratulations on 400 fun sketch challenges!
• Gerda Steiner Designs.

Twofer

More pp for the background of my second design. I believe the paper is from Our Daily Bread which is now called Divinity Designs. All the ocean critters and sediment are from the same Gerda Steiner set. 

I drew the fishing line. A simple line which makes a few scattered pieces come together to tell a story of friendship. And it's a true representation, at least in my experience. Every time I get together with four girlfriends in a restaurant, there's always that one that's looking out the window, listening to a different drummer up in her head. 

I heard that. So what if it is me?

Challenges

• Shopping Our Stash: Gone fishin'!
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Midsummer Blues.
• Sparkles: Tropical vacation.

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Sea how easy it is to make two different designs just by using the same fish? I hope you can join us ~ and thank you if you already have ~ for this wonderful beach-y summertime 🌊NAUTICAL🌊 challenge! 

Pull out that fish, anchor, boat, sea gull, palm tree, wave, pier, whale, jelly fish, mermaid, pirate, submarine, octopus, flip flops, sunset-over-the-water, etc. non-digi stamps, dies, or stencils and join in the fun over at the Twofer Card Challenge! There is still a full week left to join us and we'd love to see your Twofer designs!

~~~

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 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 a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)