Happy Make-More-Cards Week!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well as we whoosh around to the last Monday of February! I'm pickled tink that I managed to post every Monday this month and I so appreciate of all of you visiting and commenting!

I have to admit I "stretched" the title of the post a bit. It should say, "Play More Cards Day" and it was yesterday and only for the day and they don't mean handmade cards, but in the pocket of my tan jacket in the back of the closet you'll find a creative license under the name Art Blanch which allows me libations.

So, hurrazah, let's make more cards this week! It is also the fourth week of the month on my I.D.E.A.S. calendar, so woohoo, A = Anything Goes!

Onefer

Goodness, I'll wait while you get your sunglasses! In fact, I'll grab mine, too! The sun turned my springy lime green into sassy Char Truz! I used a NBUS stencil from the "Rising Wildflowers" set from Pinkfresh Studio. The die was out of stock, but rather than tossing the stencil on Mt. NBUS, I went to work blending CP inks and then I went over parts of the flowers with my watercolor pencils for a little more dementia. 

The scalloped frame is from Pink & Main, the NBUS "birthday" die is from Poppystamps, and the tiny "happy" is ancient from WPlus9.

Challenges: Addicted to Stamps and More (Make Your Mark); Colorful Options (Pink/Purple); and Pinkfresh Studio (February).

Twofer

When I saw Lisa's Mood Board at Just Us Girls, this design quickly came to mind. When Hammy is over at Daphne's playing with Stanley (and Daphne's dwarf hamster Dwayne), she often gets out her tea set for make-believe. It all starts out well, but before oolong, the lads start scampering, sending everything arse over teacup ~ literally. Fortunately, Daph is a light-heated lass and their antics send her off into peals of laughter! 

I used a NBUS coffee mug die from Simon Says Stamp, cut from a snippet of pretty pp. The hamster stamps and dies are from Your Next Stamp and Your Next Die. The window die is from Poppystamps and I backed it with vellum patterned with silver leaves. It still needed a little sumpthin, so I added some silver baseboard as a ground and fern bits cut from silver using a NBUS "Dainty Ferns Die" from Waffle Flower. The NBUS sediments are from Pinkfresh Studio.

Additional Challenges: Alphabet (V for Volume); Inkspirational (Mug); Critter Crazy (Anything Goes); and Snippets Playground (Use Your Snippets ~ I remembered to take a photo!).

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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! I'm becited to see all your cards this week!♣️🎴

*Life is too short!

     

Happy Lunar New Year!

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome as we whoosh around to another week! Tomorrow begins the Year of the Fire Horse. (That's horse, not hose, like I keep reading it!🙃) If your year has started out sluggishly, get ready to feel renewed engerny! I found this little bridle bit for you:

Given that the Horse is a Yang Fire sign, its energy is audacious, exuberant, and high-spirited. “Put together these Yang qualities of Fire in the Fire Horse, and we have an extremely intense, energetic, fast-moving and action-oriented year ahead."🐎

Onefer

I  should have made you a card with a horse on it. Instead, here is a Fire Dragonfly:

Otherwise known as the Aqua Dragonfly. I used The Greetery's, "Jumbo Curiosity Moth," but changed out the moth body for a dragonfly body I found in my stash. The wings are cut from a piece of brusho'd glossy paper.

The dragonfly was inspired by the layout from Freshly Made Sketches. In order to change up the bottom half of the sketch, and because this is E = Embossing on the I.D.E.A.S. calendar, I embossed the bottom half with a Sizzix e/f. 

I'm not sure if you can see in the photo, but I wanted to add some razzahmatazz to the embossing and, you know, pretend I was a professional, so I blended some light aqua ink over the raised images. Only that was "Ew," way too much aqua per my resident hamster critic, so I really got brave and lightly blended black ink over the aqua! I know, black! I'll be viral, right? I'm also playing in the Allsorts Challenge (Embossing).

Twofer

This is a textbook QCAS design. The pretty sprig is NBUS called, "Meadow Grass" from Taylored Expressions. I die-cut it from white cardstock, but for some reason it photographed creamier than it is IRL. Sadly, you can't see Hammy's beautiful winking, which he was so becited to do again!

I'm playing with Seize the Birthday (CAS with Dies) and Addicted to Stamps and More (Die Cuts and/or Stencils).

Threefer

As I was typing this yesterday, I happened to see a couple of more challenges and before the clouds completely covered the sun, I made another CAS design.

I used one of the emboss-resist designs from Stampin' Up for the base. I started by masking off and ink-blending the candle bases in order to follow the sketch from AAA Cards. Then I had a heck off a time trying to figure out how to do the flames. All of my candle flames were too small. I tried free-hand and fussy-cutting them, but I got another "Ew" on that idea. 

Next, I took a field trip through the Playhouse and when I got to my greenery drawers, I hit the jackpot when I came across the "Leaf Canopy Die" from Altenew. It's from 2018 and old now, but it remains one of my favorites and who knew one of the pretty leaves made a perfect candle flame when ink-blended through the negative die-cut?! And even more amazing? I just noticed one of the sediment stamps in the set says, "So happy I have finally found you!"😮

I found a white die-cut balloon and string in my stash and blended them with ink and added the sediment. I'm also playing in The Paper Players challenge from Stef calling for, "CAS with Balloons and Birthday."

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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! 

*Life is too short!

Happy Gal N. Tine's!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well or you soon will be! 

I made some cards! There are so many challenges celebrating Valentine's Day, or Galentine's Day, or Hearts-n'-Love-For-No-Reason-Day that it's hard not to be inspired! It's "D = Dies/Die Cuts" week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I happen to have purchased a few things (cough) recently to help motivate me. 

Today's NBUS feature is the "Jar of Wishes" from Pinkfresh Studio. All the rest of the schtuffs I used today are BUS!

I cut the Jar of Wishes from a light gray cardstock and then again from vellum and used the matching stencil to add pink highlights. I cut the lid from a scrap of cork and then filled my Jar of Wishes with little pink and red heart flowers from Impression Obsession dies. The SWAK stands for "sealed with a kiss." Anyone remember writing those letters on the flap of envelopes back in the last century? SWAK is from Penny Black and it comes in a 3-pack with XOXO and I💗YOU.

For the background I used one of those O(ld)BUS narrow embossing folders, shown here with Ms. Val:

Just to be different, I alternated embossing and debossing down the length of the card front. Here's a close up of the card:

Playing with: Pinkfresh February Challenge and Little Red Wagon.

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Next I used a NBUS die that was a gift last Galentine's Day from my friend Ang, lovingly known to many of you across the pond as Mrs. Duck. Hammy calls it a quilt die because it has so many panels and there are so many designs you can make with it. My puzzle-lovin' heart had a ball!

Playing with: Color Hues.

Playing with: Just Us Girls.

Playing with: Addicted to Stamps and More and CAS on Friday

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

And enjoy the Olympics! It's impressive to see all the athletes so dedicated to their sport, but it's also emotional as they alternate between the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It was so sad that Lindsey Vonn broke her leg, but she sure gave it her all!

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and thank you so much for the warm welcome back to Blogland last week!

I'll leave with my annual crocus photo. They are sure to bring a smile, especially if you are still snowbound and frigid! I'm sorry, what?

*Life is too short!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well! I'm happy to be back in Blogland! In the past months, I've missed wishing you a few Happy "Thises" and Happy "Thatses," but I couldn't miss popping my head up today!

I went to heat-emboss a sediment for a card the other day and when I opened the Drawer of Heat Embossing, I just stood there staring down at it. Too soon. So today I will just enter stage left very softly, on tippy-toes, and share these cards I made the first part of last September last year:

They're all the same, but different. I used some of my pretty colored cardstock for the bases to showcase the "Stitch Wreath" die from Poppystamps and just puzzled my way around the wreath using the Jigsaw Technique, punctuating some of the card fronts with scoring. 

With a new year, like many of you, I have been trying to think of ways to schpark my mojo. It hurt my head. I finally decided, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," so I will continue with my I.D.E.A.S Board, which was a big help the last two years. 

This is the first week of February, which is I = Ink/Color Medium. I'm not sure if I'll manage a regular weekly routine or not, but I hope my mojo juices start flowing again soon.

By the way, before you ask, Hammy is still with me.🐹Thankfully, our neighbors agreed to foster Hammy and Stanley during my break, but their daughter Daphne fell totally in love with young Stanley! I couldn't break her heart, so he lives with her now. Happily, we get to see them nearly every day.

I want to thank you again for your friendship over these last many months, for sticking with me, and for all your emails, cards, prayers, and best wishes for both of us! I'm proud to be a part of such a great and caring online community, especially in these distressing times! The Mister still has a lot of rehab to do, but he is very positive and determined and he is making great progress:

Here we are out for dinner with friends recently to 

celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary!  

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! Life is too short ~ don't ever take it for granite! 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse for all or some of the past almost 15 years and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!