Hovering By ...

Hello Stamplings!

How are you this fine day? This year has created quite a pile-up on my desk. A new month starts up so quickly, the prior month is still stopped at the intersection and now there are six of them in a heap on the corner!🚨

My friends around the world tell me it is happening where they are, too, so an investigation has begun with a Special Inquiry Commission, manned by fourteen sub-Committees, three Budget Advisors, and a bar in the basement. You may expect a report soon. Hahaha!

Where I live, the arrival of June means the burgeoning of flora and fauna to the neighborhood. Happily, that includes honey bees!

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This is I = Ink/Color Mediums week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and the inky background of the hive was created by smooching Lindy Magicals in honey colors. The giant ancient bee from Hero Arts was stamped hither, thither, and yon, matted with black, then white, and then embossed with a Darice honeycomb e/f. The black card base was also embossed. The hello sediment is from The Greetery.

Playing in Allsorts (A/G), Little Red Wagon (Create Your Own Background), and SSS Wednesday Challenge (A/G).

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For this simples design, I used the sketch from AAA Cards and the colors from CAS Colours & Sketches. The Hot Air Balloon and Mini Hot Air Balloon are from Memory Box.

I colored them with colored pencils and the lads had a merry time winking them. I was very patient as Hammy took his time retraining Stanley with the winker. I should have put them in the schplatter box first, but what's a bit of schparkle on the them ... and the floor ... and my shoe ...

I used a light gray card and stamped the sediment from Taylored Expressions in gray ink. I then embossed the panel and the baboons (separately) using the SU "Subtle" e/f before attaching them to each other.

And the inside:

The sediment here is from WPlus9, called "Birthday Wishes." I thought this design would work for the manly sort, so I'm also playing in Inkspirational (Word Prompt ~ For the Guys) and Krafty Chicks (Masculine week).

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Enjoy your week! 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! 

If you're celebrating with me, today is "Say Something Nice Day," which, I mean, shouldn't that be every day? It's also "National Pen Pal Day," so to all my card pen pals out there, MWAH!

*Life is too short!

Happy California Poppy Day!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing great! We had a lovely Easter and I'm writing this on Sunday night, stuffed to the gills! I don't actually have gills, so I don't know why people say that, but I'm stuffed to there, so this will be a quickie. 

The carrot cake for dessert did it. Next year I'm having dessert first!

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Today really is California Poppy Day. It is one of my favorite springtime flowers here. They pop up everywhere along roadsides and in yards and by the thousands at the California Poppy Reserve. 

This poppy is from "Creative Chaos" by Visible Image. It is the first Monday of the month which means I = Ink on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. I used one of my favorite mediums ~ my Ziggies. I had my little helper add the schparkle with his winking and a simple black card base and Memory Box black and gold sediment finished it off.

Playing in: Allsorts Challenge (Springtime or A/G), CAS on Friday (Botanicals), Dragonfly Dreams April Challenge (CAS).

And there are two challenges where the theme includes "E" is for ?. I think the poppy is "E"nchanting" so I'm also playing in: AAA Card (It starts with E) and Inkspirational (CAS with option of E).

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The toadstools are from The Greetery called, "BotaniCuts Toadstool Garden" stamp and die set. I'm not sure who makes the postage stamp die; I think I might have borrowed a friend's die at one of my past craft retreats. 

The border uses some ancient dotted swiss paper which I cut with my old pinking shears. That's right ~ those huge pinking shears for cutting fabric! They haven't been used for that since the dark ages, but I pulled them out of the dusty sewing box because years ago I donated my 50 pairs of little colored skizzors that we all had with different teeth designs. Ah, the memories of the early craft days before die-cutting and dies and embossing folders.

Gee, boomer, you ask, just how old are you?!

Playing in: Addicted to Stamps and More (Any Occasion), Freshly Made Sketches, Krafty Chicks (Birthday), and Die-Cut Divas.

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Enjoy your week! 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!

Forward! Spring!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well as we enter our first full week of spring in this part of the world! It is also "Happy National Puppy Day!," but more on that later.

This week is A = Anything Goes on the I.D.E.A.S. calendar, which is everyone's idea of a good time! Let's start with springtime in the meadow . . .

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And how about two joyful bunnies from MFT (liberally winked by Hammy) to welcome you? I found the banner in my Easter/Spring stash ~ it looks like it might be from Paper Smooches. I blended the background and then stamped rocks and grass and made the rocks look like tiny dyed eggs or maybe jelly beans. The pointy frame is from Poppystamps.

Playing in: CAS on Friday (Spring) and Little Red Wagon (Signs of Spring).

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Next up are painted tulips using a NBUS trio of tulips embossing folder from Penny Black. I forgot to use a piece of watercolor paper, so it's not my best painting, but hey ho. I usually biff it when I try to paint over a 3D embossed image, so that part makes me happy and Hammy's expert winking polished it off nicely. I diecut it with a stitched oval from MFT. 

Threefer ~ in celebration of National Puppy Day!

I think this is one of my favoritest cards. The very definition of QACAS, yet bursting with emotion. I used a NBUS die from Cottage Cutz. (It comes with a cat, too, which I'll save for National Kitty Day.) I didn't want to disturb the image with a sediment, especially since this sweet card can be used for so many occasions.

It's brilliant in person when it comes to the texture. On a whim, I used a piece of this thick black handmade paper with nurbles on it, which I've had in my stash since the last century:

When I ran it through the die-cutter it flattened the nurbles, but in just-the-right-kind-of-way because it left a wonderful thick head of hair on the wee pup.

Playing in: Alphabet Challenge (X -Ray - Black and White Only), AAA Cards (A/G w/ option zoo or animals), and Krafty Chicks (CAS).

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Some of you may remember we had a black lab once. We actually started out with a yellow lab named Salty. When Salty was eight years old and slowing down, we thought it would be a good idea to get a second lab and we happened to get a black one. Because of the circumstances, the only choice for his name was Blackie ... no, just kidding! Of course, we called him Shadow!

Shadow remained Salty's shadow for the next seven years! Yes, that's right, it turned out that Shadow gave Salty a new lease on life! He lived until he was 16 and Shadow lived to be 15. And everyone said smoking and martinis would be bad for them! 

I managed to dig up a windy picture of me with them (cough) years ago on one of our Sunday hike/picnics:

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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 St. Patrick's Week!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing well! I was going to make you Irish Soda Bread, but I have a head cold, so The Mister picked up an Irish apple cake at the bakery. And there's Baileys, o' course, next to the coffee maker.

No matter one's heritage, it's fun celebrating St. Patrick's Day! Around Blogland there is green everywhere, both inside our craftrooms and outside from the lawn on up to the toppiest branches on the trees. (Well, unless you live where there is hot weather one day and snowstorms the next!😢 In that case, I hope my spring green leafy design will make up for my insensitive giraffe.)

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The leafy e/f is from Fun Stampers Journey. The Washi Tape and gold-embossed sediment are from GKW. The gold-embossed leaves were in my stash. The crimped circle is NBUS from the Greetery. 

My inspiration for this card came from:

• Sketch: CAS on Friday.
• Color: Seize the Birthday: green as main color.
• I.D.E.A.S.: E = Embossing.

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I pretty much CASEd Michele's adorable bunny card which she made for her sketch at FMS this week. I couldn't resist! The bubbly e/f is from Fun Stampers Journey and the small arched panel is NBUS from "Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers" by Memory Box. The NBUS sediment is from Waffle Flowers. The little Easter egg stamps are from GKW; I heat-embossed them in gold onto pink paper and fussy-cut them. 

Oops, Hammy just pointed out that I forgot to mention the star of the show! The sweet bunny is from My Favorite Things. He also wants me to mention that it took him 32 tries to train the bunny to balance on the eggs. And, yes, chocolate helped!

My inspiration for this card came from:

• Sketch: Freshly Made Sketches.
  
• Themes: Just Us Girls: Emboss.
  AAA Card Challenge: A/G w/ option of zoo or animals.

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Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* And whether you are full-blown Irish, half-Irish, or Irish by marriage like me, enjoy your St. Patrick's Day celebrations!☘️

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks if you take the time to join as a follower! 

*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."🐎

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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).

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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).

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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!