CASlicious Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

Thank you for stopping by today! Last week went by very slowly, which is something you rarely hear me say. I think it is the changing of the seasons that does me in. I'm an early riser and I have a hard time getting up when it's dark outside. 

While I adjust, I'm thankful I can use this wonderful hobby to combat the darkness by making light and bright cards to lift my spirits. This is A = Anything Goes week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I went uber CAS = clean and super.🤭Ha, that was a slip of the ginfers, but I might be onto something. Very few cards we make are really simple, are they? Even if they don't have a lot of elements, they can take time or be difficult. So how about CAS = Clean and Super?!

Onefer

For my Onefer, I used Donna's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and brought out one of my favorite fall stamp sets. This rake and the autumn sediment are from the "Fall" set (2012) by Technique Tuesday. I stamped the autumn using a Kaleidoscope ink pad. The rake was stamped, clear heat-embossed, painted, and fussy cut. Oh, and, of course, winked by Hammy and Stanley! I add some rusticity by lightly inking the border. The circle sediment is from Memory Box.

Playing in: Allsorts (Anything Autumn); CAS on Friday (Autumn/Fall); Freshly Made Sketches; and Seize the Birthday (Use Fall Colors).

Twofer

For my Twofer, I was inspired by the September challenge at Pinkfresh Studio. Both the beautiful wreath and the gold-embossed sediment are from my NBUS Pinkfresh Studio set called, "Seasonal Sprigs." I painted the wreath using my Ziggies and, as with my Onefer, the lads were delighted to have lots of tiny areas to wink!

The Pinkfresh Monthly Challenge also has a theme and you are welcome to link your design using just the theme, or just the colors, or either/neither. They just want to see you have fun and link your new creations using their products. I used just the colors and I loved painting these hues on a Christmas wreath where you might not expect to see them!

Playing in Addicted to CAS (Circles); Pinkfresh Studio; Rudolph Days; and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Christmas in September).

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse!

*Life is too short!

ESPP!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well and not impacted by all the terrible weather-related suffering that's happening around the world. There seem to be more catastrophes than ever happening all at once.

The post title today stands for Embossing and Stenciling on Patterned Paper. It all started because the brief this month at CAS Mix Up is Stenciling Over Patterned Paper. I wanted to try it and then once I got started . . .

Onefer

I went through my patterned paper and I found a half-sheet of this pretty wave pp. I knew I had an cute whale die from PTI, so I die-cut one and then used the negative space to stencil the whale onto the paper. I ended up accidentally stenciling the whale over the pattern in such a way that she ended up with a smile! 

In order to keep my design CAS and use the Freshly Made Sketches sketch (turned horizontally), I cut the pretty pp into a diagonal panel. It is E = Embossing week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, but after going horizontal, I realized that all my wave e/fs are vertical.😮 Hammy to the rescue! He reminded me that I have a horizontal wave die, so I used a rubber embossing mat and turned the die into an e/f! The NBUS sediment is from the same PTI whale set.

Besides CAS Mix Up, I'm playing in: 

Addicted to CAS (Water); Allsorts (Embossing); Freshly Made Sketches (sketch turned sideways); Seize the Birthday (Funny/Punny); and Just Us Girls (Water).

Twofer

For my Christmas twofer design, I used a JoAnn's Park Lane e/f called Holly Berry using a pretty raspberry cardstock. 

Here's a photo of the old SU DSP I used. The poinsettia stencil is from Tim Holtz, blended with raspberry ink. I cut the poinsettia stencil panel down to a banner and added a simple sediment from SSS's Holiday Greetings Mix I.

I made a few more simple cards while I was on a roll and Stanley has a pile of pp for me to match with stencils tomorrow. I'm enjoying that part as much as the stenciling ... pairing the stencils with the pp to make the best designs gets my 'ol grey matter working! 

Playing in: Krafty Chicks (Christmas); and Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round (P is for Poinsettia).

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Stay safe!

*Life is too short!

Happy Pencil (Stencil) Day! Happy April Fool's Day! Happy Easter! Phew!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are feeling your oats, cheerios, or bran flakes, because as you can tell from the title, we have busy days ahead of us this week! You might think Happy Pencil Day is a joke because of April Fool's Day, but it snot. It's truly a day to celebrate the pencil. Which we know, sadly, is becoming obsolete.

I've made a card for the occasion and for S = Stencil on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar on this rare fifth Monday of the month. 

Onefer

I used a NBUS stripe stencil from Honey Bee Stamps for the notepaper background, inked in navy blue ink. Next, I sponged ink around the edges to draw your eyes to the hocus pocus sweet child in the center holding her mysteriously humongous pencil. 

The image is "tiny townie Penelope has a pencil" from Stampingbella. That sentence is a Double Alliterative, in case you wondered. I would have gone for a Triple by adding ... "poised pointedly."

I colored the image using my Ziggies and Hammy topped it off with his winker. I cut the image using a stitched oval die from MFT. The text panel is from my pp stash and the wee sediment is part of the stamp set. (Please ignore the splotch in the lower right. Sometimes hamsters have to sneeze.)

Playing in: AAA Colourful (Navy and Gold); Addicted to CAS (Stripes); Freshly Made Sketches (Sketch by Amy).

Twofer

I used a new set of ink pads which I received from The Mister yesterday for no specific reason. What a sweetie!♥️The image is dynamic and, as you can see, very emotionally evocative. I colored it with ... wait. What?! Oh, that man! He got me with an April Fool's Day prank ~ clearly the ink pads were filled with invisible ink!!

Threefer

This pretty NBUS stencil from Pinkfresh Studio is inked over its partner NBUS coverplate die called, "Petal Mosaic." The three inks I used are from Catherine Pooler and the sediment is an ancient PTI favorite. Bun E. Frogman came out for his annual hello to you!

Playing in: Just Us Girls (Stencil Week); Try it on Tuesday (Spring); and Pinkfresh Studio (March 2026 Challenge).

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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! 

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Happy Spring to all! Enjoy this time with your family if you are fortunate to be together!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Flowing Vine Collage

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing well and you are fully back in the schwing of creativity with your new goodies from Santa! 

We had a lovely weekend belatedly celebrating our 54th weeding anniversary. Haha, was that a parapraxis? 

"A successful marriage is a matter of keeping the weeds out of the marital garden!" Darnell

Please let me know if you see that profundity needlepointed in a shop someday, so I can get authorship rights!©

Onefer and cousins:

The NBUS feature for this week's "Anything Goes" IDEAS is the "Flowing Vine Collage" by Simon Says Stamp. I used linen for the front panel and more of that delicious ribbed paper is peeking through. 

It seems like only yesterday, but this die is from 2016. That's okay ~ no shame. The important thing is that I used it and I had fun making cards with it, which my stash sorely needs:

The NBUS sediment used on the card on the right is from Penny Black's, "T for Transparent." I'm playing in Addicted to CAS.

And, lastly, I turned one of the die-cut vines into a stencil and made this one-layer panel:

After blending ink through the stencil, I made this one a Christmas card by next embossing the panel with the SSS, "Pine Bouquet" e/f. I popped up a NBUS die-cut sediment from Poppystamps called, "Lavish Merry Christmas." Helpful Hammy found me an antique piece of metallic aqua-green for the sediment backing that perfectly matched the CP Daydream ink I had used for blending!

I'm playing in Just Us Girls stencil challenge and Rudolph Days January challenge.

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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! 

Besides making cards, my goodies from Santa included some new jig-saw puzzles. I love them, but I haven't done one since I started blogging.

To my good fortune, it turns out Hammy and Stanley love finding color-coordinated pieces! Our first play was a 1,000-piece puzzle with a picture of 101 pooping puppies, which we (and Nellie) found exceedingly amusing!

*Life is too short!

Seasonal III

Hello Stamplings!

How the heck are you doing? I hope all is well in your little corner of the world! 

Please be careful as you join me in getting down on your knees or up on a chair to bring your holiday dishes out from their 11-month hidey-hole hibernation. Actually, I don't have holiday dishes, but I do have my big roaster back up in there where the the light doesn't shine. I suspect it's where the dust bunnies meet for Friday night tipples.

Wish I had a pool boy for times like this. Then again, that might be odd since I don't have a pool. But I do have a Twofer of "Anything Goes" seasonal cards for the last-week-of-November I.D.E.A.S. schedule.

Onefer

The leafy background is a NBUS stamp and die from Altenew called, "Climbing Leaves." I stamped and white heat-embossed the leaves and then I painted them using my old beloved Ziggies. Once dry, the lads put on their daubers and blended over the whole thing with DI Antique Linen to bring out the autumnness and polish the white lines of the embossing. I attached the panel to a black background panel. The sediment is from Altenew's "Autumn Bounty" set.

Twofer

This QACAS and NBUS design stands alone and I couldn't think of a way to add a sediment without marring the pure delight of the ornaments and snowfall of this 3D e/f from SSS called, "Verdant Ornaments." I thought the gold foil background gave it a nice frame to focus the eyeballs on the gorgeous details.

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Where's Stanley?

I will be taking a break to finish Christmas cards and we will doing some traveling over the holidays, so I wish you well until mid-January. Please enjoy yourself as you celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever brings you joy! 

No, seriously, enjoy! Life is too short! And special hugs to all of you who are not well or who sadly know firsthand how hard the holidays can be.🫂

As we wrap up our 13th year, Hammy, Stanley, and I thank you for another year of great fun, friendship, and creative inspiration! Thank you for your visits, comments, and your participation in I.D.E.A.S. and NBUS this year! Mwah!

Happy New Year!!

Challenges:

Addicted to CAS: Ornaments. (2)

Alphabet Challenge: Q is for quick and easy. (2)

Addicted to Stamps and More: Make your mark. (1)

Four Seasons: Fall (1)

NBUS: Never-Before-Used-Schtuff (1)

Rudolph Days: A/G Christmas.

Simply Clean and Simple: Christmas is coming. (2)