Die-Cuts Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome! I missed you last week! I hope you are enjoying summer/winter and keeping well! 

I also missed Inky week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, but I got a wee bit inky anyway for my Onefer for this week's D = Die Cuts.

I think this is self-exploratory, but I will lay out the ingredients because it's a lot for a CASlicious design. The corduroy-effect card base is from the last century and you know from past posts that I have to spend some quiet time fondling the ridges before I can finally get to work on the card. For the frame and waves, I used hammered card.

The frame is NBUS from Papertrey Ink called, "Reflections: November Dies." The little Ziggie-watercolored sailboat is from a set of two dies called, "Marina Sailboats" from Poppystamps. The "friend" die is from Sissix. The waves are from a set by Simon Says called, "Border Waves." With all these ingredients, it really made itself with just a bit of glue from me.

Playing in the sketch (by Donna) challenge at Freshly Made Sketches; Just Us Girls (Word Week: Play); Time Out (Water); and Cardz 4 Galz (For a Friend or Friendship).

Twofer

This design is very QACAS. While I had the frame dies out, I wanted to use the largest die and I wanted to play in this month's CAS Christmas challenge (and others), so the spotlight image inside the frame had to be a snowman. 

The only hard part of the card was deciding which of my snow peeps to use, especially without my helpers here. In the end, I chose one of my favorites from Purple Onion. I don't know if the snowman has a name, but I think we should call him Button. (I'm not known for the most original names when I'm anthropomorphizing.)

But I digest. I stamped and gold-embossed Button onto a panel of creamy, lightly speckly paper. I used an ancient gold glitter pen to color the scarf, nose, button, and a bit of grounding. I decided not to use a sediment stamp. It seemed repugnant.

Playing in: CAS Christmas (Snowman); Color Hues (Cream and Gold); and Time Out (Water. Because, I mean, snow is made of water, right?)

BTW

Do you have any hacks for getting rid of ground squirrels? We've had some ground squirrels fledge, or whatever you call it when baby ground squirrels grow big enough to come out from under one's deck.😶

Luckily there are only three of them, but they (and their parents) are enough to cause a lot of tunnels to suddenly appear ... including through and under our beautiful retaining wall which I'm afraid will collapse. And we certainly don't want these young'uns having their own babies here some day! 

We have called several exterminator companies to trap them or help us convince them they don't want to live here. So far all of them have said, "Nope. We don't do ground squirrels!"  

But, golly, they sure are cute!

Oh, sorry, that's a bunny we saw on our walk. 

Here you go:

While they look like baby regular squirrels that have bushy tails, this is as big as ground squirrels get. They are little guys with enormous claws ~ little digging machines! 

And in case you are wondering, Nellie isn't phasing them a bit! They are lightening fast and just dip out of sight when she appears. (I hope they are gone before Hammy and Stanley get back!)

Speaking of Nellie, she turns 15 years old today!! Happy Birthday, fluffy girl!

~~~

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!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Pink Lilies and a Christmas Cardinal

Hello Stamplings!

How are you this fine day? I do hope Mother Nature is treating you to some beautiful weather, wherever you are! 

Onefer

It's D = Dies week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I was inspired by a few challenges to bring out my "Lovely Lily of the Valley" die by Lawn Fawn. The Beautiful Blossoms Challenge Mood Board features lilies and the Color Hues Challenge colors are pink and turkoice. For the base and frame, I used some hoarded paper which has a soft fiber texture and the pretty paper I used for the flowers and leaves is from Craft Consortium. 

The NBUS frame die is "Embossed Skinny Frame" by Ink to Paper and the sediment strip is from Memory Box.

Twofer

I'm sure you've all heard the wonderful news that my dear friend Loll has relaunched her CAS Christmas Challenge! I love this challenge and I definitely need the nudge to keep rolling on my Christmas cards. 2026 is rapidly whooshing by, so thank you, Lolly!

For the first challenge, the brief is BIRDS. The furballs and I went through the Bird Drawer and suddenly Stanley got to giggling over an old wooden stamp called, "Bluebird," by Stamps Happen. The artist is Caroline Shores Wright and I love her images. 

We never have cardinals in this part of the country, but Hammy suggested I paint the bluebird red and turn her into a cardinal. Well, why not? After painting her with my Ziggies, I remembered there was black somewhere on a cardinal's head, so I used the Googler to look at photos. Eep! I forgot they also have spiked hairdos! By now I was committed, so I used a fine point pen and did the best I could with that! 

After wards, I noticed her hooded eyeballs disappeared in all the red and black, so I added some tiny googlie eyes so she could see to fly. And I didn't have a small poinsettia die to cover the flower, so I simply fussy-cut the image and snipped the flower off and gave it to Stanley to decorate his cage. 

For the layout, I used the sketch from the current 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Challenge, using snowy vellum for the stripey background and then the boys went to town schplattering snow on the image to play in the current Christmas Kickstart Challenge. 

We had a blast with this one!

~~~

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! 

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Gesso and Shine!

Hello Stamplings!

Look it's me again already! I have had a few good days and took advantage of it to play in some favorite challenges. Put on your sunglasses!

Onefer

This card is for CAS Mix Up. This month the challenge is hosted by Hilary and the prompt is to use gesso with a stencil. I'm not gonna lie, I bungled a bunch of paper having a play with gesso. It's not difficult to work with, just sometimes things go awry. Or amiss. Or askew. You gotta love words. Where awas I? Oh, yes, gesso. 

(The word gesso is red-underlined throughout the draft of this post, indicating it is misspelled. I right-clicked on gesso to see what was wrong with my spelling, only to find out that Blogger thinks I'm trying to type the word gestapo!)

For this make, I pounced gesso through a Funky Fossil stencil and let it dry. Like mashed potatoes, I over-indulged a bit with the gesso, but I still liked the result. Of all the videos I watched about various ways to use gesso, I chose to spray color over the dry gesso'd panel. I used my NBUS Wendy Vecchi Mica Sprays in cornflower blue, buttercup, and pearl. Well to be honest, since the bottles are small, Hammy did the schpraying. Both panel and hamster are ablaze with schparkle.

I'm not sure why, but some of the spray was not resisted by the gesso. Anyone? Anyway, as if that schparkle wasn't enough, I added the gesso panel to a shiny gold card base which I embossed with SU's Subtle e/f. The die-cut sediment was in my stash, made from a snippet of Brusho'd Yupo paper.

Twofer

I don't know if it was the black card background or what, but I couldn't capture the brightness of all that gold even in the sunlight. This is one of my favorite poinsettia stamps. It is "Festive Poinsettia" from Altenew. I made similar cards last year because it's very QACAS with the simple gold-embossed image and sediment. A stitched gold frame finished it off ... as well as allowing Hammy free reign with a wee paintbrush and pot of watered down gold ink.

Challenges

• CAS Christmas: Hosted by Hideko. Prompt: Sparkle and/or Shine.
  
• HLS Christmas: Anything Goes with the option of Metallic.
  
• Jingle Belles: My Sweet Embossable You! (Heat-embossing.)

Texting While Old

Here's a funny thing I do and I'm wondering if you do it, too: whenever I write a text message to someone on my cell phone, as I'm hitting send I look up to the top to see if I'm sending it to the person I intend.

As.I'm.hitting.send.

Which, of course, is too late if you're sending it to the wrong person! Every time I do it, I think what a moron I am ... yet every time that's what I do!😄

~~~

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, being a follower, and leaving me some love!

*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!)

A Range and A Ramble

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well or on your way there! 

We saw the grandtwins yesterday and heard all about their college tours, so that was fun! In between doing summery things and a newly discovered project, I made a coupla four cards for challenges. During the summer, the participation in challenges is naturally lower because people are off stuck in airports on vacation, so I like to make a point of playing when I can. Grab a drinkiepoo. ☕🍹

Onefer and Twofer

You can prolly tell that these two cards were created from one large poinsettia stamped image from Waltzingmouse. I white heat-embossed it which created an emboss-resist, so I could paint it with watercolor brushes and stay within the pretty lines. After wards, I cut the image in half to make two cards. Hammy had a blast creating matching red and gold schplatters on each. 

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: My friend Brenda is the Guest Designer this month and my friend Nancy is the hostess. The prompt is Emboss Resist. Besides embossing, my designs included stamping, die-cutting, watercoloring, and splattering.
• SSS Monday: Spritz and Splatter.
• SSS Wednesday: Emboss It.

Threefer

This W-O-W design is pretty self-exploratory, although I don't know why one pine cone looks yellowish. The background evergreen embossing folder is from Sizzix. The die cut branches and pine cones were in my bits box so I'm not sure who makes them. The sediment is from Winnie & Walter. 

Challenges

• CAS Christmas: The prompt is Pine, hosted by Trina
• Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and/or Stencils.

Fourfer

This QACAS design features an old NBUS butterfly from Butterfly Trio by Penny Black. You can't tell, but the card base is glossy. I wanted to see if it would work if I colored the butterfly directly with markers and stamped it. I liked how ethereal it turned out. I added the sediment from Concord & 9th and a thin black frame.

Challenges

• Just Us Girls: Butterflies.
• Less Is More: Butterflies.
• Krafty Chicks: Stamp Act.
• NBUS: Never-Before-Used-Schtuff.
  

~~~

My New Project

Remember back in the spring of 2021 when the word went out that Feedburner was closing and they would no longer be handling blog subscriptions? A lot of us added Bloglovin' or Follow It or other third-parties to our side bars to replace Feedburner. But in reality, I continued to receive notices when people published their posts. Life went on pretty much as usual.

That all changed on August 1, 2022, when I opened my laptop and crickets jumped out. Instead of waking up to a daily average of between 50-100 emails, there were less than a dozen! Where did everybody go? I was shocked and I am continuing to be shocked every day since then. It's like most of the neighborhood moved out in the middle of the night and left me.

If you're using WordPress, or a mail service like Bloglovin', I still get your publication notices. If you're not, I can still find you again ~ that sounded stalky, lol! I just need to go back to my Reading List, but the problem is, my Reading List is not up-to-date. (Your Reading List contains those blogs you have followed using the blue Followers button. You can find your Reading List in the left-hand column of your Dashboard.) 

Because I was very good about following blogs and making friends over the last ten plus years, my Reading List contains 2,262 blogs!! I had no idea! Of course, a bunch of those blogs are prolly inactive now, so the list needs to be cleaned out. I really miss not getting your posts, so this is going to be a priority for me now. It will no doubt take me quite a while. BTW, I need to clean my list up regardless, but if there is something else going on, please let me know. 

I'll be back and until then, enjoy your days! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

*Life is too short!

Summer Greens, Pretty Flowers, and Winter Dudes

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? I hope you are safe, especially if you are living in areas of the world that are experiencing extreme heat and breakout Covid. The world can't seem to catch a break.

Never mind. I'm here to help you sneak off for a few minutes to a little place we call Cardville in a small corner of Blogland ... 

Onefer

I have accumulated several sheets of acetate and other than making shaker cards, I am clueless about what to do with the schtuff. So I brought some to my recent retreat and we all had a play by first embossing the sheets and then coloring them with alcoholic inks. It was very fun and the results were amazing.

It is hard to photograph acetate, so I leaned the card at a rakish angle. Rakish is one of those words you only see in trashy novels, so for today I'm elevating it to an old-lady blog.😆Brilliant and underpaid Hammy suggested I use a simple sediment to let most of the vivid colors show, so that's what I did. I will link this to the gallery at Addicted to Stamps and More where the brief is Birthdays.

Twofer

This panel was also made at the retreat, this time using colored pencils and Gamsol. It is made from one-half of a full-size image stamped by Linda for us to color. (The other half is similar, but with a "thinking of you" sediment.) This was the most successful coloring I've done using pencils and stumps and Gamsol. The stamp is from Altenew, called "Fragrant Florals," and it was nice to get two clean and simple cards made from one image. After I got home, I added the sediments and Hammy winked them both. 

I will link this to the gallery at The Flower Challenge where the brief for July is CAS.

Threefer

And, of course, I want to play in some Christmas (in July) challenges to keep my stash growing. This chubby happy fella and his trusty Rudolph are pretty self-exploratory. I stamped them in black and then clear heat-embossed them. Then I colored them with my watercolor brushes and Hammy lit everything up with his Winker.

Santa is actually a gnome from Paper Smooches, but I thought if I added a cotton ball to his cap and colored him in red, I could turn him into a Santa! The reindeer is from Your Next Stamp and the OH OH OH, I mean HO HO HO, is from Uniko. Ask me how I know that the stamp says OH OH OH if you accidentally stamp it upside down.😩

Challenges

• CAS Christmas Challenge: Santa.
  
• Krafty Chicks: Christmas.
  
• Less Is More: Color Challenge. Traditional Christmas.

~~~

Seriously?

That's it for cards if you want to sign off, but if you want to hear me vent, you can continue. This might be the first in a new series called, What in the World? 

I'm fortunate enough to have good medical and drug insurance and when it is time to renew my meds, the pharmacy is on top of it. This week the prescription had expired for one of the meds. When that happens, the doctor has to write a new one, so the pharmacy conveniently contacts the doctor for me. That's all fine until it snot:

Pharmacy, via email: We have been unable to connect with your doctor. Please reach out to your doctor and ask them to contact us.

☎ I telephoned my doctor's office. They don't have email and they don't answer the phone. You have to leave a message. But first you have to listen to prompts for ten minutes because "the options have changed." I left a message that the pharmacy had been trying to reach them and I left the pertinent info and numbers.

The doctor's staff called me back and said the pharmacy had not contacted them nor faxed them. I was to call the pharmacy back and have them fax the request to #____.

☎ I telephoned the pharmacy to speak to someone there. But first I had to listen to eleventeen-hundred prompts because "the options have changed." I told the pharmacy person, "The doctor's office says they have not heard from you and you are to fax the request to fax #____."

Pharmacy person to me: "We have tried to reach them. We faxed the request to them on 7/12 and earlier today (7/15) to that same fax #. Please call your doctor's office back and let them know that and we will fax them again right now."

☎ I telephoned the doctor's office again, listened to all the changed options again and left a message again, to wit: "The pharmacy told me they have faxed the request and they have the correct fax#. They faxed it on 7/12, earlier today, and they are faxing it again right now. Perhaps it was filed under someone else's name?"

The doctor's staff calls me back: "No, they haven't faxed it. We only have one fax machine and I am the only one who sees the faxes when they come in."

Me: "It is utterly ridiculous that I am now in the middle of this. Can't YOU call the pharmacy directly and work this out between the two of you?!"

Doctor's staff: "No, I cannot talk to the pharmacy. You have to call them and tell them."

By now 45 minutes have gone by and nothing has been resolved. I am in the middle of a she-said/she-said. And I'm exaspergasted. I don't do stupid. And it's not like doctors are a dime a dozen so I can just fire this one and go somewhere else. Besides, I like the doctor. But what a stupid system.

I couldn't face another phone call to the pharmacy, so I blasted off an email to them asking if someone there could please call my doctor's office directly and speak with the staff person in order to get me out of the middle between the two of them!!

The pharmacy emailed me back almost immediately. They told me they called the doctor as soon as they received my email, but ... ta da! All they got was a message machine! 

Aaacckkk! Things don't have to be this hard, people! 

By now it was closing time on Friday, so I had a cocktail with The Mister. I'm sure I'll be playing whack-a-mole with them again Monday morning. 

And I'm sure you have your own "What in the World?" stories to tell! Do you think anyone is studying the disappearance of common sense from modern society? 

~~~

Thank you for letting me vent! Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, being a follower, and leaving me some love!

*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!)