More Rainbow Daisies For Dieday!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you had a lovely weekend! I was very productive in the Card Department because it was way too hot to be outside. That's normal for this time of year, so we just carry on, naked. 

Oh, sorry, you did not need that visual! 

This week is D = Die Cuts on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I went to town. I had to stop there and look up the origin of "went to town" because I can't stand not knowing where these idioms come from.

Plus, I like to know if what I imagine the origin to be matches, in any way, the truth. I think of the early settlors and how they had to "go to town" if they wanted anything store-bought. Or Reba McEntire singing about Ruby going to town. I love that sad earworm song.

Turns out there is no explicit origin for this idiom, but it is thought to be early American English. Boo. I built you up and then I let you down. But, wait, that could be the start of a country song!

Where was I? 

Oh, yes. You might remember that I recently cut a bunch of "Rainbow Daisies" from Pinkfresh Washi tape and made some cards with the wreath image cut. For this post, I'm sharing what I did with the rest of all those pretty floral die cuts:

These simple designs are self-explanatory and super EZPZ which is the awesome thing about the beautiful Washi tape designs made by Pinkfresh and other companies.

Challenges

AAA Birthday: Summer Birthday.

CAS Colours & Sketches. Sketch, flipped. 

Tic Tac Toe: Diagonal, top right to bottom left: CAS/free/flowers.

And the rest:

For these cards, I added The Greetery's "Pretty Pot" die and the "Garden Watering Can" die from Memory Box. It took a long minute, but it felt good to actually use up those die-cuts. (You can tell as the process wore on that I added more and more flowers to each card, lol!) It also felt good to use up BOBs and pp and now I have more cards ready to send!

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Hammy and Stanley are back home! Yay!

They worked very hard and they're bezausted. All they could muster was schplattering one of the card panels, but I'm fine with that. They deserve to be relaxing in their cooling pool, slurping their Burpees!

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar:  D = Die Cuts

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creation using die cuts. Your entry may help lift a fellow crafter out of her creative schlump!

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your design! Thank you to everyone who visited and linked to the gallery last week. Mwah!

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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 if you take the time to join as a follower! 

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It Makes My Bird-Loving Heart Happy!

Hello Stamplings!

I think the summer heat has gone to my head. I was talking to a friend last week about any plans for traveling in the fall and then I asked her if she was going to make her usual trip to the Midwest in late June or early July? Needless to say, she cocked her head in the universal gesture of, "What the hay is wrong with you?!" Oh. This getting old thing is a mental surprise every day. As is the calendar!

Speaking of calendar, it's time to remind you that the current Twofer Card Challenge ends on July 24th. It makes my bird-loving heart happy to see the pairs of birdies in the gallery!

You can imagine the fun I had making these cards! The BIRD stamp my two different designs have in common and which I just HAD to have, is NBUS from Art Impressions. (Bird-Brains UMD1878.) 

Onefer

There are only about a million reasons why you could use this chicken on a card, especially when you have the snarky sediments from Tim Holtz. I used this card as a humorous thank you card for my SIL. The background is a piece of pp (pats self on back). The stitched square frame is from MFT. For the background behind the chick, I did a blend of yellow and gold inks through a honeycomb stencil. I zigged the chicken and Hammy winked her. She was really out cold cuz she never moved a feather and you know it had to tickle, especially on those feet!

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.
  
• CAS Colours & Sketches: Sketch.
  
• HLS July Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Repeat Impressions Theme J1421: Patterned paper and a stamped image.

Twofer

And then I got nostalgic and turned my chicken into a Christmas wreath. Chicken wreaths used to be a tradition in a small town in Missouri where my sister once lived. She moved several years ago and the tradition may be going on for all I know. The youngsters had such fun dying the feathers and feet green and red while the grownups sat behind the wood shed and drank moonshine. For weeks afterwards the kids would show up at school with their hands and arms dyed up to their elbows! (Hanging a chicken wreath on your door was thought to ward off sickness. I personally think the stink warded off visitors and hence nobody brought germs into your house.)

Hammy made the wreath even more festive by adding a wee holly stamp here and there and then winking the entire wreath. I heat-embossed the sediment in princess gold powder and chomped the corners.

Challenges

• HLS July Christmas: Anything goes.
  
• Less is More: Christmas in July.
  
• Shopping Our Stash: Christmas in July.

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I hope you have time to play in the Twofer Card Challenge this month! We all have bird stamps, dies, or stencils that are just waiting to fly onto your two different card designs! We are fortunate to have Maria and Coni as our guest designers, as well as lots of inspiration from the talented Design Team!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! 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!

An update from the Back Department: both of us are much better, still waiting for some medical follow ups, but all in all 👍! I send my return best wishes to all of you (or your family) who are suffering with illness or floods or drought. 

*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!)

From Poppies to Snowballs

Hello Stamplings!

Today is Memorial Day in America. A day where we pause to honor the lives of the men and women who died while serving in the military and to acknowledge the sacrifices of the families they left behind. 

I've made a poppy card thank you. 

Rather than the symbolic red poppy color, I painted my poppies the colors of the state flower of California using both my Kois and DIs. I have seen card artists who can magically paint flowing backgrounds on their watercolor cards. It's not my usual sort of minimalist lean, but I always love it when other people do it, so I tried it. 

I have to say I was pretty pickled tink with how I did. So much so, that I carried my card into the house from the Playhouse in order to show The Mister and, well, you can see what happened. I got halfway across the deck and an unkind seagull took a bathroom break all over my card!!

Can you believe it? No? Oh, all right, I'll be honest. I over-diluted some white acrylic paint and instead of practicing first on a piece of scratch paper, I let Hammy take a leaping jump onto the paint brush and ... oops. I decided to share anyway. Even though all accidents are not "happy" accidents, it's how we learn, so it's all good.

BTW, the NBUS image is "Charming" by Penny Black which I stamped in black and heat-embossed in clear before painting.

Challenges

• CAS Colours & Sketches: Colours.
• Mix It Up: Anything goes with option of mixed media.

Twofer

This adorable ageless beauty has graced the pages of this blog before. She is my Aunt Charlotte, immortalized by Art Impressions. I'm sure you can see the family resemblance especially in the chest area. Aunt Char was always slim in the hips while I took after the heavy-bottomed other side of the family. As a result of being both front- and end-loaded, I have no fear of tipping over. (Which tiddly Aunt Char has done on most holiday get-togethers.)

I started this card during Retreat free time in order to enter it in the Christmas Kickstart Challenge when I got home. The brief was "S is for Snarky Christmas," but sadly the doors have closed. Now I think most of you know what x-rated thoughts Aunt Char is referring to by "reindeer games," but in case you have young children (or a hamster) looking over your shoulder, I handdrew a pile of innocent-looking snowballs.

Challenges

• Just Add Ink: Just add Q-X-Y-Z. X is for just a teeny bit x-rated.
• Love to Craft: Anything goes.
• Rudolph Days: Anything goes Christmas.

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Bonus Surprise

The lovely lady seen with me above is none other than Scrappy Mo, the hostess of Rudolph Days! Loll reminded me that Maureen lived very close to where we were renting a house in British Columbia and we were all delighted that she was available to join us for lunch one day. It was a pleasure meeting you in person, Maureen!

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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!)

You're My Person and Spring Vacay

Hello, my Stamplings!

How's it going? You doing okay?

I am sorry to be away so long. We spent five amazing days with the grandtwins (photos below) and I planned to be back right after that except that a Migraine Train came roaring through here and knocked me for a loop for the last two days. I'm praying it's gone now for a long time, but if not, I appreciate the reprieve! So does Hammy. He's tired of trying to keep a cool cloth on my forehead while I'm rolling around moaning like a pig in a cactus patch.

I was delighted to notice that my dear friend Bev (Happy Dance) is a guest designer at The Heart Desires and I simply had to play with her! So I used the colors from the photo inspiration at The Heart Desires, the sketch over at CAS Colours & Sketches, and a Brusho (or the like) theme from Just Us Girls Trend Week to make this little number:

I followed Bev's lead and used the floral inspiration. The NBUS blossoms came from the MFT stamp and die set, "Large Desert Bouquet." I cut them from a Brusho background I made. The stamps are solid and I didn't want to cover up all the background so I very lightly stamped them and then ran around the edge of each petal with my mint green Ziggie. It was a bit fussy to do, but I like the definition it gave the petals. 

The NBUS sediment is from Concord & 9th's set, "You're My Person." A Washi tape border and some triple red blingaling completed the ensemble.

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Spring Vacation

Papa and I took these two handsome and interesting 12-year-old characters away for five days to a lake near Mt. Lassen in northern California while their mom and dad had a nice long weekend in New Orleans.

Henry on the left, Adam on the right.

Short sleeves in the snow? Why not? Shoes untied? Well, of course!

The first photo in the above collage is the view of the lake from the deck of the house we rented. There was a small private dock for the boys to fish and swim from. It was a boys' paradise and we loved it, too.

A day trip to Mt. Lassen was foiled by a road closure due to the heavy snowfall this year, but it was open far enough up to play for a while.

Papa rented a fishing boat, but try as they might both on the dock and on the boat, their faces in the upper right photo tell the story: NO FISH anywhere! Hecka fun driving the boat though!

Tired of drowning worms? No problem, how about a trainyard and museum? 

We camped on this same lake and took their father to this same railroad museum 30 years ago, so it was really special to bring his sons to the same places!

Thanks for letting me share our great times with you!

~~~

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 to 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 the pop-up box opens.

Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah!

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your email address so I can respond.  Thank you!

Trees and More Trees and a Blog Hop Winner!

Greetings!

I was away a bit longer than planned as we enjoyed having the boys stay on after Thanksgiving to help with decorating for Christmas. It's so much fun and so appreciated!

I don't know where the last two days went, just one thing led to another. And then yesterday there was the small matter of the kitchen sink pipe overflowing inside the wall and seeping through the baseboards into the family room, around the corner into the living room, and under the piano. Then you wish your own kid, your neighbor's kid, your nephew or niece, or anyone you know had become a plumber . . . !

So how's everyone else humpin' on this Wednesday, eh? This very last day of November. Now it is full-on the time of year when we're not-even-kidding busy! I mean, seriously, this is all-hands-on-deck for card artists who make holiday cards. And when you only have two hands and two paws, there aren't enough hours in the day!

Which means I'll stop chatting and away we go.

Onefer. (a, b, c)

I'm going to skip the ingradients, but if you are dying to know the man who factured something, just shoot me an email.

Challenges

• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything goes.
• Merry Monday Christmas Challenge: Masculine.
• Sweet Stampin' Challenge: Got the blues?

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Twofer.

Silvery and simples.

Challenges

• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets. Since this was a batchmake, I used up a lot of white and silver sniplets.
• SSS Monday Challenge: 'O' Christmas tree.
• Stamp Ink Paper: Embossing.
• TIME OUT Challenge: Christmas with the option of glitter/shimmer.
• Uniko: Christmas.

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Threefer.

It's very hard impossible to see that I heat-embossed the acetate with snowflakes, so I've tried to help you see them by adding red circles:

Challenges

• CAS Colours & Sketches: Sketch, which I flipped.
• Make My Monday: CAS Christmas.

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Blog Hop Winner!

A coupla weeks ago, I participated in STAMPlorations Giving Thanks Blog Hop. I offered those who commented on that post a chance at my own prize of a $25 STAMPlorations gift certificate. Using the Random Number Generator, I'm pleased that the winner is Trina P. of My Crafting Closet. Congratulations, Trina! I will send you an email. Thank you to everyone who commented!

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Enjoy your day playing with your crafty holiday goodies! 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 walla, no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me
your email address so I can respond. Thank you!