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).

~~~

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

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

*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!

Onefer

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).

Twofer 

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.

~~~

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 . . .

Onefer

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).

Twofer

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).

~~~

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:

~~~

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.)

Onefer

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.

Twofer

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.

~~~

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!

Mirrored Ovals

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you all enjoyed last week and you're ready to bust this new week wide open! Things slow down a little online this time of the year as we spend more time outdoors when the weather is fine. As much as we love paper flowers, there is nothing like the real thing!

If you do have time to garden and craft, this is the first full week of July, which means the motivation I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is I = Ink/Color Mediums.

Onefer

I was also busy last week with my birthday and America's birthday, so I turned to Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration and this is my take on the sketch. The "Lush Greenery" is from Pinkfresh. It comes with two halves, but I only used one-half and stamped it as a mirror image.*

*Edited: I can't change the title after publishing, but I wanted to edit the wording here so it's not confusing. I did not stamp the above in the traditional sense of the "mirror technique." Using my MISTI, I stamped the image once, cleaned the stamp, and removed it from the MISTI. Then I repositioned the stamp on the paper, so that it was "upside down" and butting up against the first image. I inked the stamp, closed the MISTI, and stamped a second image. In that way, they mirrored each other. I hope that makes sense! If not, let me know.

I used my Ziggies to color the greenery and the lads very carefully winked the wee leaves. I used Poppystamps NBUS pointed oval die for the sediment and their pointed rectangle die to add a frame. I used the "aloha" die from Your Next Stamp because it's perfect for a birthday card for my friend who spends half the year in Hawaii! Poor dear.😂🌴🥥

Other Challenges

CAS on Friday: Botanical.

Tic Tac Toe: Diagonal, top left to bottom right: foliage/free/any sediment.

TIME OUT: Travel.

Twofer

I liked how my first card turned out so much that I used the sketch and dies again to make a Christmas design. Like with the first card, I stamped the Magenta poinsettia trio, cleaned the stamp, turned it (the stamp) upside down and stamped it again. Then we painted, winked, and framed them using a sediment from Simon Says Stamp.

Challenges

Holly & Ivy: Anything Christmas Goes.

Jingle Belles: Poinsettia Perfection.

Merry Little Christmas: Anything Christmas Goes.

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar:  I = Ink/Color Mediums

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creation using some form of coloring, inking, painting, etc. which might help lift someone out of their 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!

~~~

Enjoy your week! No seriously, enjoy! LITS!

Here's an example from my little friend on enjoying life, taken from the Playhouse window. As always, thank you for visiting and commenting!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter