Seasonal Wishes

Hello Sweet Stamplings!

Isn't it a beautiful Monday, so fresh and unblemished? Seems like ages since I posted on a Monday and said those words, but I had to slip in today to play in a coupla three challenges before it's too late.

In my last post I segwayed from summer to fall and today I'm fast-forwarding straight into winter. I know that's not how you spell segue, but it's how I spell it because to me segue seems like it would be pronounced like league. 

Anywiddle, listen, if I don't start making some Christmas cards, I'll be sending out blank white cards with a note inside! Eeks!

So here you go.

These cute glittery candy canes have been in my stash for ages. You can't tell from the photo, but they are actually flattened so the card can be mailed without too much difficulty. The Zig Zag border die is from Lawn Fawn and the NBUS sediment is from MFT.

Challenges

• Less Is More: Use a real object.
• Stick It Down. A new-to-me challenge! Card sketch below.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Penny's "All About Christmas."

~~~ and another:

This NBUS "Candy Cane Gift" die is from Poppystamps. They were cut from some old glossy cream-colored card stock, held down by a single brad. The one on the left is an upside down version of the one on the right. The metallic elements are ancient from SU.

These cards both came about because of the brief from Less Is More, which is to "use a real object" on your cards. Well, geez Louise, that opened up a drawer of ancient relics from the last century that hadn't seen the light of day in a long time! So many cute things I have! Why have we forgotten about them? Now we just want to play with everything in there!

Challenges

• Merry Monday: Christmas in July summer link-up inspired by the December 5, 2016 "Candy Canes" challenge.
• Rudolph Days: Anything goes Christmas.

~~~

And now, just to keep you on your toes, lets reverse gears all the way back to springtime for all my friends down under!

When I saw the sweet metallic leaf, I immediately thought of a couple of other challenges. The little doodled flower is NBUS from MFT, which I painted on a creamy card in the pink, yellow, and green colors of the photo inspiration from Just Us Girls. I loaded my paint brush and splattered the background in the same pink and yellow colors. The sweet sediment doesn't list a company on the side, but this is printed: "©1992 Annette Allen Watkins."

Here's a closeup of the pretty metal leaf:

Challenges

• CAS on Friday: One Layer Wonder.
• CASology: Cue card: Bud.
• Inkspirational: Oldie But Goodie. (The sediment stamp is one of my very first stamps, which I think pairs nicely with the modern doodled flower stamp.)
• Tuesday Throwdown: Add metal.

~~~

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!

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Sailing the Salty Seas / NBUS Announcement!

Greetings, Stamplings!

I hope a lot of you were able to enjoy the amazing eclipse if you lived where it was visible. We had a partial eclipse here, which was still cool, but the photos on the TV and Intertubes were phenomenal! 

We couldn't find special eye wear for Hammy's wide-set eyes, but the cereal box viewer worked great! That is, until he lost interest and crawled inside to sleep, cornfused by the waning sunlight!

The whole extra vaganza gave me this design idea:

I've been wanting to play with watercolor and salt to join in the August CAS Watercolor challenge. Have you noticed the marvelous works of art around Blogland?! 

I also wanted to make you a reminder card about the current red, yellow, and blue color challenge happening at Just Us Girls. So I thought blue could be water, yellow could be sunshine, red could be sunset, et wallah!

The salt bit couldn't be easier. I just watercolored swathes of the chosen colors with Hammy's little dimestore paint set and immediately sprinkled salt over it. I set it aside to dry and then we removed the salt with the celery sticks from our Bloody Mary's. Yummo and pretty innovative if I do boast so myself.

The stitched dies are from MFT and the NBUS sailboat is a die from Poppystamps called "Marina Sailboat." The little tiny happy birthday sediment is from GKW.

Challenges

• CAS on Friday: Birthday.
• CAS Watercolour Card Challenge: Salt.
• Challenge Up Your Life: Summer. Can't imagine how I've not found this challenge until now!
• Die Cut Divas: Anything goes for August.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: AG, but use your snippets!

 

~~~

Coming Soon!!

NBUS CHALLENGE #12!!

I'm attending my 150th high school reunion next month, so the annual September NBUS Challenge will run a bit late this year. This is just a head's-up-mark-your-calendars announcement of the date so you can excavate and arrange those virginal Never-Before-Used-Schtuffs that you've forgotten not gotten around to using! Whee!

~~~

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! And I'd love to see you play over at Just Us Girls! Thank you if you already have!

*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!

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!

Palm Trees and Tulips

Hello, my fellow stamplings!

I didn't mean to be away so long, but I had a bit of a rough week with the darn staples used in my surgery. They were removed Thursday, however, so I'm all good now! I hope you are, too, and that you laughted while you crafted this past week or you get to do so in the weekend ahead!

While thumbing through the challenges to get some spark to light our fire, Hammy was once again intrigued by the CAS(E) This Sketch design, so this happened:

What you see is a background smooched with NBUS Oxinks, a comical and lovable NBUS palm tree from Purple Onion, and a NBUS sediment from Paper Smooches. I watercolored the palm tree with my Ziggies. The background was cut into little rectangles by hand, which was not easy. I'm math-challenged and, of course, the hamster's never heard of math, so you can imagine the two of us noodling away with lots of scratch paper before we fingered it out!

Challenges

• CAS(E) This Sketch!
• Make My Monday: Summer Brights.
• Virginia's Summer Blog Party. Share your summer creations.

~~~

Today's twofer was made from a UCB second-generation stamp-off. Doesn't that sound like a spectator sport or the like? As in: The Stamp-Off Competition will be held in Pavilion Seven on the fairgrounds on August 11th. There will be tents available for both First-Generation and Second-Generation categories. Trophies, cake, and fireworks afters.

Oh, sorry. I digest. Here tis:

I didn't totally love this artsy stamp-off when I made it several (cough) ago, hence the tossing into the UCB box, but now I kinda like it. I think it helped that I outlined the image and added black definition lines with a fine-line pen. I also added the swirly sediment and embossed the card with the Stately e/f from Craft Concepts, both of which seemed to fit the look.

Challenges

• CAS on Fridays: Flowers.
• The Flower Challenge: Embossing, heat or dry.
• HLS July CAS Challenge: Birthday.
• Stamping Sensations: Anything with flowers.

~~~

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!

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!