It's Trifecta Holiday Time!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you have been doing well wherever you are and whatever seasonal change you are experiencing. Our hemisphere has been having xtreme weather again. We actually got over three inches of rain, unseasonably early for us, but we badly need it. Others, sadly, had wind and flood damage and my heart goes out to them.

Here in America, we are heading into the Trifecta of Holidays. First up is Halloween this weekend, followed four little weeks later by Thanksgiving, followed four little weeks later by Christmas. Followed by my usual 13.5 pound weight gain. It would be so much easier if these holidays weren't all within such a short time, but I wasn't home the day they called for my opinion on the matter.😄

For this post, I only feature two of the holidays, starting with two Christmas cards:

Are these NBUS critters from the MFT Picture Perfect set guinea pigs or hamsters? Not sure, but no matter, they are darlin' either way, so Hammy and I are declaring they are one of each! I chose the frame and coloring to play in the Color Hues kraft and red challenge, only to just discover that it ended this morning. Oops, I guess I need my head eyes examined.

Besides the sediment declaring this a Christmas design, I tried to change the sunflower seed into an ornament. Now, I'm thinking it looks more like a flask, but, hey, that's festive, too right? Maybe they had a long day planned dropping off Christmas gifts to all the relatives (hamsters and guinea pigs tend to have a LOT of relatives!) and it was cold and they needed a little nip of brandy now and then to sustainsiatate them.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Christmas.
• Cardz 4 Guyz: Animal (actual or animated).
• Jingle Belles: Not a creature was stirring.
• Peace on Earth: Anything goes with an inspiration board.
  

Twofer

This card is art and function. Whoever gets it in the mail this holiday can always use it to light the way if the electricity goes off! I chose this pretty snowflake frame from GKW to paper-piece in metallic gold and blue to join in the October Rudolph Days Challenge. Mo is dedicating this month's challenge to Kath of Plain and Simple, who passed away a few months ago. Kath was a well-known friend to many of us and she loved paper-piecing. I love it, too. It's fiddly, but so satisfying. I finished it with a simple vellum sediment from Penny Black.

Challenges

• Christmas Kickstart: Make one for a loved one.
  
• HLS Christmas: Anything goes.
  
• SSS Wednesday: Anything goes.

Happy Halloween!

I don't make a lot of Halloween cards and this silly card is my fav this year, even though it happened by accident. What happened was, I made a few cards using the ghosts from poppystamps Groups of Ghosts. I pushed out their eyeballs and tossed them off to the side because the ghosts are intended to be sheets with empty eye-holes cut out. 

Well, I happened to push them onto a piece of discarded black card and, thankfully, Hammy looked up just then from sewing his pirate costume and he noticed how cute the eyeballs looked all by themselves on the black paper! I added a white-inked sediment and I used a NBUS embossing folder for a little texture. (It's hard to see, but it is a large conversation bubble.) 

Challenges

• HLS CAS: One-Layer.
  
• The Male Room: Black and white.
  
• Two Old Bats: Anything Halloween.

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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! 

Thank you, too, for your continued patience and all your kind emails. I'm making lots of progress on the To Dew list, making Christmas cards, and I've had a confirmed diagnosis on the hip. Just awaiting word now on a date for surgery, which won't be for some months because everything is lackbogged. Same as everywhere, so can't complain!

*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!)

If You Obey All the Rules ...

Hello Stamplings!

Did you miss me? I have to say, when life or circumstances keep you away from normal crafting and blogging, it gets easier to just stay detracted. I've been mostly moving things from one part of my craft desk to another. My Mojo has been out every night drinking and then yesterday, when I glanced over at Hammy, I noticed he had the Help Wanted ads up on his laptop!

Well, hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute, that'll never do!

So I whistled everyone into action (while the Mister, who is doing pretty well, was napping) and we played with acrylic paints!

For this card, I used Sparks acrylic paints by Finnabair Art Alchemy.

The crayon stamp is from "Crayons2stamp" by The Stamps of Life. I'm not sure where the sediment is from, possibly River City Rubberworks. The background stencil doesn't have a name on it. The procedure is pretty self-exploratory. I painted the big section and the point of the crayons and Hammy took care of those impossibly tiny areas.

Here's a closeup view of the gorgeous sheen and shine of these paints!

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Acrylic Paint and Happy 4th Birthday! Paint ☑, stamping ☑ , and stenciling ☑. 
• Cardz for Guyz: Use ink or paint.
• Retro Rubber: Anything goes. The crayon stamp is from 2012.

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Using my acrylic paints reminded me about this card which I've never posted:

At the ESCR retreat last year, Christine showed us how to play with Gelli printing plates and acrylic paints. I turned my make into a card and sent it back to her! I can't wait to get together again with these ladies and play. Maybe this year we will play with Jami plates! While in our jammies!

~~~

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Things are going well here, but healing is slow, so it may be another month before I can take off my nurse's hat and get fully back on track. 

I'll be using the time to tackle spring cleaning (which I love) and a few minutes ago I pulled out my BOB (box of bits). I'm itching to either make cards with them or recycle them and then I'm going to shut it down. Life's too short. 

Now don't laugh, but from now on, my rule is no more making just card toppers or partial cards. Other than backgrounds, if I don't have time to actually make something into completed cards (barring something unforeseen), then I'll just complete the cards I can and that's that. Don't I sound ever so bossy with myself?! I'm hoping if I write it down, then I'll have to stick to it! 

And I hope none of you lost your homes in the tornado in Nashville and that the flooding has ended in the UK. And, please, for the love of God, NEVER touch your eyes, nose, or mouth! I'm giving up all makeup until this pandemic is over. Okay, well, I pretty much don't wear it any more at my age, so I guess it would be more honest to say I'm giving up picking my nose. Be careful out there!🙏

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

*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 Coupla CAS EKGs

Hello Stamplings!

Is anybody else having trouble putting the MO in their JO this week? My mojo juices are running low. Is this like my hormones or does it happen to you young ladies, too? With a sidekick like Hammy, with the emphasis on KICK, I'm usually good, but I guess even the little guy is slowing down now that we aren't eating copious amounts of holiday sugar in one form or nother.

Then yesterday at lunch we were watching giraffe videos when we decided to look at the weather forecast. We have more rain coming and because I like to take my card photos outside (especially sheeny-shiny cards like these), we got busy!

Onefer

I love this NBUS Reverse Confetti "Falling Hearts" frame and decided to go white-on-white with it. I used some beautifully textured cardstock with a lovely sheen that I've had since the last century. (Did I say that right? Does it sound like the paper has a lovely sheen or I do?) I'm down to only a couple of sheets because it's so delicious, but why hoard it any longer?! I die-cut it once and then used less dear paper under it in four layers to create lots of dementia. 

Then what happened was what usually happens when I try to do a W-O-W card: Hammy wants to add some color and I always agree with him! Instead of a sediment, I used an ancient but awesome heartbeat die from does-anyone-know? I don't have the packaging and it must be so old that Dr. Google nor Pinterest can find it. It's meant to cut through paper, as in the Twofer below, but I made it into a sort of ribbon by cutting it once and then taping it back down just above the first cut and running it through again. 

ETA: Thanks to Michele, I can tell you that the manufacturer is Paper Smooches and the die is called Borders 1 and it IS still available!

Challenges

• Challenge Up Your Life: A/G.
• HLS Anything Goes Dies. A/G.
• Just Us Girls: Create Dimension.

Twofer

For this design, I first attached a panel of red glossy paper to the bottom of a card base. Then, using the same pretty paper, I made the die cut. I separated the two halves a bit so the shiny red could, well, shine through and then I attached the sediment from Winnie & Walter, also cut from the same glossy red. QACAS and sexy, just as a Valentine should be. I mean, unless you make one for your neighbor or the local vicar. Be careful there.

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Guyz: CAS (clean and simple).
• STAMPlorations January CAS Cards. Optional twist: anything metallic.
• TIME OUT: Photo inspiration.

~~~

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!)

Foxy Noel

Hello Stamplings!

I finally feel like I've shaken off the last of the tryptophan coma I've been in. Oh, my, I'm not gonna lie, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! That big ol' bacon-covered turkey just sits there and bakes itself and then feeds us for days. How could you not love that?

And I'm happy to report that I was able to get through the door of the Playhouse (barely) and get back to Christmas card making which has now become an emergency situation, so let's get toit.

Onefer

This simple card was hard to photograph under cloudy skies in between drops of blessed rain. I masked off a triangle and blended icy blue ink and then I stamped a few tiny snowflakes and a sediment from GKW. The NBUS red fox mesmerized by the flakes is from Gerda Steiner, colored with Ziggies.

Challenges

• 52 Card Christmas Card Throwdown: November technique: watercolor.
• Cardz 4 Guyz: Christmas critters.
• Less is More: Pick a triangle.

Twofer (x several)

As you can tell by the blue sky, these cards were made before the rains came, but they are equally simple. The beautiful NBUS Noel die is from Poppystamps. I adhered a glitter paper panel to the card base, added a stitched frame from MFT, and glued on the die cut. QACAS! Hammy finished each one with perfectly-sized clear enamel dots over the holes. 

Challenges

• Just Us Girls: Wild Card: Anything goes.
• Poppystamps: Merry Craftmas.
• Sparkles: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Turkey Day Wrap Up

The funnest thing from Thanksgiving to share with you is a photo story.

1. First, here is Miss Nellie in her little bed: (Awwwwwww.)

2. As we were all sitting around munching hors d' ovaries, we noticed that Duke decided Nellie's bed would suit him just fine, too: (Hahahahahaha.)

3. But wait ... later on ...

by golly, he was right, lol! I know Nellie thinks she is a Rottweiler, but I had no idea that great big dogs think they are little wee ones! By the way, he deserves a round of applause for being so limber at his age!

~~~

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!)

It Feels Like It Was Just Yesterday!

Hello Stamplings!

How have you bean? It seems like forever since I've seen you. Last week I shut down the computer for four days, opened a box of Get 'er Done and Hammy and I made 73 card fronts from beautiful pp I've been hoarding. The kind of beautiful watercolored pp that just needs a sediment and maybe a bit of bling, but not too much because the paper itself is the star of the card.

Each one took very little time to do once we got a rhythm going and I'm sure it will take longer to finish them off as cards! But we'll do it little by little, lit by the euphoria of filling the stash box and having accomplished something that's been on the Todo List for ages!

Speaking of ages, today we are celebrating longevity, sticktoitiveness, and contentment. My card:

I used an MFT photo booth frame. Both the young couple and the old couple are stamps by Penny Black. The beer is NBUS from Tim Holtz. I watercolored the images with my Ziggies, ahem, after I inserted them in the frames. Slap! The sediment is from Paper Smooches. I believe the numbers are from PTI. 

This is a surprise card I made for The Mister to celebrate the fact that we met 50 years ago on September 5, 1969. We met at a kegger in the woods. A kegger is a gathering of college and working kids to eat junk food and drink a keg of beer. Hence the beer image! While our meeting that day was brief, it was very memorable. It took me two more weeks to catch him become his steady  girlfriend and we married a year and three months later.

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Guyz: Celebrate.
• CAS Mix Up: Inchies. Stamping, die-cutting, and watercoloring.
• CAS Watercolour: Complimentary colors. Green and red.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets!
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Stamp it.
• SSS Work It Wednesday: Celebrate.

  

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I used the photo booth frame for my card because we had this photo booth picture taken shortly after we met when we were 20 years old. We adulted early in those days.

And here we are today ... I love this guy and he just gets handsomer!

Fifty years, fifty pounds, and fifty million laughs later and we still fancy each other quite a lot! We feel very blessed. 

What's that? The secret? An attitude of gratitude and consideration. We've never stopping saying please and thank you. And, most importantly, separate bathrooms!

~~~

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!)