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?

~~~

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!

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Trees of Cupcake and Pine

Hi there!

If you're a baseball fan, you've enjoyed this year's World Series! We have a yearly championship series where the winner is decided by whichever team wins the most games out of seven games. No matter which of the two teams you were rooting for, you were happy it went all the way to seven games, and you saw some outstanding baseball being played! Congratulations to the Chicago Cubbies for the win and for breaking the 108-year curse!

And now, how about we start with a tag today?

I cut a stitched tag with a Dienamics die and stamped the image in Versafine. I used a vo wooden stamp from SU with an image of a cake stand stacked high with six cupcakes. I colored the stand with my Ziggies. I then used two itty-bitty and vo NBUS punches from SU to punch the itty-bitty cupcakes in PP and I glued them over the inked cupcake images. I added a little shading to my pink frosting to make you want to swipe your finger in it for a taste. I backed the creamy tag with a neon green tag and tied them together with some gold and pink ribbon.

I did all of that because I was inspired by this tag:

The creator of the above beautiful tag is Ruby of A Rare Ruby, who is the featured guest designer for the current Tag You're It challenge. I think you can see the elements that inspired me!

Other Challenges

• Naughty or Nice: Don't pull your punches.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use those snippets!

I hope you get a chance to play along with these fun challenges!

~~~

And how about a Christmas card? Or two:

Another QACAS card for batch-making. The brilliant vellum paper is from SU. The unknown die was borrowed at the Lake House. I made several cards with green bases and several with white bases.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday.
• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything goes.
• Holly Jolly Christmas: Trees or Christmas trees.

~~~

Ergo Nomics

I copied this old photo from the "My Playhouse" tab at the top of my blog. This row of filing cabinets is on the west wall of the Playhouse for storing some of my color families of paper, ribbon, and markers.

Below is a photo I took a coupla days ago. (I started clearing things out before I thought to take a picture for you.)

You can see my guillotine cutter and Big Shot on top of the filing cabinets. Bending over to cut paper was starting to whack my already wacky back. (In truth, I usually use the BS on the floor so I don't have to bend and twist. You know, because getting up and down from the floor is a breeze at my age.)

So a couple of weeks ago I bought a vowel, which is another way of saying I had a light bulb moment, which is another way of saying I got smart. The kicker was when Hammy looked up from his coloring book and queried, "What are all those loud creaking sounds?" Really? It became clear that I am TDO for this arrangement and changes needed to be made before I really hurt myself.

Now it looks like this: 

Aaaah! Much better! Huge thanks to the Mister for putting together all four cabinets last (rainy) weekend! They are so streamlined and pretty and they hold so much. Most important, the counter-height is fantastic. BTW, these cabinets are an IKEA knockoff that I bought from Wally (Walmart) for a third of the cost. I have IKEA cabinets on the other wall and, as near as I can tell, Wally's are just fine.

Where's my BS? I beg your pardon? Oh. I've made a place for it on the end of my desk where I don't have to bend or twist. Whoop!

Unfortunately, there's a downside that I hadn't considered. Now a certain little hamster is having the time of his life racing from drawer to drawer through those little hand holes. Sometimes he hides in a drawer and scares the carp out of me in the process, much to his delight!

~~~

We are having the grandtwins for a sleepover from today through Sunday ~ oh, and the two granddogs, too, of course!  With the boys' activities, we don't see them as much as we did when they were younger, so we are really looking forward to it! 

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:

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Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me
your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

Bluebird of Merriness

Hi there! How's it going?

We are over Humpty Dumpty and cruising into the weekend. I'm actually going to be super quick today. Wait. What? I know, check my forehead for fever!

My card:

My OLC was pretty quick, too, heat-embossed in black and colored with my Ziggies. I have a coupla busy days ahead and didn't decide until late in the day yesterday that I wanted to play in some challenges. When I finished, the sun had gone over the yard arm, so please excuse the odd shadowing on the left and my over-exposing myself trying to make it less so.

This one looks a little better maybe:

Anyway, I used this stamp.

The artist is the phenomenal Carolyn Shores Wright. I took some liberties and turned her sweet posy into a Christmas poinsettia. At least I tried to do that. I was sort of happy with my masking and freehand drawing until I saw on the monitor that it looks sorta like a filleted strawberry. Well, hey, that's fine. It can be either a poinsettia or a Christmas filleted strawberry!

The sediment is from the "Jingle All the Way" set by Technique Tuesday. It underwent surgery a year or two ago and it's never grown back together so I can still easily use it in a variety of ways.

Challenges:

• 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown: Embossing (wet or dry).
• Addicted to Stamps and More: Make your mark.
• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything goes.
• Jingle Belles: Critters, including birds.
• Merry Monday Christmas Challenge: Birds.
• Rudolph Days: October

~~~

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 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!

Feminine Pinks and Greens

GrEeTiNgS!

I didn't want to be the one to bring you this news, but I think it's best if you know so you can take a deep breath and slow down for a minute. I'm talking about the fact that March will be here in less than a week. March!

I spose if you live in a place with nasty winter climes you will be happy to hear that news, but working on our Christmas card for today's post, the happy little paws and I felt like it had only been days, not weeks, since we made our 2015 cards! I mean, give us a second! And, of course, it's even more frightening when we know what March is famous for ~ marching, right?! Oy.

I haven't played in the Papertrey Ink (PTI) blog hop for a while and the photo inspiration was too fetching to pass up. I've also not made a single Christmas card for 2016 and since the third month of the year is already breathing down my neck, nothing was going to keep me from getting the Cc ball started! So let's roll on ...

First my PTI card:

Here is the beautiful Papertrey Ink February Blog Hop Challenge photo inspiration, which I think has an Asian feel to it:

I immediately thought of my design when I saw that sweet little vase laying down on top of the circular green plate. I added the tiny sweet butterfly to my card because of the one shown in the bottom of the photo and Hammy tried his darnedest to figure out how to add a froggie, too. We finally decided to put a tiny tree frog down in the soil inside our pink vase. He seems quite happy there.

For my card I used glossy card stock for the base and over that is a single glossy layer with a stitched Lil' Inkers circle opening. (In other words, it's not a see-through aperture.) Using my Paper Smooches "Crystal Clear 3" dies, I cut a pretty pink vase from fun foam. Next I went all NBUS by using a Nestabilities die to cut the stem, a Memory Box die called "Fancy Blossoms" to cut the flowers out of pink vellum, and a stamp from the "Make A Wish" set by PTI for the sediment.

I'm also entering: the Anything Goes challenges at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the showcase is Memory Box products and Mrs. A.'s Butterfly Challenges, where the brief is G is for Glitter (on my wee butterfly) or Grape; and the Work it Wednesday February 2016 Simon Says Stamp Challenge, where we are to use something floral in our projects.

~~~

And now for my first Christmas card of 2016:

Nothing NBUS here, slap, but this QACAS design sprungled to mind. The sediment from PTI's "Think Big Favorites #9" is heat-embossed in SU blushing bride. The watercolored Noel postage stamp image is from All Night Media. 

Yay, the first of over 200 Ccs done and dusted and I'm playing in these Anything Goes challenges:

•  Rudolph Days Challenge
•  Christmas Card Challenges
• TWOFERS (my first time here!)

~~~

Reminders:

"Inspired By all the Little Things." I'd love to have you play along!

and

Only 4 More Days! NBUS #6!

The next semi-annual NBUS (Never-Before-Used Schtuff) Challenge is just around the corner! Mark your calendars for two weeks from today!! Wheet!! If you are new to NBUS and would like more information, please click here for the rules.

~~~

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. I've been having a bit of a rocky time of it the last coupla weeks with migraines and a Crohn's Disease flare, but it's wonderful to have this happy community to enjoy when I'm able!

*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.
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If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!