Majestic Sunflower and Stag

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you had a great week and you are doing well! This week begins with Labor Day here in America, so cheers to all those who labor and to those who are retired from laboring! [The holiday was rushed into law and signed by President Grover Cleveland in 1894 to mend relations with workers.] Cheers also to those of you who labor unpaid keeping house and family together, clean, and feed. In fact, triple 🍷🍷🍷 to you!

On a sad note, the week ends with our remembrance of 9/11. This year is the 25th anniversary of this horrific event. It is a time to remember those lost and how we came together as a nation to grieve and to support the heroic first responders.

It is fitting that I start today with a sunflower. Sunflowers always turn their faces to the sun and they symbolize love, loyalty, and resilience.

Onefer

It is I = Ink Week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. This sunflower is an old-timer from Technique Tuesday. I'm not sure when the stamp came out, but I first blogged a card using it in 2017. This design represents a rare hybrid sunflower which has a rainbow center that you can only see once the seeds have fallen. 

The sediment is from GKW, simply matted and attached to a textured card base. Hammy and Stanley love sunflower seeds, so they patiently took turns winking their favorite flower one petal at a time!

Playing in Beautiful Blossoms (Anything Floral Goes); CAS Mix Up (Sunflower); and Freshly Made Sketches.

Twofer

Here we have another QACAS design. This reindeer is also an old-timer. It's from Stampin' Up and I painted it direct-to-stamp using SU markers. More winking from the lads and this time you can see a few of the schparkles. Maybe. The sediment is from Simon Says Stamp. The dusty blue textured border is cut from a Papertrey Ink die set called, "Reflections: November Dies."

Playing in: CAS Christmas (Woodland Critters); Christmas Kickstart (Reindeer Games); and Color Hues (Dusty Blue and Brown).

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😡Blogger has been buggering with commenting, so I haven't been able to leave comments on NBUS or return comments. Someone told me it is working again, but the format is odd. I hope I'm able to catch up soon and I thank you for your patience!

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Chris Dring FB

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Just FYI, I'm not sure if I'll be able to post next Monday. We have someone house-sitting and taking care of Nellie and the lads while we take a few days off to spend time at the coast!

p.s. Don't go googling hybrid rainbow sunflower seeds. I just made that bit up.🙃

*Life is too short!

Floral Display and Santa's Sleigh

Hello Stamplings!

I hope that you are doing well! Welcome to the 2nd Monday of September ... haha, just seeing if you were paying attention! 

It's bad enough it's already August 10th! Which is D=Die Cut week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and in an attempt to recognize the days are getting shorter, I put a little fall color in my Onefer.

This is a NBUS Hero Arts stamp and die set aptly called, "Flowers in Vase Bundle." I stamped the image in black and heat-embossed it in clear onto watercolor paper. I used my Ziggies to color everything and Hammy and Stanley softly blended the corners. I die-cut the image a second time to give it some lift and finished it off with a frame and sediment.

Playing in: A Cut Above (Die-cut with the Fall Flowers twist); AAA Birthday Flowers; and Addicted to Stamps and More! (Birthday).

Twofer

T'was the night before Christmas and the toys were all made.

Santa waved goodbye to his dear elf brigade.

The sky was all twinkly with bright stars overhead   

As Rudolph pranced forward, his nose oh so red.

All of a sudden there arose such a clatter!

Santa pulled on the reins to see what was the matter.

As the sleigh landed softly, masked men did appear!

Santa declared, "Now what have we here?"

One of them yelled, "Our horses are lame and we need your rig!

Get down from that sleigh now and don't flip your wig!"

Santa cried, "You must see that's not right!

The sleigh's filled with toys for delivery tonight!"

The robbers cared not and tossed Santa aside. 

Seeing them do this chaffed poor Rudolph's hide!

He broke free of the bridle and ran to his master.

Sitting beside him, the world seemed so much vaster.

Santa puffed on his pipe, as the wind tickled his beard.

"Well, Rudy," he mused, "That was certainly weird."

"It will all work out," he added, still jolly,

"But before we start walking, I've a message for Lolly.

I'm sorry CAS Christmas that I cannot play!

I was robbed very rudely of my beautiful sleigh!"

With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.

This is just in fun. You know Santa could conjure up

 a replacement sleigh so the children get their toys!

Supplies: NBUS Cottage Cutz, "Santa & Reindeer Resting." Poppystamps, "Stitched Landscape." Night sky schplattered by Hammy and Stanley.

Playing in: Snippets Playground Challenge 538 (Die was cut five times using red, white, black, brown, and gray snippets.); Just Us Girls (Die week); and Christmas Kickstart (Friendship).

I still can't believe I don't have a sleigh in all my schtuff, but if you do, CAS Christmas is a challenge for you!

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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!

*Life is too short!

Stenciling Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

I sure hope this finds my European friends feeling much cooler! What a terrible heat wave in areas that are not used to it. (I'm not going to talk about how nice the weather has been here!🤫)

This is a rare fifth Monday of the month as we close out June, which means it is S = Stencils week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar.

Onefer

I used a NBUS stencil from Papertrey Ink called, "Wandering Petals." Now, I don't do much stenciling, but I enjoy it. Even though they all sit organized in pretty stripey binders right to the left of my face, I tend to ignore them. It's like the thigh-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone situation, but in this case, it's more of an organic disconnect from eye to brain. 

Which brings me to sharing a dumb thing I did when stenciling this card. I'm telling you because after I embarrassed myself, then I was amused. But, also, tell me the truth, am I just getting too old for this job?

This is a simple two-stencil stencil. Two. One stencil is the stems and leaves and the other is the petals. It doesn't get much easier than that. I inked the stems and leaves, picked up the petals stencil and the phone rang. After the call, I absent-mindedly lined up the petals stencil over the stem stencil ... and loved how perfectly they lined up! This was a revelation!

But then I lifted the petals stencil and realized why no one else had shared this wonderful technique. Like a do-do, I had simply inked the petals onto the plastic of the stem stencil!🫣

Once I properly inked the petals, I used the stencil to outline the flowers with my fine-point black pen.

And where were my little helpers, you might ask? I clearly need them, but this is their vacation time and they are off to see the cousins. Hammy is slowing down, so I'm glad we have Stanley back to help him on their travels.

Playing in: Addicted to Stamps and More (Die Cuts and/or Stencils); Just Us Girls (Stencil Week); and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Anything Goes).

Twofer

My Christmas design was schparked by the current sketch at Jingle Belles. I hope you can see the snowflakes. The snowflake stencil is without packaging so, you know, it fits in the above-mentioned binders. I didn't start out planning to go mono chrome, but one minty green thing led to another.  The sweet little snowman is NBUS from Pink & Main. 

Also playing in: ABC Christmas Challenge (L = Let It Snow); Christmas Kickstart Challenge (Snow Day); and Rudolph Days (A/G Christmas).

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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 to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

I have a busy week ahead with a special July NBUS on the 1st, my birthday on the 2nd, and the 4th of July weekend, so I might not see you next Monday. Stay inky!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Pink Lilies and a Christmas Cardinal

Hello Stamplings!

How are you this fine day? I do hope Mother Nature is treating you to some beautiful weather, wherever you are! 

Onefer

It's D = Dies week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I was inspired by a few challenges to bring out my "Lovely Lily of the Valley" die by Lawn Fawn. The Beautiful Blossoms Challenge Mood Board features lilies and the Color Hues Challenge colors are pink and turkoice. For the base and frame, I used some hoarded paper which has a soft fiber texture and the pretty paper I used for the flowers and leaves is from Craft Consortium. 

The NBUS frame die is "Embossed Skinny Frame" by Ink to Paper and the sediment strip is from Memory Box.

Twofer

I'm sure you've all heard the wonderful news that my dear friend Loll has relaunched her CAS Christmas Challenge! I love this challenge and I definitely need the nudge to keep rolling on my Christmas cards. 2026 is rapidly whooshing by, so thank you, Lolly!

For the first challenge, the brief is BIRDS. The furballs and I went through the Bird Drawer and suddenly Stanley got to giggling over an old wooden stamp called, "Bluebird," by Stamps Happen. The artist is Caroline Shores Wright and I love her images. 

We never have cardinals in this part of the country, but Hammy suggested I paint the bluebird red and turn her into a cardinal. Well, why not? After painting her with my Ziggies, I remembered there was black somewhere on a cardinal's head, so I used the Googler to look at photos. Eep! I forgot they also have spiked hairdos! By now I was committed, so I used a fine point pen and did the best I could with that! 

After wards, I noticed her hooded eyeballs disappeared in all the red and black, so I added some tiny googlie eyes so she could see to fly. And I didn't have a small poinsettia die to cover the flower, so I simply fussy-cut the image and snipped the flower off and gave it to Stanley to decorate his cage. 

For the layout, I used the sketch from the current 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Challenge, using snowy vellum for the stripey background and then the boys went to town schplattering snow on the image to play in the current Christmas Kickstart Challenge. 

We had a blast with this one!

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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 to you if you take the time to join as a follower! 

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Hug a Friend!

Hello Stamplings!

How are you doing? I hope you've had a great week and that you were lucky to see a friend yesterday for Hug a Friend Day! Actually, there are a few huggy days in the year: there's National Day of Hugging on January 21st, and, of course, Hugging Day on February 14th. I'm a hugger every day, so look out!

Naturally, I made a card to celebrate!

This week is A=Anything Goes on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, so we are free to move about the craft room in any direction our mojo happens to take us.

I noticed a few challenges with "rain" as the prompt, so that's how it started. Hammy pulled out one of our favorite older stamps to play with. He thought it would be fun to have the ballerina frog holding an umbrella. (He's so clever!) And if you're going to be a frog-bearing umbrella, why not make it polkie-dotty? Wait. What? 

And, while you're at it, why not make it a pink frog? And add a googly eyeball? And what shall we call her? Umbra? It's nice having an unusual name, she says, wryly.

The umbrella die is from Memory Box, the sediment is from The Stamps of Life and you just know ~ even if you can't see it ~ that Ms. Thing is winked everywhere! You might be asking yourself what does rain have to do with hugging?

The answer is on the inside:

The sediments are from Happy Mail by WPlus9. Yes, they are still NBUS and the set is dated 2015. No shame. 

Playing in Inkspirational (Rain), Retro Rubber (Singing in the Rain), and 613 Avenue Create (A/G with option of Spring Rain).

Twofer

From rain to snow and hey ho ... my second Christmas card of the year! For this little scene, I put old and new together. The older critter in the foreground is from Purple Onion. I'm not sure what critter he is spose to be. Those ears and that little cotton-ball tail have me compounded. 

The little penguin and snowballs are NBUS from the set, "Flurry of Fun," by Pink and Main. You'll be seeing more from this cute set!

I colored the critters with a mixture of Ziggies and colored pencils and Hammy added the schparkle. I did a light blue wash for the sky and drew on the snow hills. The scalloped frame is from Pink and Main and the sediment is from SSS. 

Playing in ABC Christmas (H or I - H is for Hat), Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round (G and H - H is for Hat), Christmas Kickstart (Brimming with Style: people or critters in hats), and Rudolph Days (A/G Christmas from the 25th to the end of the month).

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Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* I have a friend visiting this week, so I might not be able to post next Monday.

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! I'll leave you with a hug!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!