Summer Colors and PP Blues

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to a brand-new Monday and the start of summer in this half of the globule! Are you going on summer vacation? Or like us, do you leave this time for families with school-age kids and take your vacation after kids go back to school? That's one of the joys of being empty-nesters/retireds, although I'm not a fan of the word retired. It's so sleepy. You're re-tired?🥱 I think the word should be "rested."

"Are you still working?" "No, I'm rested now." 

This is the fourth Monday in June, so it is A = Anything Goes week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. I struggle with this week, stupidly enough. Apparently, I'm at that age where I need direction because, you know, squirrels everywhere.

Onefer +

What happened was, my friend Karen used a colored paper a few weeks ago that I loved. She shared that it was from Concord & 9th and I lucked into their annual inventory sale ... and you know the rest of the story. Kaching, kaching.

I think it's been six years since I bought an ink pad, having invested in the delicious Catherine Pooler pads and reinkers, but I decided to buy C9th's latest bundle of paper and matching ink. When the order arrived, Hammy reminded me that we had a NBUS stamp and washi tape set called, "Rainbow Daisies" from Pinkfresh on Mt. NBUS and it worked beautifully with the C9th colors!

Next, I found a NBUS sediment from "Essential Sentiments" by Ink to Paper for inside the wreath and I stamped it in the matching ink onto hammered card x six. The bling added the perfect balance and punch-uation. It's an old, but classic and timeless design.

And, bonus, I still have all the rainbow daisy flower die-cuts from the washi-tape, so the lads and I are going back into batch-production this afternoon to build up the card stash even more!👏

Twofer

My friend, one-l-Michele🥰, has her first sketch up at Freshly Made Sketches as a member of the Design Team and I wanted to make a card to support her and her great sketch! The timing works out that I'm always squeezing in under the fence with my Monday posts, but better late than never.

For this card, I celebrate stamping. I stamped and clear-heat-embossed my NBUS "Eclectic Blooms" stamp from Concord & 9th. Following the colors from the Color Throwdown Challenge, I painted the blooms and washed the sky with my Ziggies and the lads added the schparkle and the schplatter. To finish, I added a stitched frame from Reverse Confetti, and some blingadingding.

I'm also linking to the Krafty Chicks Challenge where the brief is clean and simple (CAS).

PP Blues

As a distraction from the scary world, I thought I would share this photo of me holding a piece of paper over a magazine article to show how thin the paper is. As a cardmaker, you are thinking it's a thin piece of vellum or if you're old like me, you will be reminded of the "onion skin" paper used for carbon copies back when I started secretarial school in the 1900s. 

But, no. Sadly that paper is toilet paper. Yup. If you're a longtime reader, you know I've complained about this before. No one listens. I would think by now there must be some women in charge of the toilet paper products ordered for use in public washrooms in stores and on planes, ferries, trains, etc. 

Pinterest

I'm all for being economical and ecological, but are they really? When a woman has to unroll 58 yards of the stuff in order to get enough to cover her tiny hand after a tinkle, how is that either economical or ecological? Rant over.

And, by the way, we don't sit on the seat, so it's not that easy to be bent over with our heads even with our knees and our butts in the breeze, as we twist to the side in order to unroll long narrow ribbons of the stuff! Sorry. Now I'm done.

Except to say that it's also unhealthy! It's not just that we don't want to get our hand in our business. It's that our doctors have told us that we have to be dry our precious bits thoroughly in order to prevent urinary tract infections. 

Also ~ slap! Okay, okay.

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: A = Anything Goes

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations with no restrictions! Your card may help motivate others out of a schlump! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah! 

Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Spring Fois Deux (I.D.E.A.S. Calendar A = Anything Goes!)

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are finding a spring in your step as we are now fully into spring! Unless, like some of you, there was snow coming down on the first day of spring! Or you live upside down and you are fully into fall. In that case, I do not wish for you to have a fall in your step!😬

Maybe we should all sit down and check out everyone's favorite week of my I.D.E.A.S. Calendar which is A = Anything Goes!

Onefer

This design was schparked by the blues and greens color challenge at the Color Throwdown. And a lot of challenges have "spring" as their brief, which led me to my NBUS "Lovely Lily of the Valley" die from Lawn Fawn. 

These sweet little flowers are oft times white, but look at this photo I found! Who knew? Or is that AI?

Anywhistle, just to be different (and because I have gobs of it), I used cream card as my card base and to cut the dies. I don't know if it was the paper or the operator or the product, but it was a bit of faff getting clean cuts. But I per-severed and then painted with my Ziggies. Then I took a rest and Hammy and Stanley went about winking all the bits, as one does they doeth.

Then I faffed a bit more, laying the stalks and leaves this way and that, but it all seemed a bit flat, so I decided to go through my e/fs and see if one of them might juizz it up a bit. When I saw my NBUS "Cross-Stitch" e/f from Taylored Expressions, I got the idea of gluing down the flowers and then running the whole panel through my Gemini in the hopes it would look like a counted cross-stitch. It was a risk after painting all those wee lilies, but, phew, it worked.

It wasn't until after I'd embossed it, that I realized I should have stamped on a sediment first.😶No worries, let's cross-stitch that, too, then! I used my wee Lawn Fawn triple frame label set. The sediment is from Verve, older than your grandma, but still good as new!

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Galz: springtime.
  
• Color Throwdown: blue, lime, green.
  
• Just Us Girls: spring mood board with Lilies of the Valley.

Twofer

Keeping spring in mind, this design was schparked by another color challenge, this time Color Hues. I had the little flower outline stamp on my desk. I had removed it from its wooden block some time ago and stuck it in with my silhouette stamps. I also saw that Lin was hosting the current Seize the Birthday challenge and she was looking for "things with wings."

The lads went up NBUS Mountain and starting pitching birds and butterflies and dragonflies off left and right. Well, not one to move if I don't have to, I reached down and picked up the one that landed on my bazooms. Thankfully and perfectly, it was this wee NBUS hummingbird from Memory Box that comes as a multipiece die. 

You know how much I love hummingbirds and how fortunate I am to have them come to my window feeder every day all year long. And Goodness knows how many photos I've shared on here of these delightful birds in their brilliant blue, purple, green, and red feathers. Pulling my artistic license from my sleeve, I used a piece of pp to create an unusual (to me) array of green and yellow feathers for this little gal. 

The rest of the design came together easily, punctuated by hammering, stitching, piercing, scalloping, blinging, and winking. You know, the usual. Oh, and I did have to give her teeny feet.

Challenges

• Beautiful Blossoms: Mood board.
• Color Hues: Lemon and lime.
• Memory Box: Petal power.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Things that fly.
  

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You will find a linky tool below for this week's I.D.E.A.S. Calendar prompt of A = Anything Goes. So, no matter what you create, you can link here this week to motivate others out of their creative schlump!

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your design! Thank you so much to everyone who remembered to link last week! Mwah!

~~~

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!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

I Think of You Each Day

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well and hanging in there. I mean that. It's hard. Like so many of you, my mojo is laying around like a 17-year-old dog in the sunshine. "Hey," you yell, "Hey, get up!" 

Nope. Not happening. The dog just shoots you the eyeball as if to say, "Go walk yourself." 

So what do we do? We turn to many of the wonderful challenges that are plugging along, coming up with brilliant ideas and inspirational designs to help us keep interested and active in this hobby we love.

A burrow around Blogland lead me to this:

Less Is More is looking for clean and simple border cards. Hammy and I put our heads together and discovered that we both thought of the definition of border that represents the horizon. Webster gives one of its definition as, "the edge or boundary of something, or the part near it." 

I have a small box of letterpress cards and envelopes that I purchased a few years ago. I'm not sure now what I was spose to do with them, but I grabbed one for this card. I used a piece of tape and blended both DIs and DOs in peeled paint, bundled sage, salty ocean, and wilted violet to make the border between the ground and the sky, representing a new day. The ink loved the letterpress paper and I'm happy to find a way to play with it. 

The NBUS sediment is from the "I Like Your Style" set which was sold as part of the Simon Says Stamp 2013 Card Kit! I chose it because I decided to send this card to Verna, getting lonelier every day in the small care home she's in. It's heartbreaking to think of how many men and women are alone around the world because of Covid.

Challenges

• AAA Cards: One layer ~ no option.
• Color Throwdown.
• Less Is More: Borders.
• STAMPlorations: June CAS Challenge. A/G.

 

Twofer

Next, I saw that the current Flower Challenge is looking for navy (plus one other color) flowers, so I grabbed my NBUS Penny Black slapstick "Fabulous" stamp and did my favorite direct-to-stamp technique using SU markers and a spritz bottle to create a watercolor look. I find all these PB slapstick stamps lend themselves so well to this technique. The Happy Day sediment is from GKW. Hammy added some winking and I finished it off with a trio of dew drops.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday. (Happy 8th Birthday!!)
• The Flower Challenge: Navy and one other colour.
• ModSquad: Watercolor.
• NBUS. Never-before-used-schtuff.
• Penny Black Saturday Challenge: A/G ~ optional spots and/or stripes.

Nellie

The yard is ablaze with color from lantana, butterfly bush, two white oleander trees, and various potted plants (not shown). The Mister placed his beloved companion on the wall for a late afternoon portrait to share with you.

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Stay safe. Please.

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!)

Women ~ Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful!

Hello Stamplings!

Today is International Women's Day! It's an international holiday with schools, banks, and the post office closed in order to honor women everywhere! 

Wait. What? Oh, that part is still a dream, but, hey, we really have come a long way, baby, and we're being heard. Well, except not always by our husbands, but that's another story and not why you called in today.

Today I'm delighted to be joining other women making cards to celebrate International Women's Day:

I just love this little dress and hanger die from Memory Box. I cut it from a piece of smooched background. The stencil is from my friend Sarah's Funky Fossil Designs (thank you, Sandie!), and the sediment is from Hero Arts. (It came from a garage sale years ago and still has the 10￠ sticker on it!) The paper looks interesting and that's because Hammy sprayed it liberally with Wendy Vecchi's buttercup mica spray. Cuz even in our modern age, women still want some glitter and schparkle!

There is a fantastic sponsored Hop with lots of prizes! It's happening for the next two weeks to celebrate women positively supporting each other. I hope you will join in with a card! You can link up HERE. You can also find information on Instagram and Facebook Group.

The idea behind this blog is to encourage women through our crafts. We look forward to building a positive environment with your support on this blog. Just a small word of encouragement from fellow women goes a long way and can do wonders. So lets us come together and empower our sisters all around the world.

Challenges ~ I'm also linking to:

• Color Throwdown.
• Memory Box: Glittery paper or glue.
• SSS Wednesday: Something feminine.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Kath's AG with a feminine twist.

Twofer

On a rare cloudy day yesterday, I set BOB (Box Of Bits) aside and made this very QACAS design for a few challenges. I used my old-but-still-NBUS MFT "birthday chicks," which were Ziggified by me, and winked by Hammy. The sediment is from WPLUS9. I'm chuffed that I made a dozen of them in one sitting since they were that quick and easy. Then I napped. And after I finish typing this, I'll be all over BOB again! Don't tell the Mister!

Challenges

• Less Is More: Lucky Dip week=Big and Small (Chicks and Sentiment).
• Perfectly CAS: Shapes. (Triangles and circles.)
• Seize the Birthday: Sentiment as focal image.

 

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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! 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!)

The Illusive Five-Petaled Heart Flower

Hello Stamplings!

My goodness, didn't I just remark about starting a fresh new week? And then what happened was, I looked away to enjoy a hummingbird on the feeder and when I looked back, it was Monday again! Am I a groundhog now, or what's happening?!

Things are still super busy here with the Mister back at square one with his recovery, but I did manage to make a card:

Some of you may have seen this information on the Simon Says Stamp blog. Simon made this die and called it "Floral Burst Collage." What you may not know is that the artist Francine Milaux spent seventeen months on a remote island called Comoros (one of the Glorioso Islands) until she was able to get a photo of this rare flower with heart-shaped petals, from which she drew the image for the die. This rare flower is believed to be an unbanded lateral offshoot of a cape periwinkle flower and a clover, performed by a local Comoroi. Unfortunately, because this flower withers almost immediately after picking, no research has been done to substantiate this claim. 

Of course, none of that is true. I made the whole thing up because the petals on this flower are so awesome. Although it is true that Simon made the die and the name is correct. Don't hit me.

I die-cut the NBUS image and then used the negative of the cut as a stencil to blend ink in an ombré pattern across a textured linen panel. I took an unmarked tiny leaf from my large array of unmarked tiny leaves and added a few of them in ombré green. The swirly sediment is NBUS from PTI's "Scene It: Celebration Stamp Set." Hammy added PPP's schparkly clear jewels to the flower centers for just the right touch of glamour and glimmer.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up Card Challenge: Stencil from die cut, plus stamping, plus ombré.
• Color Throwdown.
• Seize the Birthday: Show me your white space.
• TCP Tuesday February Challenge: Use a stencil.
• The Flower Challenge: Add leaves.
• TIME OUT: Inspired by Words (birthday).

Various Updates

⭐In my post here, I told you about 104-year-old Major Bill White who wanted to receive Valentine's Day cards. His family was hoping he would receive 104 of them. In fact, at last count he has received over 300,000 cards and packages from all over the world! Considering that today is Random Acts of Kindness Day, it restores your faith in humanity! Spread kindness. It's reciprocal.

⭐In my post here, I asked if any of you are getting a  message that blocked you from visiting other blogs. It quickly became apparent that the problem must be on my end. 

Normally, I ask the IT guy I'm sleeping with when I have problems like this, but at that point he was in no mood to discuss computer issues. Yesterday I was able to ask him and he quickly identified the problem as being a "new and enhanced" update to our security by our server Comcast / Xfinity.

Fortunately, after some sleuthing, he was able to figure out a way to disconnect this pain in my patootie and all is well again. (It would have been nice if they had put their own URL on their warning!) I am sorry to have jumped the gun and gotten everyone worried about their own computers.🙊

⭐There is only one week left to play in the current Twofer Card Challenge where the prompt is FRUIT! Design Team member Cat has more inspiration for you on her blog. We'd love to see your fruity concoctions in the gallery! Mwah!

Nellie's Nook

Nellie was sitting right next to me while I was taking my card photo so I snapped her picture, too.  ...

Now, honestly, isn't life a funny old thing? Some of you may remember that in 2018 at Loll's Eat Sleep Craft Repeat retreat in Vancouver we did "dirty pours" and this is one of the canvases I made then:

I thought at the time that it looked like a baby seal had emerged out of the pour, but I was wrong. It was a foretelling of a little white fluffy dog that would come into my life!! Her eyes are normally big round buttons of coal like on the canvas, except when she's looking into the sun. But isn't that spooky/cool?! 

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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! 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!)