Purple Hop for Epilepsy Awareness

Hello Stamplings,

Happy Tuesday! I hope you've been well since I saw you last!

You know how I've been on a mission to use my products more than once in a sitting? Well, now I've gone the other way and I'm having a hard time knowing when to stop! Case in point is today's featured item: a die called "Clustered Leaves" from Simon Says Stamp. I had fun making four QACAS cards and to keep myself interested, I varied the colors and occasions.

Onefer

This was my first card, made for today's Purple Hop. The clustered leaves were cut from a piece of Yupo colored in wildly exotic purple shades of Lindy Magicals and then posed in front of an embossed brick wall background. The accompanying sediment is from MFT's "Label Tape." Here is a closeup of the Yupo sheen and the Lindy shimmer.

Today's Purple Day Hop was organized by my friend Fikreta to raise awareness for epilepsy. Fiki has a very informative post (and a giveaway) on her blog detailing the history of Purple Day and many of the myths surrounding this disease.

I hope you will have the opportunity to check out Fiki's blog and the blogs of the other ladies in the Hop. Most of us know someone who struggles with this disease which does not get the attention and funding it needs. 

In addition to Fiki and myself, here is a list of the other card artists participating in this Hop:

Sandie 

Ike

 Kitty

Annabel

Janis

Olga
Vicki

To thank you for taking the time to check out today's Hop, I also have a giveaway for those who are followers of my blog: a $25 gift card to Catherine Pooler! Whoot! Just let me know in your comment if you are interested in being in the draw. And for every name entered in the drawing, I will personally donate $2 to the Epilepsy Foundation.

Twofer

Isn't this die exquisite cut from vellum? The embossed swiss dots vellum I used here is from SU. The sediment is white heat-embossed. Here is a closeup of the pretty schparkle embedded in the red card stock which I've had for ages.

Threefer

From Christmas back to springtime! This time the background used to cut the die was made last May at Lolly's Retreat and I think it was Brushos on Yupo. The sediment is from PTI, embossed in platinum. Here is a closeup of the platinum shine:

Fourfer

I used a different Brusho on Yupo background piece for this die cut. A linen cover plate from PTI was used for the background. The hello sediment is from GKW and the thinking of you sediment is from Altenew.

Here is another view from above. Do you can see my BOO-BOO?

Oops. I hate it when that happens, but I wasn't about to risk destroying the panel to fix it. Please let me know in your comment if you're left-handed and you'd like to receive this pretty Happy Mail!

Recapitation

There are two giveaways in today's post for my followers! I'll have Hammy pick the winners in a coupla weeks on April 9th and I'll post the names in my Twofer post on April 10th. Please make sure I have your email address, so I can contact you if you win. If I can't contact you, another name will be drawn. Good luck!

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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!

Challenges:

• Purple Day Hop card: I'm entering this card in TIME OUT Challenges, where they are celebrating their 5th birthday! Congratulations! I'm also playing in Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, where the brief is "Play With Paint." 
• Christmas card: I'm entering this card in Ike's World Challenges, where the brief is "Clean and Simple" and in Rudolph Days, where the brief is "Anything Christmas Goes." 
• Spring card: I am entering this in Sweet Stampers Challenge, where the brief is "Easter/Spring," and in Less Is More's "Take 3" challenge. (There is one die cut and two words; or, if you prefer, there are three blings.) 
• Hello Beautiful card: I'm entering this card in  Crafty Cardmakers, where the brief is "For Someone Special" and Creative With Stamps, where the brief is "Friends."

  

Critters and Cards

Hello Stamplings!

Happy Sunday! I hope this finds you well and your little dog, too! Or cat. Or hamster. Or bag of Halloween candy. Whatever makes you smile your inner smile no matter how crazy insane this world gets.

What's making me smile here (besides the resident hamster) are a coupla squirrels who are loving the little squirrel candy that our Japanese Maple is covered with this time of year. I wish you could see these guys outside my Playhouse window doing unbelievable gymnastics as they reach the farthest kernel on the wimpiest branch. Yesterday the fat one literally fell to the ground when he reached too far and lost his little squirrel grip.

I have to admit I laughed my head off, but not until after he shook himself off and literally leaped back onto the tree for another go at whatever crack that tree is providing. In between watching the squirrel antics, I managed some cards:

When I saw Pink Fresh Studio's newest release, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this NBUS "Lush Greenery" set. I die-cut and stamped the two images from one of my stencil monoprint backgrounds made with Lindy Magicals. You can't see the shimmer, but it's there. I also schplattered a few Lindy's in the background. Very QACAS. The sediment is from Neat & Tangled.

Challenges

• Creative With Stamps: Halloween or Leaves.
• Mod Squad: Fall thank you card.
• TIME OUT: Grateful.

 

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While the first card was very QACAS (quick and clean and simple), was it really clean enough to be suitable for the current Less Is More challenge? I didn't think so, so I whipped up this Twofer with one set of leaves, popped up for dementia:

Challenges

• Less Is More: Dimension.
• Words 2 Craft By: October eves.

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And because it's past time to be working on Christmas cards:

This is a schparkly QACAS die-cut-only card. The silvery watercolor background pp is from Momenta, the NBUS cover plate is from Reverse Confetti, and the stained glass center image is NBUS from Avery Elle. I silver-embossed it, painted the bow and bell with Ziggies, and Hammy added a schparkly layer of winking.

Here's a better view:

Challenges

• City Crafter Challenge: Silver bells.
• Rudolph Days Challenge (from the 25th to the last day of the month).
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge: Anything goes.

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Real quick, I have to show you another critter that came around while I was photographing my cards:

It's a wee baby fence lizard no bigger than my pinkie finger, but it's so hard to tell scale. Just know that those little flowers are teeny-tiny! He sat there for five minutes while I talked to him. The Mister shakes his head when he sees me outside talking to the hummingbirds and lizards. He is sure the neighbors are going to turn me into the Loony Bin peeps!

Here's a closeup:

Actually I've refrained from showing you the lizzies for ages even though I have lots of pics. We've had a large crop of babies this year and it's really amazing to see them when they're about an inch long. Although he won't admit it, the Mister likes it when any of them come out for a shower when he's watering the plants!

~~~

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!)

Lovely Shenanigans and Glory Hallelujah!

Hello Stamplings!

Greetings on this last week of summer 2018! How's it going?

I'm really sorry I missed your call yesterday. Michael's (I call him Mike) is having his "lowest prices of the season" sale so I ran over there just to take a peek. You know, in case they got in something new since I was there last week. They didn't, but it would have been rude not to buy something(s)!

Why do I always fall for that "lowest prices of the season" line, anyway? We all know the calendar has four seasons in a year and yet businesses have 32 of them!!

Onefer

Hammy and I have sadly not been able to mesh our creative juices with the cue cards of one of our favorite challenges for months. That changed this week, YAY! CASology's cue card for this week's challenge is DRESS and we immediately thought of this sweet dress and hanger from Memory Box.

I cut the dress from a bit of left-over stencil monoprint background from my stash and just love the fun "fabric" it made. I outlined the dress with a black marker for some definition and that's why it looks like it was cut from something thicker than plain white paper.

The panels for the dress were cut in pink and black using a Lawn Fawn zigzag die and they were offset because they created a cool diamond border. The sediment is from Concord & 9th. Since I was making fabric and making a dress, I finished off the card by cutting a border on the right with my rarely used pinking shears.

Twofer

From sweet and ladylike to rakish and rowdy, here's a card for kicks and giggles! (Management's Legal Department has issued the following warning: engagement in activities depicted above by two consulting adult pumpkins may result in a baby pumpkin.) The pumpkins are very old wooden stamps that still know how to amuse a card recipient! The fun sediment is from Riley & Company and the angled frame die is from PTI. 

Challenges

• Cards in Envy: Feels like fall.
• Creative With Stamps: Pumpkins.
• TIME OUT: Home Sweet Home: Pumpkins.

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Thank you!

I am thrilled to give you an update on our grandson Adam following his shallow river dive in July. This week the neurologist declared that Adam's C1 neck break had healed sufficiently, so the neck and body braces were removed and there shouldn't be a need for surgery! Adam still has to be very careful, however. He can't ride his bike for a while yet and he isn't sposed to roughhouse with Henry until after Christmas! Obviously the doctor doesn't have teenage sons because, bwahahahaha, that's not gonna happen!

We feel very blessed and are very appreciative. Everyone in the family would like to thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers! Mwah!

From this,

To this!

~~~

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!)

Panda Posies and Preggers

Greetings, Stamplings!

I hope you are having a lovely weekend! Along with all the beautiful blossoms this time of year comes all the unbeautiful allergies! I don't usually suffer from allergies, although the Mister does, but today my eyeballs were not happy about some pollen or other. God bless all your sneezey noses!

Onefer 

Speaking of sneezey noses, I hope you can see the little bouquet of posies that the sweet panda bear is smelling. His name is Razzle and he's going over Hill and under Dale to dazzle his friend Parsnip. Right now he is having a bit of a sit down to wait out the rain shower so he doesn't get his posies or his toesies wet.

I used lots of snippets and different companies for this one. The umbrella and raindrops are from Simon Says Stamp, "Umbrella Shaker." Part of the die makes raindrops so I used the negative as a stencil to lightly pounce raindrops in the background using (what else) PTI's Spring Rain ink.

The NBUS panda is from Fiskars, "Day at the Zoo." The NBUS "friend" is from "Friends Forever" by Clearly Besotted and the rest of the NBUS sediment is from Hero Arts. 

Challenges

• CAS on Sunday: Use a stencil.
• Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes With Dies: AG.
• The Heart Desires: Spring photo challenge.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets!
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Showers and/or flowers.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Spring.

~~~

Twofer

It looks like someone is having a baby!

I used my NBUS stitched frame dies from Die-Namics. The young mother-to-be is a sweet image sent to me with several others by my friend Aileen. (Thank you, Aileen!) The sediment is from Your Next Stamp, "Whatnot Sentiments Four." 

I thought this stamped image (which I colored with Ziggies and pencils) would be perfect for this week's CASology challenge which is "Grow!" I'm also entering the current Your Next Stamp color challenge and the first anniversary (congratulations CWS!) challenge at Creative With Stamps which is "Baby."

~~~

A Bit of a Breakie Poo

I'm going to step away from the computer for a coupla weeks or so. I can't believe it's almost May. I'm either slowing way down or Father Time is on speed ~ prolly both! 

So what's happened is I feel like I'm never going to finish my big box of half-made cards or try out my long list of techniques if I don't take a break from Blogland. It really is true that we see lots more squirrels as we get older and you talented artists keep distracting me with more all the time! I need to dedicate some time for concentrating on those things you've already inspired me to create.

Not to mention that it's spring which means purging and cleaning are calling me. I've been making cards and blogging the last few years and now things in both the Bighouse and the Playhouse really need a good Purge and Polish. 

I will be checking my emails/comments from you. If you do a post that you know I'd love to see, please feel free to send me an email to let me know. Otherwise, I'll be back to visit your blogs and challenges before you know it! Hammy and I will be rejuvenated and spiffed up with a lot of cards to share!

I hope! You know what happens to the best-laid plans ... and besides, I'll miss you, so we'll see how long I can stay away!💋

~~~

Enjoy your days to come!  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!

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!

If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me

your email address so I can respond.  Thank you!