Happy Make-More-Cards Week!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well as we whoosh around to the last Monday of February! I'm pickled tink that I managed to post every Monday this month and I so appreciate of all of you visiting and commenting!

I have to admit I "stretched" the title of the post a bit. It should say, "Play More Cards Day" and it was yesterday and only for the day and they don't mean handmade cards, but in the pocket of my tan jacket in the back of the closet you'll find a creative license under the name Art Blanch which allows me libations.

So, hurrazah, let's make more cards this week! It is also the fourth week of the month on my I.D.E.A.S. calendar, so woohoo, A = Anything Goes!

Onefer

Goodness, I'll wait while you get your sunglasses! In fact, I'll grab mine, too! The sun turned my springy lime green into sassy Char Truz! I used a NBUS stencil from the "Rising Wildflowers" set from Pinkfresh Studio. The die was out of stock, but rather than tossing the stencil on Mt. NBUS, I went to work blending CP inks and then I went over parts of the flowers with my watercolor pencils for a little more dementia. 

The scalloped frame is from Pink & Main, the NBUS "birthday" die is from Poppystamps, and the tiny "happy" is ancient from WPlus9.

Challenges: Addicted to Stamps and More (Make Your Mark); Colorful Options (Pink/Purple); and Pinkfresh Studio (February).

Twofer

When I saw Lisa's Mood Board at Just Us Girls, this design quickly came to mind. When Hammy is over at Daphne's playing with Stanley (and Daphne's dwarf hamster Dwayne), she often gets out her tea set for make-believe. It all starts out well, but before oolong, the lads start scampering, sending everything arse over teacup ~ literally. Fortunately, Daph is a light-heated lass and their antics send her off into peals of laughter! 

I used a NBUS coffee mug die from Simon Says Stamp, cut from a snippet of pretty pp. The hamster stamps and dies are from Your Next Stamp and Your Next Die. The window die is from Poppystamps and I backed it with vellum patterned with silver leaves. It still needed a little sumpthin, so I added some silver baseboard as a ground and fern bits cut from silver using a NBUS "Dainty Ferns Die" from Waffle Flower. The NBUS sediments are from Pinkfresh Studio.

Additional Challenges: Alphabet (V for Volume); Inkspirational (Mug); Critter Crazy (Anything Goes); and Snippets Playground (Use Your Snippets ~ I remembered to take a photo!).

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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! I'm becited to see all your cards this week!♣️🎴

*Life is too short!

     

For the Love of Paper and Critters

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are well and you had a great weekend! We celebrated Mother's Day by getting together and welcoming Adam home from college for the summer. The twins immediately pick up where they left off months ago and it's a joy to be around them.

Today the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar features D for Dies.

Onefer

I  have had this moth die from The Greetery for (say it with me) cough years. I love the versatility of it. You can make the moth with either one or both sets of the wings and it comes with a stencil, so you can stencil on a pattern! I have fun ahead of me using all the options!

I chose this moth when I saw Linda's sketch at the current Freshly Made Sketches and built the sketch from there. BTW, this pp is from Craft Consortium and it has a lovely shine or sheen. Or glow or glimmer. Or ... hmmm, why do we have so many cinnamons for words in the English language?

But I digest. In my BOB, I found a small piece of leftover inked paper from a smooching session in the dark ages. I thought the moth might fight with the smooched paper, but they married well together.

And then, all due credit to little Stanley, we went with the score lines for that portion of the sketch (see below), rather than using paper or an image and I just love how it turned out.

I am also linking to Critter Crazy May Challenge and Simon Stays Stamp Monday challenge, which is "Things With Wings."

Twofer

A bloggie friend of mine recently lost her beloved dog and I made this card to send her some hugs. The hearts embossing folder is vintage; it came free with my Gemini Jr., but the die-cut paw is NBUS from Waffle Flower. The sediment is NBUS from Honey Bee Stamp's "Anemones" set.

Once again I used textured and patterned paper for the paw and the card mat and Hammy made me tear up when he tucked a few clear hearts in the paw. 

Little Nellie wanted to offer a sweet hug, too:

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: D = Dies

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using your dies! Your card may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

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 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

It's a New Year!

Hello Stamplings!

Happy New Year! How has 2023 been for you as we finish out week one? Have you already broken any of your resolutions? That's okay, now you can just get on with life without pressure! 

We are starting our year off with a series of Bomb Cyclone/Atmospheric River events here in California. Some places have not seen rain like this for 150 years! The storms are lined up out in the Pacific until the 20th, possibly longer. As much as we desperately need the rain, it's not good to get so much at once. So far we are in no danger, but so many folks are not faring as well. 🙏

Between the weather confining me to quarters and the card challenges being on break, I enjoyed cleaning and purging. I know, I'm nuts to enjoy it, but if I don't do it, I get creatively clogged. (Aside: I find chocolate washed down with wodka also helps with clogs, but that's a different blog.😊)

Now we are lucky to have some of the challenges back to light our schparkle and Hammy brought back a whole case of brand-new winkers thanks to his generous relatives. So, away we go ~

Onefer

The NBUS star of the performance today is the "Serene Bird and Branch" die from Memory Box. For this CASual scene, she was cut from watercolor paper and painted with Ziggies in pink shades. With all the shiny gold from the frame and branch, we decided to just wink her tail feathers and use a simple sediment. 

Challenges

• Color Hues: Light pink and gold
• Critter Crazy: A/G with a featured critter.
  
• SSS Wednesday: Something new. (The bird.) 

Twofer

Look away if you just can't bear looking at a Christmas card right now, lol!

This card is more layered. The snowflake circle cut from gold is a Hero Arts die called, "Snowflakes and Ornament." I cut off the ornament hanger to make it look like a wreath and then I nestled the Serene Bird cut from pp in amongst the snowflakes. (I don't think they are so cold when they are cut from gold.) 

I used Penny Black's "Red and Greens" holly die as wreath decorations and the NBUS sediment is from Simon's stamp set, "The Magic of Christmas," inked with CP's Juniper Mist.

Challenges

• Four Seasons: Anything goes winter.
  
• Just Us Girls: Color week.
  
• Snippets Playground: A/G w/ snippets. I used snippets for the wreath, bird, and holly.

I've been posting Twofers now for years. By Christmas, I was up-to-here with even the thought of making Christmas cards, but I'm going to try and use the same stamp or die to make my Twofer a Christmas card during 2023. I'm slowing down and this past year I wasn't able to make as many Christmas cards as I needed.😒 The only way around that is to religiously make them all year like a lot of you are disciplined to do. I want to be like you. I always have good intentions, but then I get distracted by one bagful of squirrels or another! 

Plus, I'm hoping this plan will give Mr. Mojo a kick in the jo! Even a kick in the mo would be good, but that's gonna leave a bruise. Here are a few other Christmas designs I made using the Serene Bird. It got rather addicting once I got started and I have several more birds cut from pp to make even more. Whoop! 

~~~

 

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, being a follower, and leaving me some love!

*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!)

Christmas Joy

Hello Stamplings!

I've got a quick post, but a long ending, so if you can spare five minutes, grab a bev and relax with me from the Hustle and Bustle of this festive season. 

Onefer

This was a fun design to put together. The "Children Skating" are NBUS from Impression Obsession. They are so cute by themselves, but then I thought it might be even cuter to have them holding on to a sediment and the Joy die from Hero Arts worked great. 

Then I set the card across the room, as I always do, and Hammy and I conduct the internationally known Head-Cocker Test. You know, where you slowly cock your head to the right, back to the center, and then to the left. For this card, we liked the skaters holding up the JOY, but we agreed that they looked like they were floating in space. It was Hammy who suggested I cut the thinnest strip of the same shiny ivory paper to make a horizon line. Once I connected the j and y, that seemed to do the trick in a unique way.

Challenges

• Color Hues: Navy and cream.
  
• HLS Anything Goes With Dies.
  
• SSS Wednesday: Ice Cold.

Twofer

This card looks intentional, but twasn't. I used a panel of copper to emboss the NBUS folder from SSS called "Pine Bouquet." Actually, I took a day where I simply embossed a bunch of NBUS folders and set them aside for cards. 

On a different day, I inked the NBUS deer from Honey Bee's "Silent Night" set and heat-embossed her in clear. Then I painted her and her sweet birdie friend with my Ziggies. Hammy winked the wee bird, but he left it at that because he had just gotten into my chocolate almond toffee and could barely lift a paw, let alone a winker.

Both elements of the design sat in their respective places until the day the universal craft axis tilted on its score pad and they ended up on my desk at the same time where, by some miracle, I was able to put two and two together, as it were. Mwah! Love it when that happens!

Challenges

• Can You Handle the Pressure? Anything goes with a Christmas twist.
  
• Critter Crazy: Anything goes with a critter.
• Four Seasons: Winter.
  

That's it for cards, but I wanted to share this story I originally saw on Facebook. 

But, Madam!

A woman decided to give herself a big treat for her 70th birthday by staying overnight in a really nice hotel. When she checked out the next morning, the desk clerk handed her a bill for $250. She demanded to know why the charge was so high.

"I agree it's a nice hotel," she said, "but the rooms aren't worth $250 and I didn't even have breakfast!" The clerk told her that $250 was the 'standard rate,' and breakfast had been included had she wanted it.

The woman insisted on speaking to the Manager. The Manager appeared and, forewarned by the desk clerk, announced: "This hotel has an Olympic-sized pool and a huge conference center which are available for use." "But I didn't use them," the woman declared.

"Well, they are here," replied the Manager, "and you could have used them."

The Manager went on to explain that she could also have seen one of the in-hotel shows for which they were so famous, reminding her that "we have the best entertainers from around the world performing here."

Frustrated, the woman cried, "But I didn't go to any of those shows!"

"Well," he said, unmoved, "We have them, and you could have." 

No matter what amenity the Manager mentioned, she replied, "But I didn't use it!" and the Manager countered with his standard response. 

After several minutes going back and forth, the woman took out her checkbook, wrote a check and handed it to the Manager. The Manager was surprised when he looked at the check. "But, Madam," he said, "this check is for only $50!"

"That's correct," she said, looking him straight in the eye, "I charged you $200 for sleeping with me."  "But I didn't!" he exclaimed. "Well, too bad," she said, "I was here, and you could have."

~~~

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, being a follower, and leaving me some love!

*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!)

Krafty Chicks ~ Stamp Act

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? Thank you for taking a break to click open my bloggeroo today! You deserve a break and a favorite beverage. And sure, I support having a little sweet, too, while you're at it.

Just as I was looking for some renewed schpark to light up my get-up-and-go in the new year, I was asked by the Krafty Chicks to be their Guest Designer for January. What an honor and what perfick timing!

The Krafty Chicks post challenges once a week on Thursdays and for Week 1, the prompt is "Stamp Act." Here is my card to inspire you:

Zany the zebra is part of a NBUS stamp set called "Savanne1" from Craft Emotions, simply stamped in black and white. The sediment is from Dylusions. The double-stitched die is from MFT. And, of course, Hammy brought the zebra to life by adding googly eyes.

Don't you wonder what mischief lies unseen in front of Zany? I'm sure there is a group of her zebra friends gathering in the distance, but what are they up to? Oh, the imagination stirs ~ or maybe the memories! Why, it reminds me of that time back in 1973 when a group of us girls drove into Los Angeles from the sub-Urbs and Cheryl suggested that we ...

Thank you, Krafty Chicks for asking me to guest design this month! You can find all the details and the linky tool on their blog and I look forward to seeing your stamped creations! 

I'm also playing in these challenges:

• Critter Crazy: A/G.
• Simon Says Monday: Something new.
  
• TIME OUT: New.

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Twofer

Another QACAS and NBUS design for you. I've had Tim's Mini Blueprints booze-themed stamp set for (cough) years and I finally broke the seal on that puppy. All of the blueprint images are fantastic! The sediment is from Tim's Big Talk collection. (Hammy scampered up my pant leg just as I was taking a sip, so pardon the spillage.)

Those of you who are eagle-eyed and sober will note that that wine opener would crush that bottle of wine if it was used. Well, you might find, as I did, that if you drink a little wine and then look at it again, the perspective problem goes away! Hic!

Challenges

• Card Concept: Fresh new year. My style is Clean and Simple.
  
• CAS Mix Up: Loose watercoloring.
  
• HLS CAS: A/G.
• Just Us Girls: Word Week ~ Beverage.
• Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: S is for Snarky.
  

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Kudos to the Postal Service

While I had a few cards returned unnecessarily and packages that took forever, I just had to share this positive PO experience. Below is a photo of a card I received from my bloggie friend Aileen in Australia:

Notice anything remarkable? There is NO postage stamp! I've been know to send cards off like that a few times myself, but they've always come back to me. Somehow the post office managed to get this beautiful Christmas card to my mailbox in America and that makes me smile!

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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! And thank you for your positive feedback on my last post regarding Verna and sending cards to seniors.

*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!)