Dies Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well! Well in health, well in spirits, and well in creativity!

This week the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is D = Dies/Die Cuts (which can also be fussy-cuts). Dies are having a heyday right now and I got so charged up, I did a threefer. Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound naughty.

Onefer

For this card, I was inspired by the photo at the 

Inspired By Challenge ~ specifically the frame and the colors of the leafy spray on the mantle.

I found papers in my stash that have a lightly embossed feel, so I used a creamy one for my background here. I used a woodgrain paper to cut my stitched rectangle frame. The vases are dies from Paper Smooches. The stems are a combination of dies from SU and MFT. The sediment is from Gina K's, "A Little Love." 

I'm also adding my card to Cut It Up, where the brief is to add a sentiment and to Snippets Playground, where the brief is to use your scrappy snippets.

Twofer

Here is another piece of the pretty paper I found ~ this time in a beige color. Nothing original about this design, but I can't remember ever doing it before and I love the simplicity of the scene.

Looking at it on my monitor now, the lads and I are karacking up because it looks like we tossed a coupla dog turds on the grass beside the pile of leaves!😂It's okay because the recipient is a dog-loving friend with a fall birthday and a wonderful sense of humor!

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthday.

Cardz 4 Galz: Create a scene.

Krafty Chicks: Birthday.

Threefer

And, thirdly, the challenge at Color Hues schparked another Christmas card for the stash. The poinsettia is an old beauty from Waltzingmouse, colored with my Ziggies in all pinks, even though it came out a bit rusty rose in the photo. Hammy and Stanley were thrilled to have a big field upon which to use their new winkers and when they were finished, I fussy cut it. 

The gray background paper was decorated with a Dotted Scallops cover plate die from Pinkfresh Studio and gold bling and a simple sediment finished it off.

Other Challenges

The Flower Challenge: Add embellishments.

The Holly and Ivy Christmas: Anything Christmas goes.

Just Us Girls: Die Cuts - Florals.

      

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💐I don't say it often enough ... Thank you very much to all the card challenges out there who provide us with endless inspiration and challenge us creatively!👏

~~~

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 someone out of their creative 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 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

Pull My Arrow!

Hello Stamplings!

Sorry to hear that many of you had a rough week with extreme heat and storms. I hope you are hanging in there and staying safe. Here we have had unseasonably coo ... 🤫 whoa! I don't want to jinx it.

I had a little procedure last week. The battery in my ICD ran out of juice and the device had to be replaced. It's perfectly normal and, in fact, I've outlived two other ICDs since I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in 2007. The only thing is, I was told this battery would last until the end of this year, so when it started faintly beeping for 15 seconds every five hours during the day (always when I was sitting at my desk), I thought it was something on my desk or in the rolling carts under my desk that was beeping.

Long story short, it took me two days of tossing the joint before I figured out it was me! So dumb. Maybe you had to be there, but I must have looked like I was doing an I Love Lucy comedy skit! 

Anyflies, all went well and I felt good enough by Friday to make a card or two thanks to this being A = Anything Goes on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar!

Onefer

For this design, I turned to Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration and I went very literal with Jen's sketch. I immediately thought of a gift card holder, so I turned the sketch sidewayz. I used some beautiful sheets of flowered paper (I think from SU) which I've had for many years. Each color family comes in three monochromatic shades and different weights, which was perfect for this sketch composition.

When the recipient follows the arrow and pulls the vellum strip out, she will find this:

Fun to make and fun to receive!

Other Challenges

Cut It Up!: Monochromatic.

Seize the Birthday: Anything Goes option.

Twofer

Scrapbook & Cards Today held a wonderful Holiday Magic event on Saturday. The mittens and sediment are NBUS items from the kit. I embossed a black panel with the Stately e/f while Hammy and Stanley scampered to the top of their cages, poised for action. They did a stellar job of schplattering the base with diluted white acrylic paint before I added the mittens and warm wishes cut from snippets. 

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Christmas.

Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.

Snippets Playground: Anything Goes using snippets.

~~~

So what happened was, my friend Susan and I went shopping a coupla weeks ago. We thought it would be fun to buy identical shirts and wear them when we went out to lunch together with our husbands. We were curious if they would even notice. 

And did they notice? No, of course not! In fairness, Susan and I sat across from each other in the restaurant rather than next to each other, but still! You gotta love 'em! 

As we were walking to our cars, Susan and I sat next to each other on a bench and I asked the guys, "Do you notice anything?" 

Ask that question and you'll see a look of sheer panic flash across a man's face!🤣

~~~

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! It's a free-for-all and you never know ~ your creation may help motivate someone out of their creative 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 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

Best. Day. Ever.

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to the show! I hope you had a good week! I've been alternating between card-making and spring-summer-cleaning, both of which give me joy. I'm weird that way. I've killed a lot of dust bunnies in my day, but I still haven't solved the mystery of how the junk drawer gets messy in only five minutes!

This is week two of the June I.D.E.A.S. Calendar which means D = Dies.

Onefer

I broke out my NBUS Postage Collage Cover die from SSS for this design, using the cute playing card images from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. The sediment is from another oldie-but-goodie: Taylored Expressions "Pawsome" set. My red ink pad needs reinking, but I can't find the reinker, nor, it turns out, the dark green reinker. Smart little Hammy wondered if I put the bottles with my Christmas schtuff~but no. (I can hear you shouting, check the junk drawer!😂)

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.

Cut It Up: Anything goes.

NBUS: FYI, there's a celebration this month!

Twofer

One could say this design is from the Playhouse "junk drawer," otherwise known as BOB. BOB contains beloved bits I love too much to discard. And when those bits come together as if by magic, it's a thing to behold.🪄

I wanted to use the base panel pp which was left over from a recent make. The lads and I had a rumble with BOB and every snippet we needed was right there, from the schparkly plum paper to the bold sediment to the pretty leafy branch I cut a coupla years ago from a die owned by my friend Bev.

Challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches

Just Us Girls: Die week ~ layers.

Snippets Playground: Anything goes with snippets and bits.

~~~

This is a napkin my sister Diana sent me. It's so funny in a few ways, but I kracked up at the hairdos! These ladies are not getting their hairdos wet, so they don't need to worry about drowning!🌊

~~~

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! 

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

Birthday Embossing

Hello Stamplings!

And Happy Monday to you as you begin your week with high hopes! Whatever they may be, I hope they come to fruitition. (Which makes more sense than fruition. What's a "fru?")

All around our neighborhood, hydrangeas are blooming with their many tiny little flowers all balled up into one huge flower. They are one of my most favorite flowers and I was inspired to bring out an old favorite stamp and paint.

Onefer

This stamp is Essentials by Ellen Mondo Hydrangea. I stamped the flower and leaf in black, heat-embossed in clear e/p, and then painted with my Ziggies before die-cutting. 

The lads went to town winking and then all three of us schplattered with diluted guache on the flower and leaf and with diluted purple ink on the background panel. That panel was embossed with an SU Sizzex e/f and attached to a lavender card base.  Finally, the flower was attached using foam squares. The sediment is a foil greeting from Memory Box.

Challenges

Beautiful Blossoms: Mood board with purple hydrangeas.

Cut It Up: Send me flowers.

Seize the Birthday: Flowers.

The Flower Challenge: Add spots or stripes. (Or both!)

Twofer

For this QACAS design, I used my NBUS gingko leaves 3D e/f from SSS with a panel of watercolor black paper which gives it a lovely texture. Then I simply swiped the raised bits using a piece of white chalk turned on its side. The circular sediment is also from SSS.

Challenges

Alphabet: C is for circles.

Let's Craft and Create: No patterned paper.

Little Red Wagon: D is for die cut.

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: E = Emblossing

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using some form of embossing. 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!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday next Monday. We will be with friends so I will not have a post. See in June!! (Another year whooshing by way too fast!) 

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tickled Pink on Fun Foam

Hello Stamplings!

It's lovely to be here and I hope you're doing great! I hope the team you (or your mate) were rooting for won the Super Bowl.🏈 I'm surprised they haven't made the Monday after a national day off!

Our plans changed last week due to the rain, so I had some unexpected crafty playtime with the lads. Squee for all!

Onefer

This week's I.D.E.A.S. letter is D = Dies and my first NBUS feature is the smallest feather stamp and die in the Feather Finery set by Papertrey Ink. The NBUS sediment is from the same set. I would have preferred "pickled tink," but we'll just pretend it says that. 

The second NBUS feature product is the Pink Fresh "Dotted Chevron" cover plate. Stanley honed his blending skills with CP ink and we used colored paper👍for the card base. Playing in:

Cut It Up! ~ this makes me smile

Freshly Made Sketches ~ sketch

We Love Stamping ~ CAS

Twofer 

Looking for the Onefer cover plate, I ran across this framed heart die from Reverse Confetti. Just last week when Hammy and Stanley were looking for a specific pp, they came across my stash of fun foam and asked if we could use it soon ... 💡click!

I had forgotten all about fun foam and it cut like a dream with this die. I attached it to a hammered card panel and then added some funky flat bling from GKW. I used a simple 'Hi' sediment so I can use it for any number of occasions. Playing in:

Just Us Girls ~ heart dies

Colorful Options ~ mood board

{PIN}spiration ~ mood board

Obfuscation

You know how I love words and playing with words. I think it's fun except when companies do it in an effort to make something deliberately unclear, pull the wool over my eyes, or pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

An email from a well-known company just arrived, saying they are going to "update" our pricing soon. Update? How about they just say they are going to "increase" our pricing soon (again) and leave it at that? I resent being treated like I'm too ignorant to see through it.

But that's the way of the world now. 

So when you have your next annual physical and the doctor comments on what's been happening with your weight, just smile innocently and say, "That's not an increase, doctor. That's an update!" 

Oh, and another thing. For those of us of a certain age who are shrinking vertically, why doesn't the doctor ever factor THAT into the math when he mentions our weight? I'm a little over 5'3" now, but I was once three inches taller. If my current weight were on a frame 5'6" tall, the doctor would be telling me to eat more!!🍔

~~~

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!