Die-Cuts Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome! I missed you last week! I hope you are enjoying summer/winter and keeping well! 

I also missed Inky week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, but I got a wee bit inky anyway for my Onefer for this week's D = Die Cuts.

I think this is self-exploratory, but I will lay out the ingredients because it's a lot for a CASlicious design. The corduroy-effect card base is from the last century and you know from past posts that I have to spend some quiet time fondling the ridges before I can finally get to work on the card. For the frame and waves, I used hammered card.

The frame is NBUS from Papertrey Ink called, "Reflections: November Dies." The little Ziggie-watercolored sailboat is from a set of two dies called, "Marina Sailboats" from Poppystamps. The "friend" die is from Sissix. The waves are from a set by Simon Says called, "Border Waves." With all these ingredients, it really made itself with just a bit of glue from me.

Playing in the sketch (by Donna) challenge at Freshly Made Sketches; Just Us Girls (Word Week: Play); Time Out (Water); and Cardz 4 Galz (For a Friend or Friendship).

Twofer

This design is very QACAS. While I had the frame dies out, I wanted to use the largest die and I wanted to play in this month's CAS Christmas challenge (and others), so the spotlight image inside the frame had to be a snowman. 

The only hard part of the card was deciding which of my snow peeps to use, especially without my helpers here. In the end, I chose one of my favorites from Purple Onion. I don't know if the snowman has a name, but I think we should call him Button. (I'm not known for the most original names when I'm anthropomorphizing.)

But I digest. I stamped and gold-embossed Button onto a panel of creamy, lightly speckly paper. I used an ancient gold glitter pen to color the scarf, nose, button, and a bit of grounding. I decided not to use a sediment stamp. It seemed repugnant.

Playing in: CAS Christmas (Snowman); Color Hues (Cream and Gold); and Time Out (Water. Because, I mean, snow is made of water, right?)

BTW

Do you have any hacks for getting rid of ground squirrels? We've had some ground squirrels fledge, or whatever you call it when baby ground squirrels grow big enough to come out from under one's deck.😶

Luckily there are only three of them, but they (and their parents) are enough to cause a lot of tunnels to suddenly appear ... including through and under our beautiful retaining wall which I'm afraid will collapse. And we certainly don't want these young'uns having their own babies here some day! 

We have called several exterminator companies to trap them or help us convince them they don't want to live here. So far all of them have said, "Nope. We don't do ground squirrels!"  

But, golly, they sure are cute!

Oh, sorry, that's a bunny we saw on our walk. 

Here you go:

While they look like baby regular squirrels that have bushy tails, this is as big as ground squirrels get. They are little guys with enormous claws ~ little digging machines! 

And in case you are wondering, Nellie isn't phasing them a bit! They are lightening fast and just dip out of sight when she appears. (I hope they are gone before Hammy and Stanley get back!)

Speaking of Nellie, she turns 15 years old today!! Happy Birthday, fluffy girl!

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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!

Cheers!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well and I hope you had a wonderful Father's Day weekend! The family came for dinner and it was a treat to sit down just with them. (We normally host bigger gatherings.) We were blessed with beautiful weather, which I know isn't the case for some of you. I hope it calms down and cools off where needed!

Today is "Anything Goes" week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, so the sky's the limit. I might be weird (I see you cocking your head at the modifier!), but I don't do as well without boundaries. I have too much schtuff!

Onefer

Thankfully, other challenges give me guidance when my mind is going in a million different directions. The current Color Hues challenge by Carol is yellow and black. I've been wanting to bring this very old set from Altenew out of mothballs. This one is called, "Painted Butterflies." They are from 2014! They are easy to layer and since the invention of the MISTI, it's even easier now.

I decided to use the whole set to make my own DSP. The lads did a light ink schplattering and I used a gold and black birthday sediment strip from Memory Box to finish it off.

I'm also playing in: Addicted to Stamps and More (Any Occasion).

Twofer

For my Christmas card design, I used the sketch by Narelle from Freshly Made Sketches, but to make it work for my die idea, I turned the sketch on its side. 

The die is "Moose & Pine Trees" from Cottage Cutz. To cut the rectangles and silver panel, I used "Dotted Rectangles" from Sizzix. I struggled with whether to add a sediment and, if so, where, until I saw this teeny tiny "cheers" stamp in the "Holiday Greetings Mix 1" from SSS. It's really a fabulous set of varied sediment stamps.

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I was going to launch into an essay about why deer remain deer even if there is more than one, yet tree becomes trees, if there is more than one. Then, when I typed the above, I saw from the name that the critters on the die were moose, not deer. Still, why don't moose get an 's?' Cows get an 's.' Or, at the very least, shouldn't moose become meese in the way that goose becomes geese?

And who gets to decide these things? They didn't ask me for my opinion. Did they ask you? 

Which reminds me. Did you know watermelons now come in yellow? On the inside? I tried one and it did my head in. It looks yellow, but tastes the same as the traditional red ones! But that begs the question: if it tastes the same as a red one, why make a yellow 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! 

*Life is too short!

Roses Are Any Color!

Hello Stamplings!

O jp[e upir javomg ... oops, right fingers, wrong keys! I hope you are enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend here in America! We will always remember and be forever grateful to all the men and women who have bravely given their lives in service to our country.♡

During the week I did some spring cleaning which I find weirdly enjoyable, but I also made a few cards because, you know, I'm not completely nuts. Did you snicker or was that a hairball in your throat?

Onefer

You might recognize both Jen's sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and the colors from Color Hues. My friend Lynette made pretty cards recently using one of my favorite techniques. It is known by many names, but I've always referred to it as 'direct-to-stamp' because you apply color directly to your stamp with markers, spritz the stamp with water, and then stamp the image onto paper. 

I happen to have a NBUS stamp which I thought would be perfect for the technique. It's called "Rose" and it's from Art Stamp (carabelle-studio.fr). I had success using classic red and pink markers for the rose and I was mulling over design ideas for those images when, by some miracle, I remembered the Color Hues colors and wallah! Did you know purple roses symbolize enchantment, love at first sight, royalty, mystery, and spiritual growth? (I think AI got a little carried away there.)

You can't see it, but Hammy gently winked the rose, being careful not to let the colors run. Hammy has very short legs which work great on the wheel, but when it comes to chasing running colors, he just sits and watches. Ask us how we know! The frame is from Papertrey Ink and the sediment is from My Favorite Things. 

I'm also playing in the Allsorts Challenge (Anything Goes). Allsorts is celebrating their 17th birthday! Congratulations!!

Twofer

I used a NBUS book die from Pinkfresh Studio called "Floral Tale" for this design. It comes with lots of stencils and flower dies, but for this inaugural outing, I made a Christmas card design using evergreens. The NBUS 3D e/f is from SSS, called "Delicate Pine Branches." The tiny evergreen stamp and sediment are from GKW.

Today is the 25th, which means it's the start of this month's Rudolph's Day Challenge and the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is A = Anything Goes. I'm also playing in Addicted to Stamps and More (Christmas).

Stanley Redux

Just as a reminder Hammy and Stanley went to stay with our neighbors last year while The Mister was laid up. During that time, their little girl Daphne fell in love with Stanley, so he continued living with her and we walked back and forth often to let the lads have time together. 

Last week we learned from Daphne that her Dad had been transferred and the family was moving to Sydney. Sadly for her, hamsters are not allowed in Australia. We had quite an emotional goodbye with lots of stories, hugs, and tears. 

We will miss Daphne, but happily for us, Stanley is back home and the two critters are elastic to be back together again! And Hammy and I can use the young 'un around here to keep us on our toes!

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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! 

*Life is too short!

Happy California Poppy Day!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing great! We had a lovely Easter and I'm writing this on Sunday night, stuffed to the gills! I don't actually have gills, so I don't know why people say that, but I'm stuffed to there, so this will be a quickie. 

The carrot cake for dessert did it. Next year I'm having dessert first!

Onefer

Today really is California Poppy Day. It is one of my favorite springtime flowers here. They pop up everywhere along roadsides and in yards and by the thousands at the California Poppy Reserve. 

This poppy is from "Creative Chaos" by Visible Image. It is the first Monday of the month which means I = Ink on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. I used one of my favorite mediums ~ my Ziggies. I had my little helper add the schparkle with his winking and a simple black card base and Memory Box black and gold sediment finished it off.

Playing in: Allsorts Challenge (Springtime or A/G), CAS on Friday (Botanicals), Dragonfly Dreams April Challenge (CAS).

And there are two challenges where the theme includes "E" is for ?. I think the poppy is "E"nchanting" so I'm also playing in: AAA Card (It starts with E) and Inkspirational (CAS with option of E).

Twofer 

The toadstools are from The Greetery called, "BotaniCuts Toadstool Garden" stamp and die set. I'm not sure who makes the postage stamp die; I think I might have borrowed a friend's die at one of my past craft retreats. 

The border uses some ancient dotted swiss paper which I cut with my old pinking shears. That's right ~ those huge pinking shears for cutting fabric! They haven't been used for that since the dark ages, but I pulled them out of the dusty sewing box because years ago I donated my 50 pairs of little colored skizzors that we all had with different teeth designs. Ah, the memories of the early craft days before die-cutting and dies and embossing folders.

Gee, boomer, you ask, just how old are you?!

Playing in: Addicted to Stamps and More (Any Occasion), Freshly Made Sketches, Krafty Chicks (Birthday), and Die-Cut Divas.

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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! 

*Life is too short!

Happy Pencil (Stencil) Day! Happy April Fool's Day! Happy Easter! Phew!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are feeling your oats, cheerios, or bran flakes, because as you can tell from the title, we have busy days ahead of us this week! You might think Happy Pencil Day is a joke because of April Fool's Day, but it snot. It's truly a day to celebrate the pencil. Which we know, sadly, is becoming obsolete.

I've made a card for the occasion and for S = Stencil on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar on this rare fifth Monday of the month. 

Onefer

I used a NBUS stripe stencil from Honey Bee Stamps for the notepaper background, inked in navy blue ink. Next, I sponged ink around the edges to draw your eyes to the hocus pocus sweet child in the center holding her mysteriously humongous pencil. 

The image is "tiny townie Penelope has a pencil" from Stampingbella. That sentence is a Double Alliterative, in case you wondered. I would have gone for a Triple by adding ... "poised pointedly."

I colored the image using my Ziggies and Hammy topped it off with his winker. I cut the image using a stitched oval die from MFT. The text panel is from my pp stash and the wee sediment is part of the stamp set. (Please ignore the splotch in the lower right. Sometimes hamsters have to sneeze.)

Playing in: AAA Colourful (Navy and Gold); Addicted to CAS (Stripes); Freshly Made Sketches (Sketch by Amy).

Twofer

I used a new set of ink pads which I received from The Mister yesterday for no specific reason. What a sweetie!♥️The image is dynamic and, as you can see, very emotionally evocative. I colored it with ... wait. What?! Oh, that man! He got me with an April Fool's Day prank ~ clearly the ink pads were filled with invisible ink!!

Threefer

This pretty NBUS stencil from Pinkfresh Studio is inked over its partner NBUS coverplate die called, "Petal Mosaic." The three inks I used are from Catherine Pooler and the sediment is an ancient PTI favorite. Bun E. Frogman came out for his annual hello to you!

Playing in: Just Us Girls (Stencil Week); Try it on Tuesday (Spring); and Pinkfresh Studio (March 2026 Challenge).

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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! 

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Happy Spring to all! Enjoy this time with your family if you are fortunate to be together!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!