A Purrfect Place to Play

Hello Stamplings,

This morning I set my glass of wodka water down on my desk, but the desk wasn't quite as far away as I thought, so it went down with a bang and splashed everywhere. How many times ...?! More on that later. Glad it was just a glass and not my foot. My sister-in-law AND my brother-in-law both did that when coming down a flight of stairs (not at the same time). She shattered an ankle and he crunched a knee. Both needed surgery. Darn diminished depth perception. Watch out for it.

I recently won a challenge at the Day of the Month Card Club, which means I have the honor of being the Guest Designer for the current challenge! You know how there are several "Day of" events happening every day around the world, many of which are obscure and funny? Well, the talented ladies of the Day of the Month challenge want us to celebrate those occasions. So what are we celebrating for the current challenge? 

Why it's "Hug Your Cat Day!"

I don't have many cat stamps because we are a family owned by dogs, but when I found this ancient image, this card design sprang to mind. The stamp is called Play Time Kitty (by Rubber Stampede), but to me that little face looked more wistful than playful. 

I started with a linen card which I scored in an attempt to make it look like the siding on a house. The window is from Poppystamps. I put a very old slip of textured paper inside the window to look like wallpaper behind the cat, who was Ziggified. The NBUS sediment is from Altenew and the shrubbery is from Pink Fresh Studio.

Won't you corral your kitty cat and come and play with us at the Day of the Month Card Club? We'd love to see what you make! You'll find more fabulous inspiration by Gundi, Rosi, and Cornelia over on the challenge blog!

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Now I know you know that I know you know that I can't let you go without showing you a Twofer. And what better way to balance out a kitty cat card than with a birdie card? 

Using distress inks and my makeup brushes, I blended two ombre strips in green onto my card front, one wide and one narrow. Remember that spill I talked about when you first came in? Well, most of the spill landed on the wide blended strip. Now, normally, a few water spots on an inky panel are a good thing, but not one big glop right in the middle that ruins your ombre, hombre. So I blended another panel and attached it over the ruined one. Never a dull momo in the Playhouse.

After all that and a large restorative gulp of my wodka water, I diecut the birdie (thank you, Col and Lin!) from a smooched Lindy-Magicals-on-Yupo snippet and perched her on the top ombre strip. The NBUS sediment is from The Ton. Hammy applied a black glass eye and I added the heart punch-outs.

Here's a better view of how glimmery the Magicals are on Yupo:

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Ombre + stamping + masking + blending + die-cutting.
• CAS on Friday: Birds.
• Fusion Card: Rainbow birds.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Karen's feminine anything goes.

~~~

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!)

Thyroid Awareness Month Blog Hop

And Give Away!

Hello Stamplings! Happy Funday Sunday and I hope this finds you feeling well!

I have a very special post for you today. You may not be aware that January is Thyroid Awareness Month. My friend Crafty Milka has gathered 26 card artists from around the world to support this cause and to raise public awareness of how important your thyroid is and the problems it can cause when it is not working properly.

Onefer

Source

In 2012, a blue paisley ribbon was launched by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists as an icon for thyroid awareness to emphasis the silent epidemic of thyroid disease. That's why I used an ancient snippet of paisley paper as my background panel for the W Plus 9 butterfly frame. The base card is a lovely textured paper from my stash and the NBUS sediment is from MFT, probably also from 2012 (cough). Bits of bling were added by you-know-who. I am entering this card in the Butterfly Challenge.

I was first diagnosed with thyroid disease in 1995 and had half my thyroid removed. This surgery is known as a "lobectomy" and you can imagine the fun I have with that word since it is so close to "lobotomy!" But in all seriousness, I suffered for years from the very long list of symptoms caused by an improperly working thyroid. They are no fun, but fortunately there is synthetic thyroid that's easy to take which brings your body back into balance. Milka has put together a very in-depth blog post detailing the symptoms. She provides numerous important links for you to check out so I won't repeat them here, but I do encourage you to take the time to read her informative post. Thank you, Milka!

Twofer

Because the thyroid is shaped like a butterfly, a butterfly is also a recognizable symbol for campaigns about thyroid health awareness, so I made a second card.

 Here you can see the shine of the silver embossing.

Wait. What? A butterfly on a Christmas card? Well, why not? That's the fun of making our own cards! I wanted to play in the CAS Christmas challenge and I had started my card for that by silver embossing the tree on linen paper. I also wanted to make a butterfly card for this post and I had that pretty blue Brusho butterfly from my Bits Box on my desk to make a second Thyroid Hop card. Hammy waddled over and looked from one to the other and up at me. Down at them, up at me, down at them, up at me, and finally I went Shazambam and there you have it!

I used my ancient and gorgeous Blue Moire embossing powder for the sediment from The Ton. A little something something needed to be added to that right side, so I added a strip of Washi tape and a strip of textured bold blue paper from The Ol' Stasheroo. Please don't Google that, it's not a real thing, although I definitely have enough stash to open a shop called that!

Challenges

• CAS Christmas Card Challenge: Blue and silver.
• City Crafter: Clean and simple.
• Fusion Card Challenge: Challenge graphic. Happy 5th Anniversary!!

Give Away

To thank you for stopping and making it through this post about how important your thyroid is and how important it is to have it checked, I am giving away a Dream Butterfly die. On January 24, 2019, I will choose the winner from my followers who leave a comment. Please make sure I have your email address, either in your comment or via the Contact Form on the side bar, just below where you can double-check you are a follower. Thank you.

Poppystamps "Dream Butterfly"

BLOG HOP LIST

The Hop is running from January 5th to January 30th and all the very talented card artists are listed below. Some of the other designers are also having giveaways on their blogs, so be sure and visit each artist.

• Milka Gubo (January 5th)
• Imke Ludwig (January 6th)
• Jane Taylor (January 7th)
• Kaja Vezenšek (January 8th)
• Samantha Mann (January 9th)
• Andreja Lampe (January 10th)
• Анна Коссаковская (Anna Kossakovskaya) (January 11th)
• Ksenija Rizova (January 12th)
• ValentinaBizjak (January 13th)
• Alexandra (aka Ale) Suta (January 14th)
• Kristina Pavlović (January 15th)
• Tanja Kabel (January 16th)
• Željka Jurkovic-Grizic (January 17th)
• Donna Mikasa (January 18th)
• Sabrina Lamarina (January 19th)
• Darnell Knauss (January 20th) ~ you are here
• Nonni Niskanen (January 21st)
• Larissa Walgemoed (January 22nd)
• Dunja Trautmann (January 23rd)
• Neha Bhatt (January 24th)
• Beverley Brown (January 25th)
• Ishani (January 26th)
• Maja Macura Sakač (January 27th)
• Naz Sasayakiglitter (January 28th)
• Sue Hastead (January 29th)
• Preeti Datta (aka Dutt Preety) (January 30th)

~~~

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

*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! P.S. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Mwah! 

Classic B/W and Red for Christmas

Hello, Stamplings!

Thank you for stopping by today, seeing as how you're exhausted after all that post-Thanksgiving shopping you did over the weekend. When you weren't eating leftovers. Or is that just me?

I won't keep you cuz you know I have tons to do. I mean, I know you have tons to do.

You can count on me for mostly uber-doober QACAS inspiration as it gets closer to Christmas. My cards today took minutes to make. The beautiful image above is NBUS from Unity. I had to buy it (cough) months ago after seeing it on my friend Shelly's blog and I finally got around to inking it up for Christmas. It was stamped onto a corner-chomped OLC base and clear-embossed. The Christmas flower was colored and shaded with Ziggies and the sediment is from Penny Black. Hammy winked the heck out of that flower. Hmm, maybe that's why the colors all blended. Bless his heart.

Challenges

• Less Is More: OLC Holiday.
• Rudolph Days: A/G Christmas.
• TIME OUT: Black, white, and one colour.

Twofer.

Another uber festive card. This full-front text image is an old wooden stamp from Stampendous. I inked it in black and embossed it in clear ep, which you can just make out in the shine here and there. I found a NBUS roll of pretty SU ribbon to tie around the card front. Tip: This is a cheater's bow you tie after you've tried twelveteen times to tie a bow. It's less bulky to mail, too.👏

Challenges

• 52 Christmas Card Throwdown: Ribbon & glitter.
• Fusion: Photo inspiration.
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas: Anything goes.

~~~

Enjoy this busy time of year for us card arteests! 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!)

Vestige of Fall

Hello Stamplings!

Everyone's exclaiming about the fact that it's November even though we know full well it follows October which follows September and the rest of the months, which are all stacked up like dominoes slamming into each other likity-split. As if unexpectedly. I do it, too, proclaiming, "Well, would you look at that!"

The mad dash for Christmas starts in full force, but here in American we have a well-loved Thanksgiving tradition smack in the middle of the mayhem, which makes fall last a few more weeks. So I'm here with a coupla more fall cards and then it will prolly be all Christmas all the time.

Onefer.

When I was in Wisconsin, I was fortunate to stop in at the Gina K. store with my buddies. The leaf you see as the kindness place-card holder is from Gina's Stitched Leaves set which I Ziggified. I borrowed the background stencil from Brenda in Indiana and had a go at it with my Clarity brushes. The sediment is from GKW.

Challenges

• The Card Concept: Rustic Fall. (Clean and Layered.)
• Fusion Card Challenge: Fall Porch. (Photo.)
• TIME OUT Challenges: Gratitude.

Twofer.

The background on this card is a leafy stencil monoprint I made last May with Lindy's Magicals. The leaves are dies from the same Gina K. "Stitched Leaves" set and the pierced fish-tail banner is from Avery Elle. 

Here is a closeup, but I'm not sure if it really shows the beautiful shimmer of the card IRL. Hammy is sulking because these powdered inks are, well, magical in how much they schparkle so no winking is necessary. No, don't even look at him. He'll be fine by tomorrow.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Anything goes.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything goes, but use your snippets!
• Watercooler Wednesday: Anything goes.

Threefer.

Finally, real quick, here is a watercolored card for my lake house friends with a friendship tree from Hero Arts and a sweet cabin from a NBUS Newton's Nook set. 

Challenges

• CAS on Friday: Make a card to brighten someone's day.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything goes.

~~~

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!)

Splashing About

Hello Stamplings,

I had started an opening in my usual perky way, but I've changed gears to share a bit of sadness first. I promise I'll end on a happy note. All across any country, there are incidents and accidents that happen every hour of every day: car accidents, roller coaster accidents, animal bites, killings, tornadoes, falls down stairs, etc., etc. It's never-ending and sad for all those involved.

But an accident occurred near Branson, Missouri on Thursday that is so tragic it bears noting. A boat capsized on a lake when a sudden storm came out of nowhere. It was an amphibious boat. Seventeen people died ranging in age from 1 to 70. That's horrible by itself, but unspeakably, NINE of those people were from the same family.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the members of that devastated family and the other families who lost loved ones in the accident. Suddenly, your painful elbow doesn't hurt as much, the fight you had with your cousin seems ridiculous, and the scorching heat will pass. You just want to hold your family close. Nothing else matters as much.

~~~

I had a bit of a splash earlier in the week before all this happened and my first card turned out to be a bit prophetic.

Onefer

The drops are from Designs by Ryn. Hostess Nancy is encouraging us to have a splashing good time this month at CAS Watercolor. You can find an excellent video about this technique here. It's as simple as it sounds. Splat some watercolor inks or scribble some watercolor markers onto a surface, spritz liberally with water, and then splash your card panel into the ink.

Personally, I think it should be called the "spank" technique because I feel more like I'm spanking my craft mat. Bad mat! Hammy, of course, likes to run in as close as he can so the pretty colors splash all over his fur. Sigh. I try to adopt that attitude, too, after having ruined a few nice tops because I forgot to change before I spanked my ink.

Challenges

• CAS Watercolour July Challenge: Splash Watercolouring.
• Color Throwdown.

Twofer

This birthday design is not CAS, but it is simples as can be. For this card, I splashed a whole card front panel. I thought the NBUS Bloomtangled Cover Plate #2 from Stamplorations was perfect to let the background be the star. I used a pink vellum for the white heat-embossed sediment from WPlus9 so it didn't detract from the splashy background. 

This card reminds me of a pretty summer dress with an eyelet bodice. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the word "bodice."  What a lovely old-timey word that is. Or was. Come to think of it, the word eyelet isn't exactly bandied about any more either. I think I need to up my word relevancy so I can be straight fire with the young'uns.

Challenges

• Fusion Card Challenge: Playing with just the inspiration photo.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Use a die or punch.
• Use Your Stuff: Birthday.

~~~

Speaking of old-timey ... I mentioned recently that we went to a wedding last weekend. Dan and Rachel and the young misters Adam and Henry also attended. These 13-year-olds were gentlemen and well-behaved throughout the ceremony and reception which lasted a few hours. As we left to walk to the car, the boys stopped to visit the restroom and came out looking like this! 

They did this apropopo of nothing but their imaginations. With a raised eyebrow and a pointed look, their father asked, "What's happening here?" They responded, "These are our Frontier Socks." What a hoot!

~~~

Give-Away Winner!

Several of you entered the drawing for the hamster Coffee and Tea set and Hammy drew the winning name out of a teacup. Congratulations to Lisa of A Mermaid's Craft!! Lisa, please email me your mailing address and I will get the gift in the mail to you.

(Don't mention Hammy's whiskers in your comment. He's a bit self-conscious about them. He has never been able to get them to straighten out after he was in the suitcase for so long traveling to and fro England a coupla years ago. Sshhh!)

~~~

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!)

More Finished UCBs

Happy Day, Stamplings!

I hope all is well with you, wherever you are!

We are having a wonderful and busy time, but I did manage a bit of craftiness to put the finishing touches on a few more EZPZ cards from the Unfinished Card Bits (UCB) box. 

I have to keep Hammy from going into complete withdrawal mode, you know. Left to his own devices he'd be sunbathing in the hammock with a pitcher of Tequila Sunrises! Oh, wait, no, that'd be me.

Onefers

These lacy cream-colored card bases are ancient; I think they came from SU. I adhered a strip of Brusho snippets behind the lacy opening and then attached a panel of colored card behind that. 

I'm entering the top lemon and lime concoction in the current challenge at Less Is More, where they want to see the colors of tropical fruits. I'm entering the bottom card in the "Pastel Pencils" Fusion Card Challenge, where I'm playing with just the inspiration photo.

Twofers

 

This selection of happy cards is pretty self-exploratory. The Hooray bases are by Clearly Besotted and they were given to me by my friend Greta a very long time ago. It felt good to make them into cards! Thank you, Greta! The top two backgrounds were made with alcoholic inks on glossy paper and the bottom two backgrounds were made with Brushos. The sediment is from the "Sweet Wishes" set by Penny Black.

I'm entering the top left-side card in the new CAS Mix Up Card Challenge. I've used the required stamping, plus alcoholic inks, plus die-cutting.

Threefer

Again, very simple. I used an MFT stitched circle for the aperture. The tiny bird and bird cage have been in my stash since the cows came home. I attached it and a snippet of pink ribbon to the card with a brad. I'm entering the current "Happy Birthday" Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and the "Pretty in Pink" challenge at City Crafter.

Okay, I must dash waddle off! It's been fun reducing the UCB box, increasing my stash, and keeping Hammy happy!

~~~

 

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

Reminder: I'm over at the Just Us Girls Challenge as Guest Designer for August. This is Word Week and the word is "Shower." I'd love to see you play along!! You have until 9 p.m. EST on Thursday, August 10th to play along!

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 to 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 the 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!