OLC QACAS Cards

Hi! How's it going?

Some of you have asked, so I wanted to let you know that we are not in any danger from all the fires burning in California. I appreciate the concern. Our hearts go out to those who have been impacted and, of course, we keep praying for rain here and in so many other western states and Canada as we struggle with the ongoing drought.

Because of water restrictions, I haven't been able to have as many wonderful flowering plants in the garden and around the Playhouse, but I did want to share with you this photo of how big our purple statice has grown this year, in spite of the heat and limited water. (Or rather because of?)

This picture was taken from inside the Playhouse looking west. I am fortunate to have a similar large purple statice in view from the north side of the Playhouse, but I forgot to take a picture of it. Here you can see some of the drought-tolerant grasses that now reside in pots and beyond is the purple statice where I often taken photos of my cards. (The pink is a flowering crepe myrtle tree just finishing its bloom.)

The temperatures came down from 105 and I have a hamster back home and eager to work, so we whipped up a couple of one-layer cards (OLC) which are QACAS (quick and clean and simple). First:

This card was made for the current PTI Make It Monday challenge of "Masking Sentiments." The card base is PTI's "Fine Linen." I die-cut an oval as my mask and stamped the NBUS ferns from PTI's "Meadow Greens" in pinefeather ink. I removed the mask and stamped the sediment from PTI's "Signature Greetings." In her excellent video, Ashley outlined all around her frame, but I decided to outline only the part of my frame encased by ferns. A few score lines and enamel dots and shazambam the card was done!

Other Challenges

• AAA Cards: Maskerade.
• City Crafter Challenge: Around the Corner.
• Less Is More: Theme: Congratulations.

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Today's Twofer

My twofer is another simple one-layer QACAS "number," haha. (BTW, I heard the other day that "LOL" [laugh out loud] is no longer being used. Instead everyone is going back to using what I never stopped using: "haha." My son would hate it when I put haha after something I said in an email to him. Now, look, son, everyone is doing it, haha.)

But, I digest.

I ran across a piece of this patterned paper in my stash about a month ago and Hammy has been saving it in the staging area behind his cage. Sure enough, here came a slew of back-to-school challenges and we jumped on it.

Above the pp, I placed a single layer of numbered Washi tape from a Cavallini & Co. Washi tape set called "Numbers." Above that I embossed the sediment from SU in SU gumball green. Shazambam!

Challenges

• Addicted to CAS: Code Word: School.
• CASology: Cue Card: Number. 
• Freshly Made Sketches: They are celebrating their 200th sketch challenge! Congratulations! I love their sketch challenges. Here's to the next 200!
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Back to School.

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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!

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Oh, The Places You Will Go! NBUS #134

Hello Fellow Travelers and Happy Funday!

I have the pleasure of broadcasting today from inside a fun new challenge that just started this year. The incredibly talented card artists behind Words 2 Scrap By have kindly asked me to join them today as their Guest I-Teamer, along with the fabulous Carol L. of Our Little Inspirations! I am so honored! I love the word challenges available to us in Blogland right now and I hope you will join us in playing in this one!

The Words 2 Scrap By for this challenge are: "Oh, The Places You Will Go! " 

Who doesn't love that wonderful book by Dr. Seuss?! In the spirit of those inspiring words of new beginnings, I made this: 

{source}

I reread the book for this challenge and found I had forgotten how profound it is and how worth reading it is for children of any age! It covers all the usual enthusiasm I remembered, but it is also practical and realistic about those times when you'll lose, or you'll be Left In The Lurch, or you'll be alone ... such hard times ... but wait, you've got brains in your head and feets in your shoes, so there isn't anything you can't work out or get through!

YAY! Hal E.Luya! Anything is possible!

For my congradulations card with limitless possibilities and a balloon overflowing from the car trunk, I used lots of NBUS: Papertrey Ink's "Enjoy the Ride" stamp set and die; Papertrey Ink's "Rainbow Stripes" die; tags are made with a new-to-me SU punch (I don't remember the name); the balloon is Lil' Inker's "Balloons" die. The graduation cap, diploma, and stars are Mrs. Grossman's stickers, and the sediment is made by Darnell's computer. The banner is not NBUS, but I don't remember the brand and there is a raccoon in the backyard so I can't go out to the Playhouse right now and check. It's a long story.

I used lots of snippets on my card, so I'm also linking my card with the fun challenge at Pixie's Snippets Playground.

And I'm linking with the always popular Anything Goes challenge at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, where the prize is always a fabulous $50 gift voucher!

~~~

I would love to see what card or scrapbook layout or other project (graduation party goodies?) you come up with! Besides graduations, how about for someone who is retiring, or for a newly married couple ... let's see what those brains in your head come up with! Thank you for playing along!

~~~

New Friends Corner

I'm so happy to introduce you to our newest friend, Nikki, of Graphix and Designs. Nikki has been blogging since 2009. She is a designer and an artist, both in IRL and digitally. Let's just say she is extremely talented and when you visit you will find everything from sweet to scary! It's a trip worth taking!

Thank you, Nikki, and welcome to the Playhouse!

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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 leave a comment and/or 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 the pop-up box opens.
Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!

Happy CASology Gradulations Day!

Hey!  Hey!

I had a few unexpected things happen today that I wanted to share.

 

I wanted to play in this week's CASology challenge, where the cue card is one of the trendy trends happening right now (hexagons), because I recently purchased an embossing folder with hexagons or a hexagon die ~ I couldn't remember which.  What perfect timing! 

During a break in the laundry, I went looking through my OCD-organized dies and embossing folders for the hexagon.  There is no such embossing folder or die in the Playhouse.  No hexagon, no honeycomb, no nothing like that.  Don't even ask.  I have no idea.  I either dreamt it or it's waiting in a shopping cart or on a wish list somewhere.  Senior moments abound, alas.

 

But then, wait.  I had some craft stuff out on my desk to make a couple of graduation cards and I thought, hey, aren't mortar boards hexagonal?  I looked at my mortar board stamp and found out that they aren't.  They are squares on top of half circles with pointed foreheads.  But why couldn't they be hexagonal?  In Darnell World they can be, so I made this:

 

 

Totally QACAS!  I drew a hexagon and cut it out.  I poked a hole, pulled the twine through, and attached it to the card base with pop dots.  I stamped the sediment and added some glittery gold highlights to the fun spaghetti, er, confetti. 

Shazambam!  I think I'll be using this idea again for gradulations cards.

~~~

Next, knocking on the Playhouse door was a new friend!  Please help me welcome Tamara King of Pickled Papercrafts (love the name)!  BTW, you can find awesome cards on her website featuring hexagons!  Thank you so much for joining the fun, Tamara!

 

~~~

 

Lastly, a nest update.  As a reminder, here is the nest I found in one of our hanging baskets last Tuesday, May 7th:

 

 

So the little future bird doesn't drown when Mister waters the hanging baskets with the hose, I have taken over watering this basket by hand with the watering can.  This afternoon I did a three-point execution to stand up on the bench (sorry for that visual) and when I tipped the basket to make sure I wasn't pouring water in the wrong place, I saw this!

 

 

Say what?!  Oooh, I'm so excited!  These are definitely better odds!

 

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

Thank you so much for stopping by the Playhouse. Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment or join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!

Paper:  PTI white, true black
Stamp:  Embossing Arts Co.,
  817-D "Happy Graduation"
Ink:  Versafine onyx black
Pen:  atyou Spica
Twine:  doodle twine

Mojo Monday #291 ~ Dream

A Sunny Hello!

 

And we're back around to Friday ~ whoosh!

 

I have missed Days 3 and 4 of my online card class, so I've got some catching up to do in class time and in homework.  Oopers.  I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning up the Playhouse, which means I'm also behind in my visits to you.

 

A lot of you know that I love polka dots and plaids and stripes.  You may have noticed that I like my ribbons bespectacled in this way, too.  I've purchased dotty ribbons from SU! and PTI and striped ribbons from SU!  The truth is, however, that until they ended up together on my desk a couple of weeks ago for some forgotten purpose, I had never noticed how striking the stripey SU! ribbons were together. 

 

 

I was really taken with them and I wanted to make a card with them.  I HAD to make a card with them, but they weren't dressed for the various events on my calendar.  So they waited.  While they waited, I kept stacking them in different color order, fondling them when I was on the phone.  I wished I had a straw hat so I could make happy ribbon hatbands for it.

 

And then along came yesterday.  Yesterday I was a Hoover with a Master's Degree in Organization and Efficiency, deployed in Operation Clean Sweep.  If they were going on a card together, it was now or maybe never.  From behind my apron strings, peeked little Miss Nida Challenge. 

 

She's a persistent little thing, so I searched my Challenges tab to see what was on tap and lookie here what I found!  An absolutely perfect sketch at Mojo Monday.

 

As you can see, it is "Round or Square" week and the sketch, seemingly made just for me, is by the talented Julee Tilman.

 

I haven't played at Mojo Monday for a while and I'm delighted to do so again.  I'm pretty sure that Mojo was the very first sketch challenge that I played in and I did so often.  It's a popular challenge and the sketches are usually more layered than I prefer, but I have never felt unwelcome with my CAS cards.  Check them out if you haven't already!

 

Here is my card.

 

 

This will make a cheery graduation card for my niece who is getting her real  Master's and going on to medical school.  It was actually pretty QACAS, so I went to see if my colors would fit for the current 10-Minute Craft Dash, but not.  (Hey, if that had happened, I would have had to wash my face and put on shoes and go buy a lottery ticket!)

 

~~~

 

My ribbons are now happily back with their color families and I can resume my classes and visits and shopping.  Wait.  How did that get in there?  And why do you need a resume to take an online class?

 

~~~

 

I'm pickled tink to announce that we have Julie Juhl joining our journey!  Julie, I can't find your website if you have one.  If you do, please email and let me know, so that I can share your site with everyone!  Thank you for following!

 

~~~

 

Member the Cooper's Hawks I told you about that were perching often in our neighbor's tree?  This is a photo of one of them:

 

 

Well, well, well.  They have moved over to OUR large maple.  This is the result:

 

 

Nature giveth and giveth!  And spit happens.

 

~~~

 

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

Thank you so much for stopping by the Playhouse. Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment or join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!

 

Paper:  PTI vintage cream; SU! melon mambo,

  wild wasabi

Stamp:  PTI (I think) from a "Dream Big" stamp

Ink:  SU! not quite navy

Ribbon:  SU! melon mambo, wild wasabi, and

  not quite navy; cheapo skinny organza

Pop Dots

Retrosketches #13 ~ Graduation Card

Gluten Oben this Tuesday!

As I've hopped around the blogs the last several months, I've seen fellow crafters playing in the Retrosketches challenges and this is my first time joining in.  This week's sketch:

(I love how these sketches are literally sketches, complete with coffee/tea cup stains!  It was very hard for me not to add the stain to my card!)

I made a graduation card:

The twins were four years old when their father graduated from law school.  Adam made me so proud when he said, "Daddy has his congraduations today!"  A chip off the old block.

Which reminds me.  When Daddy (our son) was just learning to speak, I commented to Mister on a Sunday drive through the countryside, "You know when you stop and think about it, you could really mess up a kid.  What if we told him that horses were cows and cows were horses?  I mean, he doesn't know."  Mister smiled a bit condescentedly and drove me back to the care center.

Well, of course, I didn't do that to our son, but I did tell him the story when he had his own sons.  Now he thinks it's really funny to embellish lie and tell people that I DID teach him the wrong words for things.  As if. 

I'm so delighted to welcome a new follower today!  Please stop and visit the awesome Karen of Serendipity Dragonfly.  Isn't that a great blog banner?!

Please enjoy ~ and, as always, thank you for stopping by to visit.   Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

Paper:  Stampland glossy; PTI white;
  glossy gold unknown
Stamp:  SU Sprinkled Expressions
Ink:  Ancient Page black
Ribbon:  Offray 39271 Congrats
Dimensionals:  eksuccess

BTW, I see there is a smudge on my camera lens. Sorry about that. I'll clean that right up.