Bumps, Dots, and Flakes

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well. You know, under the circumstances. I know it goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it often anyway: thank goodness for this hobby as a feel-good distraction because making and sending a handmade card to someone is a guaranteed way to make two people smile.

Or maybe three. I've got a Threefer for you today, so here we go.

Onefer

At a recent Zoom craft session, we used 3D embossing folders with metallic paper and then we sanded the raised bits. In this case, the bumpy bits. This cool Cobblestone e/f is NBUS from Sizzix. The scalloped cover frame is from Reverse Confetti. The geezer tourist ("Golden Oldies") is NBUS from Art Impressions. The artist of these AI oldster stamps sure knows how to draw geezers and I love the little details like the title of the magazine and the smiley face button on his baseball cap!

The sediment, which is heat-embossed in copper, is from Rubber Dance Stamps. I decided not to color the dude so as not to compete with all that beautiful copper. 

You'll be seeing more examples of my play with my 3D folders and metallic paper as I make my panels into cards. Bonnie is right: it is wonderfully addicting and fun!

I am playing in The Male Room Challenge were they are celebrating their 8th birthday! Congratulations!

~~~

During an earlier Zoom session we had a play with embossing pastes and I finally used a NBUS product called "Stone Effect Concrete" (which has been in residence for ages) to make the next two uber CAS cards. The texture is amazing and the paste is literally hard as concrete once dry so I think it might even make it through the mail with a liner. If not, contrary to my first paragraph, the recipients are going to be unhappy to have crushed concrete in their laps!

Twofer 

The seahorse stencil I used is a Dreamweaver Stencil from Stampendous. The bubble/dot/circle stencil I used is unmarked and the sediment is from SSS. Hammy added a black marker to the seahorse eye which really brought him to life. The seahorse, not Hammy. Hammy is already full of spunkilicious life.

Challenges

• Addicted to CAS: Fishy.
  
• HLS Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Optional: By the sea.

Threefer

The snowflakes stencil is from Memory Box and the sediment is from Creative Expression. You can faintly see that Hammy added tiny drops of snow with his winker here and there on the snowflake panel.

I'm playing in AAA Cards (one inch strip and colored card), Little Red Wagon (stencil), and the Rudolph Days (anything goes Christmas).

~~~

You may not get this until Friday, but as I write this, it is Thursday, National Dog Day, so I thought I should send you off with a photo of sweet baby Nellie sound asleep in her doggie divan in the Playhouse. Enjoy!

And enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, but keep safe! 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!)

It Makes My Bird-Loving Heart Happy!

Hello Stamplings!

I think the summer heat has gone to my head. I was talking to a friend last week about any plans for traveling in the fall and then I asked her if she was going to make her usual trip to the Midwest in late June or early July? Needless to say, she cocked her head in the universal gesture of, "What the hay is wrong with you?!" Oh. This getting old thing is a mental surprise every day. As is the calendar!

Speaking of calendar, it's time to remind you that the current Twofer Card Challenge ends on July 24th. It makes my bird-loving heart happy to see the pairs of birdies in the gallery!

You can imagine the fun I had making these cards! The BIRD stamp my two different designs have in common and which I just HAD to have, is NBUS from Art Impressions. (Bird-Brains UMD1878.) 

Onefer

There are only about a million reasons why you could use this chicken on a card, especially when you have the snarky sediments from Tim Holtz. I used this card as a humorous thank you card for my SIL. The background is a piece of pp (pats self on back). The stitched square frame is from MFT. For the background behind the chick, I did a blend of yellow and gold inks through a honeycomb stencil. I zigged the chicken and Hammy winked her. She was really out cold cuz she never moved a feather and you know it had to tickle, especially on those feet!

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.
  
• CAS Colours & Sketches: Sketch.
  
• HLS July Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Repeat Impressions Theme J1421: Patterned paper and a stamped image.

Twofer

And then I got nostalgic and turned my chicken into a Christmas wreath. Chicken wreaths used to be a tradition in a small town in Missouri where my sister once lived. She moved several years ago and the tradition may be going on for all I know. The youngsters had such fun dying the feathers and feet green and red while the grownups sat behind the wood shed and drank moonshine. For weeks afterwards the kids would show up at school with their hands and arms dyed up to their elbows! (Hanging a chicken wreath on your door was thought to ward off sickness. I personally think the stink warded off visitors and hence nobody brought germs into your house.)

Hammy made the wreath even more festive by adding a wee holly stamp here and there and then winking the entire wreath. I heat-embossed the sediment in princess gold powder and chomped the corners.

Challenges

• HLS July Christmas: Anything goes.
  
• Less is More: Christmas in July.
  
• Shopping Our Stash: Christmas in July.

~~~

I hope you have time to play in the Twofer Card Challenge this month! We all have bird stamps, dies, or stencils that are just waiting to fly onto your two different card designs! We are fortunate to have Maria and Coni as our guest designers, as well as lots of inspiration from the talented Design Team!

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! 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!

An update from the Back Department: both of us are much better, still waiting for some medical follow ups, but all in all 👍! I send my return best wishes to all of you (or your family) who are suffering with illness or floods or drought. 

*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!)

Lifting Spirits With Balloons!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well! A lot of you are in the deep freezer and I sure hope you can climb out of there soon. That's no fun being that cold.

It's hard to belief, but it's the 10th already, which means Twofer Time! I thought about choosing hearts for the prompt, but the challenge runs past VD, so how about 🎈BALLOONS🎈? 

And if you still need a Valentine and you have a heart-shaped balloon, well there you go for one of your occasions! Or, if you just want to make cards to lift two peeple's spirits, playing in TCC is a fun way to do that!

Here are my Twofers to inspire you:

I used an unmarked stencil for my 🎈BALLOONS🎈 prompt on my two different designs for two different occasions.

Onefer

Until the trend happened of using long-handled makeup brushes for ink blending, I made a mess of blending balloons (and anything else). No more!👏I'm tickled pink with my balloons. I used Catherine Pooler inks. I drew on the little balloon strings and the confetti and big balloon strings are from SSS's "Celebrate" stencil. The sediment from "Critter Celebration" by Penny Black was white heat-embossed. 

There was no winking here because I like the balloons the way they are, so I asked Hammy if he wanted to try his paw at putting the front panel on the turkoyce card base. I love how he intentionally attached it asque for even more interest! In fact, I'm so impressed that I've decided he deserves an upgrade to those mini carrots that come already peeled. As you can imagine peeling those tiny unpeeled carrots take him forever and that's just a waste of his talents.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthdays.
  
• HLS Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Anything goes (w/o option of Hearts.)

Twofer

This was a fun QACAS design to make. The pram is "Baby Carriage" from Memory Box. I used the same stencil to ink on the pink balloon and then drew the balloon string. The elegant border was a gift from a friend and the v.o. sediment banner is from GKW. 

Challenges

• HLS CAS: Love is in the air. Nothing says L.O.V.E. like a new baby!
  
• Make the Cards: Congratulations.

~~~

I can't wait to see how you use a 🎈BALLOON🎈 stamp, die, or stencil to design two different layouts for two different occasions for the Twofer Card Challenge!! We are pleased to have Greta as our Guest Designer this month! You will love how she and the talented Design Team have made Twofers to inspire you! Thank you for playing!

        

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, but keep safe! LITS!*

We are only four days away from Cupid's holiday! Enjoy it the best way you can during a damnepic! For anyone alone, I'm sending you a mwah through my mask and a huge hugagram!🤗

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!)

Stencil Time and A New Dawn

Hello Stamplings,

Yesterday, thank goodness, was a great day of inspiration, calm, and peace here in America as a centuries-old transfer of power took place. It was a celebration that brought me to tears. I know many of you from around the world join me in feeling uplifted and thankful. 

I realize there is much disagreement on issues, but we need to compromise and communicate to find solutions for things that impact all of us. And I hope from now on our leaders and representatives from both parties will resist the pull of greed and the thirst for power by remembering they work for us, that they act like adults, treat everyone with respect, tell the truth, and practice the Golden Rule. After all, isn't that what they learned from their parents and what they teach their children? 

It will be okay. 

A little CAS mixed-media for you with this one, which, as you might know, is not that easy to do! Thanks to my friend Lolly generously sharing her skills on Zoom, I now dip my toes in ink and Gesso ... wait. What? Oh, heck, go ahead and use your toes if you want! Life is too short!

For this technique*, we were to tape off a border of our card and as you can see, I naturally picked the widest roll of masking tape I own, which left me with a teeny-tiny rectangle of workspace. We gessoed that space to add texture. Because it acts as an emboss-resist, we then blended distress inks through a stencil. My stencil was made by Tim Holtz. Or maybe Mario made it. (They don't put their initials on them, but in case they read my blog😆, I think they should.)

I finished my card with an vintage MFT butterfly, a simple timely popped-up sediment, and schplatters. Hammy winked the DI inks and you can't really see it, but the panel was adhered to a black card base.

Challenges

• A Place to Start: Anything goes.
  
• CAS Mix Up: Splatters. Stamping, stenciling, sponging, masking, schplattering.
  
• The House That Stamps Built: Anything goes.

* Videos:

Hero Arts video

Eileen Godwin video

Twofer

This QACAS birthday card uses an unmarked circle stencil and CP inks. I made several of these in various colors and Hammy went to town with the winking ... I can stop telling you that, right? You all know he's addicted now. I don't know what I'd do without him and it's super cool that his fur is a permanent shade of schparkle!

Challenges

• AAA Birthday: A stencil background.
  
• HLS Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Uniko: Anything goes with a twist of stencil.

~~~

Addendum

On the far, far off-chance you thought that really was my wedding photo in the last post, this is the real one:

Many of you have seen it before. I didn't have toilet paper in my ears, but it does look like I had price tags on my headpiece. What can I say? That was the style, along with empire-waist "Juliet" wedding dresses. (I still remember how difficult it was sewing those puffy sleeves out of some kinda stiff shimmery fabric.) Just look at us! What children we were! You'd think people were still getting wed in 1971 as young as Romeo and Juliet were. I mean, we weren't, but that's how rumors get started.

~~~

I hope you get a chance to see and hear the United States youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman's recitation at the inauguration ceremony. She is only 22 years old and she'll knock your socks off! You can find it on YouTube here and the full text of her poem is available at various sites. What an inspiration!

...

The new dawn blooms as we free it,
For there is always light.

If only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

~~~

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

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!)