Year of the Shrago!

Happy Chinese New Year!

There is a bit of confusion over what animal sign is associated with the year 2015. Some say it's the Year of the Sheep. Some say Year of the Goat. Some say Year of the Ram. Apparently, we have options this year because those are all the ways "yang" is translated into English. So I propose we say it is the Year of the Shrago.

In the Year of the Shrago, you will find your Mo Joe Juice will be flowing at new all-time high levels of creativity. Bravo!

All this is my way of reminding you that I am guest designing for a wonderful challenge going on over at Inkspirational with a photo that has an Asian influence. We would love to see you participate! There are many floral designs you can come up with even if you don't have any traditionally Asian stamps, plus there are always digital images available.

I have more inspiration for you today. (Did you get your beverage? Okay, good.)

So last week when I was doing my original card for Inkspirational, I heat-embossed two "Love" symbols on the pretty origami paper. The first one you can find here or on the Inkspirational site. I thought for this second card, a butterfly I found in my drawer would make a nice accompany mint:

Rather than a Spellbinders rectangle die for embossing, for this card I used a rectangle mat die, which I believe came from PTI. It's a perfectly fine card, right?

Well, ahem, yesterday I thought I should deepen the grooves of my embossing to make it more pronounced, so I reached for an angled thingie that I have in my carousel for doing rub-ons. It was a bit dirty on the end, but it looked like it would work, so I took my metal ruler and grooved.

Aacckk! It turns out, gasp, that wasn't just some stain on the end, it was dog-gone INK! Sah-lap! What a dumb-dumb! INK! That'll make you drop a thing like a hot potato and fly backwards in your chair!

Well, hey now, it was too pretty to throw away, so I just inked the whole way round to fix it:

I even like it better. Here's a close-up of the sheen and shine:

And there you go. I do hope you will play along with the Inkspirational Challenge in any way that inspires you!

I'm also entering:

• CASology "Monochrome" challenge.
• Less Is More: "Wings"

And, then, since whenever I see a butterfly, I want to play in Mrs. A.'s Butterfly Challenge, I looked across the pond to see the brief. Beg your pardon? This month we are to use a ribbon with our butterflies. Well, chile, there is a blank space inside that rectangle in that lower right sweet spot, so ho ho how about this?

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Part Two

Now let's turn our attention to a more whimsical card. It turns out I don't have an image of a Shrago. Nor, (I don't think) of a Goat or a Ram. But I happen to have a NBUS sheep from Paper Smooches!

This card makes me grin. I like the current CTS sketch, so I started with that. Hammy pointed me to my star collection, which made no sense, but when I opened the drawer and worked my way to the back, I found this awesome bit of ribbon I've had since the last century. It's gorgeous IRL, so that became my band and, well, I have to admit, stars and celebrations DO go together!

I then did an acrylic block watercolor background using the same colors in the ribbon. I stamped the sheep on the dry watercolor and fussy cut it. Then I made a stitched oval using my Lil' Inker dies. My NBUS sentiment from the Stampendous set "Retro Ornament Set" was laid out on an acrylic block before stamping so that it would curve to fit the oval. Then I popped on the sheep and punctuated the design with a little star cut from my watercolor paper using my NBUS Framelits dies.

Once I took the photo, I realized that I really should have embossed the card with the stitches, too, so I ran it through my Big Shot to do just that. Here is one without the stitches:

And here is one with the stitches:

 

I felt like I was too clever by half when it worked! Erm, well, not really. Unfortunately, it squished my oval panel and now it looks like somebody took that wool and put it in the washing machine and now it's a too-tight sweater over those pop-dots! Oops.

I am entering my non-squished Year of the Sheep card in:

• CAS(E) This Sketch
• Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge: Anything Goes [Paper Smooches Stamps]

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Part Three

I am trying to make two cards for every one card and, as it happens, I had just enough of that pretty ribbon to make one more card, thusly:

 

For this card, I used a different sketch (below). I used a stitched circle instead of an oval and cut it out of craft foam and I used a kookoo bird instead of a sheep.

The birdie is really new NBUS. It is the result of another instance of enabling, except this time I can't remember who did the enabling. The stamp set is by Tim Holtz, called "Bird Crazy." There are six birds in the brood and you will be seeing all of them. They moved in here and immediately hit it off with the hamster!

For this card, I did a little cosmetic surgery on the head and tail feathers and then I colored her with my colored pencils. The "Hey" is also NBUS from Avery Elle. The eyeballs are, I think, from Darice.

Once again, after taking the photo, I wished I had stitched the card base, so I popped out her eyeballs and ran her through the Big Shot. Here then, is the "after" shot:

That's better, no pop-dots to squish on this one. She nails you with that look, doesn't she? You're not quite sure if that's a "Hey, how's it goin'?" or a "Hey, whadder you lookin' at?" Or, maybe a "Hey! Why did you squish me?"

Challenges

• Freshly Made Sketches: Sketch
• Cure For the Monday Blues: Photo Inspiration. (My first time here.)
• The Card Concept: Photo Inspiration "Get Well Soon." I was inspired by the stars. My card is clean and simple and if it doesn't bring a smile to someone not feeling well, they are badly sick. Like in a coma.
• Shucks, I missed the Feathered Friends challenge at The Paper Players.

Any of the challenge links will provide you with information on rules, sponsors, and prizes!

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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!

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Inkspirational Guest Designer ~ Last 2015 Valentines

Hello and Happy St. Valentine's Day to everyone! I hope you all have a magical day of love!

I'm honored to be the Guest Designer for the very fun Inkspirational Challenge #76, where we have an Asian-inspired photo inkspiration for you:

Because today is Valentine's Day, I made a simple card of love:

When I first started stamping about 13 years ago, there was a trend for Asian stamps and card designs, so I have a few of those stamps, along with some origami papers. The "love" sediment above is from a set of SU Japanese character stamps. The fluffy fabric heart was given to me by my friend Andrea. I embossed the rectangle mat using a Nestabilities die.

Thank you to the DT of Inkspirational for letting me play along! I hope you will check out the challenge and join us!

Other Challenges

• CASology, "Love."
• My friend Leslie Hanna has started The Crooked Stamper Sketch Challenge, so I'm also entering there. It would be wonderful if you could give her new challenge a try!

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While I Was At It

The outer wrapper of my origami paper was falling apart so I took it off and started to throw it away. Then Hammy took a flying leap to land on my hand and pointed excitedly at the Japanese characters on the wrapping. "Hmmm?" he cooed. "Hmm. Hmm," I responded.

Together we tossed ideas hither and fro and then my eyes fell on a shipping envelope that had just arrived from my friend Sarn of Stamping for Pleasure. Sarn loves to Zentangle so much that she started designing her own "Sarntangles." We all loved them so much that she had some of them manufactured into stamps! What a woman! What an artist! The set is so fun and you can order one by clicking on the link above. 

So, anywhittle, I used one of my NBUS Sarntangles and the label from my origami paper and I made this:

To make it a Valentine, I used one of the stamps with hearts. The textured card back is the reverse side of a piece of burlap paper. The Sarntangle was stamped in Stazon ink and then watercolored with SU watercolor pencils and a water brush. It was overstamped with a NBUS splatter stamp from the SU set "Gorgeous Grunge."

I'm assuming the symbols spell out "origami," but I actually have no idea, so if it is an offensive word, I hope someone will let me know. In the meantime, since it's Valentine's Day, let's pretend it spells out "I love you!"

Challenges

• Colour Me ...!, photo inspiration.
• Casual Fridays, "Must Love Watercolor."
• Just Add Ink, Pink photo inspiration. (My first time playing here.)
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, "Red and Pink."
• Stamplorations Sketch for February, below.

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New Friends Corner

Please help me give a warm welcome to these five new friends of the Playhouse:

Maxine D. of Kiwime's Kreations. As her blog name suggests, Maxine is from New Zealand. She is married, the mother of two, and the grandmother of three. She has been blogging since 2009, so a lot of you may already be familiar with Maxine through her service on many design teams and her awards from many challenges. You can tell from her card art that Maxine loves texture and dimension and she executes her cards with tender loving care!

Olga Brilenkova of Craftroom: So Many Ideas. Olga has been blogging since January 2014, so she just had her one year blog birthaversary! Olga is a Russian living in Portugal and when she is not crafting, she is an architect. Olga loves scrapbooking, flower arranging, and she is a wedding decor expert. She began making card art in March 2013 by making wedding invitations. I know you will love the beauty and talent Olga brings to everything she does!

Borqna of Borqna. Borqna started blogging in 2011. She makes wonderful albums and scrapbooks and cards and she loves to play in challenges! The more the merrier! Everything is bright and full of life on Borqna's blog. She also shares some amazing photography, so I know you'll enjoy your visit to Borqna!

Marsha Drain of Gramma's Room. Marsha started blogging in 2010, but she made terrific scrapbook albums and cards for years before that. She is a prolific contributor to OWH with her beautiful cards, some of which are 3D. Marsha is a grandmother of ELEVEN (sooo jealous!) and she also loves sharing her fantastic photographs from time to time. You'll love her impeccably made and fabulous works of card art!

Synnöve of Seraphina's Phantasie. Synnöve is from Germany. She started her blog in June 2011. She combines her spectacular skills as a photographer with her spectacular skill as a paper artist. Everything is very refined and sophisticated about Synnöve's blog. You can feel yourself immediately relaxing and wanting to spend hours visiting her!

Thank you for joining, ladies, 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!

We are having the grandtwins until Monday as it's a long weekend here! Yippie!!

  

 

*Life Is Too Short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling:

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Click Page Down to reach the end of the post.
Click Comments and the pop-up box opens.
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If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!