Dies Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well! Well in health, well in spirits, and well in creativity!

This week the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is D = Dies/Die Cuts (which can also be fussy-cuts). Dies are having a heyday right now and I got so charged up, I did a threefer. Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound naughty.

Onefer

For this card, I was inspired by the photo at the 

Inspired By Challenge ~ specifically the frame and the colors of the leafy spray on the mantle.

I found papers in my stash that have a lightly embossed feel, so I used a creamy one for my background here. I used a woodgrain paper to cut my stitched rectangle frame. The vases are dies from Paper Smooches. The stems are a combination of dies from SU and MFT. The sediment is from Gina K's, "A Little Love." 

I'm also adding my card to Cut It Up, where the brief is to add a sentiment and to Snippets Playground, where the brief is to use your scrappy snippets.

Twofer

Here is another piece of the pretty paper I found ~ this time in a beige color. Nothing original about this design, but I can't remember ever doing it before and I love the simplicity of the scene.

Looking at it on my monitor now, the lads and I are karacking up because it looks like we tossed a coupla dog turds on the grass beside the pile of leaves!😂It's okay because the recipient is a dog-loving friend with a fall birthday and a wonderful sense of humor!

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthday.

Cardz 4 Galz: Create a scene.

Krafty Chicks: Birthday.

Threefer

And, thirdly, the challenge at Color Hues schparked another Christmas card for the stash. The poinsettia is an old beauty from Waltzingmouse, colored with my Ziggies in all pinks, even though it came out a bit rusty rose in the photo. Hammy and Stanley were thrilled to have a big field upon which to use their new winkers and when they were finished, I fussy cut it. 

The gray background paper was decorated with a Dotted Scallops cover plate die from Pinkfresh Studio and gold bling and a simple sediment finished it off.

Other Challenges

The Flower Challenge: Add embellishments.

The Holly and Ivy Christmas: Anything Christmas goes.

Just Us Girls: Die Cuts - Florals.

      

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💐I don't say it often enough ... Thank you very much to all the card challenges out there who provide us with endless inspiration and challenge us creatively!👏

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: D = Dies

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using your dies! Your card may help motivate someone out of their creative schlump! I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah!

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!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy Easter, Bunnies!

Hello Stamplings,

I hope you're having a good day and maybe even a wonderful vacation if the kids or grandkids are off on spring break from school!

I don't know what's gotten into me. I'm normally an uber-CAS card designer. A tiny image of a frog and a sediment made a card, or maybe a bevy of mature ladies holding up a bar with their elbows, etc. Hence the term QACAS for quick and clean and simple. But this past week, when I have a million other things to do to prep for company, me and the lads decided to try scene building! 

Onefer

This is week two of April, so the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is D = Dyes. Ha ha, see what I did there? Did you dye your Easter eggs yet? Of course not. Eggs are too expensive. 

The wooden fence is a piece of pp and the grass was made using a NBUS stencil from Waffle Flower and then painted. The fence hole is a stitched oval and the sediment is a sticker, propped up. The hanging leaves are from Altenew's "Leaf Canopy," still one of my favorite leaf stamps and dies.

This Paper Smooches bunny has clearly been working a triple shift or else she is over-sampling the liquor cabinet, but we don't judge. And I think you can see that the lads did a bang-up job winking up the place!

I'm playing in the Inkspirational Challenge where the mood board is decorated Easter eggs and in Inspired By ... Bunnies. 

Besides the white snippets used for the leaves, bunny, and grass, I used lots of pp snippets for the eggs, so I am hopping over to the Snippets Playground with this card. There will be a perpetual Easter egg hunt this week and lots of eggnog. 

Wait. What? Isn't eggnog for Christmas? Turns out the original eggnog recipe dated 1482 has just been unearthed and the eggs used in the recipe were removed from their shells by a small blow hole, so the shells could then be beautifully decorated for Easter!  (Source: a very small AI encyclopedia located in the core of my brain.)

Twofer

Ah, what an idealick springtime scene this is, combining old and new. I started by stamping the NBUS hill and tree line stamp from Stacy Yacula's MFT stamp set called, "Scene Builder." The clouds and the stamped grass and flowers are from the same set. After stamping the horizon, I fussy-cut a mask and blended the grass and sky. I think the wee bunnies are from PTI and the sediment is from GKW. 

This stamp set is from 2019 and I couldn't wait to use it. But then it came and I asked myself why I ordered it because, as I said, I've never been much of an all-over scene-builder kind of card designer. Turns out it's really fun and there are more stamps I haven't used, so hopefully it won't be six years before I do another landscape.

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and/or Stencils.

NBUS: A/G using never before used schtuff.

Shopping Our Stash: Hippity Hop.

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Happy Passover and Happy Easter to you all! Enjoy this time with your family if you are fortunate to be together! I'm resharing this fun photo of the grandtwins I ran across yesterday ... which is when it seems like this was taken!

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar:  D = Dies

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using dies. Your card may help motivate and lift others out of their creative schlump or just give someone a design idea of their own! I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah! 

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Harvest Basket and a Party of Ghosts

Hello Stamplings!

And another week has whooshed bye-bye while you were petting the dog/cat!

This has been a bit of a downer week for me because if it weren't for Covid, I'd have been in a rental house on Lake Michigan crafting with dear friends. Four of us have gotten together every two years since 2014. I know the important thing is that we all survive this, and I do try to keep my chins up, but sometimes you just have to take a moment, pretend your pillow is Covid, and give it a good pummeling.

After wards, I relaxed and forgot my disappointment by getting all crafty with the hamster.

Onefer

Sorry about the lack of definition in my watercoloring, but honestly everything is multi-toned in real life. The apples don't really look like tahmahtoes, but in order to keep the pumpkin pp from being completely washed out by the sun, I had to over-expose my harvest. I apologize, but this is an adult blog. 

The basket is from "Autumn Falling" by ARTplorations and the sediment is from SU. As you can tell, Hammy had a whiskery great time winking and glossifying.

Challenges

• Less is More: In honor of designer Sharon's birthday, we are to CASE her card, show next to the LIM badge.
  
• Shopping Our Stash: Happy Fall Y'All.
• Watercooler Wednesday: All About Occasions.

Twofer

If you're going to party with a few ghosts, these look like absolute party animals, don't they? For this QACAS design, I blended wilted violets and applied them to the background through a NBUS Birch Tree Landscape stencil from Memory Box. Truth be told, Hammy ate most of them. Not the birch trees, the violets. Violets are quite delish and taste a bit like aqua. 

The silhouette ghost from Hero Arts likes to sneak up on old people, but he is so darn happy that you don't mind. The twin ghosts with the demented grins are from GKW and they've been lurking around the Playhouse since before there was a Playhouse.

Challenges

• Fusion: Purple Night. I'm playing with just the photo.
  
• Inspired By ...: Be My Boo! I was inspired by the photo of the ghost pillow.
  
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Spooky.
  
• Two Old Bats Halloween: Inspiration photo (ghosts).

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Speaking of silhouettes, we are half-way into the Twofer Card Challenge which closes at the end of day on October 24.

The very talented Marcia from the Twofer Design Team has made you another set of Twofer silhouette designs to inspire you. You can see them at the Twofer Card Challenge blog, but for the wonderful details, please check out Marcia's blog: Marcia's Stampin' Pad. I'm excited to see you add your silhouettes to the gallery!

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Even in the toughest of times, we mustn't forget to laugh!

• Who’s idea was it to sing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands? Now every time I go to the bathroom, my kids expect me to walk out with a cake.
• After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time, this week I discovered that wasn’t the reason.
  
• What’s the best way to avoid touching your face? A glass of wine in each hand.
• My husband purchased a world map and then gave me a dart and said, “Throw this and wherever it land, that’s where I’m taking you when this pandemic ends.” Turns out, we’re spending two weeks behind the fridge.

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, but be safe out there! 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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