Inky Dinky

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you as happy as I am! The laddies are back! Hammy and Stanley weren't due back until next weekend, but they had to cut their tour short because too many roads were closed due to fires and smoke. The bus company wisely decided to call it a day.

It is the first Monday in August 😮which means I got inky per my I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. And since I wanted to enjoy the wee critters and their tall tales, I quickly inked some dinky bits!

Onefer

You might recognize Kim's fun sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. I immediately thought of these summertime pinwheels from Gina K's "Sunny Days and Breezy Nights" kit. I colored them using my forgotten SAI markers. The NBUS sediment is also from the kit and the embossing folder is from Lifestyle Crafts.

The timing was great because the lads were itching to wink again and I was delighted to have them do it! I think you might even be able to see the schparkle in the photo.

In addition to FMS, I'm playing in Krafty Chicks where the brief is A/G with an optional Summer Mood Board.

Twofer

Next the boys went to work in the Christmas drawers ... they know that once August rolls around, they spend a lot of time in these drawers!

For a QACAS design, they came up with a NBUS die from Penny Black called, "Winter Sprig.

I die-cut the sprig and did a light watercolor wash. Then I simply attached the sprig to a green panel embossed with a folder from Open Studio called, "Gracious Leaves." The gold sediment is from Memory Box.

I'm playing in: Jingle Belles (Tic Tac Toe. Diagonal left to right: die cut or punch ~ red or green ~ and dry or heat embossing); Little Red Wagon (One Thing); and Merry Little Christmas Challenge (A/G Christmas).

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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! 

Today is National Watermelon Day! Stay safe and cool.🫶 

*Life is too short!

Eclipse It!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well wherever you are! So many storms, floods, and fires. 

We had a grass fire only two miles from us last week that scorched a thousand acres. It was scary, smoky, and the acrid smell is still in the air days later. Considering it was such a small fire, I cannot imagine how terrifying and awful it is near the huge wildfires in France, Spain, Italy, and in many America states. Keep safe, my friends. Praying for those impacted and for all the brave firefighters, farmers, and individuals helping in ways large and small.🙏🫶

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This week is A = Anything Goes on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. Whoop! I wanted to play with the Eclipse technique at the newly reopened CAS Mix-Up Challenge. It's also known as Hidden Words, or as I like to call it, Camel Flodged.🐪I haven't done this technique for quite a while and it was great fun!

Onefer

This sweet NBUS image is called, "Birthday Presents Wrapping Paper" from Your Next Stamp. The NBUS happy script word die is from The Greetery. I stamped the image in black and colored the presents in red in order to play in the Color Hues Challenge.

I liked the idea that this could be an all-purpose card, but after wards, I decided it needed a second word. I looked through all my word dies, and now I have car pool tunnel but nothing fit the area, so I made another card instead! Go me!

This script die is from Simon Says Stamp. In addition to the above challenges, I am playing in the Anything Goes category at Seize the Birthday

Twofer

This image is NBUS from Spellbinders called, "Christmas Florals and Sentiments." It consists of five stencils and made me question again why I don't stencil more often? I find it very relaxing. The word die is from GKW. The berry nipples are blobs of Lawn Fawn schparkle glaze. (Have I said how much I miss Hammy and Stanley!)

The Eclipsing technique works perfectly for those large pretty images you have which you hate to cover over with a greeting.

To give the design a little extra nubbiness, I popped the tripled image over a panel embossed with a Park Lane e/f called, "Holly Berry." I also miss having a Jo-Ann Store. Actually I miss all of the stamping stores that used to be in my community. And the sweet ladies who ran them. I sound old. Well, duh.

Playing in: 52 Christmas Card Throwdown (Stencilling); Rudolph Days (A/G Christmas); Jingle Belles (Colors: Unicorn Holiday); Inkspirational (Word Prompt: Christmas in July); and Just Us Girls (A/G Stencil Week). This Eclipse card won't go in the CAS Mix-Up Challenge because there is no stamping. However, because there is no stamping, it can go in "N = No Stamping" challenge over at the ABC Christmas!

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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! Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Stenciling Through the Seasons

Hello Stamplings!

I sure hope this finds my European friends feeling much cooler! What a terrible heat wave in areas that are not used to it. (I'm not going to talk about how nice the weather has been here!🤫)

This is a rare fifth Monday of the month as we close out June, which means it is S = Stencils week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar.

Onefer

I used a NBUS stencil from Papertrey Ink called, "Wandering Petals." Now, I don't do much stenciling, but I enjoy it. Even though they all sit organized in pretty stripey binders right to the left of my face, I tend to ignore them. It's like the thigh-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone situation, but in this case, it's more of an organic disconnect from eye to brain. 

Which brings me to sharing a dumb thing I did when stenciling this card. I'm telling you because after I embarrassed myself, then I was amused. But, also, tell me the truth, am I just getting too old for this job?

This is a simple two-stencil stencil. Two. One stencil is the stems and leaves and the other is the petals. It doesn't get much easier than that. I inked the stems and leaves, picked up the petals stencil and the phone rang. After the call, I absent-mindedly lined up the petals stencil over the stem stencil ... and loved how perfectly they lined up! This was a revelation!

But then I lifted the petals stencil and realized why no one else had shared this wonderful technique. Like a do-do, I had simply inked the petals onto the plastic of the stem stencil!🫣

Once I properly inked the petals, I used the stencil to outline the flowers with my fine-point black pen.

And where were my little helpers, you might ask? I clearly need them, but this is their vacation time and they are off to see the cousins. Hammy is slowing down, so I'm glad we have Stanley back to help him on their travels.

Playing in: Addicted to Stamps and More (Die Cuts and/or Stencils); Just Us Girls (Stencil Week); and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Anything Goes).

Twofer

My Christmas design was schparked by the current sketch at Jingle Belles. I hope you can see the snowflakes. The snowflake stencil is without packaging so, you know, it fits in the above-mentioned binders. I didn't start out planning to go mono chrome, but one minty green thing led to another.  The sweet little snowman is NBUS from Pink & Main. 

Also playing in: ABC Christmas Challenge (L = Let It Snow); Christmas Kickstart Challenge (Snow Day); and Rudolph Days (A/G Christmas).

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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!

I have a busy week ahead with a special July NBUS on the 1st, my birthday on the 2nd, and the 4th of July weekend, so I might not see you next Monday. Stay inky!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Septimus Alredius!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you feeling well!

Following last Monday's post, I did call in Scour and Reorg. The timing turned out to be good because the busyness helped take my mind off yet another senseless school shooting in this country which left two children dead, many injured, and anyone there mentally troubled for the rest of their lives. I want to rant on about it, but that's not why you're here. 

We've turned the calendar today for the ninth time in 2025! Happy Labor Day to those celebrating! There are only three more turns to go and the yuletide will be coming in! This week's I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is I = Ink/Color Medium. With the Playhouse turned topsy-turvy by my crew, not to mention my mental state, I consorted with B.O.B. and I found two inky panels previously made with Brusho powders. And, thus:

Onefer

Some of my bloggie friends made cards a coupla weeks ago using the Northern Lights technique. This isn't that, but a shoutout to them for the inspiration to see this panel as very Northern-Light-ish, so I simply used an old wooded SU silhouette tree stamp in the foreground. (I meant to say wooden stamp, but you have to love the English language because ha-ha, it's also wooded!)

This left me with turkoyce hills, so I covered them with snow using my NBUS Simon Hurley Astro Paste. It's crazy how impossible (especially in the sun) it is to photograph the stunning schparkle of this paste when it dries. In real life the whole bottom area is covered like in the lower left-hand corner. 

I'm playing in Jingle Belles where the brief is "Cardstock Christmas." I used black and watercolor cardstock only.

Twofer

For this design ... wait. Where's the rest of this Brusho panel? Wheeeel, what happened was, I went to CASE my friend Susan's card because her design reminded me that I have the same Santa and his sleigh silhouette stamp which I thought would be perfect for a Northern Lights sky. Using my MISTI, my first stamping of the sleigh in black with a heavy hand still wasn't enough coverage, so I reinked the stamp and stamped it a second time. When I lifted the lid of my MISTI, I saw that the Brusho panel had moved in spite of a grip pad and magnets. Wah. Wah.

My cursing made Stanley dive under his blankets, but Hammy calmly suggested that I just cut off Santa and his sleigh and use the partial panel on a card. B.O.B. provided the die-cut sediment and Pinkfresh Studio Washi butterfly which led to the Sizzix cloud e/f and, well, B.O.B.'s your uncle! And now I'm on Santa's naughty list. (Like I wasn't already!)

I'm playing in Addicted to Stamps and More where they are celebrating Challenge 500! Congratulations!! This time the brief is Die Cuts / Stencils. Also, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday where the brief is Anything Goes featuring Pinkfresh Studio.

Bonus!

After I stamped the trees for my Onefer above, I put a white folded card in my MISTI and stamped off the heavy black ink. Bonus! It gave me another perfectly useable card for my Christmas stash. I've always had a fondness for black and white evergreen trees and simple sediment for a Christmas card design. For this card, I used a sediment from SSS "Holiday Greetings Mix 1." I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to add a period to that sediment.

I'm playing again at ABC Christmas Challenge under Q is for Quick! It doesn't get much more QACAS than this!

Lesson

And then what happened was, bless my heart, I thought why not run it through my Gemini using an embossing plate to add falling snow for, you know, interest. Only I didn't ask my little rompers, so I grabbed my 3D snow when I should have grabbed my 1D snow and now here's a lesson for all of us on how sometimes cards don't need more interest!

That poor little bird is about to be knocked out of the sky by that snowfall those snowballs!😆

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: I = Ink/Color Mediums

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your colorful/inky art! Your creation may help motivate someone out of their mojo 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!

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As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Enjoy your day!

No, seriously, enjoy! Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Mirrored Ovals

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you all enjoyed last week and you're ready to bust this new week wide open! Things slow down a little online this time of the year as we spend more time outdoors when the weather is fine. As much as we love paper flowers, there is nothing like the real thing!

If you do have time to garden and craft, this is the first full week of July, which means the motivation I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is I = Ink/Color Mediums.

Onefer

I was also busy last week with my birthday and America's birthday, so I turned to Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration and this is my take on the sketch. The "Lush Greenery" is from Pinkfresh. It comes with two halves, but I only used one-half and stamped it as a mirror image.*

*Edited: I can't change the title after publishing, but I wanted to edit the wording here so it's not confusing. I did not stamp the above in the traditional sense of the "mirror technique." Using my MISTI, I stamped the image once, cleaned the stamp, and removed it from the MISTI. Then I repositioned the stamp on the paper, so that it was "upside down" and butting up against the first image. I inked the stamp, closed the MISTI, and stamped a second image. In that way, they mirrored each other. I hope that makes sense! If not, let me know.

I used my Ziggies to color the greenery and the lads very carefully winked the wee leaves. I used Poppystamps NBUS pointed oval die for the sediment and their pointed rectangle die to add a frame. I used the "aloha" die from Your Next Stamp because it's perfect for a birthday card for my friend who spends half the year in Hawaii! Poor dear.😂🌴🥥

Other Challenges

CAS on Friday: Botanical.

Tic Tac Toe: Diagonal, top left to bottom right: foliage/free/any sediment.

TIME OUT: Travel.

Twofer

I liked how my first card turned out so much that I used the sketch and dies again to make a Christmas design. Like with the first card, I stamped the Magenta poinsettia trio, cleaned the stamp, turned it (the stamp) upside down and stamped it again. Then we painted, winked, and framed them using a sediment from Simon Says Stamp.

Challenges

Holly & Ivy: Anything Christmas Goes.

Jingle Belles: Poinsettia Perfection.

Merry Little Christmas: Anything Christmas Goes.

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar:  I = Ink/Color Mediums

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creation using some form of coloring, inking, painting, etc. which might help lift someone out of their creative schlump!

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your design! Thank you to everyone who visited and linked to the gallery last week. Mwah!

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Enjoy your week! No seriously, enjoy! LITS!

Here's an example from my little friend on enjoying life, taken from the Playhouse window. As always, thank you for visiting and commenting!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter