Happy Mother's Day!

A very special hello to all the Moms around the world who we are celebrating today! And a belated hello to those moms in places like the UK who had their Mother's Day celebration back in March. I received a lovely card and a beautiful bouquet from Dan and Rachel and the twins and I am cyber-sending this card out to Rachel, in turn, and to all of you wonderful moms, wherever you are!

Like so many, I did not have a happy childhood, but as an adult I was blessed with a wonderful MIL and many "adopted moms" who more than compensated for my youth. Cheers to moms, the memories of moms, and those who are moms at heart! 

For my card, I used some rediscovered store-bought blossoms. This one was made by Jessica Swift.

I added some sponged ink for a little depth and topped the confection with an SU pink ruffled pearl. The "ribbon" band is a length of Washi tape. Since I don't have a "MOM" stamp, I used a "WOW" stamp from SU "Friendly Faces" - no, that's not right, it's "Friendly Phrases." After I post this, I'll pop it off and turn it around so it says WOW once again and, wallah, I'll have a celebration card in my stash.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday.
• The Card Concept: (style: clean and simple) Pretty Paper Packing. 

~~~

And here's my twofer card:

The blossom is a Memory Box die called, "Prized Chrysanthemum Outline" and the NBUS sediment is from Stamping All Day. (Thank you, Viv!) I filled the negative petal openings with two shades of lilac and lavender. The smell is heavenly. The leaves were cut from a die I can't seem to lay my hands on this minute, which is odd because my desk is clean. My guess is there's a naughty hamster around here somewhere.

The thing is, I mostly made this design in order to have a play with doing leaves the way my friend Loll showed us how in a superb video. It looked amazingly involved (to me), but it is really easy to do. I just love the end result and the difference it makes, compared to the 1D leaves I normally stick on my cards, is enormous. Thank you, Lolly!

 Challenges

• Happy Little Stampers May CAS Challenge: Die-Cuts / Punches.
• Make My Monday: Trees and Leaves.
• Shopping Our Stash: 200th Challenge! Big, Bold & Beautiful.
• TIME OUT Challenges: Photo Inspiration.

Click the links to see the Design Team inspiration cards and find details on rules, sponsors, and prizes.

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Here's my beautiful bouquet to share with you:

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So moms, I hope you get to put your feet up today and RELAX! Or even just one foot up! Either way, you don't do it often enough, so grab your chance today!

~~~

I'll be away enjoying my annual sister's retreat this coming week. I have a couple of posts scheduled, but you may notice my visits are sparse. I'll catch you up when I get back. Be well!

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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Happy Mother's Day 2014

Hi There!

I keep having holidays jump out at me from behind my calendar. Know what I mean? One day I look and the holiday is three weeks off and then it seems like it's just the next day and I am sitting at my desk minding my own business making a birthday card and talking about skin care with my hamster and BOOO out from the wall the calendar yells, "MOTHER'S DAY IS SUNDAY!" I jumped a foot!

That's here in the USA, of course. I know some of you were already startled by that holiday a few weeks back. For you, however, you must have something coming up like Boxer Day or Bra Day or some such Unnerwear Day. Speaking of unnerwear, all of the holidays creep up on my any more. I figure what we could do is, we could just all agree to stop time, say on the 15th of this month, for about ten days while we do nothing but make cards for special holidays. Are you with me? Okay, good. I'll start a petition.

Having said all that, I don't have a need to make a Mother's Day card for a mother, but I did make one for my wonderful DIL, mother of our beloved twin grandsons. We will be brunching with them on Sunday and I can give her my card then. You get to see it first:

Some of you may remember that I bought a bunch of beautiful napkins when I went to see my friend in Colorado last fall and every now and then I will dip in the napkin basket and use one to make a card. They are truly gorgeous napkins. 

To dimensionalize my nappy, I added a hydrangea that I made by applying some Tim Holtz alcohol inks and blending solution to a piece of glossy card stock (ala Laurie), stamping the hydrangea and then fussy-cutting it. To make it look like it was an inter grill part of the napkin, I added the stem and bud  after fussy-cutting them from another snippet of the napkin.

The sediment banner is made from a snippet of purple vellum, certainly celery cardstock, and an overlay of clear vellum. The flower centers were popped on with Liquid Pearls. And thassit!

~~~

My card is playing in these fun challenges:

Clean and Simple 291, sketch.

Pixie's Snippets Playground, use your snippets.

The Squirrel and the Fox, "Mother's Day." This is my first time playing in this challenge! You might have guessed that Hammy found it when he was leafing through the magazine section of the Sunday Critter Chronicles.

Stamplorations, stamp & flowers.

Words 2 Scrap By, "Bloom Where You Are Planted."

If you click on the challenge links, you will find all the details about rules, sponsors, and prizes!

~~~

New Friends Corner

I'm so thrilled to introduce you to our newest friend at the Playhouse. Please welcome Jenny B. of Owl Be Crafty! In Jenny's own words, she enjoys doing just about anything creative such as baking, event planning, and photography, but her absolute favorite thing is making cards. Everything she learned about crafting, she learned from her mother! What a wonderful acknowledgment from a sweet daughter and so timely as we celebrate Mother's Day!

Jenny is trying to become more active as a blogger and I know that your visit and your encouragement will mean a lot to her. If you could follow her, that would be an added bonus for both of you! I know you will find her card art to be exceptional and inspirational!

Welcome, Jenny, and thank you for joining us!!

~~~

I have made a collage of photos for you as a follow-up to my last post. If you're interested, the individual photos can be viewed by clicking on the tab at the top called "My Photos."

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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!

Project Details
Paper	SU certainly celery, unknown textured card base; glossy paper by Stampland; colored and clear vellum by Grafix
Stamps	Hydrangea H2121 by Hero Arts; sediment by Art Gone Wild (AS-E4.506)
Ink	Stazon jet black; Tim Holtz alcohol inks
Accessories	Napkin by Michel Design Works; Liquid pearls

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

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Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hello!  Happy weekend!

And Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are celebrating this weekend!   I find the holidays that celebrate mothers (and fathers, for that matter) are multi-layered, and complex.  For many of you there is deep sadness in mourning the loss of your mother this year; I know I'm not alone in feeling meloncolic about never having experienced a mother's love; and my heart bursts with joy thinking of those women who are celebrating their very first Mother's Day!

Having said all that, in some places in the world, this isn't even Mother's Day weekend so you might prolly be bored to death.  Okay.  Okay. 

I've had a busy week and not done much crafting.  I was too tired last night to work in a lot of challenges on one card, so I just concentrated on one card for one challenge.  I decided to play with the Fusion Card Challenge which I missed last week.

There is a lot going on with this highpotanoose.  I have to tell you that there were a lot of failed experiments in my lab.  I think because of the teacups, the sketch side reminded me of a tea towel on a rack.  That made me head for the kitchen for a snack.  Repeatedly.

In the end, there was fusion in my card:

  

I hope you can tell I used Jackie's Challenge sketch for inspiration.  From the photo on Lesley's Challenge side, I pulled the bright pink color, the polka dots, and the tea cup. 

Oh, for heaven's sake, looking at Lesley's photo more closing typing this post, I just now noticed that the tea cups are months and the whole thing is a calendar.  How cute is that?!  I thought it was just an old inspiration photo from 2011!  Hmmm, perhaps it's time this granny had her eyes checked?

Returning to our story, to make my card I cut four slits in the card base to run the pretty PTI ribbon through, using a craft knife.  Remember craft knives?  I was never very good with them, and hence I love paper cutters and dies, but for my idea, only my old craft knife would do the trick.  To "reflect" the fishtail banner, I used a corner stamp from a Hero Arts set which also happens to have polka dots.  Score!

After that, since I didn't have a mother's day sentiment that would curve, I searched for one that was curvable and appropriate for Mother's Day.

And there you have it.  Seriously, especially now that I've seen the calendar, there are SO many fantastic designs you can come up with for cards for this Fusion challenge, using just the sketch, or just the photo, or both.  I hope you give it a go!

~~~

I'm so happy to announce that joining us on our little card-making journey is the very talented Brenda B. of Brenda's Crafty Corner   Brenda has been a prolific blogger since 2012 and her card art is spectacular!  You're gonna wanna go there!  Welcome, Brenda, and thank you!

~~~

Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy your day.  LITS*!  If you're celebrating Mother's Day, as I am so blessed to be doing with my DS, DIL, and the Terrific Twins, make it the best EVER!!  Take pitchers!

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
Stamps: Hero Arts, LL110 Decorative Corners;
  unmarked teacup and sentiment
Ink:  PTI Hibiscus Burst
Ribbon:  PTI Hibiscus Burst and Autumn Rose
Punches:  SU! scallop and Corner Chomper

MUSE #14 ~ Yes, Virginia ...

And we're back around to Friday, whoosh!

 

Not really, it's Thursday night here, but it will be Friday by the time most of you see this.

 

This week's MUSE Card Club Guest Designer is one of my favorite ladies, Virginia Lu, of Yes, Virginia . . .  Virginia made this delightful card for Mother's Day:

 

 

I made this CASE of Virginia's card to play along in the challenge:

 

I wanted to just turn Virginia's card inside out so that where she has the blank circle, surrounded by flowers, I was going to have a big colorful blossom surrounded by white space.  This rarely happens to me, but it was just too meh with all that white space, so I added a couple of little blossoms.  Then a couple more and a couple three more and before I knew it, I was off to the blossom races, but I only went once around the track.

 

~~~

 

I'm going to bed early for me.  I've been having a round of just routine blood work and appointments taken care of due to one of my physicians jumping insurance groups.  Today the flea bottomist took nine vials of blood from me.  Oh.Kay.  She was supposed to take two more, but she couldn't because they misplaced a standing order.  Hee! Hee!  So you see, once again, it coulda been worse! 

 

And anyway, I gotta rest up because tomorrow night the Mister is taking me on a hot date to a Lettermen concert.  Yes, they're still alive!  It should be a hoot with a houseful of our geezer peers getting all jiggy with us!

 

~~~

 

Before I go, it is a pleasure to welcome and introduce you to Lisa Haines of The Purple Place.  Lisa is a seasoned card artist and blogger and she is an enormous wealth of inspiration for all of us!  Thank you, Lisa, for joining the party!!

 

~~~

 

Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  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! 

 

For my family and friends in the Midwest still (frown) being snowed on. 

 

*Life Is Too Short!

 

Paper:  PTI white

Stamps:  Hero Arts alphabet and flower

  from Rubber Stamp Tapestry

Ink:  SU!

Die:  Spellbinders Dahlia

Bling:  SU! and stash

Corner Chomper

 

A Butterfly for the Effs: CFC, FBW, and FMS

Happy Day, Dumplings!

I went out to the Playhouse to make a card for a certain sketch that I won't name cousin I got side-tracked and I'll post that another day.  Today, turns out, a butterfly wanted to be born.  It was both persistent and insistent so I'm going to be inconsistent and reverse my normal routine so I can show it to you first.

 

 

I made the butterfly by first spritzing a piece of watercolor paper and then scribbling SU! watercolor pencils in the water puddles in blue and orange.  After it dried, I cut out my butterfly using the Memory Box "Chloe Butterfly" die.  I didn't pop out all the little lacy bits.  Instead I left it in tack and overstamped it with a SU! butterfly stamp that I've had for ages.  I used a marker to outline the outer edges of the die that the stamp didn't reach.  Finally, I sparkled her wings and antennae with Martha Stewart glitter glue and Glossy Accents.

 

 

When she was finished she landed gently on the top of the glue bottle while I went in search of a home for her, which I found thus:

 

CAS-ual Fridays (CFC98)

 

 

This week CFC is being sponsored by Simon Says Stamp and a $25 gift cert is up for grabs!

 

 

Flutter By Wednesday (235)

 

This is my first time playing in this challenge and the theme is "Open Challenge."  This week they are sponsored by:  Beccy's Place!

 

 

Freshly Made Sketches (#81):  This is a beautiful classic sketch by the amazing Cindy.  It is one to keep in your top favorite "go to" sketches!

So that's it.  It's odd not to see my card now though, isn't it?  I'll show it to you again in case you caught the very virulent disease that has befallen our household, called "CRS" which stands for "Can't Remember Shiz!"

 

 

BTW, the "Mother" sediment comes from the PTI "Happy Days" set.  Shockingly, I cut the apostrophe ess off before I heat embossed it in white.

 

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This lovely spring weather has brought more friends to the Playhouse, yippee!  There is always room to join in, and you can even interspirtz your crafting with some gardening!  Please join me in welcoming:

 

Janelle of A Dash of Flash

Kate of Kate's Corner

ЕкатеринаКо - website information needed

Bonnie Taylor- website information needed

 

Thank you so much, ladies!  We appreciate having you here!

 

~~~

 

So the Matt N. Ay I went to see on Friday was this one:

 

 

I just have to say that if you are of a certain age and this musical comes to your town, GO AND SEE IT!  The whole production is a musical of well-known songs from the 60s forward which have been arranged with brilliant new lyrics appropriate for menopause!  I can't remember when I laughed so hard!!

 

I always thought it was a funny word, "menopause," until it happened to me.  Then I understood it's literal meaning.  Men should especially take note of the word because we ladies definitely put you "on pause" and it's best if you just hang tight to that pause button and ride it out!  Cause this, too, does pass.  I can't speak for others, but I found that after the passage comes bliss.  I'm still cray-cray, but it's a blissful crazy, not a maniacal homicidal crazy!  Mostly.  Isn't that right, Mister?  Yes, Dear.

 

~~~

 

Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  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:  Biggee Jr. Watercolor; DCWV patterned;

  PTI white

Stamp:  SU!; "Mother" from PTI "Happy Days" set

Ink:  SU! watercolor pencils; SU! Bermuda Bay

Embossing Powder:  WOW white

Glitter:  Martha Stewart; Glaze:  Glossy Accents

Pearls:  SU!

Pop Dots and Corner Chomper

Mojo Monday 238 - Mother's Day

A terrific Tuesday hello!

I made a card for this week's Mojo Monday challenge, which is this sketch:

The talented Mary Fish always comes up with clever challenges.  I decided to use lots of sunshine and daisies and make a Mother's Day card:

That was on the brink of too much diddling for me, but I knew what I wanted and I severed through all nine, wait, twelve bits and pieces.  Isn't that white daisy on the SU background paper just the happiest?  It makes me grin.

I've another new follower who also makes me happy with her talent and her blog.  She is Sarah of Sarah's Little Snippets.  Thank you, Sarah!  Give her a visit when you get a chance.

I may be back later on today to post for tomorrow's WOYWW, but then there may be radio silence for a couple of days.  I'm having a routine colonoscopy tomorrow and afterwards, I'll no doubt be more interested in napping then in crafting.  I can already feel myself getting weak as a baby from being on liquids for three hours today.  I'm just a shadow, I'm so thin.  Hahahahahahahaha!  What a joke!  I could go thirty hours on liquids and my shadow would still block out the sun.

Mister very kindly went to the store to get me some popsicles and jello, which I can have today.  I joke about him, but since I was diagnosed 30 years ago with Crohn's Disease, he has ridden by my side through all the ups and downs over the years.  I've been through this procedure dozens of times and I'm so grateful for the technology.  Still, merciful heavens, I do wish they could figure out a kinder preparatory.  Nevermind, it's all good.

Well, that was just too serious if you ask me.  In keeping with what was supposed to be a sunshiny post, here's a favorite pun to uplift you:

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.

Then it dawned on me.

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:  SU So Saffron; BP

Stamps:  SU, Happy Mother's Day (I

  masked it, to put happy on top);

  Mom from Hampton Art Stamps;

  Sun from WishPrints

Ink:  SU Close to Cocoa

Daisy:  K and Company

Eyelet:  SU; brad unknown

Ribbon:  Richard's sheer ivory

Mojo Monday 237

Check me out, posting a Mojo Monday card on Monday!  The inspiring Mary Fish designed this week's challenging sketch:

Already lots of delightful cards are being linked!  After you've checked me out, you should click over and check out the rest!  My mojo conjured this:

It could be a Mother's Day card, right?  What with mothers being inspiring.  Or a graduation card.  Or a thank you card to a winery.  

The die-cut grape leaves were cut from paper I made by simply turning my SU green ink cubes/pads upside down and swishing them across a piece of glossy card stock, starting with the lightest color green.  It was fun to make them.  It hasn't quite sunk in yet that I have all these new toys, after a decade of creating cards without them, but eventually it will be second nature and then you'll be begging me to move on.  

Speaking of comments, Glory Be Atrice, you guys were swelling my head over yesterday's feather.  I was tickled!

I want to show you a picture of something I found this morning in the recesses of a drawer.  I don't know who made it or wherefrom it came, but it is a perfect example of my corn-and-nut-ball humor:

Honest, I did not make that up, even though it contains a typo resulting in a new word, which I am wont to do.  In this case, I did not, but the blockon which I live is a lovely one.  I've had the silly thing for longer than licorice and my son used to say, "Mom, that is so dumb!"  I don't care, I've kept it, and I still laugh out loud when I read it.  What about you?  Did you laugh or groan?

I'm so happy to welcome Ginny Henriquez as a follower!  Thank you so much!

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

Paper:  SU wisteria wonder; SU old olive;
  Stampland glossy white
Stamps:  kristalclearimpressions, Grape
  Vine (970-S9) [company out of business];
  SU Loving Thoughts
Ink: SU gable green, mellow moss, old olive,
  Marvy violet pad and markers
Cuttlebug grape leaf die and EF