Air-Blown Thanks and Two Oddballs

Hello Stamplings!

What DAY is it?! Have you ever had one of those weeks with unexpected events that make the week seem like it's two weeks long? I'm having one of those weeks. But it sure started out nice as we wrapped up a terrific long weekend with Adam and Henry and Duke and Jack. The weekend's photo, however, features the Mister in all his glory*!

But first, I want to share these alcoholic backgrounds I made recently using a can of air.

There are talented artists out there who make the most sensational flowers and other art using their cans of air! I am not going to be one of them. It requires much, much, much practice, but I had fun playing and loved the results.

I used several of them to make thank you cards using vellum and a thank you sediment embossed in platinum and simply stapled to the panels. 

I still have a couple of the backgrounds I haven't used and Hammy spends hours staring at the imaginary critters he sees in the colors!

Twofer

I recently saw this Stampingbella "Oddball Boy Elf" on someone's blog (sorry, I can't remember whose it was) and I had to immediately open a new window and order it. Haha, that conjures up a funny image, doesn't it? The day will prolly come when I can just open my Playhouse window and a drone will pull up, take my order, zoom off, and return a half hour later with my item!

Anyways, normally my NBUS sits on Mt. NBUS for a few months or years before it sees ink, but not this goofy elf! I used my Ziggies and Artezas to color him. Hammy winked his shoes and knit cap and I added a piece of Washi tape to ground him. Please don't mention his eye condition. He's very sensitive. And the odd color of the candy cane which is normally red/white or green/white? Why, i's chocolate!

The sediment comes with the elf. I may or may not have partaken of some spirits of my own before stamping it a schmidge too close to the edge. Hic.

Challenges

• Moving Along With the Times: CAS.
• Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.
• Simon Say Stamp Wednesday: Anything goes.
• TIME OUT: Funny.

~~~

*Another Oddball!

Fact: Guys who go to county fairs turn into adolescents and eat all the garbage food they can get their hands on! This particular treat is a foot-long hot dog wrapped in a corkscrewed raw potato and then the whole thing is deep-fried. Disgusting. Even the twins were disgusted. The man has an iron stomach. And before you ask, yes, he had a sore jaw for three days. If we were on the Tweeter platform, I'll bet he would go viral. #viralspiral!

~~~

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! 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!)

Spring-a-ding-ding!

Hello Stamplings!

I've got a lot of spring art on the blog today, thinking especially of those of you dealing with this year's second winter dervishing its way from Colorado through the Great Lakes and eastward. Since you can't see anything but blowing snow outside your window, I'm glad you stopped in here to take your mind off it. And I'm glad to see you have your beverage!

Onefer

That beautiful pink paper has a lovely sheen and the MFT frame is cut from glossy paper. The white-embossed egg is from an out-of-business company, and the white-embossed sediment and vellum butterfly are both from Happy Little Stampers.

Who's that, you ask? Hammy has his friend Fitzwilliam visiting and he kindly let Fitz be in the card shots today. They met online. We are taking care of Fitz while he has some corrective eye surgery at a well-known clinic here in the Bay Area. I know, right? You'd think the surgery would be for those rather large ears, unusual for a frog, but we don't embarrass him by mentioning it.

Here's a closeup of the pretty sheenification:

Challenges

• Country View Challenges: Easter and/or spring.
• Inkspirational: Pop it up.
• Rainbow Card Challenge: Perfectly pink.

~~~

I made quite a few cards with this design, using different papers and colors, but they were too similar to post them all. The only ones a bit different were these two:

Challenges

• The Color Throwdown Challenge.
• Fusion Card Challenge: Play with the photo ~ Easter eggs.
• Moving Along With the Times: That spring feeling.

~~~

Twofer

Next up is a QACAS card made with a NBUS Freida Curve die from Memory Box, attached to some pretty pp. The sediment is from the Essentials Greetings set from Simon Says. I made several and you know how frogs are, once you take one photo, they want more taken:

After I took the above photo, I overheard Fitz telling Hammy that he thought the fronts of the cards were a bit meh. I had to agree with him once I got down to his level and looked at them. So I added more interest with some polka-dotty spring wellies:

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Galz: Pretty papers. (I used two.)
• CAS on Friday #155: Spring.
• Memory Box Challenge #48: Clean and simple.

~~~

Threefer

Another CAS design, this time for a spring birthday card using Altenew's Beautiful Heart stamp set. For this card I followed the brief laid out by host Susan at the CAS Mix Up Challenge. We are to use the technique of "layered stamping with  heat embossing." I heat-embossed the flower using SU melon mambo and Ranger white e/ps, and for the leaves I used WOW olive and Ranger white e/ps. Another new technique to me and I have to say, it really does add a lot vibrancy to your images!

I added some additional shades of pink to the flower with my Ziggies and popped it and the leaves on a leafy embossed background. Can you see the sediment? In order to keep all eyes on the flower, I simply stamped it with Versamark and white heat-embossed it for shine.

Challenges

• Altenew April Inspiration Challenge: See photo below.
• The Card Concept: See photo below. I was inspired by the pink flowers for my clean and simple card style.
• CAS Mix Up Challenge: Layered stamping with heat embossing, stamping, die-cutting, and dry embossing.

~~~

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

As always, thank you for coming by and staying a very long time to visit the Playhouse! Special thanks to you if you took 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!

Oh, My Stars!

Hello, Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well and if you aren't doing well, I hope you're at least fair to piddling. That's spose to be fair to middling, which means slightly above average. My middle school friend's mother always said fair to piddling and we would burst into giggles.

That reminds me of my Aunt Alzada. I think I might have told you this before. We would write letters over the years and one time she wrote, "Well, after all, he has a hard roll to hold." The expression is "a hard row to hoe," but that's not the way my Aunt heard it all her life. I loved her way of saying it! Makes me wonder what old idioms I have misheard and misuse!

Here are my Twofers today to inspire you for February's challenge:

Oh, my stars, that's right, the prompt word is:

My onefer ...

The star of the show (you'll pardon the pun) is the galaxy-ish alcoholic Yupo paper in shades of blues and purples peeking out through the stars of my NBUS stitched Star Panel die from Your Next Stamp. The sediment is from an old PTI set called "Glory Be," and it's heat-embossed in purple e/p, as is the schprinkling of stars. I'm going to use this card as a birthday card with a sassy, "You're HOW old?" on the inside!

Challenges

• Mix It Up: Anything goes, plus option of rubberband stamping.
• Moving Along With the Times: Add a sentiment to your card/project.
• Your Next Stamp: Fun Friday: Die cuts.

And my Twofer ...

For my second design, I took the stars that fell out of the die cut in my first design, colored them for Hammy to glossify, and arranged them as a rainbow galaxy. The moon is one of my favorite old wooden stamps, unmarked. Of course, he had to be glossied up, too! The encouraging sediment is from Dylusions Quintessential Quotes. I inset the front panel in order to show you a bit of the lavender base petticoat on both sides. I am sending this to a young woman bravely fighting cancer for the second time.

~~~

How will you play with your STAR stamp, stencil, or die to make two different cards for two different occasions? I can't wait to see!! Please check out the Twofer Card Challenge blog for all the details and to see the fantastic double designs created by the talented Design Team and our two amazing Guest Designers this month: Barb and Cat! Thank you!

~~~

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

And if you're still here, I'd love it if you could send prayers and positive thoughts for the Mister. He has a back condition that has always made his back a bit dicey. The last time it went out, the doc said it was just a matter of time before he would need to have surgery. 

He has been diligently doing exercises every morning for three years to help keep the area stable, which it has done. Then suddenly it wasn't enough and he's been flat on his back for two days. Hopefully he will be able to get in to see the doctor early this week and get the surgery scheduled. Thank you! If it ain't one thing, ... 🙈!

And, 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!)

Have A Heart and Enjoy the Ride!

Hello Stamplings!

In the middle of winter with bone-deep cold, rain, sleet, snow, and gray skies for a lot of people on this side of the world, I just love seeing all the hearts and flowers beginning to pop up all over Blogland. It's very uplifting at a time when we need it!

So thank you St. Valentine for being the next holiday to distract us with all kinds of heart art! Here's my first of 2019:

The star of this QACAS Valentine design is a relatively new NBUS from Poppystamps (Embossed Love). I usually like to keep my stamps and dies for two or three years in order for them to become atmospherically tolerant of the Playhouse thermodynamic conditions before I subject their tender surfaces and edges to abuse. Wait. What? It sounds good though, right? You may borrow that as your own excuse for having lots of NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff).

But I digest. The beautiful paper is another vo piece from my stash which I'm determined to stop hoarding. The little heart was cut from red fun foam and glossified. 

Challenges

• Cards in Envy: Love me, love my pet. I'm sad to hear that this challenge will be closing with its post on February 4. Thank you to Sandy and all the past and present Design Team members for their work and dedication over the last six years! (p.s. The little heart on my card is not flat, but it is foamy and squishable for easy mailing.)
• Mix It Up Challenge: Anything goes + sentiment as main focus.
• Moving Along With the Times: Have a heart.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Have a heart.
• Stamp Ink Paper: All my love.
• Watercooler Wednesday: All about holidays.

~~~

Twofer

Another QACAS design, this time using a really old (but still fun) stamp and die set from PTI called Road Trip. Obviously the rather well-built and possibly scary person I put behind the wheel has gone over the hill and it's all downhill from here! I stenciled the cobblestone road with a TH stencil and Hammy did his special winking trick all over the Bug.

Challenges

• AAA Cards: Up to one-third + optional masking.
• Color Throwdown: navy, gray, lime.
• Less Is More: Sketch based on a card entered once by my friend Kathy!

~~~

ETA: Hammy picked a name out of the hat and the winner of the butterfly die from this post is JoAnn. Congratulations, JoAnn!

 JoAnn said...

Your cards are beautiful. Love the butterflies on both cards. And why not have a butterfly on a Christmas card, it looks lovely with the silver embossed tree.
Thanks for sharing about the thyroid.
Have a wonderful day. Hugs, JoAnn

January 21, 2019 at 5:51 AM

Enjoy your day! Enjoy the ride! 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! 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!)