Look! I Sponged! With A Stencil!

If you are looking for my NBUS Challenge #4, click HERE. 

Thank you to everyone who has already played!

Hello, my friends!

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my sympathy for the families of all those lost in the tragic Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps. It is horrible for everyone involved and particularly unbearable to think of the pain happening in Haltern, Germany, where sixteen students and two teachers were from. We are reminded again of how precious and uncertain life is.

~~~

Away in my crafty world, I needed a couple of "new home" cards for friends, so I went to play.

First of all, a lot of you may recognize that the design of my card is a direct take-off of the adorable card that Karolyn Loncon showed us how to do in the "Stretch Your Dies" class. Thank you, Karolyn, this was a lot more work than I normally put into a card, but it was worth it!

[I just noticed that the little guy is slacking his hold on those balloons and all the orange color has drained from his chicken fingers. It's not his fault. I took about 23 photos, so it's no wonder he's losing his grip.]

So Proud!

What is astounding about my cards today is that I sponged!

Now, to be honest, I have tried many times to sponge in the past. (Not counting the kitchen counter and the bathrooms.) I bought into the whole Distress Ink groovement and purchased the adorable little wooden sponge handles and, yes, even the carousel. I mean, c'mon it's a carousel!

Then I tried to use the dang things. And failed. Way more times than I care to think about.

The best I could do was schmear some ink onto the paper, along with irritating and unacceptable lines from the rectangle sponges! No, seriously, I watched the videos and I really tried to get up a good swirl from off to the right before I hit my actual card paper, but that never worked for me either, despite the experts' assurances.

I tried from a few inches away to several feet away. I tried a light hand. I tried a heavy hand. I tried a slow swirl. I tried a fast swirl. I tried counterwise and clockwise. I tried tiptoeing as I approached the paper, hoping the surprise of the sponge softly hitting the paper wouldn't leave a mark. It did.

In the end, I declared defeat. The sponges won. I put the torture turning device away in a cupboard filled with its cute little ink-stained deelybobs. It was all good. I don't expect to be interested in or talented in all things card art.

And then ...

Months later, I watched with awe during the BABES Lake House adventure as Ardyth sponged like an angel. Then Kim did it. I'm pretty sure everyone there could do it. I looked down ashamed, but not before I made a mental note that Ardyth was using a new-fangled round sponge blending tool. Ah, hello? Finally.

Well, long story long, I bought a couple after the Lake House and yesterday I SPONGED with the NBUS things!! I not only sponged, I made clouds with a stencil!

WHAT??

Me, a stencil? As far as I knew, I only had a couple of tiny brass stencils and I wasn't going to buy any more, nor the embossing paste. I just couldn't see investing in another new groovement when I have too much NBUS and too many techniques on my to-do list to justify adding one nother thing.

So, then, where did the clouds come from?

Hammy, of course. He earned his oats and carrots for another day as he piped up while I was staring at Karolyn's card with its pretty sponged grass and sky. "Don't you have a binder somewhere from like twelve years ago with those things that had shapes? You could trace them and then cut them out? You know. Stencils."

I sat up with a start and sloshed wodka on my shirt. Naturally he was right. In the second place I looked, I found this old thing filled with stencils!

As we were leafing through the binder, I saw all the fun shapes, but Hammy pointed out that the edges on some of the sheets also had shapes and you can see on the one above that there is a cloud border. "Well, I'll be darned," I mumbled as I creaked to my feet, "I'll give it a shot."

And it worked!

I didn't have room on the front of my card to put the rest of the sediment, so I decorated the inside. The balloons are winked, of course.

 Here is my second card:

I used a ten y/o NBUS Hero Arts stamp called "Row of Squares" to make my little neighborhood. I inked the boxes and then I used my markers to add the rooves to each little "house."

I had so much fun, I made a third card to welcome spring:

 This time, here is a close-up so you can see all the shiny bits.

Yippie Skippie, I did it! (Ardyth and Lolly, look at me!) And I even sponged HILLS! My sponging is still novice, of course, so I know you'll be kind. I have to admit, it was hecka fun!

Since I waffled on, I'll skip the ingredients bit, but if you have any questions, lemmeno.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Make your mark.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything goes.
• Stamplorations March Challenge: Stamps and Stencils.
• Happy Little Stampers: CAS Challenge: Sponging.

The challenge links will take you to the inspiration galleries and provide you with information about rules, sponsors, and prizes.

~~~

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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See you at NBUS Challenge #4! We're about halfway through!

New Home Shaker

[If you're looking for my NBUS Challenge, click here.]

Happy Friday!!

Yes! Yes! It has happened again! We have managed to whoosh ourselves clean through another week to Friday!

I thought today we might hold a class on how to build a house. Now, don't get too becited, I don't mean like your dream home. I mean like a wee home of about three inches by three inches that can sit on a plot of card stock. And then, since I live in California, I thought it might be fun if we make our house on shaky earthquake card stock! Oh, c'mon, you gotta have a sense of humor about these things.

Just like in Archie's textural magazines, I'm going to show you the finished house first and then we'll do the structions.

How about a pretty little pink house? Don't pretend that you dinnit want one of these when you were five!

I have three friends I needed new home cards for all at the same time in different parts of the world. I thought it would be fun to make them shaker cards. I have to say I surprised myself when this idea came together because, of course, I don't own a little house-shaped die. What to do?

I woke up the hamster and here's what we did. Hopefully, you can chimprovise as necessary when you build yours!

1.  My particular square die set did not have one small enough for the "roof" of my house so I made it out of my SU square punch. I held it at an angle and made this cut:

2. Then I needed a slightly larger square for the body of the house and I found a square frame die from PTI that worked. 

It didn't matter that it was a frame because I just needed the outer opening it made. I laid it like you would for a house shape and held it in place with a piece of Washi tape. After cutting, it looked like this:

3. Next I laid a piece of acetate over the opening and taped it into place. Then I built a frame around my house with foam tape. I put my foam tape as close to the opening as I could so that my sequints didn't disappear beyond the depth of the opening after I was done.

I put a double layer of foam tape around my shaker card opening to allow for more "wiggle room" for the sequints to play in. Tip: make sure your foam layers line up prezackly or else your sequints can stick to the exposed tape. No fun shaking a shaker that doesn't shake! (Profound. Write that down.)

4. Then I put my sequints inside the hidey-hole.

5. Then I laid a piece of card stock over the taped shape to close in the sequints. I used the same color as I used for my card base because it would show through the back of the house window. (Aqua card shown below.)

Then I used more foam to pop the shaker front onto the colored card base. Walla! And Walla!

Oh, haha, here's the biggest tip:

If you are going to put a sediment onto the front of your shaker card anywhere, like I did with this solid gold sediment, I recommend that you stamp it immediately after you make your opening in whatever shape it's gonna be and NOT after you have made the entire shaker card. Sob.

 Here is the lineup of the other two cards I made:

You might notice that this b/w card doesn't have as many sequints playing in the pool. Cough. That would be because some of them are stuck down there in the bottom, adhered to the foam tape. At the time I made these, I didn't know the tip in step number 3, but now we all do. And hopefully the sendee won't even notice. Sssh.

So that was fun, right? Let me know if you ever make one. Unless it gives you fits for some reason and you hate me for it, then, of course, you don't need to share that with me. 

Challenges

You knew this was coming. 

• I'm entering my pink house in the photo portion of the Fusion Card Challenge "{Shiny Pink}."
• I'm entering my b/w house in the TIME OUT Challenges "Home Sweet Home" because it's most like the cool black and white wooden sediments; and also
• In Catherine Pooler's "Housewarming" to celebrate her new blog.

Make sure you click on the challenge links to find out all the details about the rules, sponsors, and prizes!

~~~

New Friend's Corner

I know this is long, but I promised in my last post to introduce you to more delightful new friends you can play with:

The considerate and considerably talented Peggy whose gallery is "jasonw1" over at Splitcoast Stampers. If you look up the word sweetheart in the dictionary ~ um, I guess I should start saying at dictionary.com ~ you will see Peggy's picture. I'm not sure how long Peggy has been posting to SCS, but I can tell you that she has 520 images in her gallery! Be forewarned: do not look at more than 20 images at any one setting or your jaw will become permanently dislocated!

Nancy of The Summers on 49th Street. I think I will copy Nancy's own words in her profile, which tells you best about her: "My blog is dedicated to my grandmother, who always inspired my creativity. The story started in my first post, and I continue to write about my memories of 49th Street. I studied art in college, and my life's journey has blessed me with many creative interests. Here is where I share my love of arts and crafts, my new interest of stamping and card making, and various other ramblings." Her cards are fabulous, too!

Vicki of Stamp Smiles. Vicki has been blogging at Stamp Smiles since June of 2013. She is the mother of busy boys, but she still has time for all her creative activities of scrapbooking, card art, and cooking. She is a design team member who loves challenges and she has many awards under her belt for the stunning cards that she creates and shares with all of us!

Kathy of KT Krafts. Kathy has been blogging since February 2012. Kathy is a huge supporter of cardraising groups like Cards 4 Kids and Operation Write Home. She enjoys entering the card challenges and has won several awards. In addition to her card art, Kathy enjoys knitting and reading. Her expertise with techniques and her use of snippets in her cards, tags, and ATCs will inspire you!

Ineke de Graaff of Scraps &! Neke. Ineke is from the Netherlands and she has been blogging since February 2013. Like so many of us, Ineke started her blog in order to participate in challenges and share her cards with other card artists and, in turn, be inspired. She loves to participate in many of the same challenges that I do as she loves making CAS (clean and simple) cards. You will find out when you visit that she does them very well!

Thank you so much for joining, ladies, and welcome to the Playhouse!

~~~

Postscript

Real quick. So my last post had an autumn card with a branch of autumn leaves and in a very artsy-fartsy move, I put one leaf down in the corner. Then this morning when Hammy was reading over the blog with his kibbles and bits, it occurred to him that if I had REALLY wanted to be artsy-fartsy, I should have removed one of the leaves from one of the branches. So here is my "before" and "after":

Unfortunately, when you want glue not to stick, it holds up a bowling ball, so removing the leaf left a smoodge. I sorta colored and smoodged the area more to make it look like I meant to do that. Sometimes it's better to leaf well enough alone!

~~~

Reminder: The NBUS Challenge ends on September 25th. Please make sure you are checking the rules and a big thank you to all who have entered!! Since the entries are now over a hunnert, I have increased the prizes from five to ten so you have better odds of winning!

~~~

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!

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

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Mwah!

New Dream Home ~ NBUS #119

Hello, my friends!

Happy Mother's Day to all you around the world who are celebrating today! (In this neck of the world, we won't be celebrating until May 11th.) I hope you are treated like a Queen!

I have another new home card to share with you today. Just like birds, people often move/build their nests during the springtime and I seem to know a few people upping their roots this year. Spring is a time of rebirth, reawakening, recreation, resonation, reorgani - okay, stop.

My card today started out with a button. A button in the shape of a house. It's the cutest. It came from GKW and I've had it for ever years. It was patiently waiting for me to find it a home, pun intended. Or to be more precise, a "dream" home. Because what could be more dreamy than neon-colored birds singing on a wire high above a yellow house in a cotton-candy neighborhood?

I had such fun constructing this card using both something old-fashioned and something modern. I started by choosing a modern Washi tape for the top panel on the sketch (below) and the bright pink panel is ages-old mulberry paper, not fringed around the edge. It is a cool and perfect match to the neon pink birds.

I used a NBUS sediment from PTI "Bigger Blooms" to ground my little yellow house. The small white sequints for the chimney smoke are to take the eye up and back to the colorful birds. This card is going to a fellow card maker and I think she will appreciate the marriage of the old mulberry paper with the new Washi tape!

I used the sketch from Seize the Sketch and flippled it on its side.

I used several snippets today, so I'm taking my card over to Pixie's Snippets Playground to show the girls before I pop the card in the mail.

And the current House of Cards challenge is to make a CAS or Classic & Elegant card and use a button, so I'll be joining the fun there, I think for the first time!

And thanks to my friend, Jacquie, I'm also entering my card in the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, which is Anything Goes With Buttons! Thanks, Jacquie!

Be sure to click on the links for more details regarding rules, sponsors, and prizes! I hope you are able to join in and link your creation!!

~~~

New Friends Corner

I am delighted to introduce you to two new friends!

Jodi Ethington of Talking Twine and Trim. Jodi has been blogging since 2011. She can often be seen in the PTI blog hops and I really enjoy her use of Washi tape! I love her fun and happy cards and outlook! Jodi currently has 99 followers and I know you will help her reach that amazing 100-follower milestone and beyond!

Ileana A. of Sparkling Pink. Ileana started blogging just last month! I would so appreciate it if you would make a special effort to go and visit Ileana and welcome her to this wonderful community of card artists! You will enjoy her fabulous card art and be awe-mazed by what she can do with ribbon!!

Thank you, Jodi and Ileana, and welcome to the Playhouse!!

~~~

Out of the Mouths of Babes. I will leave you with a heartwarming story that my sister Diana shared with me recently:

One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque that was covered with names which had small American flags mounted on either side.

The six-year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good morning Alex."

"Good morning, Pastor," he replied, still focused on the plaque. "Pastor, what is this?" he asked.

The pastor said, "Well son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service."

Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque. 

Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling with fear asked, "Which service, Pastor, the 8:30 or the 10:30?"

~~~

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	PTI white, true black, aqua mist
Stamps	PTI Bigger Bloom
Ink	StazOn jet black
Accessories	Washi tape from Freckled Fawn Die: Lil' Inkers Corner Chomper button/sequints from stash

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 the pop-up box opens.
Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!