Homespun Happy New Year!

Cheers and best wishes to all! And a hope (perpetual and delusionary) that 2016 won't whoosh by as fast as 2015 did!

Are you enjoying this week between Christmas and New Year's? Are you ready for the little scamps to go back to school?

Me and the Mister had a fairly quiet week and I got as domestic and homespun as I get any more. Gone are the days of actual needlework, which I enjoyed very much in my youth. Now that I'm in my dotage, I very much enjoy faux stitching on paper instead.

Less is More is having a homespun challenge so I took that spark and ran with it ...

Inside it says "Happy New Year!"

Stamp is "Spooling Around" by Penny Black. 

Sediment is from "R&R" by Technique Tuesday. 

Challenge: Less Is More: Homespun.

I liked it so much, I made this one:

This sediment is NBUS from Rubber Dance Stamps.

Challenge: Freshly Made Sketches

We need to talk for a second about that cute little critter portrayed in this Penny Black stamp. I am pretty schur the artist Margaret Sherry meant for it to be a mouse, judging by that tail. But if you look at the furry body and cute ears and that adorable face, it looks just like Hammy and his offsprung! 

Which, of course, he insists is the case. He has been spinning a yarn for three days about how that critter looks just like a branch of his family from way back over on his mother's father's cousin's mother's sister's side that had an impediment of longer-than-normal-for-a-hamster-almost-mouselike tails. I said, "Mm-hmm. That's some tale, all right." 

So, anyways, if you could just avoid using the M word in your comment, you would save me from dramatical hamsterics. Thank you!

~~~

Then I took out other old sewing-related stamps and made a few more, thus:

Open frame stamp by Endless Creations G149.
Sewing basket stamp by PSX.
Thank you sediment by PTI.
Challenge: Less Is More: Homespun.

Button Trio stamp by Rubber Stampede.
NBUS sediment by Hero Arts.
Challenge: Less Is More: Homespun.

Hanging quilt stamp is unmarked.

NBUS sediment is by Hero Arts.

Challenge: Less Is More: Homespun.

I have to say, it's quite easy making batches when your designs are QACAS OLCs! And although it doesn't show in my photo graphs, most of the images were Modpodged so they are plump and glossy IRL.

~~~

Finally, I'm sorry this is so long, but since New Year's Day is practically or already here for some of you, here is my simple New Year's OLC!

NBUS sediment from Happy Little Stampers.

Chevron e/f from Cuttlebug.

Old die-cut glass, Washi, and stars from my stash.

Challenges: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Party.
My bit of sparkle are the sequins.

~~~

Enjoy your New Year's eve / day / weekend / year!! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and making it to the end of my waffling posts. 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! In fact, I may be taking a few days off to do just that. I have a lot of catching up to do!

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those whose lives have been impacted by the terrible storms and flooding in Missouri and in the northern UK and by the tragic fires in Australia. 

*Life is too short!

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Twenty Fourteen! CQC #222; NBUS #86; SSWC; WOYWW #239

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ~ Hap E. Nuyear!!

And Happy What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday (WOYWW)!  It's been a really fun year snooping at your desks on Wednesdays thanks to the blog hop posted faithfully by our esteemed leader, Ms. Julia Dunnit.  Thank you, Julia!  I wish you the bestest year!

Here's my desk where I've just finished a little something suitable for today.

I was planning to use my Washi tapes to make a Christmas tag and I never got around to it, so I made a tag for new year's celebrating instead.  I took a piece of scratch paper and folded it in half like we used to do to make snowflakes, remember, and I drew a champagne bottle and cut it out as a template.

It's so much easier to draw half of something.  Unless it's a paycheck, then you want to draw all of it.

So I traced my template onto black cardstock and cut it out.  Then I took my little champagne bottle tag and bedeckled and bedazzled it with pieces of Washi tape and wire, thus and such:

Then I made a card for my tag.  I used some of my gray striped Washi tape, a NBUS vellum sediment, and some gray brads and I created a little pocket for my tag to sit in.

I thought it would be fitting to have flashy exploding sequint stars electrifying the air.

And here is the tag snug in it's pocket, against a black backdrop so you can see it better.

Some of the stars look lovely midnight blue, but IRL they are silver.

I am playing in the current ColourQ Challenge, which is sporting this fabulous photo!

And in the "Bling It On" challenge just winding down over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!

~~~

In our New Friends Corner, we are ending the year by welcoming two new friends!  Please meet:

Ann Clitts of Just for Fun.  Ann has been blogging since 2008, bless her!  That's an incredible amount of knowledge, information, and inspiration waiting for you with just the click of the mouse!!

Gemma of Gem's Little Creations.  Gemma is also a long-time blogger since 2010, and she also has an endless supply of ideas and inspiration for you!

How lucky are we that we share our talents and ideas and skills with each other and all for free!!  Thank you, ladies, and welcome to the Playhouse!!

~~~

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!  

***

To my readers and WOYWWers
and encouraging desk browsers,

May you be ever so keen

To welcome twenty fourteen

With oodles of mojo
And juices a flow, flow!

I'll stop by for a visit,
Your designs are exquisite!

To you I will toast,
You inspire me the most!

Best wishes, I coo,

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!

Mwah!


*Life is too short!

Happy New Year Again! CASOS #24; CASology; CFC#124; NBUS #85; PPA #185; Pixie's #105

How's it going?

 

I'm back with another Happy New Year's card.  I'm making them during this one week while I can before I move on to the next special heartiday.  (To answer your question, I usually send them to people I forgot to send Christmas cards, too.)

 

For today's card, I used this sketch by the talented Nicole Watt over at Pals Paper Arts:

 Here's my card:

 

 

I'm not sure why, but my celery green paper looks all trendy neon.  Either way, it looks pretty with the black and white.  I randomly stamped the clock image on the white panel.  The clock is from a NBUS Hero Arts set.  I drew on the hands at midnight. That's not to say it was midnight when I drew on the hands.  The champagne flutes are heat embossed in white onto a NBUS label die from My Favorite Things.

Besides PPA, I'm playing in these challenges again:

• CAS on Sunday where the theme is HAPPY NEW YEAR!
• CASology where the cue card word is PARTY!
• CAS-ual Fridays where the theme is HAPPY NEW YEAR!
• Pixie's Snippets Playground ~ just use a snippet on your card ~ and this time I used more than one snippity bit.

A lot of these challenges run several more days so I hope you will get a chance to play along!  Please click the links for all the details on rules, sponsors, and prizes.

 

~~~

Some of you are posting a few favorites of your 2013 cards and I'm really enjoying your selections!  I'm too indecisive to attempt that, but I do have a show-and-tell photo of the holiday cards I recieved from you! 

It's not that sharp in the late afternoon sun with my camera failing, sorry.  And after I took the photo and scooped them up, I found a couple that had been left out, sorry.  Thank you for sending me cards of yours that are even more gorgeous in real life than what I see on the monitor!  I will treasure them!

If anyone else would like to be a card pen pal with me, just email me your address and I'll email you mine.  After all, cards is what we do and there is nothing like happy handmade mail!

 

~~~

 

In our New Friends Corner today, I'm pleased for you to meet Dawn Francis of Dawn's Stamping Garden.  Dawn has been stamping and making cards since 1998, but she only started blogging in April of this year.  She has lovely cards and scrapbook layouts to share with you when you click over for a visit!

 

Welcome, Dawn, and thank you so much for joining us!!

 

~~~

 

HELP!  I need blogging help.  I am getting an irritating popup error message from Blogger every time I open or view my blog.  (Plus, some of you have said you have been having problems viewing or commenting on my blog.  Grrr!)  Here is the error message I am getting:

ERROR: Possible problem with your *.gwt.xml module file. The compile time user.agent value (ie9) does not match the runtime user.agent value (ie10).  Expect more errors.

 

We use Internet Explorer 11 and we have not done any recent upgrading.  If anyone has a clue about what this means, or if I should be doing anything, or how to get it to go away and stay away (other than switching to Chrome or Firefox), I would appreciate it! 

 

I asked Mr. Google and he said this problem was resolved back in 2009 (NOT!) and I also sent Feedback via the Blogger.help people, who promptly sent me a reply which said, basically,

"Thank you.  There is no possible way we can answer you, but we thank you for your feedback."

Nice, huh?  Imagine if we could all just cop that attitude with everything in life.  I especially think it might be helpful to recite that line to your children when they are tugging on your hip pocket or to your husband when he wants to know why the car is parked up on the lawn.

 

~~~

 

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, black; SU certainly celery
Stamps	Creative Images (champagne flutes); Hero Arts "Keeping Time" LP020
Ink	Versafine onyx black; Imprintz embossing powder; Copic multiliner
Accessories	Die: MFT "Well-Worn Greetings"; Pop-Dots

 

PARTY! CASOS #24; CASology; CFC #124; LIM #151; Pixie's #103/#104

Well, hello there!

My friends, we have whooshed all the way around to the very last Friday of 2013!  I've not been kidding about how life is too short!  I hope you and I are able to take a few more deep-and-in-the-moment breaths to help 2014 pass more slowly and delishushly.

 

To close out 2013, a lot of my favorite challenges are celebrating Happy New Year's by partaying for all it's worth!  Even though we have had the twins since Christmas Day, I couldn't miss the party!  I slipped off to the Playhouse last night after they went to bed and made a card.

 

First, the challenges:

• CAS on Sunday where the theme is HAPPY NEW YEAR!
• CASology where the cue card word is PARTY!

• CAS-ual Fridays where the theme is HAPPY NEW YEAR!
• Less Is More - Pick-A-Challenge.  I picked Week 44, Dec. 3rd Colour GREEN!
• Pixie's Snippets Playground ~ just use a snippet on your card!  I think the playmates will snigger over my party frog!

A lot of these challenges run several more days so I hope you will get a chance to play along!  Please click the links for all the details on rules, sponsors, and prizes.

 

~~~

 

My card: 

Poor old bull frog looks like he is only half-heartedly into partaying, but it's just a façade.  Up inside his head he is dancing to The Swim!  Doesn't he remind you of Uncle Sims who would sit in the corner, in his favorite chair, holding a drink, but otherwise not moving, like an old bull frog?  But up inside his head, Uncle Dear was twisting and shouting.  Just like in life, it takes all kinda folk to make a party!

 

I photographed my card outside in the morning light and you'll have to pardon that gray circular splotch which has suddenly started to appear.  For some reason it doesn't appear in my indoor photos.  I think my cheapo point-and-shoot camera has seen better days.  Look out after-Christmas sales, here I come! 

 

~~~

In spite of the rush of the holiday season, I'm delighted to introduce you to a new friend!

 

Please meet Jasleen of Happily Ever Crafter! ~ another fantastic blog name!  Jasleen's whole blog is fanstastic!  She has only been blogging since August, but she is very passionate about her crafty talents and she has much to share with you about all her creative endeavors.  As always, I would love it if you dropped in and left Jasleen some encouragement!

 

Thank you, Jasleen!  We are so happy you joined the Playhouse partay!

~~~

 

I must dash.  Fun awaits in the form of gangling arms and legs and giggles! 

 

I will leave you with a wee bit of family fun which you so generously allow me to share.

 

Lots of remote-control presents were under the tree.  Besides these rock crawlers, they received helicopters and things I'm not sure what the names are.  I just wish I was Ms. Eve Ready or Ms. Dura Cell or Mrs. Ray O. Vac, or Mrs. N. R. Gizer! 

Which twin made which gummy bear army formation?

~~~

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 tempting turquoise; Stampland glossy; unknown PP from stash
Stamps	Mostly Animals "Party Frog"; unmarked sediment stamp
Ink	Versifine onyx black; SU markers; Wink of Stella pens
Accessories	Cuttlebug EF; Corner Chomper

 

 

Inspiration Crew New Year's Card; CFC #124; CTS #58; NBUS #83; SSWC, and My New Baking Blog

Happy Saturday! 

Welcome to a prolix post.  (Great Scrabble word.)

I was asked some time ago to be a guest today of the esteemed group, The Inspiration Crew, for their scheduled New Year's Eve inspiration post!   

Welcome to the New Year’s Celebration Event brought to you by "The Inspiration Crew."  We’re just a group of crafty friends who love being creative. This time we're doing a one-day event to provide you with tons of inspiration to ring in the New Year!

Here is my Happy New Year's card:

I used SU! gold mirror and sparkly silver card.  The NBUS die is from Papertrey Ink.  The stickers are from Mrs. Grossman and the little festive photographic stars are from Kristie Goulet.  To make my scrumdidlyicious drink even more inviting, I traced the sticker onto scratch paper, cut it out, and then traced it with a Versamark pen onto acetate.  I then heat embossed it using SU! Hologram Highlights for lots of frosty blingy goodness.  Cheers!!

 

I am entering my card in the following challenges:

 

CAS(E) This Sketch.  Thank you, N@Ali for a wonderful sketch!

 

CAS-ual Fridays, where the theme is "Happy New Year!"  CFC is teaming up with 10-Minute Craft Dash, so you get a double chance at winning a prize if you can make your creation in less than ten minutes!  My card was quick and easy, but the acetate glass I made took me just over the limit.

 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, where the theme is "Bling It On!"  It is a two-week challenge because of Christmas.

 

 

I hope you get a chance to join in these fun challenges!  The links will provide the details about rules, sponsors, and prizes.

 

~~~

 

I'd like to take a minute to thank ALL the owners and Design Team members of the many, many delightful challenges that provide us with endless jumping-off suggestions for theme, color, and sketch, and then provide us with a multitude of creative inspiration!  I'd also like to thank the website Paper Playful for providing us with an updated and comprehensive list of weekly challenges and winners. 

 

~~~

 

Back to New Year's inspiration, I also made a wine bottle tag using a NBUS Avery Elle "Cheers" Die:

It was QACAS using that die.  The die set includes the label and the words "uncork" (which I love, no ambiguity there), "celebration," and "cheers!"  The papers used are unknown from my obscene collection.  I don't mean I have a collection of obscene papers, I mean I have an obscene quantity of pretty papers. 

~~~

Okay, so that's my New Year's inspiration for you for today.  Please do click over to the other very talented members of the Inspiration Crew who are participating in the hop!  Some of them are offering prizes!  Cheers!!

 

Rachel Kleinman

Ceal Pritchett

Libby Hickson

Jennifer Cuthbertson

Ardyth Percy-Robb

That's the end of card talk if you want to jump to the end to kindly leave a comment.  Thank you for coming by!
 

~~~~~~

 

My New Baking Blog

Not!

 

Okay, so I have to share with you my hysterical baking day on Thursday.  But before I do, I have to show you a photo of the cookies my sister Diana made last week. 

Yikes!  My sisters Donna and Doris also had disasters, but I don't have any photos to share.  This just wasn't our year for Christmas baking!

So.  I finally finished off the last of my cards on Wednesday and with other holiday obligations, I left myself only one day to do any baking for neighbors, the Mister, the office, the Mister, friends, etc.

 

For the first gift idea, I decided to make one of those recipes-in-a-jar. You know where you put all the dry ingredients in a jar and attach a recipe tag?  I got the idea from an old Craft N Things magazine which I cut out in April 2008.  The recipe is for Lemon Coconut Cookies.    I can't find the recipe on the Craft N Things website, but the above link is the exact same recipe.  Well, I didn't want to just put the ingredients in the jar, type up the recipe, and give it away without actually trying the recipe myself to see if it stunk.

 

So I did.  I swear I followed the recipe prezackly.  Well, except for that part about placing the balls two inches apart on the cookie sheet.  Whoever does that?  I don't have all day!  It's never been a problem before, but for this recipe, your balls should be placed THREE inches apart or you get this new and space age ~ scientific even ~ dessert:

 

I called for the Mister to see.  He became quite delirious, knowing that by some magic this lot would become his, all his!  Also, being a science guy, he was very intrigued by the quadra, phrandal, hexa, whatever shape he called it.  I called it something else that I can't print here.  No question, these lemon cookies definitely gave me lemonade!

 

I was raised in Iowa.  In Iowa they wear boots for the snow and for slopping hogs.  They have a saying:  When things go bad, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move on.

 

I pulled up my bootstraps and moved on to brownies.  No one ever, in the history of brownies, has screwed them up.  Clever me to become famous for doing such a thing, but there you have it.

 

The recipe perpetration was without event.  I had even prepared my cake pan and preheated the oven.  Just as the last stirring was happening, I had a brain storm and remembered that I had these awesome silicon brownie BITE pans!  This would be even better for taking to the office!  Little brownie bites covered in powdered sugar that no one had to cut or bite into!  There would be no trails of chocolate crumbs down shirt fronts or hallways!  Brilliant!

 

I brought out the pans and found that if I used my fancy-smancy cookie scoop, it was just perfect for filling the bite holes without batter plops all over the place.  They cooked up smashingly, like little baby muffins.  Adorable.  I was haaa-pee as I powdered their little muffin tops with sugar.

 

Then I went to pop them out of their little silicon hidey-holes.  Um, no, not happening.  What happened instead was the little adorable muffin-top-like tops popped right off!  Hell-O.  They left their little cakey brownie bottoms firmly stuck to the hoity-toity silicon pans. 

I waited hours in between trying to remove them, hoping with time they might let go; that's why there are three missing.  But, yeah, no.

 

People, seriously, I thought the whole point of the flippin silicon material was that whatever you cooked just popped out without any need for greasing the skids.  Wrong!  So this is a public service announcement.  If you have a silicon bundt pan, or muffin pan, or brownie bite pan, or tart pan sitting in your board of cups that has never been used, ALWAYS grease it before you bake with it.  Always.

 

Did I throw them out?  Oh, slap yourself, no, I did not.  You know how I said I am now famous for screwing up brownies?  Well!  I am also going to become famous for the person who invented Brownie Tops.  They are a treat, lemme tell you! 

 

So the next time you go to the mall and you see a kiosk selling Brownie Tops, you make sure and let me know so I can get the royalties or sue for patent fringes or whatever one does. 

 

Look how cute they are:

They look kinda big in this photo, but they are just perfectly bite-sized. 

 

And the stuck brownie bottoms?  I scraped them out, one by one, into one big cakey blob, added a little chocolate syrup to moisten, and made Brownie Bottom Balls rolled in powdered sugar!  Squee!  They rock! 

(Shall I franchise these ideas?  I wish.  I'm sure Brownie Tops and Bottoms have prolly been invented before only I just never heard of them.)

 

At the end of my, ah, interesting baking day, Mister took me out to dinner.  I mean, it was the least he could do after I made him the world's largest sculptural lemon coconut cookie!

 

~~~

 

Sorry this is so long when you are so busy, but I just had to share!  I sincerely hope your holiday baking went off without a hitch.  Hitches are on wagons and back in Iowa ... oh, never mind!  I'll save that for another post!

 

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!  Here's a picture of my card, which I'm sure you've forgotten that I made!

  

 

*Life Is Too Short!

Heading Overt to Pixie's Playground With a Ribbon-Image Card

Attention Shoppers!

If you had a to-do list or a list of resolutions for 2012, you can cerharmoniously tear it up.  Don't feel bad about yourself.  Take a clean piece of paper and write at the top:

2013

and start all over again.  There are no grades, only self-forgiveness.

~~~

I almost forgot I wanted to show you this.  Some of the Christmas cards I made this year had a ribbon image and my friend, Lolly, whose work I totally admire and respect, suggested I share it with all of you.  My Christmas card had a "merry & bright" sediment, but seeing as how it's the last year of the day, well you know what I mean, I changed the sediment to be more ah currante for this post.

Here's the beautiful ribbon I got from the giant $1-$1.99 bin at our local craft store:

I cut a section of the ribbon and wrapped it around a piece of card stock, blinging the corners with silver brads:

Here's the back where you can see it is secured with tape that may or may not be of Scottish descent:

And here's the finished card.  You can't tell, but the "happy new year" is embossed.

So there's another idea for using ribbons on cards.  Dig in the next time you walk by a cheapo bin of ribbons.  Notice I didn't say bin of cheapo ribbons.

Since the white card stock used in my card was from my mahoosive folder of snippity white card stock, and since I know Di and all my other girlfriends over at the Playground at Pixie's Crafty Snippets will be lighting New Year's sparklers and drinking them, too, I'm heading over!  I hope you can join us! 

~~~

We get the twins for a sleep-over on New Year's Eve, yippee!!  Then we have Stanford v. Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.  Since the twins' daddy got a degree from the University of Wisconsin and another one from Stanford, it's tough deciding which team to root for.  Maybe we will flip a coin or, better year, we should just applaud every time N.E. Body from either school does something applaudable!

~~~

Enjoy your New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, however you spend them! No, seriously, enjoy!

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!  See you next year!!

Paper:  SU! real red; PTI white

Stamp:  SU! itty bitty something?

Ink: WOW! Cable Car Red ep 

Ribbon:  Holiday Inspirations

Misc.: silver brads and pop dots