Just Saying Hi.

Hi.

I say that because of this.

I love the adorable and fun stamps that Stampingbella makes. You'll be seeing a few of their stamps featured in posts to come because, well, because I just bought a bunch, okay?! Mt. NBUS is excavated to the point where I can now see over it if I stand on my tallest ladder tiptoes, so I felt Justice Fied.

This NBUS tiny townie stamp is called "Penelope has a pencil." The "Hi." is a separate stamp in the same set. The written words panel is also NBUS. It's from the "Out Loud" set by Casual Friday Stamps. I stamped it off on a piece of scratch paper first so that it would look soft and not overpower Penelope.

(I don't know why Penelope's hair and the silver band of the pencil are the color of wisteria. I used my black Ziggie to paint them, which apparently photographs purple. I also have to tell you, it was really, really, really hard to hold back the hamsters from putting a dot where her nose should be. They just do not understand how she can breath. I distracted them with strawberries and got the picture taken.)

Challenges

• CAS(E) This Sketch. Below.
• Less Is More: Use 3 stamps. 
• Pals Paper Arts: Colors: wisteria, daffodil, and pool party.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Make it girlie.
• Virginia's View Link-Up Party: Miss you, hello, any type of friendship.

Sometimes I make a card and then find challenges that coinkiedinkly match and sometimes a card is born directly as a result of seeing challenges. Either way, I want to say thank you to all the Challenges People for lighting warm fires of inspiration all over Blogland!!

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So Odd

Does anyone know what's going on with JoAnn's? I sent the company three emails in the last couple of weeks regarding a problem with a gift card (after going to phone hell first). Each time they sent me a receipt saying I would hear back within 24-48 hours, but that didn't happen. (I checked my spam folder.) And BTW, they charged me a dollar fee for the gift card, which I've never had a company do before! I'm not a happy costumer and I needed to vent, so thanks. But have you heard that JoAnn's is going out of business or something? Cousin, this is odd.

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Giveaways

I have new items up on the Giveaways tab at the top of my blog:

The directions for entering can be found by clicking the Giveaways tab. You have until April 29, 2016 to enter.

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New Friends Corner

Please give a warm welcome to these new friends! Ladies, come on out!

NieNie Sambuco of SambuCOrona Papercrafting Adventures. NieNie began blogging in February 2015. She only posts now and then, but I think her creations are fabulous. She has a vivid and very creative imagination. And she recently made a quoteworthy statement on her blog: "Even the unintentional can be beautiful." We've all found that to be true, haven't we?!

Jamie Martin of Stamp This! Jamie started blogging in - whoa! - 2007! She is a pro at it, that's for sure. Put a pillow behind your back because there's a lot of inspiration and tips and tricks waiting for you when you visit Jamie!

Kay Wallace of Art From the Main House. Kay and I could retire away together, she in the Main House and me in the Playhouse! Kay has been blogging since 2012 and loves playing in challenges. She has also served on many design teams! Her works of art will blow your socks off so you'd better put your garters on!

Carol of Crafty Carol's Cards. Carol only just started her blog in January of 2016, so please pop over now and welcome her to our supportive community in Blogland and leave her some encouraging words about her lovely cards!

Sharon of From My Craft Desk. Just like Carol, Sharon has only been blogging since January of this year, so ditto the above! Sharon, too, makes terrific cards, especially for the Less is More challenges. It feels so great to give back and remember how thrilled we were to have visitors and receive comments! For that matter, how thrilled we still are!

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

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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! 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 walla, no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me
your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

One-Layer Monday

Happy New Week!

I hope this finds you feeling chipper, even if your spring showers came down in flakes this past weekend! Sorry.

We were blessed with rain here and I swear I can hear the plants and trees and flowers giggling. They are so happy after four years of being thirsty!

I have a few easy one-layer cards (OLC) for you today. I needed to build my stash of cards. I have Hammy and the Hammetsters back so more ideas may be coming forth or forthcoming, depending on where you like to forthwith or with forth your preview of coming attractions.

Card #1

This type of design is one that I'm sure you've seen from me before. I love using all my Penny Black brushstroke stamps with the direct-to-stamp-and-spritz technique. This image is called  "Brush Lily."

Card #2

I used Tim Holtz distress markers for these cards. You can see that the more water you use, the more watercolor-y the design ends up. Looking at them now, I think the robin one would look pretty with some splatters. I do sputter quite often, honest, but the splattering always gets forthgotten.

BTW, although I've had it for a very long time, this beautiful stamp was NBUS before now. I have a feeling it will no longer be ignored! It is called "Song Bird" and the sediment is from "Compact Sentiments" by Waltzingmouse Stamps.

Card #3

The "Sketched Shapes" are from PTI and some of them are also NBUS. The sediment friend circle stamp is from Stamps of Life. The e/f is from Cuttlebug. EZPZ QACAS OLC. TYVM.

Challenges

Card #1:

• CAS on Sunday: Flowers.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: April showers bring May flowers. 

Card #2:

• One-Layer Simplicity Challenge: As you wish. 
• Paru's Card Making Challenge: Anything goes for April.

Card #3:

• Less Is More: One Layer with a theme of Geometric Patterns or Shapes.
• Pals Paper Arts: Colors: Picture yourself at Bermuda bay, sipping a cucumber crush and enjoying a crumb cake.

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New Friends Corner

For one reason or another, it has been ages since I introduced you to new friends and I'm delighted to bring back this feature! Thank you to all of you who have joined in the last few months and been so patiently waiting!

Before I do that, I have a question for you:

Is five new friends at a time too many to visit? Should I just do two or even one? I do want this to be an interactive feature where you actually take a few minutes to go and meet my new friends and make them yours, too. I'd love your opinion.

Also, after doing this for over four years, recently my friend Shaz in Oz told me that when I click the link on the tool bar to add a link, I should click the box that says "open this link in a new window." That way, she said, your blog remains open and your readers can easily come back to you. How did I not notice that?! Thank you, again, Shaz! Now I'm happy to pass on the information to others who may be addled in the dark about this!

Okay, then, for today, let's meet two new friends in chronomatic order:

Elly of Elly's Creations. Elly has been blogging since May 2012. She loves entering challenges and she has won many awards as a result of her talent! You will find loads of inspiration waiting for you from Elly!

Beverley Brown of Uniko. Beverley started her blog in February 2012, the same time she became the creator and designer of Uniko, a stamp and die company that many of you are happily familiar with. She does all this while being a full-time wife and mother to very active twins. In addition to all her other jobs, Beverley is the owner of a wonderful challenge she maintains for us on her blog, with her own works of art to inspire us!

Welcome, ladies, and thank you for joining 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 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 walla, no more car pool tunnel!
Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me
your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

Cheering Up With Color

Hi there!

I hope you have had a great week!

Did you think I had whooshed completely out of the Blogosphere? No, no, but I wasn't feeling my best and that sucked the mojojuice right out of me.

Not only that, but you may remember my sister came for a visit recently. Well, after she left almost a week ago, I went out to the Playhouse to find a note from Hammy that he had gotten bored while I was busy with my sister, so he left to go see his own sister.

Wait. What? I didn't even know he had a sister.

Now that I think about it, he did put the word "sister" in quotes in his note, so I'm thinking he meant he was going off to see one of his girlfriends! Oh, help!

After much sighing and napping, yesterday I decided that I couldn't wait for him to return and I just needed to muddle on without him. To cheer up and get the mojojuice flowing, I switched things up around here, using colored cardstock for both my cards!

Here we go!

This is a simples QACAS card. I used a tempting turquoise card base lined with white panels.Over a double layer of Washi tape I heat-embossed a sediment from My Favorite Things in white and I added two store-bought butterfly embellishments for play.

I wish you could see these butterflies IRL. They are just exquisite little creatures, made by Little B. Here is a close-up, which still doesn't do their sparkles justice. (By the way, they are a lovely raspberry color IRL. I don't know why they turned purplie in the photo.)

Challenges

• Butterfly Challenge: W is for Washi Tape.
• CAS(E) This Sketch: A Sketch Challenge.
• Pals Paper Arts: A Color Challenge.

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Today's Twofer

My twofer was inspired by this pretty Christmas card made by my friend Chriss Blagrave for MUSE: Christmas Visions:

Here is my take:

• I decided to sorta turn Chriss's pretty card inside out by using old olive as my card base, red as my decorative-edged panel, and black for my poinsettia. I see you cocking your head to the side. Whadya think? Chriss loves poinsettias, so I'm hoping she likes this one, even in nontraditional black. 
• I don't actually have a poinsettia die, but have you ever noticed how poinsettia petals look just like leaves? So I made my poinsettia by layering leaves from a Memory Box "Tender Leaves" die! 
• (I'm not saying that was genius or anything, but if a certain hamster is reading this, he might want to hustle his sweet cheeks back to the Playhouse. I'm just sayin'.) 
• The flower center was found in the bottom of my flower drawer, waiting patiently for this day to come.
• As Chriss did, I added a flourish (Hero Arts) around the panel, embossed in gold. My sediment is from Hot Fudge Studio, heat-embossed in black instead of gold to balance out the heaviness of the black flower.
• Chriss added a leaf to her poinsettia flower, but since I used leaves to make my flower, I then would have needed to use a flower as my leaf and even to my heavily-medicated-inside-out way of thinking, that was just too convoluted and confuzzling, so I left it off. Are you all woozy now, too?!

Other Challenges

• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything Goes.
• Memory Box Challenge: Cool Thoughts for Warm Days. (Christmas in August!)
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use Your Snippets.

~~~

It was great to make a card and blog again! Hopefully, my new doctor and new meds will sort me out and I'll have more engerny. I can tell you that seeing this notice on my blog overview page yesterday was very motivating! 

I happened to see it right when my stats showed I had done 874 posts and I have 874 followers. That's one post for each of you! How fun this hobby is and how blessed and appreciative I am for each one of you! Thank you! MWAH!

~~~

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 the pop-up box opens.
Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel! Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

City Crafter Challenge Guest Star ~ The Keys to Time

Hi there!

This is my second week coming to you live from the carditorium of the City Crafter Challenge Blog as the March Guest Star. Don't forget my new CD is available at a table in the lobby blocking your way out after the show. This week our play is entitled "The Keys to Time."

As it happens, I made a clock card for another fun time-themed challenge just recently, so I thought this time I would key on the keys rather than time this time.

But wait. If you've been a friend of mine for any length of time, you know that I have an indecent number of stamps in my collection. Could I find one of a key?

No.

What?

And since I'm a dunce at digi, I'm here representing the "Time" part of the theme after all and not the "Keys" part of the theme because that's what I have just to show you how flexible the challenge is!

First, I made a flat, easy-to-mail, card that can be used for any number of eventations.

The ingredients are below. Here is a close-up of the black and blue moire embossing.

And here is my second card with a slightly different design and emphatic colors, to which I added a double-layered gold and clear vellum clock stamp and a bow:

And a close-up:

I hope you will be able to join City Crafter and share how you were inspired by The Keys to Time!

I'd like to thank those of you who joined in last week and I'd like to thank the Design Team again for the honor of joining them for the month of March! I'm having fun and making lots of new friends!

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Other Challenges

• Craft Stamper Take It Make It: Anything Goes [Use a Stamp].
• Crazy 4 Challenges: Put a Bow on It.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: "B" is for bee.
• Virginia's View Challenge: Embossing

The challenge links will provide you with details on rules, sponsors, and prizes!

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Translate for us, please.

One thing I've noticed in my travels around the globe for hobs, hops, and challenges is that many of your blogs do not have a free "Translate" button on the side bar. I recommend that you take a minute to add the button (and please add it near the top), so that your visitors from every country can read the words you take the trouble to write! Thank you! Merci! Danke! Hvala! Tack! Paldies! Etc. ...

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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! ... Time Flies!

Ingredients
Paper: PTI vintage cream and blueberry sky. SU more mustard, unknown rustic cream, gold and clear vellum from stash
Ink: TH DI old paper and mustard seed; SU pear pizzazz; E/P is blue moire and Embossing Arts silhouette black
Stamps: Large bee: Hero Arts "Big Bee"; small clock: "Journey" by Tim Holtz; chicken wire is Stickable Stamps by Great Impressions; Dots by Stamps by Judith; remaining stamps unmarked
Ribbon: Black organdy from Michaels

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me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!