March 11: D is for Dies/Die Cuts

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? I hope you've had a good week! I'm being distracted by a baby hawk sitting on the fence outside my window. They fascinate me, but so do my little "pet" fence lizards on the garden wall. I hope he just wants to say hello and doesn't need a snack.🫣

But that's not why I called. When I wasn't being squirreled this week, I was happily submerged in dies and die cuts for this week's I.D.E.A.S. schedule. Lots of holidays and holly days called out to me. Here are a couple of the simple designs I made:

Onefer

The Mister is one hunnert percent Irish, divided by two, so we observe St. Patty's Day. I haul out the ol' crock pot to make a delicious corned beef with all the fixins. The crock pot was a wedding gift in 1971 and it still works a charm. (Shoot, I prolly shouldn't have said that.🤞) 

But I digest. I seem to have donated my only shamrock image, so I called a conference with Hammy and Stanley. Between Stanley's British accent and my aaackronyms, it is slow-going, but we are all enjoying the process of getting to know each other. Together we made our own shamrock using a heart die from Cottage Cutz. I free-cut the stem. 

Cool, huh? I used temporary tape to adhere it to the card front as a mask and then blended soft green ink around it. The "happy" is from Memory Box (Happy Script), cut from glittery green paper and the scalloped rectangle frame is from Pink & Main.

Twofer

I have several Easter cards in the works, but (no surprise!) I got squirreled again and made my first 2024 Christmas card instead. I've been wanting to do a hidden word stencil design, so I did. The Joy is from Concord & 9th and the snowfall stencil is from Sarah's Funky Fossil Designs. I did an ombre blending with CP inks. It was easy and fun!

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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! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

*Life is too short!

Challenges:

Shamrock: Cardz 4 Galz (Use some green), and Colorful Options (Celebrating green).
Joy: Stencil Fun (A/G), The Paper Funday (A/G), Christmas Craft Creations (Stencils or embossing folders), Jingle Belles (Holiday cards to die(cut) for).

Go7: Masked Stenciling

Hello Stamplings!

Me, again! It's the 28th of the month and time to share our Group of Seven Cardmakers technique, which this month is Masked Stenciling. I'm delighted that my friend Pat from Colourful Card Creations is our Guest Designer! To see Pat's beautiful card and the results of the rest of the Group of Seven, please click over to the Go7 blog.

Here is the design I came up with:

The technique is as simple as it sounds and there are lots of possibilities! You mask a portion of your card panel or an image and then stencil over the mask. I started by first going through my stencils for ideas. 

When I came to this NBUS stencil, the "Aha!" phase was done!

To make my mask, I traced the flamingo through the stencil onto an adhesive sheet and fussy-cut it. Yup, that's right, I fussy-cut those legs and that neck! Of course, after wards, I needed a sip of wodka and a brief lie-down. 

Upon rising, I placed the flamingo on my card front and blended ink through the tropical leaves portion of the stencil using CP inks and brushes. I just noticed that my flamingo is shy and somehow managed to duck her head into the leaves! 

And because that was easy and fun, I made a second card:

For this card, I used the watering can you saw on my previous post and the Floral Mask stencil from Memory Box. The result you see made me cock my head and had Hammy and the little guy laughing out loud.

So here's a little tip: If you are masking an image, rather than an edge, take a minute to visualize the finished card and how the image and the stencil will work together. For example, will part of the image (say, a watering can handle) disappear into the stencil?! Oops. I saved the card by covering the can with a die-cut, but I wanted to share my learning moment.

Springification!

We have a sunny break in the rain and it's enough to bring a riot of color to the yard!

Enjoy the rest of your week! 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! Just a reminder, if you try out the Masked Stencil technique, we'd love to see you link your creation to the inspiration gallery at Group of Seven Cardmakers.

*Life is too short!

Linking my card to Allsorts Challenge (things that fly), Shopping Our Stash (it's not easy being green), SSS Monday (fur or feathers), Stencil Fun (a/g), and The Paper Funday Challenge.

Fall Into Winter

Hello Stamplings!

I'm looking through welcome raindrops and hoping you are doing well. These raindrops would not be happy drops for those of you in the UK, Italy, and France where everyone is sick of the incessant rain and wind. My sympathy to all those who have experienced flooding and damage.❤

I'm straddling the holiday tables in the Playhouse these days. Usually I like to finish one holiday before I start another and if I'm honest, I think I need to go back to that way of designing. Or maybe I'll start a trend and next year everyone will be putting fall leaves on their Christmas trees! 

Fall

1. This photo should be in the dictionary under QACAS (quick and clean and simple). I used some beautiful rub-on leaves from Taperlogy and a sediment from PTI stamped in copper ink onto hammered card. This is my first time using these rub-ons and the color and detail of their images is amazing.

2. For this card, I used a fall leaf e/f and Hammy picked out a piece of schplattered pp for the background. The autumn sediment is from Technique Tuesday stamped with fall-colored inks. The leaves were cut from pp or from snippets from old smooching or alcohol inking in my stash. You know how alcohol always leads to smooching ... that's all I gonna say about that because you know what I mean.

3. This card is also uber QACAS, using the same pp and a found sediment strip from my stash. The leaves were die-cut using a friend's dies and pp from her stash!

Challenges

• Cardz 4 Galz: #3 Thank you, Thankful, or Thanksgiving.
  
• Four Seasons: #1 Fall.
  
• Paper Funday: #2 A/G optional: Grateful, Thankful, Thank you. 

   

Christmas

Another simple design, except for the hours it took for the layers of Glossy Accents to dry on the sediment! I think the snowflake circle die is from Hero Arts, but I can't find it at the mo. The joy die is definitely from Hero Arts and it's definitely cut from the same dark purple paper as the card base, even though the photo makes it look black. 

Challenges

• Color Hues: Light blue and purple.
  
• HLS Christmas: A/G with option of bah humbug.
  
• Peace on Earth: A/G Christmas with option of mood board.

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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! 

*Life is too short!