July CCC Reveal and DJKASE #33

Hi Everybody! Happy Weak End!!

And Happy First Day of August 2015! (I'm not even going to give it the satisfaction of talking about how it whooshed in here like a speeding locomotive.)

On a positive note, it is time to reveal the cards those of us sent and received who partysipated in Deborah Nolan's (Society of Stampaholics) July Card Chain Challenge.

Here is my card:

Made by me and sent to Janet (Mauritias) of Swanlady Impressions

I used the Lil Inker stitched rectangle on the card base and the stitched oval for the peek-a-boo opening. The paper behind the opening and the stapled ribbons are by SU. The NBUS sediment is from Kaiser Craft's "Friendship Sentiments" set. QACAS!

I followed the friendship theme and sketch option below. Next to it is the beautiful card I was fortunate to receive from the talented Marga from Spain, whose blog is My Crafty Inspiration.

  

It would be lovely if you could visit Marga! I think Deborah's challenge is really a fun way to send Happy Mail all over the world and make new card pen pals, so I hope you'll check it out and join in!

Today's Twofer

My second card today is a twofer inside a twofer, so to speak, because 1) I made another Christmas card, and 2), I squeezed in a DJKASE for July! 

I am bemused at how the sun angle makes it look like my Rudolph's right eye is lidded and half-closed in a wink, as if having two differently sized eyeballs wasn't oddball enough! It gives him even more of a "Yo, dude, waz up?" expression. Up close you can see that he doesn't even have an eyelid IRL:

The striped fishtail banner is from MFT. The scallop frame is cut from felt using a NBUS Nestabilities die called "Lacey Squares." The wee reindeer is from Paper Smooches "Santa Paws" set. And the NBUS "Joy" is from Winnie & Walter.

And who is my DJKASE inspiration? I'm delighted to say my honoree is my friend Jane Willis of Onions and Paper. Jane's blog name refers to the fact that she provides us with mouthwatering recipes for food in addition to her outstanding recipes for cards! Of course, me and the hamster are all over that combo plate!

Here is Jane's May Rudolph Day card which I pretty much COPIed.

Made by Jane Willis

I just fell in love with this adorable card! I took some liberties with the layout, but the focus pocus is pretty much the same. I loved the pop of stripe on Jane's card, so I used a striped pp for my fish-tail banner. After the blizzard fiasco in my last post, I know Jane will forgive me for not drawing faux snowflakes around and about my reindeer! 

Thank you, Jane, for the inspiration! It was a pleasure to DJKASE you! (For other honorees, see the tab at the top of my blog.)

Challenges

• Paper Smooches SPARKS: Anything Goes. [Paper Smooches Stamps]
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes.
• Simply Create Too: Anything Goes.
• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything Goes.
• Freshly Made Sketches. You might think I used the same Deborah CCC sketch as the first card above, but in the ironical ways of Blogland, check out the current FMS sketch!

 

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Cookies

Oh, crumbs, why did They come up with the word "cookies" to refer to our blog history? Why couldn't they just call them "crumbs?" Or "doo-doo" or "ka ka" or some other descriptor of scat left behind that doesn't involve getting me all excited and salivating for cookies? Anythistles, I noticed a little deeliebob has appeared next to my "Overview" title in my Design page. When I clicked on it, I found this notice:

"European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. 

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. 

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities."

If I understand it correctly, it's now the law of the land in Europe and Google makes it sound pretty dire if you don't have the banner on your site, so I'm leaving it alone. I can also assure you that I don't advertise for anybody nor knowingly provide your information to anyone.

But I mean, aren't cookies just a necessary evil both in the Land of Interwebs and as they relate to waistline spread? We just involuntarily leave our crumbs behind, don't we? I mean, when any of us from any country clicks around the Webs, don't we know that you know that I know that they know that you know that I know that they know where we've been, right? You know what I'm sayin'?

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Speaking of cookies, I went out to a belated birthday lunch with my friend Donna a couple of days ago. (Yes, that's right, I celebrate all month. Can I get an Amen?) I ate a very healthy lunch, but as I was leaving, I saw something in the Temptation Counter than melted all my resolve to be a good girl.

I'm a sucker for a cinnamon roll and this beauty was the Mother of all Cinnamon Rolls!

I put the coffee cup next to it for scale so you can see how decadent and gynormous it was. (Eek, don't mention scale!)

I hope Europe doesn't have a law against publishing photos of cinnamon rolls! Oops. Now I've done it.

~~~

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!

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Splish Splashing

Hello, gals and guys!

Guys are being celebrated big time today in several countries, so Happy Father's Day to all of you and God bless you for all you do! 

The Mister and I are celebrating today with our son and his sons, and of course, our DDIL, so I will be quick, although my card making wasn't that quick. I started off trying to combine a "splash" challenge with a "kids" challenge only I watercolored my kid card forgetting that it wasn't on watercolor paper so the next thing I knew my kid looked 7D as she rippled and warped unpleasantly.

So no kiddo kard, but starting over I made two kritter kards:

We'll start with one of Hammy's little playmates, a NBUS tweety bird from the Paper Smooches set, "My Peeps." Tweety is having a fun ol' time hopping up and down in the water in the gutter in the street in the neighborhood in the tow ... oh, sorry, I got stuck there for a second. The splash is a PSX stamp (E-1567) and the arched sediment is from SU. QACAS! Of course, I had to wink it and give it googly eyes!

Challenges

• Addicted to CAS: Splash 
• Addicted to Stamps and More: Happy 3rd Birthday! (CAS)
• Inkspirational Challenge: Word prompt: WILD.
• Paper Smooches SPARKS: Anything Goes.

 

My twofer:

Still thinking splash, I remembered this other old stamp I had. It's a dozen years old and from an out-of-business company, but it's just as cute today as it was back then. The inks used were SU pink passion, basic grey, and tempting turkoize. The next step was thinking of a design. Flipping through my dies, I came across my NBUS photo frame die which was perfect. (I think it's from PTI.) 

For my card base I laid down strips of rain-droppish Washi tape as shown, covered the raggedy bits with a double horizontal strip of two gray patterned Washi tapes, and bottomed it off with a pretty dotted Swiss to complete the dotty theme. The sediment is from Penny Black. After assemblage, everything was winked and properly beaded.

Challenges

• Color Throwdown: See below.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets.
• STAMPlorations: June challenge: Stamps & Washi.

You can find all the challenge information by clicking the links. I hope you can join in the fun!

~~~

Enjoy your day ~ make a splash! 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 return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

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Year of the Shrago!

Happy Chinese New Year!

There is a bit of confusion over what animal sign is associated with the year 2015. Some say it's the Year of the Sheep. Some say Year of the Goat. Some say Year of the Ram. Apparently, we have options this year because those are all the ways "yang" is translated into English. So I propose we say it is the Year of the Shrago.

In the Year of the Shrago, you will find your Mo Joe Juice will be flowing at new all-time high levels of creativity. Bravo!

All this is my way of reminding you that I am guest designing for a wonderful challenge going on over at Inkspirational with a photo that has an Asian influence. We would love to see you participate! There are many floral designs you can come up with even if you don't have any traditionally Asian stamps, plus there are always digital images available.

I have more inspiration for you today. (Did you get your beverage? Okay, good.)

So last week when I was doing my original card for Inkspirational, I heat-embossed two "Love" symbols on the pretty origami paper. The first one you can find here or on the Inkspirational site. I thought for this second card, a butterfly I found in my drawer would make a nice accompany mint:

Rather than a Spellbinders rectangle die for embossing, for this card I used a rectangle mat die, which I believe came from PTI. It's a perfectly fine card, right?

Well, ahem, yesterday I thought I should deepen the grooves of my embossing to make it more pronounced, so I reached for an angled thingie that I have in my carousel for doing rub-ons. It was a bit dirty on the end, but it looked like it would work, so I took my metal ruler and grooved.

Aacckk! It turns out, gasp, that wasn't just some stain on the end, it was dog-gone INK! Sah-lap! What a dumb-dumb! INK! That'll make you drop a thing like a hot potato and fly backwards in your chair!

Well, hey now, it was too pretty to throw away, so I just inked the whole way round to fix it:

I even like it better. Here's a close-up of the sheen and shine:

And there you go. I do hope you will play along with the Inkspirational Challenge in any way that inspires you!

I'm also entering:

• CASology "Monochrome" challenge.
• Less Is More: "Wings"

And, then, since whenever I see a butterfly, I want to play in Mrs. A.'s Butterfly Challenge, I looked across the pond to see the brief. Beg your pardon? This month we are to use a ribbon with our butterflies. Well, chile, there is a blank space inside that rectangle in that lower right sweet spot, so ho ho how about this?

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Part Two

Now let's turn our attention to a more whimsical card. It turns out I don't have an image of a Shrago. Nor, (I don't think) of a Goat or a Ram. But I happen to have a NBUS sheep from Paper Smooches!

This card makes me grin. I like the current CTS sketch, so I started with that. Hammy pointed me to my star collection, which made no sense, but when I opened the drawer and worked my way to the back, I found this awesome bit of ribbon I've had since the last century. It's gorgeous IRL, so that became my band and, well, I have to admit, stars and celebrations DO go together!

I then did an acrylic block watercolor background using the same colors in the ribbon. I stamped the sheep on the dry watercolor and fussy cut it. Then I made a stitched oval using my Lil' Inker dies. My NBUS sentiment from the Stampendous set "Retro Ornament Set" was laid out on an acrylic block before stamping so that it would curve to fit the oval. Then I popped on the sheep and punctuated the design with a little star cut from my watercolor paper using my NBUS Framelits dies.

Once I took the photo, I realized that I really should have embossed the card with the stitches, too, so I ran it through my Big Shot to do just that. Here is one without the stitches:

And here is one with the stitches:

 

I felt like I was too clever by half when it worked! Erm, well, not really. Unfortunately, it squished my oval panel and now it looks like somebody took that wool and put it in the washing machine and now it's a too-tight sweater over those pop-dots! Oops.

I am entering my non-squished Year of the Sheep card in:

• CAS(E) This Sketch
• Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge: Anything Goes [Paper Smooches Stamps]

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Part Three

I am trying to make two cards for every one card and, as it happens, I had just enough of that pretty ribbon to make one more card, thusly:

 

For this card, I used a different sketch (below). I used a stitched circle instead of an oval and cut it out of craft foam and I used a kookoo bird instead of a sheep.

The birdie is really new NBUS. It is the result of another instance of enabling, except this time I can't remember who did the enabling. The stamp set is by Tim Holtz, called "Bird Crazy." There are six birds in the brood and you will be seeing all of them. They moved in here and immediately hit it off with the hamster!

For this card, I did a little cosmetic surgery on the head and tail feathers and then I colored her with my colored pencils. The "Hey" is also NBUS from Avery Elle. The eyeballs are, I think, from Darice.

Once again, after taking the photo, I wished I had stitched the card base, so I popped out her eyeballs and ran her through the Big Shot. Here then, is the "after" shot:

That's better, no pop-dots to squish on this one. She nails you with that look, doesn't she? You're not quite sure if that's a "Hey, how's it goin'?" or a "Hey, whadder you lookin' at?" Or, maybe a "Hey! Why did you squish me?"

Challenges

• Freshly Made Sketches: Sketch
• Cure For the Monday Blues: Photo Inspiration. (My first time here.)
• The Card Concept: Photo Inspiration "Get Well Soon." I was inspired by the stars. My card is clean and simple and if it doesn't bring a smile to someone not feeling well, they are badly sick. Like in a coma.
• Shucks, I missed the Feathered Friends challenge at The Paper Players.

Any of the challenge links will provide you with information on rules, sponsors, and prizes!

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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!

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

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