Watercovering Plates

Hello! Happy Sunday Funday! I hope my American friends all had a safe and sane 4th of July celebration!

Today is July 5th, which is the day in 1937 when SPAM was first introduced to the world by the Hormel Foods Corporation. They had no idea that now, 78 years later, it would have a whole different meaning! [#Trivia Nugget.]

When I saw Nichole's Make It Monday video challenge was about adding color to cover plates, I was immediately intrigued, especially since one of my favoritiest card artists in the world made the video. That would be Laura Bassen of Doublestick Heaven, of course! (I like to pretend I'm one of her moms. As a result, she has a restraining order out on me, but it doesn't make me love her any less.)

The challenge is almost over, but if you have any cover plates or full-size dies such as I used in my twofer, you should click on either of the above links and watch the amazing video. Conversely, if you have any colors that need cover plates, you're on your own.

Here is my rendition:

I used PTI's Quartre Foil cover plate and the heat-embossed sediment is from PTI's "Signature Greetings" set.

I'm also entering the Curtain Call challenge of "Celebrate," which is running for the whole month of July in celebration of their 3rd anniversary and the birthday celebrations going on over at STAMPlorations in honor of their 2nd birthday! Congratulations to both awesome challenge blogs!

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My twofer:

This one was made using my NBUS MFT Die-namics CU die "Floral Fusion." Because I used gold ink for some of the flowers (yes, that's gold, not pooey brown), I backed the plate with a metallic gold paper. The NBUS ribbon is SU lost lagoon. The sediment is an ancient unmarked wooden stamp.

I'm sad that the photo doesn't show how pretty the flowers and gold are IRL, but this might help:

Is it just me, or are "twofers" now becoming all the rage in Blogland?!

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Anything Goes.
• Just Us Girls is celebrating their 300th challenge with a Word challenge and the word is "Congratulations." Congratulations to them for such a successful challenge!

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All the best to the US Women's Soccer team in today's championship game against Japan! Congratulations to all the teams from all over the world who made it into the competition and played their hearts out!

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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!

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February 2015 PTI Blog Hop and More

Hallo and Welcome to the 25th of Another Month!

That means it is time for the monthly blog hop at Nicole Heady's Papertrey Ink blog and it's time for the monthly Christmas card Rudolph Day hookup at Maureen's Scraps of Life by Scrappy Mo blog.

So using PTI products and my own Twofer Campaign, I made these:

Nicole suggested that we use the quatrefoil die (or the like) over a watercolored background, like this, smooshed or otherwise:

photo credit: Micklyn via society6

I was curious to see if I could apply Versamark ink directly to a die in the same way that I would with a stamp and then heat emboss the image. I'll be darned if it didn't work! Here are the two dies I used. The large one is the PTI quatrefoil cover plate die and the small one is the PTI text block Christmas die.

Details

For this first one I used the faux watercolor technique that you've seen me use often of late, where you ink your stamp or your acrylic block, mist it, and then stamp it to paper. I am currently sorting through my Mt. NBUS and labeling schtuff and I had just come across the PTI "Birthday Style" set, so I thought I would juezz up my card by adding a sexy corner squiggle. Then I cut a fishtail flag, walked the edges around a marker, and stamped the sediment from SU. Wallah!

Wait. What? It turns out that the PTI Birthday Style die makes three squiggles if you don't break the die apart, and so naturally Hammy started fiddling around with adding another squiggle in the corner ... or maybe in the other corner ... or on top ... or hey! I cut another set and made a mirror squiggle because to me it looks like a giant holly leaf. Yes? In an arty-farty way? If you squint at the squiggles?, she asks, cocking her head to the side.

In addition to the PTI Blog Hop and Rudolph Day Challenge, I'm also entering my card in these challenges:

• Retrosketch: Sketch below.
• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday

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For my twofer card, I wet a piece of watercolor paper and swirled on my cheap dime-store watercolor paints. I don't like that the pattern looks a bit like a map of the world, exspecially because of all that ocean turquoise blue, but that's where the colors wandered, so that's what I went with. It's very unlike a map of the world close-up IRL.

Also, the embossed Christmas text script is hard to read in photos, but is very clear and pretty IRL. I thought I would be arty-farty with this one, too, in the use of my colors. And also, the middle raindrop is light pink IRL, but it looks lavender on screen. The raindrops are from Crafty Notions.

The card base is embossed with a Craft Concepts e/f called "Stately." True story: I saw this folder on my friend Cathy's blog, so I asked her who made it and she told me. I was able to find it online, but only via Amazon UK and it could not be shipped to America. So I emailed my friend Di and asked her if she would buy it for me and mail it to me, which she promptly did.

Are we a cool supportive community of friends or what?!

Challenges

• Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge: Nontraditional Christmas colors.
• Christmas Card Challenges: Anything Goes.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Anything Goes.

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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!

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PTI November 2014 Hop; Stamp Repurposing Part B

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Today it's snowin' all up in my corner of Blogland!  I'll get right to it before it melts!

I present my card:

Do you like my polka dotty penguin all winked with black Stella, which you can only see IRL? He came from a NBUS Hero Arts set (see below). My papers are PTI white and black. The sediment is heat embossed in black. It is from PTI's "Think Big Favorites #9 Mini." Here is how the sediment set looks when it comes from the company:

You've seen me repurpose a sediment stamp before by cutting the words apart and rearranging them to fit my design, which I needed to do with "celebrate the season" on this card. I love the font used in these stamps and enjoy using them, so I made it work. Don't be afraid.

A lot of you are here to hop the Papertrey Ink November 2014 Blog Hop monthly challenge, where the theme this month is "SNOW." If you need to just leave a comment and hop along, I understand. Thank you for your visit!

DJKASE

For those of you who have another few minutes, this is Part B of my stamp repurposing. Like Sunday's card, the idea for this card also came about because of the Craft Stamper's challenge this month to use non-holiday stamps for a holiday card.

One of the very talented Design Team members is my friend Chrissie and Chrissie made this breathtaking card:

Chrissie's card

Isn't it extraordinary? Just in overall design, it's magnificent, but what makes it even more extraordinary is that Chrissie's beautifully stylized bird is made from a leaf! Wait. What? Yes, no, you heard me right!

So I had the nerve to DJKASE Chrissie! My creation is not as innovative as Chrissie's in that I only transformed one bird into another bird, but the inspiration started with her. Here is how the bird looked before I turned him into a penguin:

Hero Arts CL337

Once again I performed a bit of surgery, but this time it was to my paper and not my stamp. I simply fussy-cut the doodled bird, removed his tail and headdress and then added a penguin beak and penguin feet. Not a drastic change, but still a lesson in how you can "find" stamps you didn't even know you had in your stash. Like a penguin. A little imagination and shazambam!

Thank you, Chrissie, for the inspiration!

~~~

There smores. As it happens, Mr. Doodled Bird had me and the hamster giggling all over ourselves, so I made another snowy Christmas card using the stamp just as the artist created it. For this card, he became a Christmas Doodled Bird:

Hammy was beside himself over the sparkly red tail feathers. He thinks it's a riot that it looks like the silly bird is standing on top of a roaring campfire! But bird doesn't care, he has a big present to open! His present is made with PTI's "Make a Wish" die. Those snowflakes are white metal brads from SU onto which I glued minischool stars.

The snow on my cards today was created with a NBUS jar of "Aleene's snow." It was fun!

Challenges

In addition to the PTI hop, I am entering:

• Simply Create Too, "Snow, Snow, Snow or All White." (Card 1)
• The Friday Mashup, "Weather Related, Metallic Element." (Card 2)
• Inkspirational, "Christmas With a Twist of No Red or Green." (Card 1)
• Rudolph Day, "Two Christmas cards." (Both)

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS!* 

And, 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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June PTI Blog Hop Challenge ~ happy

Good Morning!

It's the 25th of the month and time for the June blog hop challenge featuring Papertrey Ink (PTI) over at Nichole's {capture the moment} blog. Using the photo and sketch inspiration provided, here is what I made: 

The specific ingredients are below. The banner had a light wash of color and I used my PTI inks to sponge in more color to follow the color recipe. I hope you can see the triangles both in the embossing and in the patterned vellum.

With or without a flash, it's very difficult for me to photograph vellum overlays when they are colored, so I found it was best to lay the card flat for the photo. (Of course it would have been better without a shadow of my big fat head.) This card makes me happy and I wanted to share it with you without making your eyeballs water. What kind of happy would that be?!

Here is the PTI photo, color, and sketch challenge inspiration that I followed:

Since I used a vellum overlay on my card, I am also entering it into the current Make It Monday: Vellum Overlay Challenge tutored by the talented Danielle. 

Short and sweet as I'm typing this Tuesday night to schedule for tomorrow. Thank you for all your good wishes regarding my eye appointment. It turned out I didn't need my eyes dilated until my next visit, but it was still a busy beehive kinda day. I'm skootching off to bed so my bunny feet will be fresh and springy for the hop!

(I'll be back with my New Friends Corner in my next post.)

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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!

Project Details
Paper	PTI white and aqua mist; Pink Paislee color wash banner which I sponged with PTI inks
Stamps	None
Ink	Orange zest, summer sunrise, berry sorbet, and hibiscus burst
Accessories	Die: PTI "One-Liners Happy Die" EF: Lifestyle Crafts "Linear"

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PTI May 2014 Blog Hop ~ NBUS #133

{source}

Happy Funday Every Body!

It's a nice long weekend here in the States. Monday is Memorial Day, a day for us to celebrate and appreciate the men and women who currently serve and have served our country in the military!

I had a great time yesterday with my crafty friends Kim and Harriet, making coin purses using the PTI dies (photo below). It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I remembered about the May PTI blog hop.

Here is this month's photo perspiration:

Fortunately, I had visited my girlfriend Joanne recently and part of my clearance-rack purchases included a two-pack of Washi tape. The design of one of the rolls just happened to be aqua and melon triangles. Oh, snap my peas!

So, I made this QACAS and graphic card:

I used the PTI sketched shapes die (NBUS) for the triangles and the sediment is from PTI's "Think Big Favorites #24." The little glass embellies are from Lynn.

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I am also entering my card in Seize the Birthday (no toppings):

and in Addicted to Stamps and More where the theme is the ever-popular "Anthing Goes!" The prize is digis from Rick St. Dennis (zibbet).

~~~

New Friends Corner

I'm delighted to introduce you to two more new friends! Please welcome:

Dottie Jo of Just a Dotty Pudding. You know you are going to love her already with that blog name! Dottie Jo has been blogging since 2009 and she has an impressive number of awards to show for it! Her blog is inspirational, personal, and full of fun, just like her cards!

Helen Finlay. Helen, your name was not clickable and I couldn't find a blog for you when I asked Mr. Google. Please let me know if you have one, so I can edit this and include a link for others to find you. Of course, if you don't have a blog, you are very welcome here, too!

Thank you for joining the Playhouse, ladies!

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Okay, short and sweet as you have hopping to do! I will leave you with a small collage of Harriet, me, and Kim having fun at my house making little felt coin purses. We spent so much time talking and laughing, mine isn't finished yet to show you. I hope you are having as much fun at your house!

~~~

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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Mwah!